On March 2, 1996, Liberal Prime Minister John Howard was elected to Australia’s parliament, ending 13 years of Labor government with Bob Hawke, then Paul Keating at the helm.
The loss forced Labor to take stock and rethink its strategy. The Coalition had gathered 94 seats, in stark contrast to Labor’s 49—a crushing defeat and a true landslide.
While Labor’s win in 2025 isn’t quite a landslide, Griffith University political expert Paul Williams believes the Coalition’s loss will prompt the party into the same level of self-reflection.
“Liberals are facing the same existential crisis as Labor after Howard was elected,” he told The Epoch Times.
Peter Dutton—despite some success in early polls—not only lost the election, leaving a Labor majority to govern, but also lost his seat of Dickson, which he has held since 2001.
With ample criticism from the public directed at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s first term amid a financial and housing crisis, what happened to deliver the Coalition their worst polling results since formation?
Labor’s Campaign Resonated With Aussies
Williams says parties need three elements to successfully pull off an election–good policy, good leadership, and a good campaign. He noted that former Coalition leader Tony Abbott and Labor leader Bill Shorten were among those who had failed to tick off all three.Even a good leader won’t make it past the finish line if their policies aren’t strong enough, Williams says.
When it comes to Dutton, Williams believes that his policy agenda, centred on nuclear power and fighting “woke-ism,” was something that didn’t resonate with cash-strapped voters wanting material relief.
In his opinion, talking more persistently about tactile cost-of-living measures rather than topics like whether Woolworths was going “woke” would have placed Dutton in a better position.
Meanwhile, he says Labor’s more rudimentary take on living costs resonated with the public.
While concerns over inflation and ballooning power prices were evident during Albanese’s first term, Williams says Labor made enough short- and long-term commitments to keep the party above water.
“I don’t think they could do much more,” he said.
“It was a good economic mantra and they used practical political tools like electricity rebates and free TAFE.”
Labor picked up eight seats in this election.
“I think it was actually a good term,” he said.
“For a first-term government that’s had a troubled term, it’s remarkable, it’s historic.”
Lack of Policy Handed Election to Labor
Graham Young, the executive director for the Australian Institute of Progress, acknowledged that Labor had recorded a historic victory, while the Coalition was left for the first time in history with a leader losing their seat.He said if the election outcome was really based on the economy, Labor should have lost.
“Australia has had the worst economic performance of any G20 country over the last five years,” Young said.
“High inflation, and a decrease in productivity, housing at record levels of unaffordability for both buyers and renters, debt and deficits without end.”
Young said great Coalition leaders in the past had “sharpened” the differences between the parties, but Dutton and the current Coalition had sought to minimise differences by matching Labor’s “bribes.”
“Labor’s strategy was to bribe voters to vote for them,” he said, pointing to promises to increase spending on Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, and cushioning rising electricity costs with subsidies.
Young says Labor has delivered their spending promises with borrowed money, meaning it will be the youngest voters left to pay it back.
Ultimately, while Williams and Young disagree on whether Labor ran a good government, both thinkers seem to agree on one thing—the Coalition didn’t go hard enough on policy.
“At the end of the day, the reason for voting for the Coalition was that they would give you a tax rebate of $1,200 and temporarily lower petrol excise by 25 cents. That was the final election day message they delivered,” Young said.
“They forgot to say they would also raise taxes to pay for their defence promises. So here we had the party of smaller government promising larger government, and Labor-lite.”
