Anthony Albanese set to return as Australia PM as Labor wins federal election

Anthony Albanese is set to return as Australia prime minister as his Labor party has won the federal election.

Even Opposition leader Peter Dutton lost his seat of Dickson, in Brisbane to the Labor’s candidate Ali France. Earlier, ABC News declared his Liberal-National coalition had lost the election. Dutton later conceded defeat and said he had called Albanese to congratulate him.

He acknowledged the Liberal Party did not do well in the election campaign and did not have the night it wanted.

If Labor wins a majority, Anthony Albanese would stay on as prime minister and pick a new group of ministers from the Labor members who get elected. Earlier, he said that if he wins again, he’ll travel to Washington to meet with Trump very soon.

However, it’s also possible that Labor wins a minority government, which is what the polls suggested before the election.

Albanese has said that he won’t make a deal with the Greens party or independent politicians to form a government. But, he could try to get agreements with other politicians who aren’t in the main parties, called cross-benchers, for “confidence and supply.”

This means they’d promise to support the government in important votes, like votes of no confidence, and to vote for spending bills so the government can do its job. Ideally, these agreements wouldn’t involve any policy changes.

Minister for Housing Clare O’Neil later explained why the Labor party was projected to win what he called a “cost of living election”.

“The biggest thing that has been going on in this election is the cost of living. This was a cost of living election. "

“Peter Dutton did a good job through the term exploiting grievances. But when it actually came to the moment for him to explain how he was going to address the concerns that he was raising, he had nothing to say.”

In the last federal election, which took place in 2022, the Labor Party won a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives. Out of the 151 seats available, they secured 77. The Liberal-National Coalition, won 58 seats. The Greens party bagged four seats.