As it happened:Anthony Albanese,Penny Wong in Japan for Quad meeting;Peter Dutton expected to become Liberal Party leader

Liberal candidate for Menzies,Keith Wolahan,says the Morrison government’s rhetoric on China contributed to the party’s defeat at the election by fuelling discontent among Chinese-Australian voters.

Wolahan,who is holding on to the seat of Menzies by a wafer-thin margin after a 6 per cent swing against him,told ABC Radio Melbourne’sRaf Epstein this afternoon that he had flagged his concerns with members of the cabinet throughout the campaign.

“The response often was,‘But that’s not what we mean,we are separating the Chinese regime from the people’,butI don’t think that message and that intent got through,and it’s probably something we needed to say more and to say more clearly,” he said.

Wolahan said his team spoke to 4000 voters of Chinese background in his electorate and the feedback was clear.

“They said:‘We are normally your people,we’re small business people who care about our children having a better future and looking after our parents’,” he said.

“But they did tell us that they felt the language at times from the government was insensitive.”

With the seat predicted to remain in Liberal hands (it wasformerly held by Kevin Andrews but he was defeated in a preselection battle),Wolahan said he would focus on rebuilding trust in the party among the Chinese community in Menzies.

China’sPremier Li Keqiang hascongratulated Anthony Albanese on his election victory,ending a two-year diplomatic freeze between Canberra and Beijing.

This is a welcome development,Anthony Galloway writes. To not have had any high-level contact with Australia’s biggest trading partner for more than two years has not been ideal.

But history will judge it as the right approach. Do not forget how Australia got here.

For years,Australia mistakenly viewed China solely through the prism of an economic relationship. Canberra did this while Beijing militarised the South China Sea,picked off Pacific island countries closer to the immediate region,and committed widespread espionage and foreign interference within its shores.

Australia then started to stand up for itself in 2017,and China didn’t like it.

Read morehere.

Newly elected independentNorth Sydney MP Kylea Tink says the election of so many independents may cause a fundamental shift in the way politics,especially climate-related policy,is done in Australia.

“The most important thing I’ve heard consistently is people want to see climate science depoliticised and that there is a format and a framework that will stay in place regardless of who is in power,” Tink told ABC TV this afternoon.

Tink said she campaigned in pink,“not because I chose it but that was one of the colours the community group who found me was using”.

“I understand it makes it easier to categorise people by the colour-code system but from my perspective,we would be better described as ‘community independents’ because that is the thing we all have in common,we all come from within the community,approached by community groups and are seeking to represent our communities in the House of Representatives.

“Politics needs to move to a point where our parliament is about the people,not the parties. And it is called the House of Representatives,not the house of parties.”

Former Nationals leaderMichael McCormack has lashed his successor,Barnaby Joyce,and firebrand senatorMatt Canavan over the roles they played in the Coalition’s election defeat and confirmed he is considering a bid to regain the party’s leadership.

McCormack said Joyce was used as a weapon against the Nationals’ partner in blue-ribbon Liberal seats and that Canavan was “nuts” to declare mid-campaign that the Coalition’spolicy to reach net zero emissions by 2050 was “dead”.

The Liberal Party was decimated in its heartland seats by Labor,Greens and independent teal candidates with more ambitious climate goals and could lose up to 20 seats.

Related Article

Australia votes

Nationals could break away:Labor’s election win spurs more Coalition climate wars

The Nationals retained all of its seats but suffered swings against them in many.

“We can’t just point the finger at the Libs for those losses. We gave people an excuse to park their votes with the teals and they did so in such numbers the Libs lost,” McCormack said in an interview.

Read morehere.

Jim Chalmers already knows his way around the treasurer’s office in Parliament House.

For more than five years,he worked in the office of then-treasurerWayne Swan,who had to deal with the fallout from the 2008 global financial crisis.

While the budget deficits and huge increase in government spending to stave off a recession are what dominate the memories of that period today,what’s often forgotten is the early part of Swan’s turn as treasurer.

When Labor’sKevin Rudd swept to office in November 2007,inflation was accelerating and on its way to 5 per cent.

His predecessor’s final mid-year budget update had revealed an extra $59 billion in revenue courtesy of the pre-GFC mining boom and a strong economy. But rather than save it,John Howard promised more than $46 billion in tax cuts,handouts and spending in the election lead-up.

Read morehere.

A loss of at least 17 seats for the Liberal Party after Saturday’s election puts the size of its defeat on par with Labor’s ousting in 2013,but it’s still smaller than in previous changes of government in 2007 and 1996.

Labor has won at least 74 seats in the new parliament and the Coalition at least 56,with seven seats still too close to call.

Expand

The narrowest contest is in Deakin,where former assistant treasurerMichael Sukkar was leading Labor’sMatt Gregg by just 74 votes at 3pm.

There’s no legislated trigger for a recount of votes in tight contests,but theAustralian Electoral Commission says generally if the margin is fewer than 100 votes it will do one as a matter of course whether there’s a legal appeal or not.

In Gilmore on the NSW South Coast,Liberal candidateAndrew Constance,a former NSW minister,was trailing Labor incumbentFiona Phillips by 78 votes at 3.45pm on Tuesday. He was ahead earlier in the day but the electoral commission corrected the way some preferences had been distributed,erasing his margin.

Read morehere.

As the battle for the southern NSW seat of Gilmore remains on a knife edge,Liberal candidate and former state government ministerAndrew Constance says his party has been punished for focusing on itself rather than voters.

A few hundred votes separate Constance and Labor’s incumbentFiona Phillips,with neither side expecting a result for at least another week as counting continues.

The regional seat,which extends from Kiama in the north past Moruya in the south,could be the only Labor-held seat to flip to the Liberals following Saturday’s election,with Constance achieving a 2.8 per cent swing in the two-party-preferred vote.

“The party has been too introverted and too focused on itself,” he said. “It has to recognise its broad-based appeal is not sectional interest. The party exists for the community … there’s no such thing as a ‘heartland’ in Australian politics.”

Read morehere.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has fronted reporters at the Quad leaders’ summit in Tokyo,saying he and the other leaders have discussed climate change and the security pact between China and the Solomon Islands.

The change in Australia’s government has brought forward the country’s net zero emissions target,which has been welcomed by summit leaders,as well as the wider global climate community. However,the new PM said he will not close coal mines or change Labor’s climate policies taken to Saturday’s elections.

“We have our policy,where we will do exactly what I’ve said we would do in terms of our powering Australia plan ... It will make a big difference,” he said.

Albanese said Russia “must pay a price for its actions” in Ukraine and should be condemned unequivocally. He added Australia is prepared to provide more assistance to Ukraine.