Labor secures huge swings to in history-making victory

Labor barely won the primary votes of one in three Australians – but its victory ranks as one of the biggest election triumphs in Australian history.

Anthony Albanese with Labor’s candidate for Bonner, Kara Cook, during a visit to a pre-polling booth in Wynnum last week. Photo: Getty Images

Labor’s victory to secure a second term – despite barely winning the primary votes of one in three Australians – ranks as one of the biggest election triumphs in Australian history.

The Albanese government is on track to win more than 85 seats – surpassing Kevin Rudd’s 83 after the 2007 election – and could eclipse the 90 seats won by Tony Abbott when the Coalition returned to power in 2013.

The previous most lopsided parliament was after the 1975 election in the wake of the dismissal of the Whitlam Labor government, when the Coalition held 91 of the 127 seats in parliament.

Labor’s strongest result since World War II was in 1983 when the newly elected Hawke government won 75 out of 125 seats.

Labor won only 34 per cent of the primary vote on Saturday, the second lowest of any election winner, surpassing only the ALP’s 32.5 per cent three years earlier.

But after preferences, Labor was on track to win 56 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote, narrowly better than the 55.7 per cent the Fraser Coalition won in 1975 and the highest since Harold Holt’s Coalition won the 1966 election with 56.9 per cent of the vote.

The Coalition recorded its lowest primary vote on record, hovering barely above 30 per cent.

Labor struck crucial blows in Peter Dutton’s home state of Queensland, as well as Victoria and Tasmania to ensure a second term for the Albanese government.

Labor won or was well-placed to win eight previously Liberal-held seats: the Opposition Leader’s Dickson in Brisbane’s north, Bonner and Petrie in the city’s east and Leichhardt in far north Queensland; the eastern Melbourne seats of Deakin and Menzies; and the northern Tasmanian seats of Bass and Braddon.

Labor was also well-placed to pick up the Greens-held seat of Brisbane, with MP Stephen Bates likely to finish third and get Labor’s Madonna Jarrett over the line with his preferences.

In Bonner, Labor’s Kara Cook recorded a 12.5 per cent swing, almost four times what she needed, to oust Liberal MP Ross Vasta, while basketballer Matt Smith was on track to be the new Labor member for Leichhardt after the retirement of Liberal Warren Entsch after picking up an 11.6 per cent swing.

Labor candidate for Leichhardt, Matt Smith, with ALP senator Nita Green during the election campaign. Picture: Brendan Radke

The massive swings against the Liberals in Brisbane also threaten to flip Forde and Longman to Labor seats.

In Tasmania, Bridget Archer failed to secure a rare third term for a Bass MP, after Labor’s Jess Teesdale picked up a 10.5 per cent swing, while Braddon was on track to elect former Labor senator Anne Urquhart as its MP, with a 14.9 per cent swing.

The Liberals’ hopes of picking up crucial seats in eastern Melbourne looks to have failed spectacularly, with Menzies and Deakin both recording strong swings to Labor, ousting MPs Michael Sukkar and Keith Wolahan, and Labor on track to retain Aston, which it picked up in a by-election in 2023.