Penny Wong won’t be fronting any of the election night television coverage this time around. Back in 2019, Labor’s Senate leader was on the ABC’s election night panel. As Labor lost the election it thought it would win, Wong had to sit, stoic, controlled, analysing the incoming shellacking for hours.
Never again, she says. In a conversation for my podcast this weekend, Wong recalls one of her more terrible nights. She says she knew by 7.30pm Labor was not returning to government, because the scrutineers in Queensland were telegraphing a blow out. “I remember calculating how many hours I’d have to be on television before Bill [Shorten] conceded,” she says.
