Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has taken his election landslide as a mandate to press ahead with key reforms as he stares down the Greens on housing.
Despite winning a substantial majority, Mr Albanese insists the government would turn to priority reform and not get ahead of itself.
Legislation to slash student debt by 20 per cent will be the introduced when parliament resumes.
“I didn’t get ahead of myself in the last three years, we had a clear mandate to govern, we had a lot to turn around,” he said in Canberra on Monday.
Housing will remain a major priority with the prime minister ready to take on the Greens, who still hold the balance of power in the Senate despite losing two seats to Labor in Brisbane.
Greens leader Adam Bandt has pledged to use the balance of power to force progressive reform but the prime minister took a stern tone after the Liberals and Greens lost their housing spokespeople.
“We have a clear mandate to build more housing, the key is supply,” Mr Albanese said, criticising the Greens and coalition for stalling Labor’s housing policies.
“If the Senate gets in the way of that, then they’ll receive the same response that the housing spokespeople for the Liberal Party and the Greens got on Saturday.”
Mr Albanese also outlined his priorities abroad. He will travel to Canada for a G7 summit in June, with Indonesia to be his first international bilateral trip.
The prime minister has spoken with a number of global counterparts including US President Donald Trump since his re-election and more conversations have been lined up as his leadership team meets on Monday to decide on a new cabinet.
Depending on the final vote count, the delicate factional balance in the ministry could stir a wider reshuffle under an ascendant left wing.
Caucus will also meet after the final ballots have been counted and seats determined, but there will be a number of new faces.
Labor picked up in excess of 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 and could end up with 85 or more.
The government faces a weakened opposition with the battered Liberals losing at least 13 seats and as many as 19.
Peter Dutton was the highest-profile casualty, becoming the first opposition leader to lose his seat as three Liberal frontbenchers were booted from parliament by Labor candidates.
After Mr Dutton’s loss in Dickson, the leadership frontrunners include shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley, defence spokesman Andrew Hastie and immigration spokesman Dan Tehan.
Some Liberal senators concede 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 on Monday.
The coalition needed to avoid culture wars that target minorities and become more inclusive to win back the middle ground, he said, while branding a decision to preference One Nation as “misguided”.
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”.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said 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”.
Australian Associated Press is the beating heart of Australian news. AAP is Australia’s only independent national newswire and has been delivering accurate, reliable and fast news content to the media industry, government and corporate sector for 85 years. We keep Australia informed.
