Labor is pushing ahead with priority reforms such as slashing student debt after a historic election win, as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets with his top generals to plot the government’s path.
Mr Albanese and his leadership team will meet on Monday to decide a timeline for naming a new ministry and a caucus meeting, which will showcase a swathe of new faces in the party room.
Depending on the final vote count, the delicate factional balance in the ministry could stir a wider reshuffle, under an ascendant left wing.
Labor under Mr Albanese picked up more than a dozen seats, with more on the table as ballot counting continues. The government needed at least 76 out of 150 lower house seats to win.
His attention now turns to governing after getting his first full night’s sleep since the campaign started in late March.
“People know I am a man of my word, and that begins here today,” Mr Albanese told Sydney radio station Triple M on Monday.
Mr Albanese is also fielding phone calls from world leaders including Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
US President Donald Trump offered his congratulations from Washington, although the two have yet to speak by phone.
The prime minister has a decisive mandate after increasing Labor’s majority to at least 85 seats, with 16 still in doubt, and the first item on the legislative agenda is to introduce its 20 per cent student debt cut.
The government faces a weakened opposition, with the battered Liberals losing at least 13 seats and potentially as many as 19.
Leader Peter Dutton was the highest-profile casualty, becoming the first opposition leader to lose his seat while three other Liberal frontbenchers were also booted from parliament by Labor candidates.
With no heir-apparent after Mr Dutton’s loss in Dickson, frontrunners include shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley, defence spokesman Andrew Hastie and immigration spokesman Dan Tehan.
On Monday, some of the Liberal party’s senators conceded the coalition had failed to offer voters a substantial policy platform, especially on the economy.
“You’ve got to have the ambition to lead on the economy and … I don’t think that’s been evident over the last few years,” Liberal senator Andrew Bragg told ABC radio.
The coalition needed to avoid culture wars that targeted minorities and become more inclusive to win back the middle ground, he said, criticising the decision to preference One Nation as “misguided”.
“We have a healthy live and let live ethos in this country and we have diversity, and generally speaking, that’s what most Australians are comfortable with, they don’t want to see division,” he said.
Senate colleague Hollie Hughes, who lost her party’s pre-selection, was scathing of Mr Taylor’s role in the defeat saying “the economic narrative was just completely non-existent” and there were questions about his capability.
“I have concerns about his capabilities, but that is shared by a huge number of my colleagues,” she said.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers joined the pile-on, saying it would be “extraordinary if Angus Taylor was rewarded with a promotion after the diabolical contribution that he made to this history-making coalition defeat”.
The nosedive in the Liberal vote has also cost the Greens seats, after support for Labor surged and Liberal preferences flowed to the government rather than the minor party.
It cost them Griffith in Brisbane while leader Adam Bandt is fighting to retain his seat of Melbourne, although there’s confidence he will prevail. Other Greens seat remain in doubt.
But Mr Bandt remains defiant, saying the party’s vote had hit a record high and that it would use its balance of power in the Senate to push for progressive reforms.
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