Australia’s opposition party has been left reeling after a bruising defeat in Saturday’s federal election, with a result that is shaping up to be its worst ever loss.
Peter Dutton, the Liberal party leader, also lost his own seat of Dickson, which he had held for the past 24 years.
Labor’s landslide victory means the Liberal party is now scrambling to find a new leader – and figure out what went wrong for them this election cycle.
Some Liberal party members have called for a “serious review”, with one adviser summing up the loss as a failure of “the Dutton experiment”.
Dutton has also become the first federal opposition leader to ever lose their own seat at the same time as losing an election, which means he has been ousted from parliament.
Labor’s Ali France defeated Dutton in his home base of Dickson in Queensland.
In his first public appearance after Labor’s emphatic win, prime minister Anthony Albanese told media outside a Sydney cafe on Sunday that “the Australian people voted for unity rather than division”.
The Liberal party’s most crushing losses were in Australia’s major cities, where party members have been all but wiped out in metropolitan areas including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Liberal MP Keith Wolahan has called for a “serious review” of the systemic issues that led to the party’s shock defeat.
“You have to acknowledge things went wrong,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Insiders program.
“We have to listen to Australians. They have sent us a message, and our first task is to hear it. And that often takes time.”
Wolahan represents the seat of Menzies in Victoria, and said it was very likely he would also lose his seat.
When asked if Peter Dutton himself was the problem, Wolahan declined to answer directly, but said he has great respect for the Liberal leader.
Some were more blunt, like Andrew Carswell, a former adviser to Australia’s last Liberal prime minister, who told the ABC “the Dutton experiment failed”.
He went on to describe Saturday’s loss as “a complete catastrophe for the Coalition”, which he said showed that Australians had “clear hesitation with Peter Dutton”.
The looming presence of Donald Trump has also been cited as a major factor for thwarting Dutton’s already inconsistent campaign, with many people drawing parallels between him and the American president.
Dutton’s loss has now set in motion the scramble for a new Liberal party leader.
Carswell was hopeful about the prospect of some “very good up-and-coming Liberal MPs” stepping into leadership roles.
Those tipped as most likely contenders for the top job include shadow treasurer Angus Taylor and deputy leader Sussan Ley.
Shadow immigration minister Dan Tehan and shadow minister of defence Andrew Hastie have also been mentioned.
But without a clear frontrunner, the Liberal party will have to try to regroup in the coming days – as well as develop a new strategy to win back the voters they lost.
