He's First Aussie PM to Win 2nd Consecutive Term in 20 Years

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has become the first Australian prime minister to win a second consecutive three-year term in 21 years. Opposition leader Peter Dutton conceded defeat in Saturday's election, saying, "We didn't do well enough during this campaign, that much is obvious tonight, and I accept full responsibility for that." He added, per the AP: "Earlier on, I called the prime minister to congratulate him on his success tonight. It's an historic occasion for the Labor Party, and we recognize that."

• The Australian Electoral Commission's projections gave Albanese's ruling center-left Labor Party 70 seats and the conservative opposition coalition 24 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, the lower chamber where parties need a majority to form governments. Unaligned minor parties and independent candidates appeared likely to win 13 seats.

• Election analyst Antony Green predicted Labor would win 76 seats, the coalition 36, and unaligned lawmakers 13. Green said Labor would form a majority or minority government and that the coalition had no hope of forming even a minority government.
• Energy policy and inflation have been major issues in the campaign, with both sides agreeing the country faces a cost-of-living crisis. The ruling center-left Labor Party had branded the conservative Liberal Party's opposition leader "DOGE-y Dutton," accusing his party of mimicking US President Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency run by Elon Musk. "We've seen the attempt to run American-style politics here of division and pitting Australians against each other, and I think that's not the Australian way," Albanese said.

• The election is the first in Australia in which baby boomers, born between the end of World War II and 1964, are outnumbered by younger voters.
• Going into the election, Labor held a narrow majority of 78 seats in a 151-seat House of Representatives; there will be 150 seats in the next Parliament due to redistributions. A loss of more than two seats could force Labor to attempt to form a minority government with the support of unaligned lawmakers.
• There was a minority government after the 2010 election, and the last one before that was during World War II. The last time neither party won a majority, it took 17 days after the polls closed before key independent lawmakers announced they'd support a Labor administration.

(More Australia stories.)