How Anthony Albanese needs to spend the first 100 days back in office as Prime Minister
These are the top jobs Anthony Albanese needs to deal with in his first 100 days of re-election as Australia’s Prime Minister after he celebrated his victory.
Federal Election
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Anthony Albanese was on a victory lap in his inner-city seat the day after his historic re-election while ousted Opposition leader Peter Dutton bunkered down as Labor looked set to retain government for at least six more years.
Mr Albanese celebrated his landslide win with a coffee with locals in his electorate of Grayndler before grabbing beers named after him at a local brewery.
He left Kirribilli House on Sunday morning with his partner Jodie and visited Bar Italia in Leichhardt, a coffee shop he said he used to visit with his mum.
The PM then took the celebrations to the Willie the Boatman in St Peters where punters could get a Albo Pale Ale.
To the side of the bar was a gold framed portrait of a young Albanese whose face is printed on his beer can.
Mr Albanese and Ms Haydon were accompanied by their dog Toto and NSW MP Jo Haylen.
Labor has already won 86 seats which puts the Albanese government on par with Bob Hawke in 1987 for the biggest majority.
Mr Albanese thanked Peter Dutton for his phone call conceded last night, saying he appreciated kind references to his late mother and family.
“I certainly thought of mum last night,” he said, revealing they came to this coffee shop together.
Mr Dutton made no public appearance on Sunday as Liberals processed a devastating result that had them on track for less than 50 seats, without a leader and with a decimated front bench.
Ali France, the Labor challenger who became the first person to knock off an opposition leader from his electorate, was one of seven new female MPs from Queensland to join Labor ranks.
As of Sunday afternoon Labor was on track to pick up six lower house seats and another senate spot — more than doubling its numbers in Mr Dutton’s home state where it has failed to make ground for a decade.
“It is unacceptable that in a state like Queensland, one of the two major parties being Labor, only held five out of 30 house of representative seats,” Queensland senator Murray Watt said at a press conference with Ms France and other incoming MPs.
“I think the other thing about Queenslanders is that we are pragmatic mainstream people. Queensland voters don’t vote for the extremes of politics in big numbers. We saw the Greens representatives take extreme positions on a whole range of issues.
“We have seen the Liberal Party over recent years drift further and further towards the right, taking extreme positions and starting culture wars that most people … aren’t thinking about when they go to bed every night.”
The party’s thumping majority will mean Mr Albanese and his soon-to-be wife Ms Haydon can well and truly settle into The Lodge but a senate minority will mean the party does not have the all-clear on its second term agenda.
Labor sources remained hopeful that the Greens would allow easier passage of Labor legislation in this term, claiming the party losing two of its four lower house seats was punishment for stalling Labor’s housing policy.
“The Greens were punished partly because they block stuff,” they said.
“(The lower house majority) it’s really hopeful.”
They remained hopeful that the Greens and the Coalition would be more willing to negotiate in this term with both parties annihilated in the lower house.
In the Upper House, Labor was on track to pick up a few seats but would still be short of a majority.
Another source acknowledged that a strong majority in the lower house would make life easier for Labor but maintained that the party could not use its emphatic win to deviate from the agenda it took to parliament.
“Ultimately what people want to see is people getting in and delivering on things they say they will do,” another source said.
“There is a huge amount of stuff for us to get done.”
A third Labor source agreed that the election was a strong endorsement of Labor’s agenda which includes bold promises like universal childcare and bulk billed GP visits for all Australians.
All of them agreed that the party would focus on election commitments from 2025 over before turning their mind to reforms that failed in the last term including the nature positive laws and gambling reform.
“The things we campaigned on are the things we have to deliver,” a source said.
“Once we take the edge off we can look to what we would do.”
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