ADVERTISEMENTAustralian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labour Party has been re-elected for a second consecutive three-year term.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton, who leades the conservative Liberal Party and lost his own seat in parliament in Saturday’s election, conceded defeat. He said “We didn’t do well enough during this campaign, that much is obvious tonight, and I accept full responsibility for that.
Anthony Albanese will now be the first Australian leader to win consecutive elections since John Howard in 2004.
Early projections come from the Australian Electoral Commission give the ruling centre-left Labour Party 70 seats and conservative opposition coalition 24 seats in the country’s 150-seat House of Representatives. Unaligned minor parties and independent candidates were likely to win 13 seats.
It is not yet clear if Labour will hold enough seats to form a majority government. Prior to this election, Labour held a slim majority of 78 seats in 151-seat House of Representatives, which is being reduced to 150 in the next parliament due to redistributions.
A loss of more than two seats would likely force Labour to attempt to form a minority government with unaligned lawmakers.
Key issues in the election
The major issues in the election campaign have been energy policy and inflation, with both major parties being in agreement that the country faces a cost of living crisis.
The conservative Liberal Party has blamed inflation on government waste and increased interest rates, pledging to scrap more than one in five public service jobs to reduce government spending.
This led to the Labour Party branding the opposition leader “DOGE-y Dutton”, in reference to a similar stance held by US President Donald Trump and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Both parties were in agreement that the country should reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, though Dutton has argued in favour of relying more on nuclear power rather than renewable energy sources, supporting that it would lead to lower electricity costs.
The Albanese government has noted that relations with China have improved during its tenure, removing a number of trade barriers that had cost Australian exporters an estimated 20 billion Australian dollars (€11.37 billion) per year.
