Incumbent Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was re-elected on Saturday 3 May 2025, by a wider margin than initially anticipated, under an electoral system in which compulsory voting for all citizens aged 18 years and over promises an accurate representation of the prevailing national mood at the time of polling. Albanese’s ruling centre-left Labor Party outperformed the conservative Liberal-National Party (LNP) coalition across the nation, in a battle for 150 seats in the House of Representatives and 76 in the Senate, thereby ensuring that he would go on to lead a stable majority government. The vanquished Liberal (a misnomer?) leader Peter Dutton, a former defence and home affairs minister, was apologetic and gracious in defeat, accepting “full responsibility” for the outcome. Albanese became the first prime minister in 21 years to be re-elected for another term, after John Howard in 2004, ending a revolving door whereby leaders have changed every three years. He is following in the footsteps of his political mentor, Bob Hawke, who went on to win four elections, as did Howard. “Albo” also became the first leader to increase his majority following a term in office, emulating Robert Menzies from as far back as 1951.
In a repetition of the results of the recent Canadian elections, Peter Dutton lost his seat of Dickson, an outer metropolitan division of Brisbane which he had held since 2001, to third-time challenger Ali France, a widowed former journalist, an amputee and para-athlete, who had tragically lost her son Henry to leukaemia in 2024. This made Dutton the first federal opposition leader to simultaneously lose both their seat as well as the election itself. Albanese led a disciplined and largely positive five-week campaign, while Dutton’s disjointed and largely negative campaign backfired, leading the latter to backtrack on some contentious issues.
Labor’s stronger-than-expected victory reflected voter concerns related to a cost-of-living crisis (inflation; rising property and rental prices; high childcare and healthcare costs; food insecurity; and high interest rates) and to a toxic “Trump effect”, resulting from President Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ reciprocal tariffs on Australia and his ill-treatment of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a White House encounter in February 2005. It must be noted that Albanese himself never once referred to Donald Trump by name during the election campaign. In his victory speech, he confirmed, however, that “We do not seek our inspiration overseas. We find it right here in our values and in our people.”
Dutton, also referred to as ‘Temu Trump’ after the budget fast-fashion Chinese e-commerce platform, misread public sentiment and failed to address primary voter concerns. His Trumpian policy agenda focused on stricter immigration control, invoked the anti – “woke” rhetoric of ongoing culture wars, and was defined by a lack of support for the advancement of Indigenous Australians, climate change scepticism, and an overwhelming desire to make DOGE-like cuts in the public sector workforce and to compel public servants working from home, especially those living in outer metropolitan areas, back into the office full-time. Dutton had appointed Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Liberal Senator for Northern Territory, shadow minister for government efficiency in January 2025, tasking her with cutting as many as 41,000 public service jobs were he to come to power. His intention to reject the renewable energy transition and instead build seven nuclear generators, in a country that has no nuclear power, also proved an unwise choice. Trump doesn’t really like losers, and claimed not to have even heard of Dutton after the latter’s electoral debacle.
Albanese, on the other hand, focused on the issues that really mattered for most citizens. His pledges included tax cuts; student debt relief; increased funding for, and scope of, Medicare; cheaper medications; more GP appointments; a 5% deposit for first-time homebuyers; a programme of building as many as 100,000 new houses; and the development of renewable energy sources. Albanese also committed to advancing reconciliation for First Nations peoples. He led across all demographics, while his policies particularly resonated with younger Australians, women, and citizens from ethnic minorities. As might be expected, Labor performed particularly well in urban and suburban Australia, although it also captured large swathes of the rural vote and made a clean sweep of Tasmania.
Many safe LNP seats have fallen to Labor, as the red wave has deluged much of Australia. Despite the continued spread of right-wing nationalism in many parts of the world, the centre-left revival in Australia confirms that centrist policies are by no means unpopular with the electorate.
Ashis Banerjee