Federal election 2019 results: Scott Morrison’s miracle sees the Coalition hang on
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has defied dozens of polls to deliver the Coalition another three years in Government.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has delivered the Coalition another three years in government in one of Australia’s biggest election upsets in decades.
Defying dozens of polls and critics, Mr Morrison is now set to join the pantheon of Coalition greats.
To chants of “ScoMo ScoMo ScoMo”, Mr Morrison told Liberal Party faithful he always believed in miracles.
“And tonight we’ve been delivered another one,” Mr Morrison said. “How good is Australia? And how good are Australians?
“(Last night) is not about me and it’s not about even the Liberal Party. (Last night) is about every single Australian who depends on their Government to put them first.”
“And so, friends, that is exactly what we are going to do.
“Our Government will come together after this fight and we will get back to work.”
His counterpart, Labor leader Bill Shorten, last night confirmed he would not recontest the party leadership after calling Mr Morrison about 11pm to concede defeat.
“This has been a tough campaign. Toxic at times,” Mr Shorten said. “But now that the contest is over, all of us have a responsibility to respect the result, respect the wishes of the Australian people and to bring our nation together.
Mr Shorten said he wished he could have won for Bob Hawke, Labor’s longest serving leader, who died on Thursday night.
The result will leave Labor searching for answers and questions will no doubt turn to Mr Shorten’s lack of popularity, a reform agenda that was too bold and Labor’s ability to convince Australians they can manage the economy.
In South Australia voters maintained the status quo but Boothby — the state’s most marginal seat — was still on a knife’s edge last night.
The seat will be critical in the Coalition’s bid to secure a majority government.
SA Premier Steven Marshall welcomed the result.
The state’s most senior Liberal, Simon Birmingham, said Mr Shorten saw the election as a coronation tour and underestimated the extent to which Australians would reject higher taxes and wasteful government spending. “Scott Morrison can be proud of the campaign he ran, which focused the minds of Australians on the choice between a strong economy versus Shorten’s wild promises that never stacked up,” he said.
The Coalition entered the election without a majority after boundary changes and resignations robbed it of seats.
Mr Morrison had run a strong campaign focused on Mr Shorten as being “the Bill Australia could not afford”. His presidential-style campaign was done without key frontbenchers and Cabinet ministers. Popular MPs like South Australian Christopher Pyne, Julie Bishop and Kelly O’Dwyer did not recontest the election.
And several others including Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, Attorney-General Christian Porter and Health Minister Greg Hunt have been all but missing in action during the campaign trail. But Mr Morrison’s constant mantra that the Coalition was best placed to take Australia forward by running a strong economy appears to have worked.
Labor campaigned on the country’s biggest reform agenda since Gough Whitlam in the 1970s. Mr Shorten and his treasury spokesman Chris Bowen maintained a consistent mantra that Labor would take from “the top end of town” and distribute it to the Australians that had been left behind. Mr Shorten constantly argued everything had gone up, except for wages, as he campaigned on introducing a living wage, increasing childcare workers’ salaries, making cancer drugs free, improving hospital emergency departments and slashing elective surgery waiting lists.
But an unpopular franking credits policy — termed the “retiree tax” by its political opponents — and the scrapping of negative gearing tax offsets appear to have seriously damaged Labor. The result will also bolster the Coalition’s view that it was doing enough to address climate change.
Mr Shorten, who took to the election Australia’s most ambitious emissions reduction and renewable energy targets, said during the campaign that climate change had joined health and the economy as the issues most important to Australians. Last night, Mr Frydenberg said the Labor Party had a “massive higher-taxing, high-spending agenda”.
“That clearly resonated with the Australian people,” he said. “I think the economic story, the economic message, the economic choice, was what differentiated the parties at this election.”
One of the first casualties of the night was former prime minister Tony Abbott, who lost his seat of Warringah in NSW to Independent Zali Steggall.
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