What we learned, 4 May 2025
With that we’re wrapping up the blog. Before we go, here are the major stories from Sunday:
Several seats remained on a knife-edge on Sunday with the results in many contests too close to call, but with Labor expected to also make inroads into the federal Senate;
Labor added a new name to its tally of significant scalps with the Nationals deputy leader, Perin Davey, expected to lose her Senate seat on Sunday morning;
Anthony Albanese says he has received a number of texts and calls from world leaders after his election win;
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has described the election result as beyond the party’s “most optimistic expectations”;
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, has lauded federal Labor’s electoral win as “emphatic and historic”;
The Nationals leader David Littleproud, who was re-elected easily, rejected a suggestion that the Coalition’s nuclear policy had anything to do with its defeat;
Recriminations over the Coalition defeat have begun, with SA Liberal senator Alex Antic saying the party should move further to the right;
Liberal moderate NSW senator Andrew Bragg says the Coalition’s road back to relevancy begins with “deeper understanding of modern Australia”;
Labor MP Jeremy Laxale says there is one person to blame for the scale of the Coalition’s loss – Peter Dutton;
Independent MP Zali Steggall said the Liberal party has lost its way and “abandoned the concepts of liberalism”;
Coalition MP Keith Wolahan, who is likely to lose his seat, said releasing policies late in the campaign was a tactical mistake;
Wolahan also said the party will need to “dig deep and think about who we are”;
Independent senator David Pocock says he is “humbled” by the scale of the swing towards him in the ACT;
Environment groups have taken a victory lap framing the Coalition’s crushing electorate defeat as the end of its nuclear ambitions.
The Marine Conservation Society says the Australian government must now do more to protect Australia’s environment.
We’ll pick things up again tomorrow.
Updated
On X, the Liberal candidate for Goldstein, Tim Wilson, has shared this image from the American sports comedy-drama Ted Lasso.
With 79.2% of the vote counted, Wilson is currently neck and neck with teal independent Zoe Daniel, who leads by just 97 votes.
Wilson is hoping the postal votes get him over the line.
— Tim Wilson (@tw4goldstein) May 4, 2025
Updated
