Anthony Albanese has secured a stunning federal election win while delivering a devastating result for the Coalition that cost Peter Dutton his own seat.
As counting continued on Saturday night, Labor secured an improved majority with Albanese becoming the first prime minister to win a second term since John Howard in 2004.
“Today, the Australian people have voted for Australian values, for fairness, aspiration and opportunity for all,” Albanese told a raucous crowd of Labor supporters at Canterbury-Hurlstone Park RSL Club in Sydney’s inner-west.
“Australians have chosen to face global challenges the Australian way, looking after each other while building for the future.”
As of 10pm, the ABC had Labor on 86 seats – a clear majority – while the Coalition were on 39 seats, a massive 18-seat collapse.
Some 16 seats were in doubt.
The opposition leader was the biggest casualty of what some Liberal MPs were calling a “bloodbath”, losing his marginal Brisbane seat of Dickson to Labor’s Ali France.
“We did not do well enough during this campaign,” Dutton told Coalition supporters in Brisbane.
“That much is obvious tonight and I accept full responsibility for that.”
Dutton commiserated with fellow Coalition MPs who had lost their seat but said “we will rebuild”.
“We have been defined by our opponents in this election, which is not a true story of who we are,” he said.
“But we will rebuild from here, and we will do that because we know our values, we know our beliefs, and we will always stick to them.”
Dutton said he had called Albanese to concede defeat and told the prime minister how proud his late mother Maryanne would be of her son.
The Liberal frontbenchers Michael Sukkar and David Coleman, and the outspoken backbencher Bridget Archer, were also set to lose their seats as Labor secured swings across the country.
Queensland – traditionally one of Labor’s weakest states – swung heavily behind the government, which was set to pick up the seats of Bonner, Leichhardt, Petrie and Forde.
The feared backlash in Victoria never eventuated, with Labor on track to win Menzies as well as Sukkar’s seat of Deakin.
The Liberals were wiped out in Tasmania, losing the seats of Braddon and Bass, and lost the prized seat of Sturt in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, declared the victory “a win for the ages”.
Albanese reached polling day optimistic of retaining majority government after outperforming Dutton during the five-week campaign.
Ahead in the polls just months ago, the Coalition suffered a collapse in support amid policy confusion, damaging comparisons with the US president, Donald Trump, and Labor’s attacks on its proposed nuclear reactors and supposed plan to gut Medicare.
Albanese, 62, has pitched himself as a steady hand to guide Australia through a period of global turbulence turbocharged by Trump’s tariff war.
