Happy Monday everyone, Ryan here, a little bit early this week for the last Final Tally news roundup up for the 2025 Federal Election! Saturday’s vote and the aftermath was historic, so let’s get into it.

Labor wins federal election in historic landslide

The Labor Party, headed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese decisively won the federal election on Saturday, winning by historic margins. The Australian Electoral Commission is still counting votes and preferences, but as of Monday, Labor has won 85 seats with the possibility of adding 5-7 more to that total in very tight races. On top of that, Labor garnered 34.8% of the primary vote and 54.9% of the two-party-preferred vote, a massive victory for the Albanese Government. Across the country, Labor retained and even picked up seats in every state and territory. The Liberal Party was basically wiped out from all Capital cities with all seats in metropolitan Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, and most of Sydney and Brisbane going to either Labor or the Teal independents. Historically safe seats for Liberals such as Sturt in Adelaide and Menzies in Melbourne fell to Labor, and the party is setting to win around just 40 or so seats.

The Coalition was also completely kicked out of the Tasmania and failed to win seats in the Northern Territory where it hopped it could get a win. The Greens also suffered a bad night losing all but one of their seats in metropolitan Brisbane, and possibly their leader, Adam Bandt, losing his seat of Melbourne. As of Monday, its a very tight race in Melbourne, with Labor leading, so we will have to wait for a final outcome. Here in Wentworth, home of Eastside Radio, Independent MP, Allegra Spender, easily won reelection for a second term in Parliament. Overall, it was a very good night for Labor who haven’t won this amount of seats since 1987 under Bob Hawke. Labor even surpassed the amount of seats and votes they won in 2007 when Kevin Rudd won in another landslide against John Howard and the Liberals.

Peter Dutton loses his seat, Liberals trounced and remain in political wilderness

Like John Howard, one of the biggest news of the night was Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, losing his own seat of Dickson in Queensland, and thus being removed from Parliament altogether. It is a stark contrast to just a few months ago when, months of bad polls for Labor indicated that Dutton would comfortably win the election and become Prime Minister. However, much has happened since the beginning of the year. Donald Trump was inaugurated as President, slapped tariffs on Australia, and Peter Dutton just could not shake off the comparisons of himself to Trump and the MAGA movement in America.

However, I ultimately think that while Trump did have an influence on the election, I don’t think he was the deciding factor for the Coalition’s loss. Dutton ran a bad campaign, he admitted to that on election night and took full responsibility. His constant backflips of policies, negative campaigning, and use of culture wars to stoke division amongst the Australian public just didn’t sit well with voters. On top of that, the Coalition was nearly shut out of cities, and also was shut out of inner and even somehow outer suburban seats, which were historically Liberal heartlands. Many of those reliable Liberal voters in places like the Sydney suburban seats of Warringah and Wentworth reelected their teal independents instead of going back to the Liberals. If the Coalition is losing voters from seats such as those, it’s hard to see how they could ever get them back from clearly popular teals. The public also didn’t seem inclined to kick-out a first-term government, something that hasn’t happened in nearly a century since 1931.

Australians, or more notably, Queenslanders, also seem not too keen on Dutton’s nuclear policies which, in a last ditch effort to shore up support in the last weeks of the campaign, Dutton said he would build one in his electorate. That seems to have not sat well for voters in Dickson who voted in his Labor competitor, Ali France. For France, this was her third time running in Dickson against Dutton. He had held the seat for nearly 24 years since 2001.

Final thoughts and where Australia goes from here

The 2025 Federal election is over and the results are not what many of us expected would have happened back at the beginning of the year. In more ways than one, we mirrored what Canada did on Monday last week when they returned their incumbent left-wing Government to power and their opposition leader losing their seat, just like Dutton. The two countries obviously had different campaigns, with Trump’s threats creating a rally around the flag moment for Canadians to re-elect a Liberal Prime Minister, but here in Australia, it was different.

Australians reelected Labor and Albanese in historic margins, meaning the electorate wants some form of continuity, but also stability. In the face of uncertain economic times, voters chose Labor to continue on with economic recovery, albeit slow, and also to guide Australia through the next few years of uncertain geo-politics. It will be up to Labor to keep their promises to lower bills, create more housing, and help bring down the cost of living, top issues for voters this election. Anthony Albanese now has a clear mandate to do what he wants, only time will tell what he does and if he can achieve his goals.

For the Coalition, this election will lead to a reckoning of what went wrong, how a polling lead evaporated, and how an unpopular leader led the party to suffer its worst electoral performance since the 1940s. A new leader will take the helm and it will be a long time for the Coalition to rebuild. What is certain is the party will remain in opposition and the political wilderness and it will stay there until it learns the lessons of what went wrong. The Greens too will need to figure out what went wrong and how they lost their seats in Queensland. 

The only other winners of the night are the Teals. All of them running for reelection in seats like Wentworth, Fowler, Warringah, etc were reelected, and a few more could be added to the mix once final votes are counted. They have proved to be a lifeline for mostly suburban Australians who are tired of both parties. 

Overall this election’s results have seen historic. We saw an Albanese comeback that many of us didn’t expect. We saw the Labor Party win by massive proportions that Australia hasn’t seen in decades. And most importantly, we saw democracy in action, working as it should, with both leaders displaying humility towards the other in their speeches on election night.

For Eastside Radio, I’m Ryan Mercado, signing off. Thank you for following me over these last weeks with my election coverage both in these news roundups and on the Final Tally Radio show. I hope I was able to help you all understand Australia’s often sometimes complex electoral system, as well as understanding world news. 

Take care everyone.