In a stunning moment in Australian politics, the heartland of the Liberal Party has turned on the Morrison government and dispatched some of its highest-profile figures out of politics, with a huge swing in Victoria to Labor and independents, and teal independents seizing key Liberal seats in Sydney.
Federal treasurer and Liberal heir apparent Josh Frydenberg is the biggest casualty, losing Kooyong to independent Monique Ryan. Junior colleague Tim Wilson is also out, defeated by independent Zoe Daniel in Goldstein.
Labor is now in a position to form a minority government and may yet win sufficient seats to form government in its own right.
The Liberals look to have suffered a 5% swing in Victoria, and also lost Chisholm and the once safe seat of Higgins to Labor.
In Sydney there were further shocks: independent Allegra Spender easily dispatched sitting MP Dave Sharma in Wentworth; in Mackellar, once the bluest of blue-ribbon seats, Jason Falinski was smashed by independent Sophie Scamps; Kylea Tink easily defeated Liberal moderate Trent Zimmerman.
The swing against the government was also in the order of 5% in NSW, but Labor also went backwards and looks to have lost the safe seat of Fowler to Liberal-linked independent Dai Le. Labor’s decision to parachute in former NSW premier Kristina Keneally is now looking enormously costly.
Labor also struggled to pick up seats elsewhere, failing to make a dent in the Liberal vote in Tasmania and only picking up Brisbane in Queensland (albeit still in doubt, with the Greens also in with a chance), losing Griffith to the Greens and having to watch the Greens snatch Ryan.
In South Australia, a near 6% swing against the government has given Boothby and Sturt to Labor.
It was a better story for Labor in Western Australia, where predictions of a strong Labor result (after years of trying) finally proved correct: Labor picked up Pearce, Swan, Curtin and Hasluck and looked a strong chance in Moore.
As we write, Labor remains short of a majority, still needing four to five seats to go its way to reach 76 seats. The more likely scenario is a massive crossbench of teal independents, Greens and usual suspects Andrew Wilkie, Bob Katter and Helen Haines left to negotiate with both sides.
The success of the teal independents is extraordinary, with even their most ardent supporters surprised by their success in Liberal heartland seats, and an air of surprise and astonishment among Tink supporters.
The visceral nature of the reaction of the Liberal heartland may be a rupture that takes several elections to heal. Whether the independents have a chance to leverage their power in a minority government is the remaining question of election night 2022.
Finally, we are rid of smirk and mirrors.
Smirko did in fact mirror many on the RWNJ side of politics – 36% of the primary vote is a big chunk of the electorate.
That ‘Labor’ could scrape up on 32% should be cause for concern but the Machine hasn’t the wit to see that, without the teals & Greens Scummo would be basking in his 2nd Coming this morning.
The fact that both major parties got primary votes in the 30s says something – that the base of both the major parties are fracturing.
The future looks messy, where no seat can be taken for granted.
The Teals are really what were the moderates of the Liberal Party.
The frauds who currently are in possession of the “Liberal Party” brand, need to call themselves what they really are, which is the “Conservative Party” of Australia.
Howard dragged the Liberal Party to the right and Morrison stacked the NSW branches with Pentecostals and other Christian Alt-Right members or IPA clones.
What exactly did they think would happen??
An ALP government is long overdue and well deserved. I’ll be interested to see what becomes of the Liberals.
I think you can draw a line from the ousting of Malcom Turnbull to the rise of the teal candidates. After Turnbull’s conflict ridden leadership and subsequent ousting, it became clear that the hard right was in charge and that moderates in the Liberal party were an ineffective, milquetoast bunch who lost every major policy debate in the party and were there to make up the numbers.
spot on. as i’ve said before independents are first reserves for liberals.
Labor will need to be astute and include robust consultation with the new group of independents – ignoring or vilifying them – the standard Coalition tactic, will not work. This will be a test of real leadership for Albanese and his senior ministers – do they have the capacity for this? I suspect the mainstream media will not be clever enough to see the creative possibilities in such an approach so it will simply play them off against each other. But what a relief!
Albo will get this done and seize this remarkable new opportunity with both hands. What a fabulous result..!!
Albo has done it before in the Gillard Government.
Curtin result isn’t in yet and it’s between Chaney and Liberal candidate, Labor won’t win it