The mastermind of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s thumping re-election victory says Labor’s next challenge is to develop campaign strategies to combat teal independents, after candidates backed by the Climate 200 funding juggernaut almost defeated government MPs in two safe seats.

Labor national secretary Paul Erickson downplayed concerns over the party achieving just 35.6 per cent of the primary vote, suggesting this figure was artificially low because Labor supporters engaged in tactical voting to help defeat Coalition candidates in contests against the teals. He justified this claim by pointing to some teal seats where Labor’s Senate vote was ten percentage points higher than for the House of Representatives.