Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Monday, May five, twenty twenty five. A newly empowered
Speaker 1: Anthony Albanesi has brought Labor to a whopping ninety seats
Speaker 1: in the House of Representatives. Labour's picked up seats in
Speaker 1: the Senate to meaning it will no longer need to
Speaker 1: negotiate with crossbenches and can get legislation through with the
Speaker 1: support of the Greens. Only now there will be a
Speaker 1: cabinet reshuffle and a new agenda. Business is worried there'll
Speaker 1: be more industrial relations changes, the energy sector wants the
Speaker 1: government to recommit to gas, and it seems working from
Speaker 1: Home is here to stay. Peter Dutton is out of
Speaker 1: Parliament and a devastated Liberal Party is searching for a
Speaker 1: new leader and a new identity. Front Runners for the
Speaker 1: leadership include Dude Angus Taylor, Susan Lee and Dantean. But
Speaker 1: there'll be a reckoning on how the party wins back
Speaker 1: voters who've gone to the teals today and every day.
Speaker 1: The Australian has all the best coverage of federal, state
Speaker 1: and local politics, and you can be the first to
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Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot a U. Today The
Speaker 1: Australian's Editor at Large, Paul Kelly on what Albow two
Speaker 1: point zero means for all of us This morning, Anthony
Speaker 1: Albanezi wakes up as the most powerful prime minister in generations.
Speaker 1: My fellow Australians, he's broken all the so called rules
Speaker 1: like first term prime ministers never increase their majority.
Speaker 2: Serving as your prime minister is the greatest honor of
Speaker 2: my life.
Speaker 1: Like Australians would never forgive him for the disaster of the.
Speaker 2: Voice, and I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land
Speaker 2: on which we made and I pay my respects to
Speaker 2: elders past, present and emerging today and every day.
Speaker 1: Like Labor would be brutally punished for presiding over huge
Speaker 1: cost of living increases.
Speaker 3: Now, we didn't do well enough during this campaign. That
Speaker 3: much is obvious tonight, and I accept full responsibility for that.
Speaker 1: None of those predictions came true. Peter Dunton is out
Speaker 1: of Parliament. The Coalition has been reduced to half as
Speaker 1: many seats as Labor in Queensland alone, a state where
Speaker 1: Labor has previously been written off, Labor won at least
Speaker 1: six seats. The Greens have grown their primary vote but
Speaker 1: lost seats, and the Teals have held and gained some ground.
Speaker 1: Paul Kelly is The Australian's Editor at Large and Australia's
Speaker 1: most revered political journalist. Paul, You've covered politics for more
Speaker 1: than five decades. Where does this election sit.
Speaker 4: This is the most extraordinary election I've seen in my
Speaker 4: five decades. This is a turning point election for the country.
Speaker 4: Nobody predicted the scale of this result. It's transformed Anthony
Speaker 4: Albanezi into a prime Minister of immense authority and of
Speaker 4: long standing significance. This Labor government will govern for a
Speaker 4: long period of time and it's left the Liberal Party
Speaker 4: in ruins. One of the questions, of course, is whether
Speaker 4: the Liberal Party is actually capable of recovery. If it is,
Speaker 4: that recovery will take many years.
Speaker 1: At his victory speech in twenty twenty two, Albanezy introduced
Speaker 1: the idea of a voice to Parliament, a policy that
Speaker 1: ended in defeat and confusion. In twenty twenty five, he
Speaker 1: didn't articulate any new policy ideas, but he did celebrate Medicare.
Speaker 2: His kart's not Labor red or Liberal blue. It is
Speaker 2: green and gold. It is a declaration of our national
Speaker 2: values in our national colors.
Speaker 1: And the trade union movement to.
Speaker 2: The Labor Party's heart and soul, our rank and file
Speaker 2: members and the mighty trade union movement of Australia. The
Speaker 2: Labor Party will always stand up for jobs and people's
Speaker 2: wages and conditions.
Speaker 1: After the twenty twenty two election, Paul Labor enacted a
Speaker 1: wave of IR reforms that it hadn't taken to the campaign,
Speaker 1: things like the right to disconnect, which was a Greens idea.
Speaker 1: Should we now expect another wave of IR reform.
Speaker 4: I think the government of the Labor Party will come
Speaker 4: under immense pressure from every progressive group in the country,
Speaker 4: demanding money, policies and concessions, and my suspicion is that
Speaker 4: Anthony Alberzi will respond to that with a lot of discretion,
Speaker 4: caution and authority. What's happened in this campaign is the
Speaker 4: country's moved to the left in economic, social and cultural terms.
Speaker 4: But I think Albanzi will still want to govern from
Speaker 4: what he sees as being the Labor center.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of talk during the campaign that
Speaker 1: this election would be about one issue cost of living?
Speaker 1: Was that true in the end, Well, it was true.
Speaker 4: The election was about cost of living, but this was
Speaker 4: really to say, this was a really deceptive issue because
Speaker 4: the Peter Dutton campaign was far too narrow. I mean
Speaker 4: it almost got to the stage where the Liberal Party
Speaker 4: stood for cheaper petrol. That's not good enough, that's not
Speaker 4: good enough. The Liberal brand was lost. The sense of
Speaker 4: what the Liberal Party represents, what the Liberal Party stands for,
Speaker 4: was lost. It's one thing to say the issue is
Speaker 4: cost of living. We've got to introduce concessions, cheaper petrol
Speaker 4: and other changes in order to convince people we want
Speaker 4: to look after them. But that only works if you've
Speaker 4: got a strong political brand behind it. I think what
Speaker 4: happened in this campaign is people didn't really know what
Speaker 4: the Liberal Party stood for. The Liberal Party forgot totally
Speaker 4: the advice from John Howard that it needs to be
Speaker 4: a broad church. It wasn't. It ran on thin policies,
Speaker 4: it contracted the entire debate. So I think strategically and
Speaker 4: tactically the Liberal Party misjudged, and in particular Peter Dutton misjudged.
Speaker 1: In the Senate. Labour's position has improved and it no
Speaker 1: longer needs crossbench support. It can get legislation through with
Speaker 1: the support of the Greens only. The Greens have lost
Speaker 1: two seats in Queensland and leader Adam Bant had a
Speaker 1: very tough fight in his seat of Melbourne, but their
Speaker 1: primary vote increased and Band says they kicked out Peter Dutton.
Speaker 1: Anthony Albanezi is now very dominant and his left faction
Speaker 1: is dominant too. He gets to reshuffle the cabinet, of course,
Speaker 1: and you'd think that people who were once leadership contenders
Speaker 1: like Tanya Plibasik Jason Clair are going to have to
Speaker 1: get used to a very new reality. Do you think
Speaker 1: he's going to be brutal in reshaping that cabinet?
Speaker 4: No, I don't. He will make some changes and the
Speaker 4: order to make some change after this result, but I
Speaker 4: think there will be a lot of stability. There will
Speaker 4: be quite a commitment to the status quo in the
Speaker 4: senior positions. After that, of course, there should be some change,
Speaker 4: and I'm certain there will be some change.
Speaker 1: Coming up. Where did the Liberals go from here? Up close,
Speaker 1: Peter Dutton is smart and witty, a likable, family oriented
Speaker 1: former cop and.
Speaker 3: Dad and I said to the Prime minister that his
Speaker 3: mum would be incredibly proud of his achievement tonight, and
Speaker 3: he should be very proud of what he's achieved, thank you.
Speaker 1: But in caricature, like in the work of The Australian's
Speaker 1: own cartoonist Johannes Leek, he's Lurch Voldemort, a zombie, a
Speaker 1: gray faced, hulking undertaker.
Speaker 3: We've been defined by our opponent in this election, which
Speaker 3: is not the true story of who we are. But
Speaker 3: we'll rebuild from here. We'll do that because we know
Speaker 3: our values, we know our beliefs and will always stick
Speaker 3: to them.
Speaker 1: Was it a mistake to choose Peter Dutton.
Speaker 4: No, I don't think it was, because after the previous
Speaker 4: election in twenty twenty two, when Josh Friedenberg lost his seat,
Speaker 4: it became obvious that Peter Dutton was a senior Liberal
Speaker 4: and I think the party did the right thing putting
Speaker 4: him in. I think we've got to be very careful
Speaker 4: about judgments in retrospect. I mean it looked for quite
Speaker 4: a lot of the past term as though Peter Dutton
Speaker 4: was doing pretty well. Peter Dutton made some really significant mistakes. Firstly,
Speaker 4: I think he was trying to win on grievance. There
Speaker 4: were seven quarters of negative GDP per capita. This was
Speaker 4: the greatest fall in Australian living standards in half a century.
Speaker 4: He thought the electorate was coming against Albanisi with baseball bats.
Speaker 4: He misread that that was wrong. It wasn't that bad.
Speaker 4: The second mistake he made was not to knuckle down
Speaker 4: and produce substantial opposition policies at a much earlier stage.
Speaker 4: He deferred the hard policy work and what that meant
Speaker 4: was that when the campaign came they were underprepared, they
Speaker 4: hadn't done the hard work, and they were brutally exposed
Speaker 4: on that front during the course of the campaign.
Speaker 1: The moderate wing of the Liberal Party has been outsourced
Speaker 1: to the Teals. They now win seats that the Liberals
Speaker 1: could once rely on. Does the party need to change
Speaker 1: to try to win those people back, or do you
Speaker 1: think there's a different way forward for the Liberal Party.
Speaker 4: Now there's only one way forward for the Liberal Party,
Speaker 4: and it's got to avoid any suggestion that there's a
Speaker 4: silver bullet on either the right or the left. So
Speaker 4: if they're a party conservatives saying the answer is to
Speaker 4: put a lot of political water between the Liberals and
Speaker 4: the Labor Party by moving further to the right and
Speaker 4: becoming more conservative. That is a lecture of doom. On
Speaker 4: the other hand, if there are progressive liberals saying what
Speaker 4: we've got to do is we've got to move further
Speaker 4: to the left and understand what's going on in terms
Speaker 4: of cultural change, that is also the path of doom.
Speaker 4: The only way forward is to run a broad church.
Speaker 4: That is the John Howard philosophy. You've got to understand
Speaker 4: how the country's changing, and that means the Liberal Party's
Speaker 4: got to change. But it's got to change in terms
Speaker 4: of a broad church being a party of both liberal
Speaker 4: and conservative traditions, and it's got to reinterpret what the
Speaker 4: broad Church means for the decade of the twenty twenties.
Speaker 4: And in particular, that means it's got to address its
Speaker 4: fundamental identity problems with this country. First of all, it's
Speaker 4: a lack of support among the professional, corporate and managerial classes. Secondly,
Speaker 4: it's problem with women. Thirdly, its problem with the under
Speaker 4: forty vote. Fourthly, it's problem with multicultural Australia. Fifthly, its
Speaker 4: problem with public servants. In other words, it's got to
Speaker 4: rethink its identity from top to bottom.
Speaker 1: The front runners are Angus Taylor, Dan Tien and Susan Lee.
Speaker 1: Right now, for the Liberal leadership, that's a huge task
Speaker 1: that you've just outlined. Do you think any of them
Speaker 1: have what it takes to turn this party around.
Speaker 4: We'll have to see. They've lost so many people for
Speaker 4: one reason or another out of the parliament Josh Friedenberg
Speaker 4: or Christian Porter, or Mantius Corman or Christopher Pine or
Speaker 4: Greg Hunt or Scott Morrison or Malcolm Turnbull or Tony
Speaker 4: Abbott and now Peter Dutton. I mean, you could just
Speaker 4: think of what sort of front bench you could put
Speaker 4: together with all the people that they've lost, and that
Speaker 4: talent train is a real problem. So I think it's
Speaker 4: going to be a very difficult, a very challenging and
Speaker 4: a hard road back for the Liberal Party. Now Albanzey
Speaker 4: knows that. I think the really interesting thing is whether
Speaker 4: Albanese succumbs to Hubris. I don't think he will. I
Speaker 4: think he's more in touch with the community than people think.
Speaker 4: I think he's realistic, he doesn't have a huge ego
Speaker 4: about himself, and I think he judgment is judgment about
Speaker 4: government and stability and his capacity to read the Australian
Speaker 4: Electric is pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: Paul Kelly is The Australian's Editor at Large. You can
Speaker 1: read his outstanding analysis and all the rest of the
Speaker 1: news you need right now at the Australian dot com
Speaker 1: dot au