Australians comprehensively rejected the agenda run by the opposition and re-elected labor as a majority government.
As a result, reflecting the results of recent Canadian elections, Australia’s central right opposition lost the election, and its leader, Peter Dutton, lost his own seat.
With over 80% of the first priority vote counted, the Australian Labour Party (ALP), which endured last year’s decline in popularity, leads 77 voters and is just ahead with four more.
The liberal national coalition leads with just 29 and has a close race in another 10. Independents are ahead of the nine and may take another.
For Australia, this is the first time the Prime Minister has won a second term since 1998.
All 150 seats in the House of Representatives were lined up, with 40 of the 76 Senate seats.
The cost of living, affordable housing and energy policies that dominate the campaign have helped ALP turn its fortunes around in the past few months, widely predicted as a close-contested race.
The ALP is projected to win a total of 86 seats, rising from the 77 held in the previous election. To form a government, the party must win 76 seats.
The Union has been cut from 58 seats to just 40 seats, with another 10 being sent to independents (including “teal”) and not at the Greens.
However, there are no results for Western Australia (WA) seats yet, as votes have ended more than the East Coast due to time lags. But now, WA is a very red state and could solidify the national victory for workers as they re-elect a series of state ALP governments.
Australia is unique in its priority voting system, different from the “first past of the post system,” where voters can select multiple parties on the ballot, and these votes can be redistributed to other candidates. Furthermore, there is a forced voting in this country, which changes the nature of the campaign in a significant portion of voters, often with little involvement with politics.
Workers also sweep the marginal seats
Labour also holds all its margins, but has acquired most of the margin seats previously held by the Union.
The magnitude of the victory was once explained by the seat of Bennolon, the Blue Ribbon Liberals represented by former Prime Minister John Howard, but the redistribution turned it into the most remote labor seat.
However, Laxale recorded a big swing of 10.3% against Liberal Scott Yung, turning blue-blue-red, despite the liberals pouring huge resources into trying to get their seats.
It is also evident in Hughes, a seat the Labour Party has not held in nearly 30 years. So, ALP’s David Moncrieff is expected to beat the 8.9% margin of liberal Jennyware.
This was Carare’s traditionally conservative country heartland seat, abandoning his party and facing them, and the opposition rejection of voters often frowning on internal politics, but it didn’t affect the newly minted independent Andrew Zee. He managed to beat the replacement as Nationals candidate Sam Faraway with a swing of 23.2%.
The results of that magnitude have been repeated nationwide, with a national swing towards at least 4% ALP.
The only state the Union has done better than Labor is its Queensland home, which has so far won 14 seats in the ALP 11. It was particularly inadequate in Victoria, earning just six for workers 22.
Opposition leaders lose their seats
But the most painful defeat of the liberal nation must be Dutton’s Dixon seat, who went to Ali France in the Alps with a swing of 9.3%. In Canada, the situation was reflected in Canada with the defeat of Pierre Polyeive.
Dutton was challenged with a collaborative campaign from workers, but also a teal independent campaign.
The results were unexpected as most people, including pollers and politicians, predicted close races, although the workforce was likely to move slightly forward and form minority governments. The final outcome changes when early votes and Western Australia count votes, but it is clear that labor is the majority in Parliament.
And if party support is reflected in the Senate vote, the outcome may not be known for a month now, but it may not need to cut back on deals with Independence and small parties to pursue the legal agenda.
Falls to the final hurdle
The coalition has done substantial polls last year, reaching the point where it is predicted to be a chance to beat the minority government. This was a historic result, as no party had lost its government in one period since 1931.
But from the beginning of this year, when the campaign officially launched earlier last month, the coalition began to be mitigated, especially with the decision to slash 41,000 civil servants, drive government workers back to offices, and even a pledge to avoid the obvious promotion of private nuclear energy policies.
Many of these decisions came in media and Labour scrutiny, and were also linked to coordinated efforts to disengage the Central Right Party from the Make American Great Again move. In fact, in one instance, Senator Jacinta Price walked around the comments.

Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton is standing with his family as he admitted defeat in the general election at the Liberal Election Night event held in Brisbane, Australia on May 3, 2025. Patrick Hamilton/AFP via Getty Images
Minor parties, play state for independents
The Teal Independent, backed by the Climate 200, mainly holds seats with increased margins, but voters seem to have decided that Greene is not needed in the House and will lose seats in Griffith and Brisbane (sitting MPs came in third).
However, the party may retain influence over the direction of workers if it is capable of holding 12 Senate seats.
Thiel has been promoted as an independent candidate to appeal to wealthy, white-collar voters who are keen on more climate action and government transparency. At the same time, their preferences often flow to labor.
Meanwhile, the suburban independent Die Le, a former liberal candidate, sees Fowler’s seat, which had a margin of 1.1%, as he holds a 0.3% swing.
Faced with finding a new leader before Congress reopens, the liberals face the prospects of several conditions in the political wilderness, unless they can rebuild their structure and platform over the next three years and convince voters that it is a viable alternative government.