Albanese Labor Govt Watch

[Brodlach]

If counting finished right now ALP would have 93 seats

[Booney]

If counting finished right now ALP would have 93 seats

That was paying $61

[Booney]

With preferences I reckon they end up on 91

[mighty_tiger_79]

Just saw a headline
Lambie facing a big challenge from Hanson jnr

[dedja]

Just saw a headline
Lambie facing a big challenge from Hanson jnr

Yep, Senate preferencing for the final few seats usually takes ages, and its extremely hard to predict.

In other news, offical AEC TCP updates for the seat of Melbourne - Adam Bandt.

14 of 46 polling places returned for 24.5% of the ballots:

ALP - 52.54%, 929 votes ahead
The Greens - 47.76%

ABC are stating 67.4% counted, with the following TCP estimates:

ALP - 52.2%, 3297 ahead
The Greens - 47.8%

Preference are flowing 74% Labor, 26% The Greens. Bandt needs at least a 33% preference flow to win.

[RB]

Just saw a headline
Lambie facing a big challenge from Hanson jnr

I read that article which I didn't find convincing at all. I think Hanson Jr's too far behind.

The article suggested that Liberal preferences potentially favouring ON might be crucial. Importantly though, they won't be distributed in significant numbers until the 2nd Liberal is excluded, if that happens at all, which, if it does, may not be before ON is excluded. (Even then, I'm skeptical that preference flows from Liberal votes will flow all that hard to ON over Lambie.)

The Tas senate race is the most interesting though as the last two seats could be won by any two of Lambie, ALP 3rd and Liberal 2nd. Incredible to consider that the Liberals aren't assured of winning two seats.

I said yesterday that I thought ON were a chance of winning a couple of new seats (not including their existing one in Qld. where Roberts looks favoured). My reasoning was basically because most senate contests tend to end up 3:3 left:right, and 4:2 or 2:4 splits usually only happen once, at most, in any election. It's clear that the Coalition won't get even close to winning 3 seats anywhere, so someone has to fill the void, and notwithstanding their current low quota, ON are probably best placed to arrive on top (perhaps with say 0.8 quotas) when the distribution is complete.

Labor's situation has improved even further since then, but I still think ON are competitive in both Victoria and WA v 3rd ALP candidate given the preference sources available.

[Booney]

.....aaaand now they're claiming votes have been 'lost' and the election was rigged.

Sore losers.

[Eagles2014]

.....aaaand now they're claiming votes have been 'lost' and the election was rigged.

Sore losers.

Very Trump like.....

[dedja]

AEC - 28.08% of TCP counted in Melbourne, Bandt is 1266 votes behind.

ABC - 67.4% counted, Bandt is estimated to be 4043 voted behind.

[dedja]

AEC - 28.08% of TCP counted in Melbourne, Bandt is 1266 votes behind.

ABC - 67.4% counted, Bandt is estimated to be 4043 voted behind.

AEC update - 32.9% counted, Bandt is 1449 votes behind.

[dedja]

AEC - 28.08% of TCP counted in Melbourne, Bandt is 1266 votes behind.

ABC - 67.4% counted, Bandt is estimated to be 4043 voted behind.

AEC update - 32.9% counted, Bandt is 1449 votes behind.

Further AEC update - 35.23% counted, Bandt is 1921 votes behind

ABC update - 69.2% counted, Bandt is estimated to be 4401 voted behind

[cracka]

.....aaaand now they're claiming votes have been 'lost' and the election was rigged.

Sore losers.

The good old "I dont know anyone who voted for them so it must be rigged"

[Jimmy_041]

Opinion

John Kehoe
Liberals were too left-wing on the economy

Peter Dutton’s team defied basic liberal economic principles and was punished. The natural policy for it should be to offer lighter income taxes than Labor.

John KehoeEconomics editor
May 7, 2025 – 9.12am


After Labor’s landslide election victory, a narrative has emerged that Peter Dutton’s Coalition was too conservative and right-wing to be elected by middle Australia.

While Labor-fuelled voter perceptions of this may be true on cultural issues, this narrative is completely false on economic matters.

The Liberal Party ran the most left-wing economic agenda arguably since Malcolm Frasers’ embrace of big-government and industry protectionism in the 1970s. Peter Dutton’s team defied basic liberal economic principles and was punished by voters.

Foolishly, Liberals – the supposed party of lower taxation – opposed Labor’s piddly income tax cuts and pledged to impose higher income taxes.

The Coalition was “Labor lite” on spending, matching most of the Labor’s big debt-funded outlays on Medicare. It refused to countenance cutting the out-of-control $50 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Dutton’s team supported Anthony Albanese’s spending because it feared Labor’s highly effective “He cuts you pay” slogan.

But imagine if the Coalition had flipped this by proposing income tax cuts, or indexation of the taxation thresholds. “We cut your taxes, and you pay for Labor’s higher spending and debt” could have been the retort.

Indexing the income thresholds by up to 2.5 per cent annually, in line with the Reserve Bank of Australia’s inflation target, could be marketed as “guaranteed more money in your pocket every single year”.

Liberals have lost working-age voters who face a rising income tax burden to fund bigger government. Surely, the natural political and policy terrain for the Liberals is to offer these voters lighter income taxes than Labor, not higher. Instead, the Coalition fought the election on Labor’s territory of big spending and cost-of-living sugar hits.

After preaching about Labor’s spending hitting the highest outside the pandemic since 1986, the Coalition’s costings had bigger budget deficits than Labor for the next two years.

Dutton unveiled expensive taxpayer subsidies for first home buyers. He proposed taxpayer-funded nuclear power stations, instead of just campaigning for the repeal of the moratorium on nuclear energy as a sensible first step. The Coalition promoted intervening in the energy market through a retrospective gas reservation. There were also threats to break up big supermarkets, hardware chains and insurers.

“A bold call would be to make the returning Tim Wilson shadow treasurer.”

There is nothing right-wing about these dubious policies. It was a mix of economic populism and socialism.

Liberals abandoned the smaller-government, lower-regulation, tax-cutting principles of John Howard and Peter Costello.

Dutton and his team were distracted by culture wars such as the Aboriginal flag and welcome to country ceremonies, when polls showed voters were most concerned about cost of living. They were not necessarily wrong on these issues, but they took their focus off the main game – economic management..

Under the policies of either of the major parties, Australia is on track to become a European welfare state. Higher spending, more state intervention, industry subsidies, higher debt and inevitable tax rises are coming for Australians.

Unless Treasurer Jim Chalmers takes advantage of Labor’s big majority and gets serious about productivity, the living standards of Australians will continue to stagnate. He cannot rely on a few interest rate cuts by the RBA.

The good news is the thrashing the Liberals copped will force the party to have a serious debate about who they are and what they stand for.

Costello, Australia’s longest-serving treasurer, is correct when he diagnosed the central problem of the Coalition’s economic agenda. “This election was about falling living standards and the economic failure brought about by unsustainable spending, deficit, and debt.”

“The Coalition presented no coherent policy about how to deal with these issues. In the end, it proposed to increase budget deficits for two years at least. And it managed to manoeuvre itself into a proposal to increase income taxes,” he says.

“This was the same error that proved catastrophic for Kim Beazley in 2005.”

Costello alludes to Labor’s Beazley opposing the Coalition’s income tax cuts, worth $6 a week to low and middle income earners and $65 for top earners. Beazley was soon toppled by Kevin Rudd as leader. Rudd supported the next round of massive income tax cuts by the Coalition at the 2007 election and became prime minister.

Liberals should never oppose income tax cuts – unless they have a better income tax cut plan.

Dutton and shadow treasurer Angus Taylor were seduced by accounting, not economics, in budget management. They opposed Labor’s income tax cuts to pay for higher defence spending and other sugar hits such as cutting fuel excise and a one-off tax offset for low and middle earners (the latter of which Taylor opposed).

Taylor wanted a better budget bottom line than Labor over four years, even though the Coalition pledged bigger deficits in the first two years. It was the same mentality as Labor’s Chris Bowen when he rejected the Coalition’s income tax cuts, proposed higher taxes and promised a better budget bottom line than the Coalition in the 2019 election – which Labor lost.

The parliamentary leadership rejected a proposal from Liberal campaign headquarters to gradually phase in the indexation of income tax brackets by 0.5 percentage points a year, to a maximum of 2.5 per cent after about five years.

This is expensive and requires permanent spending discipline to be affordable, which is why fiscally economic conservatives are attracted to it. Economists estimate a full 2.5 per cent indexation could cost about $4 billion a year in forgone revenue initially, rising to $10 billion a year within a decade.

But the cost to government revenue is not be as large as it seems because it could have been partly funded by reversing and redirecting money from Labor’s $7 billion annual cut to the lowest marginal tax rate from 16 per cent to 14 per cent.

Plus redirecting the $10 billion from the one-off low and middle-income tax offset could have given the Liberals at least $17 billion to play with. Moreover, governments inevitably return bracket creep over time through discretionary tax cuts periodically, so the cost of indexation is not as large as it seems.

Taylor learnt from former treasurer Scott Morrison and former finance minister Mathias Cormann’s management of the budget. Before the pandemic, they credibly restrained spending and returned the budget to balance by 2018-19. But this was only achieved through almost a decade of income tax bracket creep without any meaningful income tax relief.

To revive their fortunes, the Liberals will need to promote the underutilised talent they have remaining in parliament.

James Paterson is arguably the party’s best performer. But as a senator, he cannot be leader or in the treasury portfolio.

A bold call would be to make the returning Tim Wilson shadow treasurer. As unlikely as that seems, Wilson was the key advocate when the party last won an economic debate over franking credits at the 2019 election. As a mere backbencher, he led the charge against Labor’s crackdown on cash refunds of franking credits and turned it into a decisive election issue.

At this election, the Coalition failed to exploit the unrealised gains tax on superannuation on savings balances over $3 million, unindexed. As a former chairman of the House of Representatives economics committee, Wilson understands economics and tax. He has a ferocious work ethic. He can prosecute an economic argument.

Wilson also defied the huge national swing against the Liberals to record a 4.4 per cent gain against teal independent Zoe Daniel.

Elsewhere, backbencher Zoe McKenzie should be promoted to the frontbench, assuming she wins the marginal Victorian peninsula seat of Flinders. She’s worked as a corporate lawyer, advised federal trade and education ministers and a Victorian premier, and has been a director on corporate boards including the NBN. Why not make her shadow communications minister and hold Labor accountable for the loss-making NBN?

Andrew Bragg, a former business lobbyist, should be considered for workplace relations or the finance portfolio to take on Labor over any further industrial relations changes or its runaway government spending.

Of course, there will be experienced frontbenchers such as Taylor, Dan Tehan, Ted O’Brien, Michaela Cash, Jane Hume, Andrew Hastie and others who will naturally deserve portfolios despite mixed performances during the campaign.

Unless the Liberals distinguish themselves from Labor by offering credible economic policies with a better narrative, people in the suburbs will not vote for them.

John Kehoe is economics editor at Parliament House, Canberra. He writes on economics, politics and business. John was Washington correspondent covering Donald Trump’s first election. He joined the Financial Review in 2008 from Treasury. Connect with John on Twitter. Email John at jkehoe@afr.com

[Corona Man]

Looks likely that 2 teals loose their seats in Vic. In even better news serial retard Bandt looks Gonski too.

[dedja]

ABC are calling Melbourne for Labor … Bandt goneski.

[wenchbarwer]

ABC are calling Melbourne for Labor … Bandt goneski.

Wonder if using Abbie Chatfield as an official spruiker damaged his vote at all?

[dedja]

ABC are calling Melbourne for Labor … Bandt goneski.

Wonder if using Abbie Chatfield as an official spruiker damaged his vote at all?

I suspect he managed to lose the seat all on his own

[whufc]

ABC are calling Melbourne for Labor … Bandt goneski.

Wonder if using Abbie Chatfield as an official spruiker damaged his vote at all?

I suspect he managed to lose the seat all on his own

You're underestimating the damage Abbie Chatfield can cause to anyone she aligns with.

[mighty_tiger_79]

I heard a snippet of Abbie's sook.... it was top shelf

[Jimmy_041]

.....aaaand now they're claiming votes have been 'lost' and the election was rigged.

Sore losers.

Yeah - right

Liberals in dispute with AEC after counting error in knife-edge seat
Sumeyya Ilanbey
Victorian political correspondent

The Liberal Party is locked in a dispute with the Australian Electoral Commission over an error on election night in the close-run Victorian seat of Menzies that initially granted its candidate Keith Wolahan about 1800 votes more than showed up in a recount.

First-term MP Wolahan was fighting to hold the seat of Menzies in Melbourne’s outer-east after Labor’s Gabriel Ng far secured a 0.34 per cent swing on a two-party preferred basis.

The Australian Electoral Commission staff counted 8817 first-preference votes for Wolahan at a booth in Doncaster East on election night, but that number was reduced to 6966 votes during a recount on Sunday – a difference of about 1800 votes.

The Liberal Party supervised a second recount on Tuesday, but senior sources said they were still making inquiries about the large discrepancy between the two counts.

“The Liberal Party, their lawyers and the AEC are continuing to make inquiries,” a source told The Australian Financial Review on condition of anonymity to speak freely, shortly before counting closed for the day.

Another senior party source said that Liberal scrutineers supervised the votes being counted on election night. The following day, they were told the AEC would not be completing a recount of the booth results and could leave.

But documents seen by the Financial Review showed that a recount on Sunday afternoon without Liberal scrutineers present had identified 1800 fewer votes for the Liberal MP.

Liberal sources said the AEC told the party their staff were tired on Saturday night and made a counting error.

The commission described it as a “transposition” and “admin error”, and said all votes were always counted at least twice to account for mistakes.

“It was a transposition omission between one count and the next … as soon as we did the next count, it was fixed up,” an AEC spokesman said. “It was picked up straight away.”

Liberal insiders, who are still reeling from the disastrous election result for the party nationally, stressed they were not claiming a conspiracy or alleging wilful wrongdoing by the AEC. However, they said the saga was “disappointing”, given how close the votes were.

If the recount is incorrect, it could put Wolahan back in the race, but the party concedes it is an outside chance. As of late on Tuesday, postal votes were flowing 57-43 in Wolahan’s favour, but that was expected to narrow further in the coming days. The AEC will begin counting absentee votes later this week.

“There’s no wrongdoing, it’s just embarrassing for them,” a senior Liberal told the Financial Review.

“An MP is going to potentially lose. [About] 1700 votes effectively disappeared overnight – that’s apology territory for the AEC.”

Senior Liberals sought to reassure members and volunteers concerned about the error, and had initially expected the matter to be cleared up by mid-morning on Tuesday. Sources claimed the commission seemed to be scrambling.

Wolahan, a former barrister and army officer, was widely touted as a future leader of the party, and his expected defeat is seen as a huge loss for the Liberals.