Labor wins with a superior campaign and weak opposition – now it’s time to make the second term really matter

By Chris Wallace, Professor, School of Politics Economics & Society, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra

Superior campaigning by the Labor machine, a lift in the personal performance of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and a woeful campaign by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have seen Labor re-elected for a second term.

Albanese will go down as one of the luckiest Labor leaders in Australian political history. He faced two deeply unpopular and somewhat odd Coalition leaders – Scott Morrison in 2022 and Dutton in 2025 – and edged out both to first win, and now retain, power. Dutton even lost his seat.

Albanese was lucky, too, that the distress and dysfunction evident in the United…

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