Anthony Albanese has secured a stunning federal election win while delivering a devastating result for the Coalition that cost Peter Dutton his own seat.
As counting continued on Saturday night, Labor was set to form majority government with Albanese becoming the first prime minister to win a second Labor will form government after recording strong swings in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia and a small swing in Victoria, while Peter Dutton has conceded his own seat of Dickson.
The ABC has called 78 seats for Labor, enough for a majority, but it is leading in several more, and ABC election analyst Antony Green has declared the result.
It will make Anthony Albanese the first prime minister elected twice since John Howard.
Dutton concedes election and loss in own seat
“We didn’t do well enough in this campaign, that much is obvious tonight,” Mr Dutton said to the Liberal faithful gathered in Brisbane, saying he had called both Anthony Albanese and Labor’s Dickson candidate Ali France to concede and congratulate them.
“It is an historic occasion for the Labor Party and we recognise that. I congratulated the prime minister and wished him, Jodie and Nathan all the very best and I said to the prime minister that his mother would be incredibly proud of his achievement tonight and he should be proud of what he has achieved,” he said.
He also paid tribute to Ms France’s son Henry, who died earlier this year. “Her son Henry would be incredibly proud of her tonight and she will do a good job as a local member for Dickson and I wish her all the best.”
Mr Dutton apologised to Liberal candidates who have “lost their seats [and] their ambition… We have an amazing party, and we will rebuild.”
Labor on track for multiple gains
The majority of election day votes have been counted, while early votes are beginning to be counted, as are the first votes in Western Australia where polls were last to close.
The ABC projects Labor will gain the seats of Banks, Bass, Bonner, Braddon, Deakin, Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson, Hughes, Leichhardt, Menzies, Petrie, and Sturt.
It is also competitive in the seats of Berowra, Bowman, Casey and Forde.
And it has consolidated or held its ground at this stage in several of its own marginal seats, including Aston, Bennelong, Blair, Boothby, Chisholm, Dunkley, Gilmore, Lyons, McEwen, Paterson and Werriwa.
Peter Dutton likely needed to win all of those seats and more if he was to form majority government himself, which would have required a 20-seat gain. He would have needed to pick up roughly 10 seats to be competitive in a hung parliament scenario.
Instead, he will find himself out of the parliament altogether, forcing the Liberal Party to find a new leader. Two other frontbenchers, housing spokesperson Michael Sukkar and foreign affairs spokesperson David Coleman, are set to join him.term since John Howard in 2004.
