LABOR’S RECORD POLL MANDATE; LIBS CRUSHED

Labor bucks the trend with historic win

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has led Labor to a crushing victory over the Coalition, recording his party’s biggest election victory since 1943. Labor is on course to win around 90 seats in the 150-seat Parliament, as it swooped on Coalition seats across Australia. Senior Coalition partner, the Liberal Party, was crushed, with its leader Peter Dutton losing the Brisbane seat that he had held since 2001. Anthony Albanese’s victory in the House of Representatives will deliver up to 12 extra seats, giving him a comfortable majority in the new Federal Parliament. The PM is also the first national leader in more than 80 years to increase their parliamentary majority at their first re-election campaign.

Liberals crushed in capital cities

Metropolitan Australia turned on the Liberal Party in Saturday’s polls, with Peter Dutton’s party losing seats in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Federally, the Liberal Party has essentially been driven out of the state capitals of Western Australia, South Australia, and Victoria, with Teal Independents retaining seats or narrowly ahead, and Labor seizing formerly safe Liberal electorates. The Liberals also lost their two Tasmanian seats. Based on latest voting figures, the Liberal Party will have around 25 seats in the Coalition party room, with the total LNP representation potentially less than 45 seats. For the Liberal Party, the 2025 election represents its worst result since it was formed in 1944.

Teals hold ground, Greens lose ground

Crossbenchers will continue to hold strong numbers – up to 15 seats – in the new Parliament, although their influence will be minimal under a dominant Labor government. Teal MPs held urban seats in Sydney but were only narrowly ahead in their two Melbourne seats, while Independents retained seats in South Australia and regional Victoria. On latest figures, Coalition MPs were also fighting off independent challenges in regional areas of New South Wales and Victoria, while Labor was under siege from an Independent in Fremantle, WA.  Former Nationals turned independent, Andrew Gee, was on track to retain his seat of Calare in NSW. The Greens, meanwhile, have lost to Labor the two Brisbane seats they won in 2022, and may lose a third in the city to Labor. In the seat of Melbourne, Greens leader Adam Bandt was fighting to hold his seat against a Labor challenge, while the Greens hoped to snatch the neighbouring Labor-held seat of Wills.

Labor bolsters Senate vote

Labor’s improved vote has lifted its representation in the Senate, where it will likely hold between 28 and 30 seats in the new Upper House after July 1. The Greens will hold 11 or 12 seats, with the remainder held by a depleted Coalition representation and a spread of crossbenchers. Labor will therefore only need the support of The Greens to pass Coalition-opposed legislation in the 76-member Senate. Final Senate numbers will not be settled for some weeks.

Inflation rate falls below critical benchmark

Inflation – a common point of debate during the election campaign – continued to fall during the March quarter, with an annual rise of 2.4 per cent in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Significantly, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported that the trimmed mean, or core inflation, fell to 2.9 per cent and was at its lowest level since peaking at 6.8 per cent in December 2022. Trimmed mean inflation is the Reserve Bank of Australia’s preferred measure for the 2-3 per cent band, when determining the cash rate. ABS data also found that the level of annual services inflation was 3.7 per cent, at a near-three year low. Among the capital cities, Perth recorded the highest level of annual CPI inflation, at 2.8 per cent, double that of Hobart, at 1.4 per cent. Meanwhile, a rise in import prices, as measured by the ABS, coupled with a depreciating Australian dollar, poses a potential threat to the push for lower inflation.

Overseas-born population ratio highest in 130 years

Australia’s electoral demographic is changing, underlined by latest figures for the level of and composition of immigration, with 31.5 per cent of the national population, or 8.6 million, born overseas. The Australian Bureau of Statistics says that as at June 2024, the ratio of the overseas-born population was the highest in the country since 1891, up from 30.7 per cent in 2023. Migrants born in the United Kingdom make up the highest number (964,000 people), ahead of those born in India (916,000), China (700,000) and New Zealand (618,000). The number of Indian-born immigrants in Australia has more than doubled since 2014.