Albanese’s class of 2025 tightens prime minister’s grip on Labor Party

Anthony Albanese’s landslide election emulates John Howard’s victory in 1996, delivering the prime minister a slew of loyalists by launching the careers of many MPs who benefited from his success, but his future is not as certain as the former prime minister’s.

Howard’s landslide victory began the careers of stalwart supporters, such as Jackie Kelly and Joe Hockey, who formed the bedrock of his support for a decade to come, much as Anthony Albanese has added 17 new MPs to his ranks.

New member for Dickson Ali France said Anthony Albanese had backed her for years.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Many of the MPs, who received an orientation in Parliament House on Tuesday before the first sitting week of the 48th parliament begins on July 22, are personally loyal to the prime minister.

Ali France, who won the outer Brisbane seat of Dickson from then-opposition leader Peter Dutton, said the prime minister had supported her through three successive campaigns.

“Albo has supported me since 2019 as a candidate and I have been so grateful for his advice, his support,” France said.

“Every time there’s a pre-selection, when you run for the third time, there’s always question marks over, should you run again? The PM has always supported me as a candidate in Dickson, and I will always support him.

“He supported me also through some really tough times and having to make the decision to run after I lost my [son] Henry. He was incredibly supportive, so he will always have my support. There’s no question of that.”

The class of 2025 is the largest haul for the party since Kevin Rudd’s 2007 election campaign won 25 seats, and Albanese played a major hand in the selection and success of many of them.

Many in the current ministry were supported by Albanese on their way up, such as Skills and Training Minister Andrew Giles, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy and Communications Minister Anika Wells, Emergency Management Minister Kristy McBain and Bennelong MP Jerome Laxale.

Many of the new MPs have similar ties to the PM, such as former Tasmanian Labor leader Rebecca White, who has been appointed assistant minister for women, Anne Urquhart, who Albanese encouraged to quit her position in the Senate to run for the Tasmanian seat of Braddon, and Rowan Holzberger, who was elected in the Queensland seat of Forde.

Speaker Milton Dick (centre) poses with newly elected members of the House of Representatives yesterday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Albanese also heavily backed the pre-selection of Matt Smith, the former Cairns Taipans basketball player, whose electorate he visited several times during the 2025 campaign.

Smith said the PM’s campaign message of centrist policymaking and stability in an uncertain world would be a marker of success.

“Stability is the aim of any government. You set out to deliver what you said, and that was a strength of the Albanese government coming into this election, and then I think was reflected in the results.

“Having played sport for so long, when you’ve got that clear message and everyone’s pulling in the right way, that’s when you have success.”

Labor won 12 seats from the Liberals or Liberal National Party in Queensland, three from the Greens and one from ex-Liberal MP Ian Goodenough, who quit the party during the previous term and contested the election as an independent, as well as securing an inaugural victory in the new seat of Bullwinkel in Western Australia.

ANU Australian historian Frank Bongiorno said landslide election wins such as the Menzies government’s in 1949 and Bob Hawke’s in 1983 have had long-lasting impacts on the political landscape.

Bongiorno said John Howard’s big win in 1996, when the Coalition gained 26 seats, launched a number of significant careers such as those of Warren Entsch, Joe Hockey, Sharman Stone, Danna Vale, Joanna Gash and Jackie Kelly and established a new demographic target for the Coalition in the mortgage belts of Howard battlers.

“It brought some very, very significant women into the parliament and also, I think, crafted that idea of western Sydney being very critical,” he said.

However, Bongiorno said the shock results in formerly safe Labor seats of Bean in the ACT and Fremantle in Western Australia, which the government won by razor-thin margins, showed the unpredictability of elections given the collapse in primary votes of major parties.

“Things have changed in terms of how votes translate into seats and majorities these days. It’s a very different world even from 1996,” he said.

“So we’re dealing obviously with a really significant number of MPs who, even if they’ve got what look like reasonably solid margins, are going to have to work very hard to protect them because the idea of the traditional safe seat does seem to be in decline.”

The size of Labor’s victory could also make things difficult. The party’s 123-member caucus is bigger than at any time since Rudd’s victory in 2007, when Rudd did not see out the term as leader after a downturn in the polls and Labor infighting.

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