Category Archives: Australian election 2022

Anthony Albanese’s election victory restores the faith of Labor’s true believers

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With many supporters still bearing the scars of the 2019 election loss, it was only when the Western Australian results streamed in that they dared to dream

It was only around the time the pyramid of Albo ale cans was built – red cylinders piled four rows high – that Labor supporters started daring to believe they’d gotten home.

Nine years in the wilderness of opposition and three crushing defeats had put up a wall of doubt among Labor faithful that they could pull this off. Three years of what many in the camp called “PTSD” from the 2019 election was taken down, brick by brick as the ABC’s Antony Green called another seat for Labor, or another loss for the Liberals.

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Senate may have a progressive majority as Greens and David Pocock make election gains

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If Saturday’s count points to the final result, Anthony Albanese’s government will not face a hostile upper house

While election night coverage was mostly focused on the House of Representatives, there has been a significant shift to the left, potentially setting up a progressive Senate majority, unlike the deadlock experienced by the first Rudd government.

Labor and the Greens hold only 35 seats in the outgoing Senate, meaning they need to win four more for the Greens to hold the sole balance of power. Labor will want to avoid the deadlock experience from 2008 to 2011, when Labor needed the Greens, Nick Xenophon and Family First senator Steve Fielding to pass legislation. This deadlock led the Rudd government to instead work with the opposition on climate legislation, among other issues, and thus opened up the space for Tony Abbott to wreck the government’s agenda.

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Western Australia goes all in on red – and it could deliver Labor majority government

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Large swings in WA meant the Liberals lost Hasluck, Swan, Pearce and Tangney and will have just five seats – down from 10 – after the election

It wasn’t quite the bloodbath the Liberal party suffered in Western Australia’s state election in 2021, but a huge 11% swing to Labor has proved crucial to the Coalition’s federal election defeat.

The “red wave” in the west was the biggest swing nationally and could deliver Labor a parliamentary majority.

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Australian election 2022: Anthony Albanese ‘humbled’ to be next PM as voters abandon Coalition

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Labor leader pledges to implement Uluru statement and to end climate wars, while Scott Morrison says he will stand down as Liberal leader after defeat

Anthony Albanese will be Australia’s next prime minister, leaving the Coalition in disarray after it lost more than a dozen seats to Labor and independents in an election that has transformed the country’s political landscape.

Declaring victory shortly before midnight on Saturday, Albanese thanked voters for the “extraordinary honour” of becoming the nation’s 31st prime minister, and said he would work in government to bring Australians together.

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Clive Palmer’s massive advertising spend fails to translate into election success for United Australia party

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UAP vote increases slightly to around 4.7% but was exceeded by the One Nation vote

Clive Palmer’s mammoth campaign spend of close to $100m has failed to deliver his party results, with its primary vote failing to reach 5% across the country.

In both regional and metropolitan areas, the United Australia vote increased slightly to about 4.7%, and was strongest in Queensland where it polled close to 6%.

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Anthony Albanese claims election victory over Scott Morrison in 2022 federal election – as it happened

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Anthony Albanese arrives for speech; Scott Morrison to step down as leader after conceding defeat; ‘Liberal family suffered a terrible day,’ Peter Dutton says; Labor claims Reid; Zoe Daniel claims victory in Goldstein; Allegra Spender wins Wentworth from Dave Sharma. This blog is now closed

I’m a fairly big footy fan, but not sure how much all these analogies mean to the rest of voters (and I believe kicking into the wind can actually be an advantage in rugby union sometimes?)

On Weekend Today, Scott Morrison managed to turn a question about whether he has BBQ sauce on his democracy sausage into a stump speech about jobkeeper and co-funding the hospital system during the pandemic. We can’t fault him - those are more important issues than what he was asked.

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Federal court orders removal of anti-Labor signs in three Victorian electorates

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Labor sought urgent injunction to remove misleading campaign material in Higgins, McEwen and Hawke that used Greens colours and read ‘For our future, put Labor last’

The federal court has ordered the removal of anti-Labor campaign material appearing across three electorates in Victoria, including the ultra marginal seat of Higgins.

Labor on Saturday sought an urgent injunction to remove campaign material appearing in Higgins, McEwen and Hawke, which used the Greens’ party colours and read “For our future, put Labor last”.

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Scott Morrison breaks own rule against commenting on ‘on-water matters’ to confirm asylum boat intercepted

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PM says Australians ‘need to vote Liberal and Nationals’ so he can stop future boats, despite Labor’s identical policy on boat turnbacks

Scott Morrison has breached his own rule against commenting on “on-water matters”, confirming an asylum seeker boat from Sri Lanka has been intercepted.

In a last-ditch pitch to voters on election day, Morrison told Australians they “need to vote Liberal and Nationals” for him to be there to stop future boats, despite Labor having an identical policy to intercept and turn back boats where safe to do so.

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‘Caught unawares’: Covid is preventing Australians in hospital from voting

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Mobile polling in health facilities was stopped amid the pandemic and patients in hospital unexpectedly have no way to cast their ballot

Australians unexpectedly admitted to hospital before the election are struggling to cast their vote due to a decision to abort mobile polling in health facilities due to Covid.

The Australian Electoral Commission announced before the campaign that it would not be sending mobile teams into hospitals to take votes in the lead-up to polling day, in an attempt to balance voting access with the risk of spreading Covid in vulnerable settings.

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Guardian Australia readers: who do you think is going to win the federal election?

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So far we’ve had a dugong, a crocodile, a turtle, betting agencies and multiple polls try to predict the result of the 2022 election. Now it’s your turn to tell us who will win

With the polls tightening in the final days of the campaign, Saturday’s election is expected to be a close match.

Labor is desperately hoping the widespread anti-Morrison sentiment will be enough to deliver victory and polls suggest they are in front, but the party is still scarred by the experience of 2019, when polling pointed to an ALP win, only for its advantage to evaporate on the day.

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Final polls roll in as Albanese and Morrison hit campaign home stretch – as it happened

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Roy Morgan poll puts Labor ahead; Greens hopeful of picking up Senate seats; eligibility for telephone voting formally changed; health authorities give monkeypox update ; Julia Gillard says Labor would be ‘a government for women’; at least 52 Covid deaths recorded. This blog is now closed

The voting issue is gaining momentum.

Between Covid, problems for some people overseas, coronavirus impacting the available workforce and the ability to open up booths, particularly in rural and regional communities, and the impact of floods in northern NSW, voting has been a very fraught issue this time round, and the AEC has been working overtime trying to plug the gaps.

That is up to them. I have always respected the decisions of Australians, those quiet Australians as I refer to them, they are out there working hard every day and they are considering their choice very carefully.

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Rainy election day in Sydney and Brisbane won’t dampen democracy sausages

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Weather bureau says wettest conditions expected for voters in Queensland but mostly fine weather likely in other capitals

It’s set to be a chilly and rainy election day in parts of Australia’s east coast, while other major cities look likely to enjoy perfect weather to exercise their democratic right.

Voters in Sydney and Brisbane will probably need to bring umbrellas and wear coats to the polling booth on Saturday, with rain and light winds predicted through the weekend. Citizens in Melbourne and Adelaide can expect clear and mostly sunny voting conditions with some clouds and the chance of late rain in Perth.

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Dugong sees red: Pig the sea cow predicts Labor will win Australian election (sort of)

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In completely unscientific experiment the Sydney Aquarium resident sided with a tortoise and crocodile in predicting Anthony Albanese victory

Pig came out of the deep, a slow-moving mass in search of an answer to the question arresting the mind of the nation: who will emerge from the federal election victorious?

The dugong’s performance was precise and assured. A red and blue toy representing each major party were dropped into Pig’s enclosure, and after mere moments consulting his mystic powers, he disappeared below the water’s surface.

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Cabinet committee blocked plan to double Australia’s support to Pacific, election-eve leak reveals

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‘Extraordinary’ revelation about national security decision shows the government is ‘falling apart’, Labor says

The Morrison government has been hit by an election-eve leak that cabinet’s national security committee blocked a proposal by the foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, to double Australia’s support to the Pacific.

Labor said the “extraordinary” pre-election leak, first reported by the Australian newspaper, showed the government was “falling apart”, while Scott Morrison insisted the committee was “extremely tight”.

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Who will win? The seats Labor and the Coalition need for victory in Australia’s 2022 federal election

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The magic number for majority government is 76 lower house seats. Here are the possible scenarios in the Australian election

With the polls tightening in the final days of the election campaign, both major parties are preparing for a tight contest on Saturday.

Labor, after carrying the scars of the 2019 loss which it was widely expected to win, is being more cautious about predicting wins from the Liberal party this time round.

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United Australia Party may have more backing than polls suggest, with voters too embarrassed to voice support, analysis shows

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Hour-long TV ads on commercial networks aired before media blackout as part of fringe party’s projected $70m 2022 federal election campaign spend

Clive Palmer’s United Australia party is burning through its projected $70m election advertising spend, including hour-long television commercials, as a data analyst warns the fringe party could have more backing than polls predict, with some voters embarrassed to voice their support.

At 9.45pm on Wednesday – hours before the blackout for election ads on broadcast media came into effect – Channel 10 ran an hour-long UAP ad which marketing analysts believe cost up to $600k but would have been discounted due to the mammoth ad spend by the party.

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Independent to lodge legal challenge after AEC anomaly prevents as many as 100,000 Covid-positive Australians from voting

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Monique Ryan says she will lodge federal court challenge as commission admits people who tested positive early this week but didn’t register for postal voting ‘may not be able to vote’

A high-profile independent candidate is taking legal action after the Australian Electoral Commission conceded an anomaly means some people – possibly in excess of 100,000 – isolating with Covid may not be able to vote in Saturday’s election

Guardian Australia understands that Monique Ryan, the teal independent candidate in Josh Frydenberg’s seat of Kooyong, will on Friday lodge an application in the federal court seeking to test the legality of a regulation that the AEC has conceded will prevent some Covid positive people in isolation on election day from being able to cast a vote.

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Australian federal election 2022 live: Plibersek says Albanese has a ‘tough job’ as polls tighten

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AEC concedes some Covid-positive Australians ‘may not be able to vote’: prime minister responds after Labor announces policy costings; Covid and illness lead to drop in working hours; nation records at least 52 Covid deaths. Follow all the day’s developments live

Scott and Jenny Morrison are visiting Whitemore in the Labor-held electorate of Lyons in Tasmania this morning.

Brian Mitchell holds Lyons on a margin of 5.2%, although his buffer was inflated by the disendorsement of his Liberal opponent mid-campaign in 2019 for anti-Islamic social media posts. Morrison is still on the offence, seeking gains to offset expected losses elsewhere.

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‘Please tell me he hasn’t gone to hospital’: Morrison the bulldozer knocks over a child while playing soccer

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Prime minister accidentally crashes into under-8s player Luca Fauvette during a campaign visit to the Devonport City Soccer Club in Tasmania

Scott Morrison has lived up to his self-applied moniker of “bulldozer” by crashing into a young child while playing football on the campaign trail in Tasmania.

The prime minister had the mid-match collision with the under-8s player at the Devonport City Soccer Club on Wednesday afternoon.

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Some polling stations may not open on election day due to staff shortages, AEC says

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Electoral commission urges people in potentially affected regions to access alternative voting options, and volunteer to work

The Australian Electoral Commission has said staff shortages may mean some polling stations will be unable to open for the election on Saturday.

The electoral commissioner, Tom Rogers, said the impact would be “limited” with the vast majority of Australia’s 7,000 polling stations to remain open.

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