Category Archives: Labor party

Adam Bandt concedes defeat in seat of Melbourne as Greens leadership talks loom

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Greens leader uses concession speech to urge media to treat climate crisis ‘as if our country is being invaded’

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, has conceded defeat in his electorate of Melbourne, saying he “fell just short” of holding the seat.

“A short time ago I called the Labor candidate for Melbourne, Sarah Witty, to concede, to congratulate her and to wish her all the best as the next member for Melbourne,” Bandt said in a statement.

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Too close to call: follow the federal election results in the undecided seats here

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Things are looking rocky in Bullwinkel for Labor but it’s likely the party will hold Richmond against the Greens

Election night ended with at least 16 seats too close to call. Here you can see a list of those which were, as of Wednesday morning, still undecided and our reasons for holding off from making predictions about who will win them.

We’re going to leave the electorates on this list even after predictions have been made so if something happens you won’t miss it.

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Huge swings to Labor from Chinese Australian voters in key seats show Liberals failed to rebuild trust, experts say

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Community convincingly chooses Labor in Melbourne and Sydney seats, despite opposition efforts to engage after 2022 review

Suburbs with significant Chinese Australian populations in key marginal seats recorded huge swings to Labor of up to 30%, and strategists and analysts warn the Liberal party has failed to rebuild trust with the community.

The Liberal party’s review of the 2022 federal election found hawkish rhetoric on China cost it votes in several seats with high numbers of Chinese Australians. It called for greater community outreach and to rebuild trust before the 2025 poll.

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Victorian Labor was bracing for a federal backlash – now Jacinta Allan sees vindication

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Despite relentless commentary about the premier’s unpopularity, the state swung even harder to Labor than in 2022, while the Liberal party blame game has begun

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.

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Simon Birmingham calls out ‘broken’ Liberal party model as Sussan Ley says Coalition reflecting on results ‘with humility’ – as it happened

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Littleproud on Labor: ‘They’re a slick machine’

Finally, David Littleproud is asked about what impact Donald Trump had on the outcome after Labor sought to tie Peter Dutton to the US president throughout the campaign.

What Anthony Albanese and the Labor team were able to was to really tap into these sorts of issues and then paint a bigger picture and destroy his character.

I think there’s a lesson in how they (Labor) did politics. They did it a lot better than us, and you’ve got to acknowledge that they’re a slick machine.

I think it’s part of the contagion of the way in which American politics has infused its way in to Australian politics, but very few people would have seen this coming and would have seen it coming certainly to the extent that it has happened.

My own view is that it’s an awful influence on Australian politics and something that we would do well to repudiate. Notwithstanding, you know the strength and the warmth and the importance of the relationship with the United States, in my opinion, Donald Trump does not have a role in relation to Australian domestic politics and we would do well to make that clear.

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Australian election: Anthony Albanese claims a piece of history as scale of Labor victory stuns raucous crowd | Josh Butler

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The Australian prime minister is the first to be re-elected since John Howard – and becomes one of Labor’s biggest heroes

It might have been the surprise packet of the night, but Labor picked up as early as January that it had a sniff in Dickson.

Early in the evening – hours before Anthony Albanese raised workers’ rights, housing, gender equality, childcare, the NDIS and Indigenous reconciliation as the priorities of his second-term Labor government – the hundreds-strong crowd at his election night party grew round-eyed as results from Dickson started pouring in on the television screens.

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The polls point to a Labor win, but its primary vote is barely moving – can both things be true?

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Labor’s confidence going into Saturday’s election is tempered by gnawing anxiety about the underlying polling data

Australia’s major parties are headed for a historically low primary vote, continuing a downward trend of several decades, according to the latest from Guardian Australia’s poll tracker. Labor leads the Coalition 51.5-48.5 on the two-party-preferred measure according to our latest average, although there is still uncertainty in the polling.

The two-party-preferred vote has been trending towards a repeat of the last election, but this masks a more than two-point primary vote drop for both major parties. The votes lost by the major parties have gone “everywhere”, according to pollsters who spoke to Guardian Australia. Our model estimates the support for independents and minor parties is four points higher than at the last election.

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Labor far outspends Coalition and Clive Palmer on Google and Meta ads amid calls for change to blackout laws

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Analysis of online ad data shows parties and affiliated groups spent more than $39m for political ads across Facebook, YouTube and Google search since 28 March

Labor splurged more than $11m across Google and Meta platforms to win votes, far surpassing its opponents – including billionaire Clive Palmer – and outstripping political foes in key seats in the lead-up to polling day.

New data showed the major parties have poured cash into boosting targeted messages to social media users in tightly contested electorates, including marginal seats in Bennelong, Brisbane, Boothby, Blair and Bullwinkel.

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As Australia heads to the polls, big parties brace for rise of independents

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The soft, undecided and swinging voters are at an all-time high in Australia, while support for the centre-left Labor and conservative-leaning Coalition is low

More than 18 million Australians will head to the polls this Saturday to choose between the incumbent centre-left Labor party and its conservative-leaning Liberal/National Coalition challenger.

But about one in three voters will brush off the major contenders – led by the current prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and the opposition leader, Peter Dutton – in favour of someone else altogether, in an election marked by a cost of living crisis and the spectre of Donald Trump.

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Dutton says Labor’s super plan is a ‘quasi inheritance tax’. What’s going on?

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Many countries impose a form of inheritance tax on deceased estates, but does Albanese’s policy fit the bill?

Peter Dutton has described Labor’s plan to reduce tax breaks on superannuation balances larger than $3m as a “quasi inheritance tax”.

The description was made days out from polling day, as the major parties tore apart their opponent’s policies in a last-ditch effort to win votes.

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Australia election 2025 live: Peter Dutton to reveal Coalition policy costings; house prices rise again

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Coalition claims it will save $10bn more over four years compared with Labor. Follow today’s news live

Good morning and welcome to our live election blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then Krishani Dhanji will take over.

Our top story this morning is on the “handshake” deal by the Nationals to move One Nation up its preference list that could help win the New South Wales electorate of Hunter. The deal has been made despite Pauline Hanson’s candidate being known for calling public health officials “little Hitlers” and promoting a conspiracy theory that the climate crisis has been used to control every aspect of people’s lives.

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Donald Trump says he ‘will be talking’ to Australia’s prime minister about tariffs

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US president indicated he was aware Anthony Albanese has been pushing for an exemption to trade barriers

Donald Trump says he will speak to the Australian prime minister about trade, telling reporters he knows the Australian government has been trying to contact him.

Australia goes to a federal election on Saturday and while the incumbent, Anthony Albanese, is favoured to win, Trump could be dealing with an alternative prime minister after the weekend.

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Guardian Essential poll: Labor leads Coalition in final pre-election poll as Dutton’s approval rating slips further

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Poll also finds most Australians voting based on who will leave them better off in three years – rather than comparing situation to three years ago

Anthony Albanese holds an election-winning lead with just days left of the campaign, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll, with Labor leading the Coalition 52% to 48% on a two-party basis.

Albanese’s approval ratings have ticked up slightly since the last poll two weeks ago, but Peter Dutton’s has slipped for the fourth poll in a row, with the Liberal leader’s public standing dropping as the campaign has progressed. The Essential poll shows more people have switched their support to Labor because of the campaign over recent weeks, and that two-thirds of Australians say they’re voting based on who will leave them better off in three years – rather than comparing their situation to where it was three years ago.

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Labor says the CSIRO put a $600bn price tag on Coalition’s nuclear dreams. It’s not quite right

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Number comes from the Smart Energy Council (SEC), a renewable energy industry group, almost six months before Coalition modelling

Labor’s campaign spokesperson, frontbencher Jason Clare, claimed on Monday that CSIRO had put a $600bn price tag on the Coalition’s plans to build taxpayer-funded nuclear reactors at seven sites.

“Have a look at the work that the CSIRO has done that proves that this will cost $600bn. It won’t turn a light on for 20 years. It’ll only produce about 4% of the energy that Australia is going to need,” Clare told ABC Radio National.

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Leaders’ debate live updates: Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton meet in final election debate

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Mark Riley asked each leader what the Australian dream looks like for an average Australian in the property market today?

Peter Dutton said it “looks like a nightmare” and blamed the matter on migration:

When you bring a million people in they want a house for their kids and their family, fair enough, but what we’ve seen is Australians being displaced from home ownership, and our young Australians now, saving harder than ever, paying more rent than ever. They’re locked out of the market.

We are concentrating on supply, not just demand, because we know that’s the key going forward.

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Dutton listens to locals sharing crime stories in NT; heavy rain to hit northern NSW – as it happened

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Albanese says climate change is an “economic issue, not just an environmental one”.

He is asked about the rising pressure of home insurance for families. The prime minister responds:

We’ll continue to do what we can there. One of the things that obviously is having an impact is the increased number of extreme weather events. That’s why climate change needs to be considered to be an economic issue, not just an environmental one. Because there are economic costs to it.

Everyone who is here has been through screening … Let’s be clear about the suggestions that have been made on a range of occasions, aimed at promoting division in Australian society and in Australian debate. They’ve been made by the Coalition. They simply just don’t stack up.

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Albanese condemns Dutton’s pledge for mass public service cuts ‘only in Canberra’

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Opposition leader’s comments suggest close to two-thirds of capital’s public service roles – which include many key agencies – would be slashed

Peter Dutton has pledged to cut almost two-thirds of Canberra’s federal public servants if elected, in a move Anthony Albanese has criticised as “outrageous”.

In a testy press conference in Tasmania on Thursday morning, the opposition leader batted away questions about not visiting a single proposed nuclear power station site, as well as confusion over shifting positions on migration targets, tax breaks for electric vehicles and Coalition support for recognising West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

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Labor vows to consider strengthening Australia’s animal welfare body after shocking abattoir revelations

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Exclusive: Guardian Australia investigation into export abattoirs brings ‘necessary and commonsense’ commitment back to the spotlight

Labor will consider strengthening Australia’s independent animal welfare body following shocking revelations of welfare breaches and oversight failings in the nation’s export abattoirs.

A Guardian Australia investigation revealed on Saturday that government-employed veterinarians working inside the nation’s export abattoirs had repeatedly blown the whistle on “profound problems” with the system.

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As Dutton faces a last-minute policy inquisition, Albanese seems to be on top – and he knows it

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An increasingly confident prime minister has bounced back from his campaign missteps while a nervous-looking opposition leader is running out of time to make a comeback

Two weeks until the 3 May election day, and Anthony Albanese is cracking jokes about Star Wars.

Every profile and sketch of the prime minister during this campaign – which is now past its halfway – speaks of the confidence and even swagger Albanese projects as he travels the country. It is one of the starkest differences to his 2022 campaign, which was dominated by missteps: forgetting key economic figures, then his untimely Covid diagnosis and images of being chased out of a press conference by journalists.

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Endangered greater gliders recorded in proposed great koala national park in NSW as logging continues

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Conservation groups call for immediate action to protect wildlife as two-year wait for Labor’s promised creation of park continues

Government surveys have found tens of thousands of endangered greater gliders could be living within the proposed area for a great koala national park in New South Wales, prompting new calls for the area to be quickly protected from logging.

Data from aerial drone and ground-based surveys at 169 sites within the proposed park were used to model the likely presence of Australia’s largest gliding possum across the entire 176,000 hectares the NSW government is considering for protection.

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