The coalition will be forced to carry out a “fundamental reorganisation” of the party’s structure to ensure its ongoing relevance to voters after its election wipeout, a leading pollster says.
As votes continue to be counted after Saturday’s poll, figures show the coalition could slump to its lowest percentage of seats in parliament since the formation of the Liberal Party in the 1940s.
With 75 per cent of the vote counted, Labor has claimed 86 seats in the House of Representatives compared to the coalition’s 39, with 15 seats still in doubt.
While Anthony Albanese has claimed an expanded mandate as prime minister with a larger majority in his second term, questions are being raised as to where the coalition will go.
But it could be some time before a new leader is appointed by the Liberals.
Deputy Leader Sussan Ley said the party room would meet to elect an opposition leader and deputy.
After consulting with the party’s senior leadership Ms Ley said several seats where preferential counting was continuing would have to be decided before the meeting could take place.
She said her party was reflecting on the results with humility.
YouGov director of public data Paul Smith said the election was a referendum on the leadership of Peter Dutton, which was thoroughly rejected by voters.
“The Liberal Party result was devastating and requires a fundamental reorganisation of who they are … they are not representative of Australians,” he told AAP.
“This is a situation where if they were a company, you would call in the administrators and look for a new business owner. It is catastrophic what happened.”
After the opposition leader lost his seat of Dickson in Labor’s biggest scalp of the election, a vacuum has emerged for the leadership of the coalition.
Frontrunners include shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley, along with opposition frontbenchers Dan Tehan and Andrew Hastie.
Mr Smith said the loss by the coalition was a “self-inflicted defeat”.
“Their strategy was to win working-class votes in Sydney and Melbourne but the problem was their strategy was at odds with their policies,” he said.
“They now hold no seats in Perth or Adelaide and hardly any in Sydney or Melbourne and lost most seats in Brisbane.”
Mr Albanese has aimed for a tone of humility in his landslide win, thanking supporters in his inner-western Sydney seat of Grayndler on Sunday, before pledging to get back to the job at hand.
We will be a disciplined, orderly government in our second term, just like we have been in our first,” he said.
“We’ve been given a great honour of serving the Australian people, and we don’t take it for granted, and we’ll work hard each and every day.”
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