What we learned, Monday 5 April
Thanks for reading our coverage today. I hope you have a great evening, wherever you are. There’s been plenty of news about today, as counting continued in several electorates after the election on Saturday night. Here’s some of what happened:
Anthony Albanese held his first press conference since being re-elected as prime minister with an increased Labor majority. Albanese said he had a “warm and positive” conversation with US President Donald Trump and foreshadowed an in-person meeting.
Speaking of Trump, the president described Albanese as “very good” and said he had “no idea” who Peter Dutton was.
Trump also announced 100% tariffs on movies made in “foreign lands”, prompting alarm in the Australian film sector and promises from politicians to stand up for the local industry.
The size of Labor’s majority in the House of Representatives remained unclear and a number contests remain on a knife-edge. The ABC was reporting 16 seats still in doubt at 5pm.
In Goldstein, the independent candidate Zoe Daniel walked back her claims of a Victory, as counting of postal votes narrowed the gap between her and Liberal Tim Wilson. Monique Ryan did the same in Kooyong.
It looked like Greens leader Adam Bandt could lose the seat of Melbourne to Labor.
Mining Heiress Gina Rinehart encouraged the Liberal party to stick with Trump-like policies after the opposition’s resounding defeat Saturday night after a campaign overshadowed by the controversial US president.
Liberal senator Hollie Hughes launched an extraordinary attack on Angus Taylor – who had been touted as a possible new Liberal leader, saying the shadow treasurer offered ‘zero economic policy’ and that she didn’t know ‘what he’s been doing for three years’.
In other news, the trial of Erin Patterson continued in Victoria. Patterson faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in Leongatha in South Gippsland in 2023.
Updated
Gina Rinehart urges Liberals to go harder on Trump-like policies
Mining magnate Gina Rinehart has encouraged the Liberal party to stick with Donald Trump-like policies after the opposition’s electoral thumping on Saturday night in a campaign overshadowed by the controversial US president.
The mining billionaire also singled out Italy and Hungary, which are governed by populist rightwing coalitions, as countries Australia could aspire to, where people were “abandoning the myths or untruths of the left” and returning to “common sense and truth”.
Anthony Albanese clinched victory against his conservative challenger, Peter Dutton, on Saturday, after the latter failed to brush off comparisons with Trump and ended up losing his own seat.
In a lengthy statement to the Daily Mail on Monday, Australia’s richest person broke her silence following the Coalition’s wipeout on Saturday night.
In the statement, Rinehart wrote:
The left media did a very successful effort, frightening many in the Liberal party from anything Trump, and away from any Trump-like policies.
This has been especially obvious this year, with the Liberals instead becoming known as the ‘me too’ party.
Trump-style ‘make Australia great’ policies via cutting government tape, government bureaucracy and wastage, and hence being able to cut taxes, [were] too scarce in Australia this year to rate a mention.
No doubt the left media will now try to claim that the Liberal loss was because the Liberal party followed Trump and became too right! The two simply don’t add up!
You can read more here:
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Trump’s film tariff ‘shortsighted and won’t work’ – Minns
The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, has vowed to defends the local screen industry in response to Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on film production.
US president has announced 100% tariffs on movies “produced in foreign lands”.
In a statement, Minns has said:
It is a bad decision for films and movies whether they’re made in Australia or the United States.
It’s shortsighted and won’t work. We’ll be defending our screen industry as well as the local jobs it creates.
NSW is home to more than half of Australia’s screen production businesses and film industry. It’s estimated to be around $1.15bn to the local economy.
We’re talking films like Mad Max: Fury Road, The Great Gatsby, The Fall Guy, Anyone But You. These are major movie productions.
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Victorian AG warns Liberals’ bail changes would place shoplifting ‘in the same category as manslaughter’
The Victorian attorney-general, Sonya Kilkenny, has responded to the state opposition’s new bail policy.
In a statement, Kilkenny said:
The experiences of victims of crime are always front of mind, as is community safety – that’s why we’ve listened and acted with the toughest bail laws in the country.
These are already seeing alleged offenders refused bail – and we’ll have more changes to come soon.
They’ve reheated policy from the past that does nothing for community safety and would see petty shoplifting placed in the same category as manslaughter.
Brad Battin’s Liberals are irrelevant. We’re getting on with the work that needs to be done to keep Victorians safe.
Updated
Victorian opposition proposes changes to bail laws
As for the new policy, Brad Battin has announced a suite of proposed changes to Victoria’s laws, under a plan he’s dubbed “break bail, face jail”.
Under the opposition proposal, young offenders who breach their bail conditions would be remanded in custody, closing what the shadow attorney general, Michael O’Brien, called a “loophole” created by the state government.
O’Brien said:
If you’re under 18 and you breach your condition of bail, you face no legal consequence under Labor.
We’re going to bring that loophole to an end.
Youth offenders, just like every other offender who receives the privilege of bail with conditions, will be required to meet those conditions or they will be committing an offence, and more to the point, they will face a much tougher test if they want to stay on bail.
The opposition’s announcement comes just months after the Allan government reintroduced the offences of committing an indictable offence while on bail and breaching a condition of bail.
The offences were scrapped in 2023, after advocacy by the family of Veronica Nelson and recommendations from a coronial inquest into her 2020 death in custody.
But they did not make them apply to children.
Tougher bail tests for serious offences including aggravated burglary, home invasions and knife crime were also included in the bill for adults but their introduction could be delayed by up to three months.
Under the opposition proposal, these changes would come into effect right away.
Battin said the government could account for an influx in people on remand by keeping open the Port Phillip prison in Truganina, which is slated for closure.
Battin and O’Brien were joined at the presser conference by Nat Gordon, the sister of Ash Gordon, a GP who was killed during a home invasion earlier this year.
Updated
Victorian Liberal leader focused on state issues after resounding Coalition loss
Following the federal Coalition election defeat, the Victorian opposition leader, Brad Battin, has said he’s firmly focused on state issues, with preparations under way for the 2026 Victorian election.
Speaking in Morwell, where he announced his first major policy since being elected leader in late December, Battin said the announcement is an attempt to “reset our agenda to move forward” following the federal result. He went on:
We’ve got a whole policy platform we’ll start to roll out over the next 572 days before Victorians go to the electorate and make sure that we’re listening, that we’ve got our policies in the right place, that we’re listening to the community keeping Victoria safe, and that’s our priority.
Unlike some of his colleagues, Battin says he wasn’t stunned by the result. He said:
I wouldn’t say I was stunned … I watched the election almost from afar. I stayed in contact with the federal counterparts as we went through [and] there’ll be elements of that we can learn from, and we can always learn from.
But I think it’s really important that for our focus here in the state, that it stays exactly where it was. We already knew the issues that were happening here in Victoria. We know that crime and cost of living are two of the biggest things impacting people in our state.
He also argued voters were able to distinguish between state and federal government’s – pointing to the swings to Labor in Queensland just months after it elected a Liberal National government. Battin said:
Victorians and Queenslanders have both said that they know the difference between state and federal issues. So now I’ll be refocusing on those state issues.
He denied the Liberal brand was “toxic” and said he trusted the party’s administration, its polling and campaigning ability ahead of the state election.
Updated
Greens’ ‘blocking’ a factor in Labor’s Griffith win, says new MP
The new MP for the Brisbane-based seat of Griffith, Renee Coffey, has explained why she believes she was able to regain the seat for Labor by toppling the Greens’ Max Chandler-Mather.
Speaking on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, Coffee said:
The big issues in Griffith are pretty much the issues nationally, so cost of living [is] the number one issue, [and] housing [are] incredibly important to people in Griffith.
Housing, absolutely, and also climate change and the environment were really important issues.
Griffith fundamentally is a progressive electorate and people were wanting to see real change and progress, so I think there was some disappointment with some of the blocking that went on and this idea of protest.
Chandler-Mather, who acted as the Greens’ housing spokesperson, locked horns continuously with Anthony Albanese during the last parliamentary term in very public debates over housing policy.
The Greens voted with the Coalition to delay Labor’s housing legislation, demanding the government provide more support for renters.
Updated
Chaney says independents don’t need to become a formal voting bloc ‘at this point’
The re-elected member for Curtin, Kate Chaney, says she and the other teal independents and crossbenchers in the lower house don’t need to become a “more formalised voting bloc”.
Labor has again secured a majority in the House of Representatives, meaning it doesn’t need to negotiate with crossbenchers to pass legislation in the lower chamber.
Asked about the role of the crossbench during an interview on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, Chaney said:
I don’t think there is any need at this point to become a more formalised voting bloc.
The role I can play now is much the same as the role in the last parliament and that is to look at everything on the merits and represent the values of my electorate and keep submissions on the agenda that the major parties would rather sweep under the carpet.
Having those voices in parliament, have more voices in parliament that can speak up without being constrained by a party structure, means we have richer discussions about the big challenges we’re facing a country.
I have more potential to influence legislation by having a constructive working relationship with the government than my electorate would if it was represented by a Coalition backbencher.
Updated
Labor worked for two years to stage Queensland comeback, says Watt
Watt says Labor worked hard on campaigning in Queensland “for some time” to stage a comeback in his home state.
Labor has picked up a slew of seats in Queensland, including Petrie north of Brisbane and Leichhardt, where it defeated the Liberal National party.
Labor’s Ali France also won Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson, becoming the first person to unseat a federal opposition leader at an election.
Labor also won back two Brisbane seats that it lost to the Greens in the 2022 election.
Speaking on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, Watt acknowledged 2022 had not been a good year for Labor in Queensland and said the candidates, sitting MPs and the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, had all put in significant “time and effort” to reverse that trend.
He said:
If you go back to the 2019 election, federally we got thumped in Queensland, lost a lot of seats, a very low primary vote, lost a second Senate seat for the first time in decades.
[We] went back further in the last election in 2022 and recognised we needed to make a bigger contribution … and frankly to retain government federally, we have needed to win seats in Queensland, so we have been applying ourselves for some time.
I looked back at my Facebook posts yesterday and it was two years ago almost to the day we began campaigning in some of the Greens-held seats in Queensland.
It has taken a lot of hard work [and it] has not been an overnight success.
Watt also said people in Queensland could “differentiate between state and federal issues”, given the LNP won the most recent state election off Labor.
Updated
Labor not given credit for ambition of election agenda – Watt
Labor senator Murray Watt has denied his party has not been ambitious and says the re-elected Albanese government intends “to live up to” its campaign promises.
Watt, a cabinet minister who most recently held the employment and workplace relations portfolios, has been interviewed on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program.
The Queensland senator denied the Albanese government had not been ambitious in its first term, pointing to wages growth:
I know there is commentary around we can now be ambitious and we have not been ambitious before, and I think is completely wrong.
I think the agenda we took to the election was much more ambitious than it is given credit for.
The idea we can get back to a situation in Australia where 90% of Australians can get a bulk-billed GP appointment is huge in terms of cost of living.
It may not be exciting in terms of headlines but it makes a huge difference to people’s lives, so [that is] what we will focus on.
Updated
Premier maintains Loop a decisive issue for Labor in Melbourne
While Allan has credited the Suburban Rail Loop with Labor’s federal election gains in Melbourne’s east, some within her own party aren’t convinced.
Labor sources told Guardian Australia the project wasn’t a decisive issue for voters, arguing people could clearly distinguish between state and federal responsibilities.
But Allan on Monday rejected that suggestion:
If you speak to locals, if you spend any time out and about on the ground in local communities, the Suburban Rail Loop was being talked about. It was being talked about on doors. It was being talked about on the streets … It was understood there was a Labor government and a Labor team that were backing the Suburban Rail Loop and a Liberal outfit that wanted to cut it.
Updated
Allan seizes on Labor’s success in Melbourne’s east to propel Suburban Rail Loop
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, has used Labor’s strong showing in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs at the federal election to push forward the state’s signature transport project, the Suburban Rail Loop.
Labor not only held Aston but also took Deakin and Menzies off the Liberals on Saturday – with the three electorates all along the proposed 90km underground train line from Cheltenham to Werribee.
Allan has described the result as proof of strong support for the rail project and announced on Monday that major construction has now begun at the Clarinda worksite, with tunnelling set to start next year.
Four tunnel boring machines will be used – two heading toward Glen Waverley and two toward Cheltenham. Excavation is also halfway complete at a second site in Burwood, where another machine will be installed to begin tunnelling westward.
The premier said more than 3,000 workers are already on the job, with trains expected to run by 2035.
Allan told reporters:
If you live in this community, like so many others, you understand that as you welcome more people who live in your community … [you have] got to get in and invest in big rail projects like this one that absolutely shifts more people on to rail, just like what the Metro Tunnel is going to do later this year when it opens.
Updated
Size of Labor majority remains unclear, with 16 seats still in doubt
Labor has won the election, but the size of its majority in the House of Representatives remains unclear.
There are a number of seats still to be decided and the counts are progressing slowly.
The ABC’s election results show 16 seats are still in doubt.
The Australian Electoral Commission hasn’t officially declared any seats yet, but says Labor is leading in 86, the Coalition leading in 40, independents in 11, Bob Katter in his seat and Rebekha Sharkie in hers; another two seats are too close to attribute, and in nine seats, the two-candidate-preferred count is still being calculated.
The AEC also says 22 seats are “close”.
If you’re a political tragic (like us) and you’ve been watching the results tick over, you might have seen some of the numbers jump around wildly. In some of the seats, that’s because the AEC has “realigned” the two-party vote, after an unexpected challenger became one of the two most popular candidates, meaning the AEC is having to redo its calculations about how to allocate preferences.
Some of the closest seats include Longman, Goldstein and Bullwinkel, where the vote is currently 50.05 to 49.95, or separated by about 100 votes.
Liberal Tim Wilson is currently 95 votes behind the independent Zoe Daniel in Goldstein; Labor’s Trish Cook leads the Liberals by 85 votes in the new WA seat of Bullwinkel; and LNP’s Terry Young is ahead of Labor in Longman by 102 votes.
It might be some time before we get those results, as well as in the seats of Bradfield, Kooyong and Wills.
Updated
Albanese has ‘very warm’ conversation with Trump
Earlier today, Anthony Albanese said he had a “very warm” conversation with the US president, Donald Trump, about tariffs and Aukus following Labor’s election win.
Albanese also foreshadowed an in-person meeting with Trump.
Trump, meanwhile, told reporters in the US that he was “very friendly with” Albanese and said he had “no idea” who Peter Dutton was.
Our multimedia team has prepared this clip of Trump’s full remarks:
Updated
Hi. I hope you’ve had a good day so far. I’ll be with you on the blog until this evening.
That’s all from me today. I’m handing over to my esteemed colleague Catie McLeod now, who’ll take you through the rest of the afternoon’s news.
Updated
Earlier, we brought you comments from the prime minister discussing his conversation with Donald Trump. Here’s footage of that press conference.
Education union calls on government to fix teacher shortages
The Australian Education Union has congratulated the Albanese government on its “historic election result”, while cautioning there is “more to do” to resolve teacher workforce shortages and invest in public education.
The AEU ran a For Every Child campaign in the lead-up to the election, urging voters to back Labor as a result of its commitment to fully fund public schools.
Its federal president, Correna Haythorpe, said Anthony Albanese’s “no one held back, no one left behind” messaging “captures the very essence of public education and reflects what teachers and education support staff work for every day”:
We acknowledge the significant steps the Albanese government has already taken to address funding inequality in public education and to support Australia’s teachers.
But there is still work to do to resolve Australia’s teaching workforce shortages and to invest in providing high quality teaching and learning facilities for public education.
Meanwhile, Independent Schools Australia, the peak body for the sector, said the election result offered Labor a clear mandate, as well as a clear responsibility.
The body’s chief executive, Graham Catt, said its School Choice Counts election campaign – rolled out in the seats of Melbourne, Brisbane, Ryan and Griffith, where the Greens were hoping to hold or pick up seats – demonstrated independent school families were “not a political afterthought”:
They are taxpayers, voters and active members of their communities –and their voices were heard. This is just the beginning of a new movement for fairness, choice and respect in school education. The message is clear: Australians don’t want the blame game. They want a fair go for every student, in every school and their families.
Updated
University groups urge PM to address inequitable degree fees
Higher education bodies have congratulated Anthony Albanese on regaining office while urging Labor to use its second term to urgently address the inequitable pricing of degrees resulting from the job-ready graduates (JRG) scheme.
The scheme, introduced by the Morrison government, reduced the overall government contribution to degrees and increased fees for some courses, including humanities, to fund cuts incentivising students to study teaching, nursing, maths, science and engineering.
Luke Sheehy, the chief executive of Universities Australia, the peak body for the sector, said the government had made “good progress” on the Universities Accord’s recommendations, commissioned and handed down in Labor’s first term.
But we must now focus on replacing the job-ready graduates package and funding university research properly.
Sheehy said universities also needed clarity around the commonwealth’s plan for international students after its proposed cap was voted down, adding the sector needed “certainty and stability”.
The Innovative Research Universities (IRU), which represents seven universities focused on equity, said it strongly supported the Albanese government’s increased investment in public education and needs-based funding in higher education. But it said an “urgent priority” must be reform of the JRG scheme.
The IRU has prepared evidence-based modelling of options for JRG reform and we are ready to work with government to make sure that the cost of higher education is not turning students away.
The Australian Technology Network of Universities (ATN), which represents six universities known for their focus on technology and innovation, said it was committed to collaborating on key Labor priorities, including diversifying the student body and embracing new opportunities in the Asia-Pacific.
Updated
Update on the neck-and-neck contests
More on the seats that were too close to call this morning:
There are just 104 votes between the frontrunners in the Queensland seat of Longman: Labor’s Rhiannyn Douglas and MP Terry Young are still battling it out. Douglas was leading this morning but Young has taken over in the hours since. There are 7,515 pre-poll and postal vote envelopes yet to be processed.
Still in Queensland, and in Ryan, Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown, the Coalition’s Maggie Forrest and Labor’s Rebecca Hack are all still in the running for the seat. Forrest is ahead on first preference votes but only 799 votes separate Watson-Brown and Hack in second and third place at the moment. The candidate who winds up third, and whose preferences will then flow upward, will determine the winner.
In Fremantle, which has been one of Labor’s safest seats, MP Josh Wilson is under threat from independent Kate Hulett, who the AEC says is currently 541 votes ahead.
And in Bean in the ACT, independent Jessie Price is just 157 votes behind incumbent Labor MP David Smith. Smith previously held the seat by more than 12%.
Updated
Predicted: the poll winners in some tight races
With counting resumed today, including a start on some of the new two-candidate-preferred counts, we’re making some seat projection calls on a few electorates that looked tricky on the weekend:
Cowper – Nationals to retain the seat
Fadden – LNP to retain the seat
La Trobe – Liberals to retain the seat
Fowler – Dai Le to retain the seat
Curtin – Kate Chaney to retain the seat
Griffith – ALP to win from Greens
Brisbane – ALP to win from Greens
In Griffith and Brisbane, the new two-candidate-preferred count has begun today. In Brisbane, rather than Greens and LNP in the final two, as it was in 2022, it will be Labor v LNP, which Labor should win handily on Greens voter preferences.
In Griffith, the final two are Labor and Greens, rather than Greens and LNP as in 2022, and Labor should win over Greens on LNP voter preferences.
Updated
Westpac chief says Labor win ‘very positive’ for Australia
Labor’s election victory offers “an enormous positive for the country”, providing consistency and certainty for businesses and lenders, the Westpac chief executive, Anthony Miller, has said.
The continuity of re-election stood in contrast to the uncertainty and volatility faced by other countries, Miller told investors and media after releasing Westpac’s half-yearly report. He said:
That certainty that the Labor party has provided over the last couple of years in government, and now re-elected, is an incredibly powerful outcome and a very positive one for the country …
[It] puts us in a very good position globally to attract capital and talent to this country. And so I think consistency and certainty and just getting things done methodically, as opposed to boldly going in different and new directions, is something to be thoughtful about.
Miller said the continuity would give the government more opportunities to improve productivity, pointing to the treasurer Jim Chalmers’ comments about focusing on productivity reform in the second term.
Miller flagged the energy transition, critical minerals and rare earths, and expanded defence forces including Aukus as potential drivers of economic growth in Labor’s second term.
There are so many opportunities for them that I think it’s a very positive outlook for the next few years, notwithstanding the global uncertainty that we’re operating in.
Updated
Labor set to increase Senate seats
Labor is expected to further grow its numbers in the Senate, allowing it to pass legislation with only the support of the Greens in a power shift that could sideline previously influential crossbenchers such as David Pocock.
The Coalition’s election disaster looks likely to claim another casualty, with the Nationals’ deputy leader, Perin Davey, poised to lose her New South Wales Senate seat.
Despite the Greens losing two of their four seats in the lower house, the party leader, Adam Bandt, said the Senate results should encourage Labor to pursue a bolder, more progressive policy agenda in its second term, including expanding Medicare, free childcare and banning new fossil fuel projects.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Linda Reynolds blames Liberals' male dominance for poll failure and backs Ley to lead
Outgoing Liberal senator Linda Reynolds has thrown her support behind a potential leadership tilt by the current deputy leader, Sussan Ley, while saying the party’s election campaign had been “a comprehensive failure”.
She told ABC Perth radio:
You can see through successive reviews in federal and state in terms of where we have taken the wrong turn, but we haven’t comprehensively understood those lessons and we certainly haven’t implemented the reforms that are needed. It was a comprehensive failure.
She partly attributed the failure of the party to speak to voters to its male dominance, and failure to act on the findings of reviews that recommended changes that would increase the involvement of women in the party.
Reynolds said:
Ten years ago I was part of a review into gender … and we recommended targets and how to get there without quotas. That’s been the Liberal party policy for 10 years but it’s just sat on a shelf. We do have to have the hard conversations now about how we become more gender-balanced but also a broader diversity.
There was also a strong religious right flank of the party in WA, Reynolds said, which didn’t resonate with or represent mainstream Australia.
Reynolds said she would support the current deputy leader, Sussan Ley, to replace Peter Dutton as leader, if Ley should nominate, saying she would be “a great and a very healing and receptive leader for our party”.
Updated
Liberal candidate says late swing to her party in Kooyong
Sticking with the battle for the Victorian seat of Kooyong, Guardian Australia has seen an email from the Liberal candidate, Amelia Hamer, to her supporters on Sunday night in which she says there has been a late swing towards the party in the seat.
In the email, she says:
Last night was not the result we had hoped for the Coalition. We had an average 3% swing against us across the country. But thanks to all your hard work, we managed to fight the national swing. It is now clear there will be a swing towards us in Kooyong. There are only a small handful of seats nationwide where this is the case. Currently the swing to us in Kooyong is +1.5% and we have 49% of the vote. That is a direct result of your efforts over the past year.
She says there are still 22,000 votes to be counted in the electorate and the Liberals “need just 943 extra votes to win”.
Most of the uncounted votes are postal votes. They are coming in very strongly in our favour. If these postal votes continue on their current TPP [two-party-preferred] trajectory of 62–38, we can win this seat. That is not blind hope – that’s the raw numbers.
Hamer also apologised for missing any supporters at her election night event at the Tower in Hawthorn. The Age has reported she didn’t attend the party until 11pm and hasn’t spoken publicly since election night.
Updated
Postal vote count continues amid close races in Goldstein and Wills
The Australian Electoral Commission says it will have an update on the tightly contested Victorian seats of Goldstein and Wills later this afternoon.
While candidates in both seats expected there would be few votes counted today, the AEC has confirmed to Guardian Australia it will continue to count postal votes in both seats.
There are about 5,000 unopened postal votes on hand in Wills and 4,300 in Goldstein that will be checked off the roll this morning and then admitted to the count this afternoon.
Labor’s MP for Wills, Peter Khalil, is facing a challenge from the Greens candidate, Samantha Ratnam, while the independent MP for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, is trying to hold on to her seat as the electorate’s former Liberal MP Tim Wilson attempts to stage a comeback.
In a social media video on Sunday night, Wilson said there were 27,000 postal vote applications in Goldstein and they usually track 60-40 in the Liberal party’s favour:
That’s the reason we remain incredibly optimistic, but we are not seeking to comment on the result until we see the final results.
Updated
Albanese says student debt reduction is first priority
Albanese says the first item on his government’s policy agenda is a “20% cut in student debt”.
Late last year, the prime minister promised that a re-elected Labor government would wipe about $16bn worth of debt in what an election policy sold as a cost-of-living measure for young Australians.
The 20% reduction would not capped and would also apply to vocational education and training (VET) loans and apprenticeship support loans.
According to government figures, released at the time the policy was announced, a university graduate with an average debt of $27,600 will save $5,520.
Speaking to reporters this morning, Albanese said he expected the legislation to pass before the start of the next financial year:
I’m very confident we have a mandate for that. We can’t have been clearer.
If the Senate gets in the way of that, then they’ll receive the same response the housing spokespeople for the Liberal party and the Greens got on Saturday.
With these last comments, Albanese was referring to the Liberal party’s former housing spokesperson, Michael Sukkar, and the Greens’ former housing spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, who both lost their seats in parliament on Saturday night.
Albanese was also asked whether, given the size of the mandate Labor had won, he was tempted to consider changes to the taxation or superannuation systems.
He replied:
We’re not getting ahead of ourselves.
Updated
Albanese says he had 'warm and positive conversation' with Trump
Albanese has expanded on his conversation with Trump and said they will meet in person “at some time in the future”.
In response to questions from journalists at Parliament House about his discussion with the US president, Albanese said:
I had a warm and positive conversation with President Donald Trump just a short while ago when I was at the Lodge.
And I thank him for his very warm message of congratulations.
We talked about Aukus and tariffs. We’ll engage with each other on a face-to-face basis at some time in the future.
But it was … very warm. I thank him for reaching out in such a positive way as well.
The prime minister would not be drawn on whether Trump made any promises about his administration’s wide-ranging tariff regime, which includes Australia.
Albanese said:
I won’t go into all of the personal comments that he made. But it was very generous in his personal warmth and praise towards myself.
He … expressed the desire to continue to work with me in the future.
Updated
Albanese says he spoke to Trump and other world leaders after poll win
The prime minister says he hopes to earn Australians’ trust “on an ongoing basis” and that he has spoken to a range of world leaders after winning the election.
Anthony Albanese is addressing the media at Parliament House in his first press conference since Labor’s landslide win returned the party to government with an increased majority.
Albanese said he had spoken with leaders including the US president, Donald Trump, and the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney.
Albanese said Carney had invited him to attend the next conference of the G7 economic forum in June and that he had accepted.
Australia is not a G7 member but has been invited to take part in its conferences in the past.
Albanese did not elaborate on his conversation with Trump.
Updated
Monique Ryan walks back claim of victory in Kooyong
Independent MP for Kooyong Monique Ryan says her seat is “too close to call” despite claiming victory on Saturday night.
In a statement she posted on Facebook this morning, Ryan is now saying it will take some days, even weeks, before the final count will be known:
The election result in Kooyong is too close to call at this point. It will take some days – possibly some weeks – for the outcome to be confirmed. Thank you Kooyong, for your support. Thanks to my team, and my family. Thanks to all of the Kooyong volunteers for your extraordinary hard work. And thanks to the AEC workers who are still dealing with a whole lot of ballots.
It comes after Goldstein independent Zoe Daniel also issued a similar statement on Sunday as her lead against Liberal MP Tim Wilson had shrunk from 1,800 votes in the morning to 90 by the afternoon.
Both Daniel and Ryan took to the stage of their respective election night parties to claim victory.
“This has been incredibly hard, but we did it,” Daniel told her supporters, who gathered at Elwood bowls club.
Ryan told supporters at the Auburn hotel that “despite the slings and arrows” of a “tough” campaign, they looked to have “overcome the Brethren” – a nod to the Plymouth Brethren Christian church, who had been campaigning for her opponent, Liberal Amelia Hamer.
Standing behind her, Ryan’s family held up a sign that read: “Kooyong, we did it!”
Updated
Climate group says Dutton’s ‘nuclear fantasy was a major turn-off’
Australians want “a credible plan to cut climate pollution” and voted for it on Saturday, the Climate Council chief executive has said.
The organisation’s own analysis of the election results showed that Labor’s two-party-preferred vote increased in seats where there was considerable debate about offshore wind farms, the council said in a release today.
The Climate Council’s chief executive, Amanda McKenzie, said:
Voters have sent a resounding message: no party can expect to govern this country without a credible plan to cut climate pollution.
Peter Dutton’s scheme to delay climate action with a nuclear fantasy was a major turn-off, particularly for women and undecided voters. Instead, in overwhelming numbers, people voted for Labor’s cleaner, renewable-powered future backed by storage, including home batteries.
Climate denial and delay are now politically toxic in Australia. This is a lesson that the Coalition ought to have learned in 2022, when a record number of climate champions knocked out seven of their MPs. The 2025 election results show this is now a political norm: voters won’t consider you fit for government unless you have sensible policies that pass the climate barometer.
Aussie voters expect, and deserve, much better than Trumpian attacks on science and climate denialism.
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We mentioned earlier that the Greens are closely watching the count in Wills, where Labor MP Peter Khalil is facing a challenge from Greens candidate Samantha Ratnam. Khalil is currently ahead 51.6% to 48.4% – some 2,813 votes separating the candidates.
Latest election count as some seats go down to wire
The electorate of Kooyong is another seat where the election outcome is still yet to be determined, where the teal independent MP, Monique Ryan, is being challenged by Liberal Amelia Hamer. Ryan leads with 51.03% of the vote to Hamer’s 48.97%.
Over in Bradfield in New South Wales, 905 votes separate independent Nicolette Boele and Liberal Gisele Kapterian. Bradfield was formerly a safe seat for the Coalition.
In the Western Australian seat of Bullwinkel, Labor’s Trish Cook leads Liberal Matt Moran by just 85 votes. Preferences from the Nationals, who are in third place, will likely decide the outcome there.
– With AAP
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Butler lashes out at ‘misleading campaign run by the big pathology companies’
The health minister, Mark Butler, has told Adelaide’s 5AA radio his priorities for the portfolio this second term are turning bulk billing around for people without a concession card and rolling out more urgent care clinics.
Butler was also asked about signage within pathology services that say from 1 July the government is cutting $356m from pathology services, halving the Medicare rebate for vitamin B12 and urine tests.
Butler said:
This is a pretty dishonest campaign being run by the very big, big, big pathology companies. We implemented some changes that were the product of expert advice, expert clinical advice. There is a sort of expert group of doctors and clinicians who advise the government, whether they’re Labor or Liberal, about how the Medicare schedule works, and they provided some advice to try and cut down what they describe as unnecessary tests.
Now there’s been a pretty misleading campaign run by the big pathology companies saying people who have a clinical need for this type of testing are not going to get it through Medicare. They will. There’s no question about that.
And what the big pathology companies also fail to put into their poster is that for the first time in many years, I’ve provided indexation, or rebate increases, for pathology tests, which they’ve been complaining about for some time. I think it has been more than 20 years since the Medicare rebates had been increased for pathology.
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Trump says he is 'very friendly' with Albanese and has 'no idea' who ran against him
The US president, Donald Trump, has commented on the Australian election, saying Anthony Albanese has been “very respectful” in their dealings together but he had “no idea” who his opponent was.
Trump refused to answer questions about whether “the Trump effect” was responsible for the Liberal defeat.
Trump told reporters:
Albanese I’m very friendly with … I can only say that he’s been very, very nice to me, very respectful to me. I have no idea who the other person is that ran against him, and you know we’ve had a very good relationship.
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Chalmers says it would be ‘extraordinary’ if Angus Taylor was rewarded with Coalition leadership
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has been speaking to reporters this morning too, issuing a caustic assessment of the potential tilt for Liberal leadership by Angus Taylor.
Chalmers said:
I think it will be extraordinary if Angus Taylor was rewarded for one of the worst performances that I have ever seen. It would be very strange if Angus Taylor escaped the blame for the Liberal party debacle on Saturday.
Peter Dutton has stood up and taken some responsibility for that outcome. It is time for Angus Taylor to do the same. It would be extraordinary if Angus Taylor was rewarded with a promotion after the diabolical contribution he made to this history-making Coalition defeat.
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Greens do not regret focusing on climate action and Gaza, Bandt says
Asked if the Greens didn’t focus enough on climate and focused too much on Gaza, Bandt said:
We were the only ones talking about real action on climate change and calling on the government to stop opening new coal and gas mines …
[On Gaza], we were very clear and had been clear from the beginning that we wanted to see an end to the invasion and an end to the occupation and an end to the bombs being dropped on children. We had people coming up to us regularly on polling booths saying, thank you for being the only voice talking about peace and humanity.
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Labor ‘the only barrier to getting dental into Medicare’, Bandt says
Labor has been elected into a strong position in government, Adam Bandt says, but that means they cannot “blame other individual senators” for not being able to get legislation through.
Bandt said:
I congratulate the prime minister on his campaign and the strong position that they have got in government at the moment but what it means is that, with the Greens in sole balance of power in the Senate at the moment, the government can’t blame other individual senators for not being able to get things through.
The only barrier to getting dental into Medicare now and passing it through the parliament is Labor. The only obstacle to making childcare free is Labor. The only obstacle to stopping new coal and gas mines from being opened is Labor. We stand ready in the Senate to make this the most progressive parliament that Australia has seen.
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Adam Bandt ‘confident’ of retaining seat in Melbourne
Greens leader Adam Bandt said he is “confident” of retaining his seat in Melbourne but that the crashing Liberal vote has played out differently for the Greens than it has for Labor, especially in Queensland where they lost two seats.
Bandt said:
When there is a big shift from Liberal to Labor, it has flow-through consequences [for the Greens].
We expect we’ll have between one and four seats in parliament once the final votes are counted. We feel confident in Melbourne, we are feeling vey good in Ryan and Wills but there are a lot more votes to count before we have a final determination about those.
He characterised the new makeup of parliament as likely to have a number of “blue Labor” seats, where Labor MPs have been elected off the back of Liberal preferences.
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Key event
A number of House of Representatives seats still in play
There are a number of seats in the House of Representatives that are still too close to call this morning.
We mentioned the Greens were out and about with a show of positivity despite losing two seats in Queensland. The party is also waiting for a definitive outcome on two seats in Victoria, including in Melbourne, leader Adam Bandt’s electorate.
Bandt is in danger of losing his seat to Labor’s Sarah Witty. We understand he’s about to speak to the media, too, so we’ll bring you that as soon as we can.
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Home affairs department has let staff use Signal since Covid lockdowns, documents show
The home affairs department began allowing staff to use Signal in response to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and even advised employees how to turn on disappearing messages, documents obtained by Guardian Australia reveal.
The use of the app by government officials in Australia has come into focus after the global fallout from revelations that top US officials discussed operational details of a plan to strike Yemen in a Signal group chat that accidentally included the Atlantic’s editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
Signal is known for its privacy and disappearing message features. An American government watchdog group is suing the US officials, arguing that using an app with disappearing messages could put it in breach of legal obligations around record retention.
Read the full exclusive story here:
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What the federal election result means for Victorian Labor
If anyone is as happy as Anthony Albanese right now, it’s Jacinta Allan. As the federal election results rolled in on Saturday night, one of the biggest surprises came in Victoria – where Labor defied months of grim predictions to strengthen its grip on the state.
Despite relentless commentary about Allan’s unpopularity and the supposed drag she posed on the Labor vote – not just from the Liberals but by her own federal colleagues – the state swung even harder to the party than it did in 2022.
According to Poll Bludger, Labor’s two-party-preferred vote in the state sits at 54.8 to 45.2.
It’s a devastating result for the Coalition in a state they desperately needed to turn around. At best, the Liberal party could emerge with just seven out of 38 across Victoria – as many seats as their Nationals partners.
The Liberals didn’t see this coming – and neither did Labor.
Read more analysis on what the election result means for Victorian Labor here:
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PM says: ‘I do feel for Peter Dutton’
More from the prime minister shooting the breeze on Triple M this morning. He said he’d had his first good night’s sleep for some months last night, after what he called “quite an astonishing outcome” on Saturday.
“I was in bed at 8 o’clock last night,” Anthony Albanese said.
Albanese said the key difference throughout the campaign was the Labor party had a positive message to sell and the opposition didn’t.
He also offered a snippet of sympathy for his opponent:
I do feel for Peter Dutton, that must have been a pretty tough night for him.
Albanese will head back to Canberra today.
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Reducing Hecs debts first item on government’s agenda, Plibersek says
Tanya Plibersek has said it will be “straight back to work” for her and other members of the Labor party, reiterating that reducing Hecs debts is the first piece of legislation the party has on its agenda for the new term.
Plibersek told Seven’s Sunrise this morning:
We will be straight back to work to make sure that we are absolutely focus on bringing down the cost of living, reducing those pressures on people.
The prime minister’s already said the first legislation will be about dropping that Hecs debt on students. And longer term, we really want to make sure we return people’s faith in us. We’ll continue to work to make sure that we’ve got great services that people can rely on, that we deal with the international challenges that we’ve got.
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PM promises to build on business and community relationships
Anthony Albanese has promised to make good on the relationships developed over his time in office so far, saying he is a man of his word.
In comments to Triple M this morning, the PM said:
I’ve had enormous support, and from the entire labour movement, I’ve got to say, as well, and from a whole range of people in the business community, in different communities that make up our great multicultural Australia as well, all backing us and being very supportive. I have such good relationships. There’s an advantage of being around a while and developing those friendships and that trust, so that people know I am a man of my word, and that begins here today.
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Share of borrowers falling behind on debt slips to 1.36%, Westpac reports
Following on from the previous post: Westpac’s loans generally have grown healthier as households receive relief from cost-of-living concerns.
Releasing the banks’ half-yearly report, the chief executive, Anthony Miller, said:
The resilience of customers who have navigated significant cost-of-living challenges over the past few years is impressive … and RBA rate cuts are now also providing welcome relief. This resilience is reflected in the improvement in credit quality metrics indicating we may have passed the low point in the cycle
The share of borrowers falling behind on debt slipped to 1.36%, lower than it had been six months ago but stable compared with a year beforehand, measured by stressed exposures as proportion of Westpac’s total committed exposures. That was helped by the share of borrowers more than 90 days behind on repayments falling, but the share who have defaulted has not fallen.
The share of Westpac’s Australian mortgage borrowers more than 90 days behind on repayments fell from 1.12% six months ago to 0.86%, while 90-day repayment delays on other consumer loans also fell to 1.30% from 1.47%.
The bank expects things to keep improving in 2025. In the report, analysts wrote:
Relief finally arrived late in the First Half 2025 when the RBA cut rates for the first time in almost five years. Housing credit growth recovered shortly after interest rates peaked. We expect housing credit growth of approximately 5% in 2025.
That could be a good sign for the bank, as increased household saving instead of borrowing had contributed to its lower profits.
Australian household deposits were up by 9% from a year ago and the bank earns less from savings accounts. Customers also looked for better deals elsewhere and Westpac narrowed the gap between the rates it lends and pays on deposits, it said in its half-yearly report. That saw the bank earn a net margin of 1.88% interest on its loans, similar to a year ago but much lower than six months ago.
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Westpac reports slide in half-year profits
Westpac’s profits slid in the six months to March even as the bank’s customers have become more likely to repay their debts and loans to businesses increased.
Net profits were $3.3bn, just 1% down on the same period last year but 9% lower than reported six months ago. Part of that six-month reduction related to peaking global uncertainty, chief executive Anthony Miller said in a statement with the bank’s half-yearly report:
Geopolitical uncertainty is a key risk that’s as high as it has been for a very long time. Changes to global trade policies have impacted markets and funding for the bank. Despite the volatility, it’s important that we look through the noise and avoid reacting to the headlines. Australia is well placed to handle the instability.
That meant the bank set aside more money in case geopolitical instability and international trading relationships left some of its customers unable to make repayments. Together with an increase in write-offs to $279m, that saw Westpac shave back its profit margin by $250m to cover extra credit impairment provisioning.
Australian businesses had also struggled as wage costs and inflation rose, particularly for services, Westpac said. The share of local businesses defaulting on loans ticked up from 0.47% a year ago to 0.54% by March, as measured by gross impaired exposures to total committed exposures.
Despite that, lending to Australian businesses had risen 14% over the year, particularly to firms working in health, agriculture and professional services, and the bank expects private credit growth of 6% over 2025.
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Greens put on brave face after poll losses
The Greens have been doing the rounds of the media this morning, trying to stay upbeat even though they’ve lost two seats in Queensland and are still waiting on the final call in the Victorian seat of Wills.
Senator Larissa Waters told ABC TV this morning that the outcome was “bittersweet”, and the collapse in support for the LNP has resulted in a shift in vote to Labor:
We’ve got a record high national vote, but we’ve lost two of our wonderful people here in Brisbane in Stephen [Bates] and Max [Chandler-Mather]. Now, our vote held in those seats, but we’ve seen such a collapse in support for the LNP that it’s meant our people haven’t been able to retain their seats.
Sarah Hanson-Young, meanwhile, told RN that “more people across the country voted for the Greens or other minor parties and independents than in any other time of history”, and that the party would be using its balance of power in the Senate to push for progressive change:
It would be a mistake for anyone to take out of this election that Australians overwhelmingly are not concerned about climate and environment, the cost of healthcare like dental, and to deal with the urgent and immediate issue of housing. And we’ll be looking at how we can use our balance of power in the Senate, which is stronger than it’s ever been to deliver reform, progressive reform, on those issues.
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Teal Zoe Daniel’s seat on knife-edge
We need to talk about the Melbourne electorate of Goldstein briefly, because what initially looked like it would be a pretty comprehensive win by “teal” independent Zoe Daniel is now on a knife-edge.
Daniel’s lead massively narrowed yesterday, with a resurgence by Liberal candidate and former Goldstein representative, Tim Wilson.
There are literally 95 votes between the two candidates at the moment, according to the AEC tally room, with Daniel maintaining just a sliver of a lead as counting resumes today. It looks like this will go down to the wire.
Goldstein is not the only seat where the competition is fierce and ongoing, either – we’ll bring you more on these shortly.
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'Concerns about his capability' and 'zero economic policy': Liberal senator lashes Angus Taylor
Angus Taylor is not capable of leading the Liberal party, fellow party member Hollie Hughes has said, and she would not be voting for him if he put his hand up for the leadership.
Here are her comments in full:
I have concerns about [Taylor’s] capability. I feel that we have zero economic policy to sell.
I don’t know what he’s been doing for three years. There was no tax policy, no economic narrative, and the fact that we’re in a massive cost-of-living crisis and Jim Chalmers has basically skated through unscathed, and I was receiving that feedback even from Labor MPs who were like: are you serious? What’s going on? The economy’s in a pretty bad state and Jim has had no challenges put up to him.
Now, whether that was Angus thinking that his role was to try and go up against Albanese in an early bid for leadership, I have no idea.
To be the opposition leader, you need to be very capable in the media. You need to be able to sell a message. You need to be able to put the narrative together, and you need to be able to bring the team together.
I have concerns about his capabilities, but that is shared by a huge number of my colleagues, and frustration that they didn’t have economic narratives that they could push and sell during the election. And, you know, going from shadow treasurer to opposition leader, I’m not quite sure that’s going to change.
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Liberal senator says party had ‘complete lack of policy narrative’
Hollie Hughes offered a scathing assessment of her party’s machinations prior to the election, saying fully developed policies “disappeared into some form of vortex” that left candidates heading into a campaign with nothing to say.
Speaking to RN earlier, the Liberal senator said the biggest issue that plagued the party was “just a complete lack of policy and economic narrative” which made it “incredibly difficult for everyone out on the ground – people just had nothing to sell”.
Even the parliamentary team had “very little idea what was going on”, Hughes said. In her portfolio of shadow assistant minister for mental health and suicide prevention, Hughes said she had submitted seven “fully costed policies” around suicide prevention and mental health in October last year.
She continued:
And they disappeared into some form of vortex and we never heard anything about anything back from anybody … It’s not just me, I’ve spoken to plenty of other shadow ministers who had the same experience.
… It’s hugely frustrating. For me some of the things I proposed that got no feedback … one of them was a men’s mental health policy, I’d actually identified some savings that could fund it … but then to see during the campaign Albanese to announce a men’s mental health package that was not the same as I had proposed but to not then have anything to say was really frustrating.
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Bragg regrets One Nation preference deal
The Liberal party ought to avoid making preference deals with One Nation, Andrew Bragg said.
At the end of that interview on RN just now, following from his comments about how the Liberal party ought to avoid culture war, Bragg said:
I don’t think preferencing One Nation is a good idea for the Liberal party. John Howard was right about that … It’s a very bad optical position for our party … We need to recapture the centre. Elections in Australia are won in the centre.
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Liberals ‘fundamentally misread’ Australian society – Bragg
We’ve now heard from Senator Andrew Bragg, as the postmortem on the Liberal party’s catastrophic loss in the election on Saturday continues.
Bragg’s perspective, as he has described it to RN just now, is that the party did not sufficiently focus on the economy:
Ultimately you’ve got to give people something to vote for … and I don’t think we had enough strong economic policies to win the day.
It would be wrong to blame the campaign itself, Bragg said, when “the substantial point of a political party is to develop policies that help people’s lives”. He offers some examples of what those policies could have been:
We could have done more to help households decarbonise, we could have done more to help households with mortgages, we could have done more on deregulation – and I think the deregulation piece is potentially very big for small and large businesses to help them to invest … There’s a lot of things we could have done better.
Another fundamental problem, he said, was that the Liberal party didn’t really understand what Australians wanted.
You’ve also got to understand the society in which you want to lead ... I think the work from home is a good example of fundamentally misreading Australian society or picking issues that are focused on one minority group … [Australians] don’t want to see division. It’s important that we focus on economic issues and avoid these culture war issues at all costs.
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Sharma says Liberals face ‘existential crisis’
The Liberal party is facing “an existential crisis”, Liberal senator Dave Sharma said on ABC radio this morning.
He told RN:
There is no way we can ever hope to be the party of government unless we rebuild our appeal and our offering to those populations in the big cities, and then that will have to be our mission and will have to be, I think, probably our overwhelming focus as a party.
While the Liberals have a coalition agreement with the Nationals, Sharma said he believed they understood – “and we need to be clear on this” – that they appeal to “different parts of Australia with different priorities and different values at times as well”.
The membership of the party was “less representative of how Australia stands today”, Sharma said, and the new leader and candidates would need to better represent more of the country.
Sharma refused to be drawn on the merits of any of the mooted candidates for replacement leader after Peter Dutton lost his seat on Saturday, but said the candidate:
… would be expected to demonstrate and understanding of the reasons why we lost, quite a comprehensive diagnosis of that, and offer not just a viewpoint but a set of mechanisms and structures that will help us address those challenges. And I don’t pretend that that will be an easy or indeed an appealing task for many people.
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Welcome
Good morning.
It’s day two of the post-election wash-up, with counting set to resume and the Labor party looking to extend its majority. There are still some seats in the lower house to be determined, including the Melbourne electorate of Goldstein, where Zoe Daniel is facing off against a resurgent Tim Wilson. We’ll have more on that soon.
Meanwhile, there’s a lot of soul-searching being done in the Liberal party, with senior figures warning that it must urgently reconnect with traditional supporters, women and younger Australians if it is to find a pathway back to relevance, describing John Howard’s broad church as “broken” after Saturday’s election drubbing.
We’ll bring you all the news, analysis and updates as they come in today, so grab a coffee and let’s get stuck in.
