Coalition look to pick up pieces after election blowout
Andrew Brown and Jacob Shteyman |
The coalition’s election post-mortem has begun after a stinging repudiation from voters left the Liberal Party leaderless and contemplating its worst ever result at a federal election.
Peter Dutton suffered the ignominy of becoming the first opposition leader to lose his seat, with his electorate of Dickson falling to Labor.
With his shock defeat, the search now begins for Mr Dutton’s replacement to fill the leadership vacuum.
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley and coalition frontbenchers Dan Tehan and Andrew Hastie are considered front runners for the party’s top job.
The coalition was ahead in the polls going into 2025, before voters dramatically swung back to Labor, with questions being asked about what the party needs to do to recapture support.
With a primary vote of just 31.8 per cent, it’s the lowest total the party has received at an election in its history.
Liberal Keith Wolahan, who’s likely to lose his Victorian seat of Menzies, says the coalition needs to re-examine its policy offerings to city voters, with many traditional blue-ribbon seats now being held by independents.
“It was clear that our party has an issue in urban Australia, which is where most people live. Most people live in cities,” he told ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.
“We need to really dig deep and think about who we are and who we fight for and who makes up Australia.”
South Australian Liberal senator Alex Antic was scathing of the platform the party put to voters.
“It simply didn’t have policy that resonated … many of the policies were, in my mind, reminiscent of a mobile phone contract, for the first 12 months you’ll get something free,” he told Sky News.
“Unfortunately, we’ve sent the troops into battle without ammunition.”
With Labor’s landslide win, the coalition was wiped out of seats entirely in Tasmania and Adelaide, while also failing to win back blue-ribbon seats in Melbourne and Sydney.
Nationals Leader David Littleproud said the parliament would be poorer without Mr Dutton in its ranks.
He said the coalition needed to closely examine where it went wrong.
“It’s just time for us to reflect as a coalition and to come back and to dust ourselves off. You’ve got to learn the lessons of this and move on,” he told Sky News.
The coalition suffered a negative 3.1 per cent swing on Saturday night, with senior MPs, such as Michael Sukkar and David Coleman, also set to lose their seats.
AAP
