From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM. A week ago, most pundits were betting on a hung parliament. Instead, Labour has claimed one of the biggest majorities in modern history, eclipsing even Bob Hawke's first term result. Anthony Albinezi now commands near unquestioned authority inside his party, but a celebrations settle, questions are already beginning to emerge about how his government will handle this mandate and the risk of hubris that
comes with it. Today columnists for the Saturday Paper Paul bon Jorno on the ins and outs of Labour's historic win and how quickly triumph can turn to trouble. It's Friday, May nine, Paul, what a difference a week makes. Last week we're taking predictions and most bets were on a hung parliament. So do you think the enormity of the win has started the sinking? Yet? For Labor people that you've been speaking.
With, well, it is quite extraordinary. For one thing, Anthony Alberanizi has returned the best election result of a Labor leader since the war, better than Labor hero's wartime heroes Curtain and Chiffley and even better than Bob Hawk, so it's historic from that point of view. Labor was always considered to be on track to win either in minority
or majority. Although I was talking to Wayne Swan, president of the Labor Party, here and he did confirm to me that Labour's polling had them on track for majority government basically from the beginning of the campaign. But he had to admit they knew there was a swing, but they didn't think it'd be that big. In other words, maybe eighty seats, but what are we heading for now.
The prediction is they'll get to ninety maybe ninety two, and that's the sort of landslide you saw from are John Howard or Tony Abbott in twenty thirteen, and the enormity there thrills them, but it certainly took them by surprise.
Given the size of the win. We've heard a lot about the mandate Albanizi now has. So what is he said this week about his first priorities in the second term.
It is great to have the honor of being back in the Prime Minister's courtyard and I do want to thank the Australian people for the very clear mandate that they've given my government.
Well is he's done a couple of things actually right from the word go on Saturday night and through a big news conference he did in the Prime Minister's courtyard on Monday. The first thing he does is he's humble, right.
I promised to be a prime minister for all Australians, those who voted Labor those who didn't, and hope to earn the trust of the Australian people on an ongoing basis. We are deeply humble by the result on Saturday and we don't take a second of it for granted.
I'm not getting carried away. It's steady as you go. The way the Labor government acted in the first term is the way it's going to act in this term.
Look, we're not getting ahead of ourselves. I didn't get ahead of myself in the last three years. We had a clear mandate to government. We had a lot to turn around.
He will endeavor to fulfill the mandate that he got from the people, and he's said that there'll be no shocks or surprises. Now my reading of that is on taxation, for example, everyone believes that there's some more should be done on taxation, especially the multi billion dollar concessions on negative gearing and capital gains tax. Unless there is built up an enormous political pressure for the government to do that, you won't see it do it.
And of course everyone loves a winner, Paul, especially one Donald Trump. He said this week that Albanezy is very good and that the two are friendly. I don't know Albanise I'm very friendly with I haven't hadn't know about the election, other than he's very good, You're a.
Friend of mine.
On the other hand, he said that he has no idea who the person is who ran against him, which must have been a bit brutiful. Peter Dutton, But what is the task for Albanzi now when it comes to managing our relationship with the United States.
Well, I've been fascinated to see how Alberzi has already begun to manage this even before the election. You might remember they played a word game with Albanizi and Dutton. I think it was on Channel seven. Mark Riley put to him when I say, Donald Trump, what do you think? And Albanezi immediately said President. So in other words, Alberanizi wants to keep this on a business footing.
I mean, so, were there any promises from Donald Trump in your discussion this morning, especially when it comes to tariffs.
Well, it was a very warm discussion about the friendship between our two nations. That's so important. I've had three conversations with the President. I won't go into all of the personal comments that he made, but it was very generous.
He understands that he's the Prime Minister of Australia dealing with our principal strategic partner, and he it has to manage this partner in such a way that any damage to the relationship comes not from the Australian side, but from the American side. And I think in this there's
a big difference between US and Canada. What Trump's doing with Canada is directly damaging to Canada, while what he's done to us, in a sense, he's already given us a concession by hitting us only with ten percent tariffs and not higher ones. Although Albanizi, and this is interesting to note as well, his response to that was not to say, oh good, he good, he didn't hit as harder, but to point out that that was not the act of a friend. Alberanizi really is a bit of a
rough diamond. In many, many ways, but it is clear from his history and politics and people who do deal with him whether they're independence. Indeed, Adam Bant the Green said this during the campaign, alb an extremely good negotiator. So that's the approach I think that we're going to see going forward from him in regard to the American Alliance and our relationship with the mercurial Donald Trump.
As he said Paul albin Az, he wants to stay humble and not get ahead of himself. But given the scale of Labour's majority, is there a risk that he actually could start getting ahead of himself.
Yeah. Well, look, there's absolutely no doubt that all of the doubts that were fueled by the very bad campaign he ran in twenty twenty two that sapped him of authority within the Labor caucus the Labor Party. But now that he's had this massive win backing his own assessment of how Labor could win, his authority within the broader Labor Party has been mightily enhanced. Are you worried about Hubris?
Oh, what I'm concerned about is making sure that we seize the opportunity that we have to take this country forward. We have an opportunity to renew faith in our democracy.
I think it suffered now while we're hearing all the right things from Anthony Albanisi, how he's not going to get ahead of himself, how he's humble and he's here to serve. As when senior Cabinet minister said to me, politicians can start to believe their own mythologies.
After the break the election surprise winners and losers.
A short time ago, I called the Labor candidate for Melbourne, Sarah Whitty, to concede, to congratulate her and to wish her all the best as the next member for Melbourne, Paul.
We heard this week that Green's leader Adam Bandt has lost his seat, the seat of Melbourne, which he held for fourteen years. What do you make of that result and what impact will it have?
Well, it's interesting in one sense. The result for the Greens in the Lower House has been a disaster. Bans primary vote fell four percent in his seat and Labour's primary vote came up six But what we've also should note, not only in Victoria but up in Queensland as well, the Liberals preference to Labor not the Greens.
We needed to overcome Liberal Labor and one nation combined. And it's an everest that we've climbed a few times now, but this time we fell just short.
The other point is it really puts the Greens back to what you might call to keep the Bastard's Honors party, the balance of power party in the Senate, and the Greens come back to the Senate with all their senators in place and with the balance of power in their own right. In other words, if Labour wants to get legislation through, it can do it either by negotiating directly with the coalition, but if the coalitions playing hard to get then the eleven Greens can deliver the votes.
And there of course are a number of other seats that are on a nice age. This week the Liberals have clawed back some ground and some key contests with the Teals. So how significant has that been.
Well, you'd have to say it's pretty significant, certainly from the Liberals point of view, that they were given a slither of light in the Teal held seat of Goldstein in Melbourne.
I'm very proud, deep Bread, deep Bread, genuinely very proud to say that we are pleased to accept that we have one the seat Goldstein.
Pack Zoey Daniel Atteel Independent, they're defeated by the former Liberal incumbent Tim Wilson. Now that's important for a few reasons, especially for the Liberals. First of all, it gives them something to be happy about. But Tim Wilson is quite a political operator. I noticed that Jeff Kenned in an interview in Melbourne on Thursday, described Wilson as an attack dog back in the twenty nineteen election. He was the one who he effectively ran the campaign against Bill Shorten
on franking credits. He'll come back into the Parliament, he won't be in government anymore, so he won't have all those levers to pull, but I wouldn't be surprised if maybe they even make him deputy leader. We'll just have to wait and see on that. But look more broadly, what we've seen in the Strand Capital territory. The safe seat with a fourteen percent margin of Bean is still teetering to a Teal Independent. But it also happened over in Perth in the traditionally safe labor seat of Fremantle.
Now it looks like Labor will hang on there, but rather than having a you know, a twenty percent or sixteen percent margin. It's down to one or under one percent. Then we go to New South Wales. We see that three of the Teal independents hung on and we see that in the seat of Bradfield it looks like the Liberals might just scrape over the line. Interestingly, in that seat,
the former incumbent, a white, middle aged man. He quit the seat and the Liberals endorsed a woman and she ran the sort of campaign in Bradfield that the Teals run. So neither of the major parties can rest on their laurels. They all now have to treat every seat as one that they may well lose if they don't perform.
So the Independence and the Teals are here to stay. What role will they play in this parliament though, given Labour's massive majority.
Well in the House of Representatives, not a key role. I mean Labor will be able to get everything at once through the House of Representatives. However, what we did see in the first term, of course Labor had a majority, but it was only a single seat majority. After they appointed the Speaker, Albanzi went out of his way to interact with the Teals, even engineered often that the teals would be allowed to or encourage to amend government legislation.
So I think what we're going to see is more of that from the Albanzi government in the lower house, bit of insurance in that. But also I think Albanezi is very keen to show that he runs an inclusive government and this will be key of course to him not getting too big for his boots, as we were talking about a bit earlier.
And finally, Paul Labour now commands a huge majority, but history shows us how quickly big majorities can sour. Is there a danger that could happen?
Absolutely, there is a danger for it. You might remember that Tony Abbott in twenty thirteen, he had ninety seats in the House of Representatives, had a massive landslide, but his own party room got rid of him within a year after he and Joe Hockey's treasurer brought in a budget that broke every promise they made and was brutal austerity.
Do you need to apologize to the public and say, yeah, I'll let you down, I did lie to you, I did break a lot of promises, but hey, I'm going to rebuild from him. Well, Koshi, obviously we are determined to improve on these things. But no one said the task of budget repair was going to be easy.
There's even history going back to Paul Keating who won the sweetest victory of all. Keating had close to a one hundred ninety a seat majority then, but he was wiped out by John Howard three years later. There is one difference in my view here, however, the elections that saw Labor defeated by Howard and then Tony Abbott were at the end of a very tired old Labor government that had pulled itself apart over egos, not over policy,
not over direction, not over identity. So once Labour sorted out the egos this time, we really do have the Liberal Party looking like it's in its death throws unless it really does come to terms with who it is, what it wants to be, and whether it wants to look to Sir but Menzies order, Peter Kredlin and Sky after.
Dark, Paul, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you, Daniel Bye.
Also in the news, MPs have arrived in Canberra ahead of Labour's first caucus meeting in Parliament House later today, where the Prime Minister is expected to finalize his next ministry, Albaneze. He says he expects the new ministry to be sworn in at Government House on Tuesday next week. And Peter Dutton has made his first public appearance since losing his seat in Parliament, returning the Canberra to briefly thank his supporters.
When asked to comment on he should replace him, the former Opposition leader said he would maintain a dignified silence. Seven Am is a daily show from Schwartz Media in a Saturday paper. It's made by Atticus Bastow, Shane Anderson, Chris Dangate, Eric Jensen, Ruby Jones, Sarah McPhee, Travis Evans, Zoltenfetcho and me Daniel James. Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio. Seven Am will be back on Monday. Have a great weekend.