🟠 News Club - Cutting through the election clutter

One of the things about an election that I find so compelling is that the result is usually pretty obvious in retrospect - but impossible to know until it’s revealed. And with this weekend’s showstopper, there are so many questions to answer…

Cutting through the election clutter

In a world of unprecedented/consequential/’did that really happen’ events, Saturday’s election result is up there in our political history. 

Anthony Albanese became the first PM since John Howard to win back-to-back elections. And the first Labor leader to do it since Bob Hawke. 

Labor’s win of at least 85 seats surpasses Kevin Rudd’s 83 after the 2007 election when Australians voted for change, deciding they’d had enough of the Howard Government after almost 12 years. 

Yet Labor won 34% of the primary vote on Saturday - the second lowest of any election winner. But thanks to our preferential system of voting, Labor is expected to pick up at least 55% of the 2-party-preferred vote, which would put it up there with the highest on record. 

Meanwhile, the Coalition is on track to record its lowest primary vote in any federal election. And its leader Peter Dutton lost his seat - the first time that’s ever happened. 

What it means is we have a lopsided parliament skewed towards Labor - the last time that happened was after the 1975 election in the wake of the dismissal of the Whitlam Government. 

The comparable events to this election result are big… The changing of the guard from Liberal Party founder Robert Menzies to Harold Holt in 1966. The end of Gough Whitlam’s run in 1975 after controversy and drama. And Kevin ‘07 blasting onto the scene to wrap up the Howard years. 

This time around, none of those drivers were in place. Yet our political tectonic plates have shifted - away from the Coalition, and that’s why there’s a lot of focus on their performance. This week’s Club Picks are the best resources we’ve found to help understand what’s happened. 

1. Tony Barry from RedBridge Group was a former Coalition staffer who, along with Kos Samaras, delivered some of the best analysis of the result on election night. With former ABC stalwart/former Labor staffer Barrie Cassidy, the pair go through it in this podcast episode released yesterday arvo. 

2. Speaking of stalwarts, I’ve been waiting for Paul Kelly’s take… It was posted on The Australian’s website this morning, and he doesn’t understate what the result means. “Anthony Albanese is an enhanced Prime Minister able to put Labor’s imprint on the nation and guarantee a long-term government. The Liberal Party is smashed – plunged into its worst ever crisis, its future in question.” 

3. In 2024, elections around the world saw incumbent governments struggling to deal with inflation and cost of living pressures were punished. In 2025, it looks like voters (including in Canada) are backing stability in the wake of US President Donald Trump implementing his America First agenda. “The election is the latest snapshot of how voters are reacting to a shifting world order as President Trump targets countries with tariffs, pivots toward Russia and uses harsh rhetoric about Washington’s traditional allies,” says the Wall Street Journal. 

4. The ABC’s Annabel Crabb brings the result back to matters closer to home - she says the Coalition has paid the price because they are ignoring women. And she asks the question: “Does this party - formed in 1944 partially through the efforts of highly organised and powerful women's groups, and directed by its birth father Robert Menzies to reserve specific executive leadership roles for women - care enough about women to do the hard work of including them?” 

There are a lot of questions that have been raised by this election result. It will be fascinating to see how they are answered in the coming weeks, months and years…