Billionaire tells Daily Mail ‘left media’ frightened party away from ‘anything Trump’ and calls on Liberals to adopt ‘commonsense and truth’ principles Gina Rinehart has encouraged the Liberal party to stick with Donald Trump-like policies after the opposition’s electoral thumping on Saturday night in a campaign overshadowed by the controversial US president. The mining billionaire also singled out Italy and Hungary, which are governed by populist rightwing coalitions, as countries Australia could aspire to, where people were “abandoning the myths or untruths of the left” and returning to “common sense and truth”. In a lengthy statement to the Daily Mail on Monday Australia’s richest person broke her silence following the Coalition’s wipeout on Saturday night “The left media did a very successful effort, frightening many in the Liberal party from anything Trump and away from any Trump-like policies,” she wrote “This has been especially obvious this year with the Liberals instead becoming known as the ‘me too’ party Trump-style ‘make Australia great’ policies via cutting government tape too scarce in Australia this year to rate a mention Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email “No doubt the left media will now try to claim that the Liberal loss was because the Liberal party followed Trump and became too right Rinehart urged the Liberals to return to “commonsense and truth” principles as a first port of call while rebuilding the party which together with the Nationals could be left with as a few as 42 seats She added voters were “very short on understanding” that new investments create revenue and living standards The mining billionaire, who had cultivated a close relationship with Dutton as opposition leader then turned her attention to left-leaning voters Referencing a trip to the US before last November’s election Rinehart said she had met with former Democrat voters who had since turned Republican “There are dedicated organisations working hard to bring back common sense and truth in the USA.” Rinehart said Argentina had been a socialist country for more than a century, leaving its “people suffering terribly” before its rightwing leader, Javier Milei 1:25Newly re-elected Australian PM Albanese says he had 'warm' conversation with Donald Trump – videoThe self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” has committed Argentina to leaving the World Health Organization and the Paris accord in moves mirroring Trump. Rinehart also pointed to Italy and Hungry, governed by populist rightwing coalitions, as countries that “get it” and ones Australia should look to. Free newsletterGet the most important news as it breaks Hancock Prospecting’s executive chairwoman mostly stayed mum during the federal election, airing her policy ideas only once during an Anzac Day eve speech. To an audience that included three former prime ministers – John Howard, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison – along with Dutton and the defence minister, Richard Marles, Rinehart said Australia needed to lift its defence spending to at least 5% of GDP and invest in an Israeli-style Iron Dome defence system. At her national mining day event last November, Rinehart said Australia should learn from the success of Trump. “As I have repeatedly stated, we need to cut government tape, regulations, governments’ wastage and tax burdens across Australia,” Rinehart said. “We need a USA-style Doge [department of government efficiency] that delivers action, one that helps to return dollars to our pockets and investment back to Australia. Read more“Don’t be frightened to call for ‘make our bank accounts great again’.” The Coalition’s Indigenous affairs spokesperson, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, also came under fire for her support of Trump during the campaign, after she used the popularised catchphrase “make Australia great again” during a supporter rally in Perth. The Northern Territory senator, who was the face of the opposition’s successful no campaign, seldom appeared at other events or stops throughout the campaigning period. On Monday, Price described her sidelining as being “absolutely frustrating” given her visible role in the voice campaign. “We probably didn’t capitalise enough on the outcome of the referendum, the success of the Coalition in that regard,” she told the Kenny Report on Sky News. “The fact that we didn’t pin that to the prime minister effectively enough – I think that’s that was a lost opportunity there.” Price also compared the media to a “bunch of vultures” who “will absolutely go [at] you on one particular issue and smear you” with “another country’s president”. 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LOGIN Downloadable PDFs are a benefit of an FP subscription This article is an Insider exclusive Contact us at [email protected] to learn about upgrade options unlocking the ability to gift this article As it prepares to hold a rerun of its presidential election on May 4, Romania is improbably at ground zero of a new global struggle. A first effort at balloting in November 2024 was won by a Euroskeptic Kremlin backer after election interference, causing Romania’s Constitutional Court to annul the election, ban the candidate At the Munich Security Conference in February, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance sharply criticized Romania’s decision “Romania straight up canceled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency,” Vance said “You don’t have shared values if you cancel elections because you don’t like the result. … If you’re so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up,” he said in another speech Romania’s drama is part of a broader global story: Democratic institutions are being undermined around the world not just by external threats but from within Elected leaders use the legitimacy of the ballot box to defang judicial oversight This is not democracy at work—it is elections being weaponized to eliminate the guardrails that prevent corruption and despotism The Constitutional Court—a body whose members are appointed not elected—embodies the post-communist elite consensus that has shaped Romania’s institutions the center-left Social Democrats and center-right National Liberals which have generally traded power since the fall of communism and are widely viewed as elite pillars also rallied behind the annulment in horror at the Kremlin-aligned candidate’s success Romania’s surge of “elite” intervention—particularly in canceling a Russian-influenced election—has rendered the country an example of what U.S President Donald Trump and his allies see as a global elite conspiracy to control outcomes and suppress “the people.” Romania has become a convenient rhetorical battleground for the Trump-aligned campaign against “elites.” But it is the much-besmirched elites who are protecting liberal democracy—in Romania and in many places around the world From America’s James Madison to Britain’s John Stuart Mill the architects of modern democracies believed that liberty and reason needed protection from mob rule Constitution was designed not to reflect every popular impulse but to contain them the French Revolution’s “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,” and even the post-communist constitutions of Eastern Europe All were created not by spontaneous popular will but by relatively small groups of educated Romania’s own transition from dictatorship to democracy—beginning with its 1991 constitution after the Romanian revolution and the collapse of the communist regime—was steered by such figures who laid the groundwork for liberal institutions that endure today The country’s history produced a deep societal aversion to centralized which in turn shaped a generation of reform-minded elites who crafted institutions designed to prevent a return to authoritarianism Working alongside legal and political experts from around the world Romanian leaders consciously sought to embed liberal democratic principles into the country’s foundation: separation of powers Romania’s system remains committed to these guardrails essential to liberal democratic governance Unlike the aristocratic and philosophical elites of centuries past, Romania’s modern elites operate in a digital, democratic ecosystem—more visible, more contested, and yet more vital. They are shaped by international educations, think tanks like business magnate George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and civic initiatives promoting liberalism who would like nothing more than to turn back the clock Putin’s motivation is part of a broader strategy to destabilize democratic institutions on NATO’s eastern flank as a relatively successful post-communist state deeply integrated into Western alliances represents precisely the kind of liberal democratic model that threatens the Kremlin’s narrative of inevitable Western decay Undermining Romania also serves multiple strategic goals: testing EU resolve and sowing distrust in electoral processes high-yield theater for Russia’s hybrid warfare—especially in an election cycle vulnerable to digital manipulation and they generated tens of millions of impressions in the final days of the campaign Romanian prosecutors, according to Bloomberg requested assistance from Turkish authorities to investigate over 20,000 TikTok accounts These accounts used Turkish IP addresses and were created with Russian email domains shortly before the Romanian election The narrative promoted in the TikTok videos was a familiar stew of anti-elitism and Kremlin-aligned talking points favoring the far-right candidate Videos cast Georgescu as the only candidate who “cares about real Romanians” amid a national moral decline and promised to “give the country back to the people.” Faced with a foreign-influenced online disinformation campaign, Romania’s Constitutional Court took the extraordinary step of annulling the results later barring Georgescu from the next round of voting the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications of Romania (ANCOM) invoked the European Union’s Digital Services Act (whose purpose is to regulate online platforms to ensure a safer The body demanded algorithmic transparency from platforms and Romanian officials called for TikTok access to be suspended The richest person in the world and fervent Trump ally, Elon Musk himself, weighed in, reposting a photo of Pavel Popescu with the caption: “You can tell who the bad guys are by who is demanding censorship.” But this was not censorship It was an intervention to safeguard a democratic system under digital siege Romania’s so-called elites—including constitutional scholars many of whom were educated in Western institutions and remain committed to democratic norms—did not impose authoritarian rule some of them can be credited for correcting the outcome of an election desperately corrupted by foreign interference the system moved to protect itself from manipulation As the May election nears, concerns remain about renewed interference, but the elite-led response has restored some public confidence. Without Georgescu in the running, Simion leads opinion polls Behind him is Social Democratic Party and National Liberal Party candidate Crin Antonescu While a Simion win could cause concern for EU leaders it’s worth noting opinion polls did not predict Georgescu’s victory in the last election attempt “Liberal democracy” is not merely the act of electing leaders It is the belief that even majorities and elected leaders must be constrained by principles This is the moment when those who still believe in liberal democracy must step up—journalists and educators and also business leaders who care about more than just the bottom line that has meant using EU law to demand transparency from tech platforms and cancel tainted elections it could mean embracing civic education and media literacy while resisting populist pressure to gut institutions in these two countries and whatever the results of their next elections there will always be an important role for the “elites” in maintaining liberal democracy Mihai Razvan Ungureanu is the former prime minister and foreign minister of Romania headed the country’s external intelligence service and is a professor of history at the University of Bucharest Commenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription Join the conversation on this and other recent Foreign Policy articles when you subscribe now Please follow our comment guidelines The default username below has been generated using the first name and last initial on your FP subscriber account Usernames may be updated at any time and must not contain inappropriate or offensive language FP’s flagship evening newsletter guiding you through the most important world stories of the day Specialty rates for students and faculty. 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Unlock powerful intelligence for your team. own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment University of Canberra provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU View all partners On February 1, on The Conversation’s podcast Anthony Albanese not only declared that Labor would retain majority government but held out the prospect it could win the Victorian Liberal seats of Menzies and Deakin This was when the polls were still bad for Labor and the Coalition was confident of gaining a swathe of seats in Victoria Now Liberal Michael Sukkar has lost Deakin to Labor’s Matt Gregg while fellow Liberal Keith Wolahan says it is “more likely than not” he’ll be ousted from Menzies Obviously Albanese’s political judgement was better than most The first is how quickly things turned around But there’s a counterpoint: maybe they didn’t turn around in quite the way they seemed but many were always going to be reluctant to endorse Peter Dutton when decision-time came the extent of the decimation of the Liberals was nearly unthinkable Labor minister Don Farrell said that two days out Labor’s polling showed a majority but not this result and no clue of what direction to take a party left with hardly any urban seats and the prospect of another two terms As he enjoyed Sunday morning at a local coffee shop many commentators and stakeholders argued the government was too cautious Some urged it should tackle more robust economic reform; others wanted it to shift left Those voices will strengthen now Labor has the numbers to flex its muscles more vigorously But Albanese is wary of breaking promises – it took a long time for him to go back on his word over the stage three tax cuts – or surprising the electorate The person to watch is Treasurer Jim Chalmers “We do believe we’re an ambitious government but we know there is a sense of impatience as well when it comes to some of our big national challenges” “The best way to think about the difference between our first term and the second term that we won last night [is the] first term was primarily inflation without forgetting productivity the second term will be primarily productivity without forgetting inflation” Australia’s productivity performance is dreadful Chalmers may have to take on battles in some policy areas that are very sensitive for Labor and the unions which focus on the economy here and overseas will give Chalmers an even more central voice as well as present even tougher tests for him Chalmers was lavish in his praise of Albanese on Saturday night and Sunday; he said he had rung the PM during Saturday and “I said his was an extraordinary campaign he’s got a lot to be proud of and we are certainly proud to be part of his team” Despite Albanese indicating he will serve a full term and the result leading people to say he will be well placed to lead into the 2028 election Who will lead the Liberals into that election is absolutely unknowable The potential field for the post election leadership vote is lacklustre and whoever wins that vote could be a seat warmer That field includes shadow treasurer Angus Taylor has faced immense criticism for his performance over the past three years although she’s toned down somewhat recently Hastie has not broadened out from his defence comfort zone Tehan is experienced but does not present well to voters Dutton had a weak team around him; the next leader will have an even thinner one Even more diabolical than who the Liberal Party should choose is where it should go in its positioning and failed to win the aspirational suburbanites These constituencies have different priorities but to revive themselves the Liberals have to thread the needle between them Then there are the problems with women and younger voters The Liberals’ “women problem” has been debated for years; they seem further than ever from grappling with it The failure ranges from candidate selection to policy blindness the working-from-home debacle was a classic example of disconnect with many women’s lives The policy (later dumped) to bring public servants back to the office five days a week was driven by a woman but surely it was obvious that running this policy would be a disaster You wouldn’t need a focus group to tell you that how are the Liberals to connect with the younger voters who are now the dominant demographic But the only new generation contender in the present leadership list is Hastie Another complication for the Liberals is that the Nationals have done well This means they’ll have a bigger say in the Coalition including a bigger share of the frontbench This might push the Coalition further to the populist right A few will argue the Coalition parties should separate but this is not the answer – it hasn’t worked in the past and that could involve a tricky argument over nuclear to which the Nationals especially are deeply committed And will the Coalition commitment to the Paris agreement and the 2050 net zero emissions target come under assault The Liberals are in an extraordinarily bad place Politicians in such circumstances search for so-called “narrow goat tracks” to better ground Debris is littering any track in sight for the Liberals Their only comfort can be that politics is volatile Losers both because they have lost in the political realm while simultaneously handing over key institutions to the illiberal left That is a common charge you hear from right-wing intellectuals these days as exemplified by commentators such as Patrick Deneen Are classical liberals a bunch of pathetic losers Canada's Liberal Party secured a fourth consecutive term after a narrow win in an election that was seen as one of the most consequential in its recent history Prime Minister Mark Carney flipped his party's fortunes with a campaign focused on combating President Trump’s tariffs and threats of annexation Nick Schifrin discussed the result with Shachi Kurl of the Angus Reid Institute Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy Liberal Party candidate and interim Prime Minister Mark Carney flipped his party's fortunes with a campaign focused on combating President Trump's tariffs and threats of annexation Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney returned to his office victorious after celebrating a victory that he scripted with an unlikely co-writer President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us Carney's combative tone throughout the campaign against President Trump's taunts… President of the United States: So I think Canada is going to be a very serious contender to be our 51st day … led Carney and the Liberal Party to a remarkable reversal of fortune when former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stepped down… … Trudeau and the Liberal Party appeared set to lose by double digits vowing imperial expansion and portraying Canada not as a neighbor because we can't be expected to carry a country Anti-Trump sentiment in Canada surged and became a newfound nationalism who's led both the Canadian and the British central banks portray himself as the best candidate to take on Trump It is a scary time with what's happening across the border in the United States and I feel that Mark Carney is the serious choice for a leader who will address that really with the right level of gravitas Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre's policies and rhetoric were characterized as Trump-like they are putting one foot in Canada and one foot in the United States These Trump-propelled politics perhaps personified in the Haskell Free Library where for 120 years Americans and Canadians have been able to read across a border marked only by a line of tape Sylvie Boudreau is the president of the library's board of trustees The Trump administration will soon block Canadians from entering the U.S Boudreau says Canadians rallied against U.S The election was about who's going to be the best person to deal with Donald Trump It should have been just about our — us Canadians The Liberals failed to secure a majority and will likely have to form a coalition government one that he says will be paved without American partnership Our old relationship with the United States a relationship based on steadily increasing integration The system of open global trade anchored by the United States is over We are over — we are over the shock of the American betrayal President Trump and Prime Minister Carney spoke on the phone and Carney's office said the leaders agreed on Canada and the U.S working together — quote — "as independent sovereign nations." To decode what all this means for Canada and U.S.-Canada relations Mark Carney took over as prime minister just two months ago at a moment when the Liberal Party was way down in the polls How do you think he turned — he was able to execute this reversal of fortune thanks very much for having me this evening you have already covered in the report that you put together Trump was in many ways the main character in the narrative of the Canadian election overshadowing both Carney and his main conservative opponent So if Canadians were planning to look at their ballot question and really what was driving their vote through the lens of do the governing Liberals deserve a rare fourth term after almost 10 years in power that was pushed entirely to the side by questions of sovereignty since Canada was granted its Dominion in 1867 no one has ever threatened Canada's borders or sovereignty So this was something that really rattled Canadians It rattled their psyche and it had a profound effect also released a massive pressure valve for disaffected Liberals Carney ran a good rhetorical campaign that was not matched by Mr in the initial weeks of all of the Trump tariff annexation drama continued to try to run a campaign that was based on cost of living lots of other domestic issues at a time when Canadians were emotionally not there he managed to grow the size of his caucus in last night's vote and grow his share of percentage of popular vote I think he will probably hang on to his job it's Carney who just eludes getting a parliamentary majority by a handful of seats We played some of the sound from Carney's speech last night in which he talked about how the system of open global trade anchored by the U.S He seems to be trying to position himself as a kind of ideological leader of the free world He's talked about building a coalition of like-minded countries who share our values but it is something that has been on the minds of Canadians going back to the renegotiation of NAFTA back in 2018 So NAFTA had been going merrily along since basically 1993 and it created a situation wherein Canada needed to start thinking about its economic situation in the world And so there is an expectation and a desire on part of Canadians to see their government be able to build bridges and build coalitions But it's going to be tough to do at a time where Canada is struggling to forge really where it's a very frosty Canada-India relationship where that relationship is almost nonexistent it's part of why you have seen Mark Carney make overtures to France to the United Kingdom to try and not only reestablish that relationship And those — some of those challenges that Carney faces internationally are not only China and India and those frosty relationships but also the relationship with Donald Trump The two did have a phone call just a few minutes ago And so how short do you believe this honeymoon will be when it comes to Canada and the U.S. I think it's going to be a very short honeymoon for Mr simply because of the size and the daunting nature of the task in front of him insofar as trying to make the case for the removal of these tariffs or at least not seeing greater tariffs placed on Canada which is already having an impact on jobs in this country driving all kinds of economic anxiety and uncertainty among Canadian employers employers' businesses don't like uncertainty how do we move our business interests out of Canada we have also seen the president say one thing one day lean all in on very punitive tariffs at very high amounts and then take them back And so what Carney cannot control for is that He can't control for the chaotic nature of decision-making out of the White House What he can control is what he tries to do at the state level and with big cities and trying to repair that relationship with the U.S She's a Columbia Journalism School graduate with an M.A She was one of the leading members of the NewsHour team that won the 2024 Peabody award for News for our coverage of the war in Gaza and Israel © 1996 - 2025 NewsHour Productions LLC PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization Subscribe to Here's the Deal with Lisa Desjardins highly relevant issue briefs and reports that break new ground with a focus on advancing debates by integrating foundational research and analysis with concrete policy solutions the Atlantic Council’s experts have you covered—delivering their sharpest rapid insight and forward-looking analysis direct to your inbox New Atlanticist is where top experts and policymakers at the Atlantic Council and beyond offer exclusive insight on the most pressing global challenges—and the United States’ role in addressing them alongside its allies and partners A weekly column by Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe Inflection Points focuses on the global challenges facing the United States and how to best address them UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics UkraineAlert sources analysis and commentary from a wide-array of thought-leaders and activists from Ukraine and the global community MENASource offers the latest news from across the Middle East and independent analysis from fellows and staff Econographics provides an in-depth look at trends in the global economy utilizing state-of-the-art data visualization tools What does the Liberals’ victory mean for trade We put out the call to our experts for answers Christopher Sands: The results show a Canada both united and divided Diane Francis: The election was a referendum on joining the United States. Canadians rejected it. Michael Bociurkiw: Canadians voted for a steady hand in turbulent times Imran Bayoumi: Expect Carney to pursue defense deals with new partners Maite Gonzalez Latorre: Conservative wins in Alberta reveal the political divide in Canada Kimberly Donovan, Maia Nikoladze, and Lize de Kruijf: Next, Carney will need to strengthen coordination among Canada’s provinces Reed Blakemore: Energy and infrastructure will be core to managing the US-Canada relationship Mark Scott: Expect Carney to push ahead on AI and social media regulation Layla Mashkoor: Meta’s news blackout in Canada creates a troubling precedent Canada’s April 28 federal election was a referendum on the country’s relationship with the United States Both the governing Liberals and opposition Conservatives campaigned against pressure from the Trump administration—tariffs and jabs about Canada as the “fifty-first state.” A surge of nationalist sentiment swept the country Yet the result was a divided verdict: a Liberal minority government with 162 seats—ten short of a majority in the 343-seat House of Commons It’s a gain from the 153 seats held before the election but not the majority Carney hoped for elected as a member of parliament for the first time will now be invited by the governor general to form a government Canada has elected only two majority governments since 2004 Minority governments typically govern by negotiating support vote by vote The New Democratic Party’s poor showing in 2025 makes another formal “supply and confidence” agreement unlikely Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre lost his seat and a party that led in polls for over a year failed to adjust its message after Trudeau’s exit but the appetite for change remains strong Canadians are still divided on who should lead This result may be seen in Washington as weak The Trump administration is expected to renew pressure on Canada to meet NATO’s 2 percent of gross domestic product defense spending target and unlock its critical minerals—goals first promised by Trudeau in 2019 with little progress June will bring two defining tests for Carney: hosting the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Kananaskis—Trump’s first visit to Canada in his second term—and attending the NATO summit in The Hague How he performs will shape Canada’s standing abroad—and at home —Christopher Sands is an adjunct lecturer and the director of the Hopkins Center for Canadian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Canada’s political landscape shifted to a two-party system for the first time in years influenced the outcome more than did any of the Canadian party leaders the election of 2025 could be considered a referendum on joining the United States that was roundly rejected by Canadians Canadians fled into one of the two mainstream parties as Trump waded directly into the campaign. On election day, the US president broke the unwritten rule that US and Canadian leaders won’t interfere directly in elections in one another’s countries. Trump posted that Canadians should vote for him in order for Canada to become the fifty-first state —Diane Francis is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center OTTAWA—Canadians have never had much appetite for dramatic change especially in turbulent times—a fact underscored by yesterday’s election results and record turnout in advance polls Voters appeared to be looking for a steady a former banker: someone with the backbone to confront Trump who seems intent on turning Canada into a de facto fifty-first state and the competence to undo nearly a decade of economic mismanagement under Trudeau Poilievre lost his Ottawa seat and now faces political purgatory Carney’s ability to enact his agenda will depend largely on how quickly he builds working relationships with opposition parties—notably the Bloc Québécois It also hinges on whether the Conservatives cooperate in a “Team Canada” approach or spend the next six months trying to bring down the government Carney must work to reestablish Canada as a respected middle power in a world where the rules-based order is unraveling With the world’s largest Ukrainian diaspora outside Russia the Liberals face pressure to maintain strong support for Kyiv—including calls to transfer twenty-three billion Canadian dollars in frozen Russian assets to help fund Ukraine’s war effort and reconstruction Canada’s upcoming G7 summit offers Carney an opportunity to rally allies against returning $300 billion in frozen Russian central bank reserves to Moscow Carney marks a stark shift from his predecessor Though he has the charisma of an icicle in a Canadian winter and a steady hand—the qualities Canadians seem to value most right now —Michael Bociurkiw is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center Both Carney and Poilievre made foreign policy and defense a central pillar of their campaigns, with both calling for increased investment in the Arctic and increased defense spending expect him to look beyond the traditional defense partnership with the United States and to forge new and he announced the framework for a new security and intelligence partnership with France leveraging the security challenges and NATO membership shared by these nations With Carney declaring that Canada’s old relationship with the United States is “over,” expect the new government to look away from furthering closer defense ties with the United States such as on North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) modernization Ottawa will instead be seeking to forge relationships with other countries that have a shared threat perception and possess valuable technology and insights that can strengthen Canada.   —Imran Bayoumi is an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Elbows up for Carney, but elbows down for Liberals in Alberta. This morning’s results confirmed Conservative dominance across the province, with the New Democratic Party managing to hold just one seat and the Liberals securing only two The province has sent a large team of Conservative wins to Ottawa though a handful of city ridings hosted tight races highlighting Alberta’s persistent rural-urban divide with Elections Canada counting 2,064,167 votes from 96 percent of polls out of 3,234,505 registered voters The election results have definitively answered whether Alberta voters would choose the New Democratic Party or the Liberals for provincial representation in competitive races against Conservatives Carney emphasized national unity: “Who’s ready to stand up for Canada with me And who’s ready to build Canada strong?” With blue-collar Albertans significantly impacted by US tariffs Carney now faces a critical opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to all Canadians not just Liberal supporters or Ontario residents Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who has aligned closely with Trump, and Carney have not started their relationship on solid footing Carney may leverage his Alberta connections to build bridges with Smith and provincial voters despite the overwhelming Conservative victory in the province.  —Maite Gonzalez Latorre is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center With Canada’s federal election now behind us Carney and his Liberal government face an important task: consolidating the country’s economic power to respond more effectively to global challenges This fractured structure can hamper the federal government’s ability to respond swiftly and with a unified strategy to external economic pressures This divergence weakened Canada’s negotiating position and underscored how regional interests can undermine national cohesion This restricts Canada’s trade flexibility and reinforces its dependence on US policy the next federal government must prioritize a more unified approach to economic governance Strengthening coordination with the provinces is no longer optional—it is essential Canada will remain a collection of competing regional interests ill-equipped to respond to external pressures or shape its own global economic path united voice—not only to protect existing partnerships but to ensure it can build new ones Strategic alignment—at home and abroad—is the only way forward For more on Canada’s need for economic consolidation read the Economic Statecraft Initiative’s report: The Liberal Party’s victory is a profound change from just six months ago when the Conservatives held a 20 percentage point lead in the polls That the Liberal Party will now find a relatively simple pathway to building a majority coalition while Poilievre lost his own seat in Parliament to a Liberal candidate underscores how adverse the reaction in Canada has been to the Trump administration’s rhetoric around Canada’s sovereignty and to the disruption of US-Canadian economic integration through tariffs Rather than a Conservative government in Ottawa that may have been philosophically aligned if not collaborative with its agenda the White House will now have a Canadian counterpart with a clear mandate to assert its strength and independence while beginning a process of economic diversification.  with energy and infrastructure playing a key role in the months ahead Energy—specifically crude oil and electricity—is one of the foundational pieces of the US-Canada relationship Tariff exemptions on Canadian crude reflect this reality given their connection to refineries in the US Midwest and as a reliable From oil and gas to minerals and electricity expanding Canadian energy resources are a core part of managing US energy prices and they are worthwhile contributions to the idea of American (or North American) Energy Dominance A Carney-led government will have to embrace this opportunity Carney spoke about revisiting Canada’s carbon price regime which was a major part of the Conservative platform and has to-date been an obstacle to unlocking investment in Canadian energy Carney has committed to sustaining legislation on infrastructure impact assessments which has been a pain point for energy companies to expand their own infrastructure Carney has largely communicated that his government will seek broad-based energy investment including for critical minerals and next-generation nuclear The details of the Canadian energy agenda will be fulcrum issues for any of Ottawa’s ambitions to diversify energy exports away from the United States and toward global markets Energy resources remain largely the jurisdiction of Canada’s individual provinces and how Carney navigates a federal energy platform will be critical to building the cross-provincial partnerships necessary to reach new export markets The negotiation of those partnerships has been a longstanding obstacle to east-west energy infrastructure in Canada Carney’s diversification strategy is as much a function of internal diplomacy as it is external —Reed Blakemore is a director with the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center Yet despite these digital political messages the online conversation around the election was dominated by offline events especially Canada’s ongoing strained relationship with the United States It is almost impossible to quantify the impact of online influence operations it is hard to say such tactics played a meaningful role ahead of the Liberal Party’s victory because offline events—and not digital narratives—appear to have driven many voters’ choices Ottawa will likely double down on tech policy issues that had stalled under Trudeau’s leadership Efforts around artificial intelligence (AI) governance and greater checks on social media are likely as Carney sets out his policy objectives to reposition the country in the wake of its deteriorating relationship with the United States —Mark Scott is a senior resident fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab’s (DFRLab) Democracy + Tech Initiative within the Atlantic Council Technology Programs Exacerbating the issue was Meta’s January 2025 decision to end its fact-checking programs which played an important role in maintaining protective safeguards against information manipulation—safeguards that are even more necessary in the face of proliferating AI-enabled deceptions Canadian Meta users were left to navigate an uncertain landscape, one without adequate protections but rife with potential risks and deliberate harms suggesting that platform resistance may create information vulnerabilities that can be exploited during critical democratic processes.  As the tactics of information manipulation evolve democratic societies must foster adaptable evidence-based responses that protect electoral integrity and preserve the principles of open This requires ongoing innovation in both policy and technology to stay ahead of emerging threats while upholding the values of democracy.  —Layla Mashkoor is a deputy managing editor at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab Image: Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks at the Liberal Party election night headquarters in Ottawa Sign up to receive expert analysis from our community on the most important global issues © 2025 Atlantic CouncilAll rights reserved If refreshing the page doesn't resolve the issue you could try clearing the sites browser cache Phoebe Hayman receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship La Trobe University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU The impression of the Liberal Party as out of touch with women persists in this year’s election The party’s “women problem” was brought into sharp focus by the backlash to its now-abandoned policy to stop public servants working from home These recurring issues suggest there are larger problems that have not been dealt with Liberal claims of broad representation remain in doubt It also makes the party more vulnerable to independent insurgencies making its path to majority government unclear My new research shows how a key Liberal weakness became an independent success for “Teal” candidates The results provide key lessons for the Liberals on how the Teal campaigns that won against them in the previous election recruited women to their movement The Liberal Party has long had a lack of female representation in its ranks Although only 29% of federal Liberal MPs are women the party has been reluctant to adopt gender quotas It’s instead adopted a gender parity by 2025 target, which will almost certainly not be met. Recent research has shown women still make up only one in three Liberal candidates and are less likely to run in safe seats A review of gender within the Liberal Party in 2020 found women made up 34.8% of Young Liberals and only 23.4% of branch presidents or similar leaders Recruiting more women to take up positions throughout the organisation is vital parties have a smaller pool of prospective women candidates and are less likely to preselect women As part of my recently published study I conducted 55 interviews in 2022 with volunteers campaigners and candidates to examine how Teal campaigns recruited This study found women’s social and professional networks are vital for recruitment for everyone from boots-on-the-ground volunteers to candidates Recruiting through personal networks is more effective than other means often used such as individuals signing themselves up alone Interviewees gave examples of recruiting their friends and family members into independent campaigns like the woman who designed the graphics for a campaign because she was an old schoolmate of the candidate People’s social networks are often full of people who are similar to them the women who volunteered were often skilled professionals This recruitment developed organically through friendships and colleagues […] invited eight or ten of her own friends but asked them to bring friends to that gathering Many independent volunteers had also been active in local community organisations It’s always the women who are organising barbecues and whatever needs to be done at school and whatever community organisation there is whether it’s a community garden or a football club It always seems to be women who just quietly go about the work There is a long literature exploring who is a “joiner” and why that supports this approach. Women involved in other causes and organisations – political or not – are more likely to participate and be effective Recruiting from civic organisations is not unique to independents. The Liberal Party effectively engaged with the Women’s Leagues in its formative years Doing so again would likely provide volunteers who are well-known and connected in their communities enthusiastic and full of expertise the campaigns could draw on they required supporters with specialist skills campaign leaders recruited trusted friends and professional contacts instead of advertising externally This meant women were recruited directly to the higher levels of the campaign making up the majority of leaders across the movement these leaders shaped the candidate-selection processes searching for “the candidate from central casting” as one interviewee described Allegra Spender Most saw a professional woman as the ideal candidate in 2022 Women are more likely to believe women candidates are electable shaping who gets preselected to run as a candidate Within the Liberal Party, women campaigned for more female candidates last year The continued lack of progress on gender parity suggests the Liberal Party needs to do more to actively engage with the women who are already members of the party and engage with leaders across civic and political organisations that already exist within the community Members may be their most important resource in achieving parliamentary gender parity achieving this means first having women in the room Independent interviewees viewed parties as masculine and hierarchical organisations Dealing with this perception will be no easy feat but must be the first step in any attempt to bring women back to the Liberal Party Mark Carney is staying on as Canada's prime minister, according to the projections of the national broadcaster CBC/Radio Canada, in one of the country's most consequential elections in decades it's still not clear if his Liberal Party will win the 172 seats needed for an outright majority in Parliament Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre In a concession speech early Tuesday morning Poilievre said that his party "didn't quite get over the finish line." The vote was widely seen as a referendum about which candidate could best handle President Trump, who helped spark a wave of nationalism across Canada by threatening to annex Canada and placing stiff tariffs on the country "As I've been warning for months, America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country," Carney told supporters Monday night President Trump is trying to break us so America can own us Carney now enters Parliament for the first time after winning a seat in Ottawa's Nepean constituency The elections results quickly drew international reaction. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Union's top official, quickly praised Carney. "I look forward to working closely together, both bilaterally and within the G7," she wrote on X "We'll defend our shared democratic values Australia's prime minister, Anthony Albanese, added on X: "In a time of global uncertainty I look forward to continuing to work with you to build on the enduring friendship between our nations in the shared interests of all our citizens." And after a rocky few years of Canadian-Chinese relations, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, said: "China stands ready to grow its relations with Canada on the basis of mutual respect The 60-year-old Carney had a career in investment banking before becoming the governor of the Bank of England during the Brexit turmoil and as the head of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 economic downturn Carney had never held political office before being named leader of the Liberal Party in March His background in finance and his seeming unflappable demeanor helped convince voters he was the candidate that could best tackle Trump and his sometimes erratic policies a 45-year-old career politician and head of the Conservative Party It was a stunning reversal of fortunes for Poilievre who for more than a year rode high in the polls at one point with his Conservatives up 27 points over the Liberals Poilievre's momentum began to slip in January when former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned The Liberal Party's Trudeau was widely disliked in Canada by the end of his decade-long tenure and his resignation gave the Liberals a lift But the real boost came when President Trump began targeting Canada's economy and its sovereignty. Many Canadians were outraged by Trump's threat to make Canada the 51st state — a threat he repeated in a post on social media on election day Many of Poilievre's positions and much of his rhetoric mirror Trump — albeit on a more moderate level The Conservative leader has a "Canada First" slogan smaller government and to end what right-wing politicians consider "wokeness." While his proposals resonated with some voters early on Poilievre's association with Trump ultimately ended up hurting him badly It is the fourth consecutive federal election the Conservative Party has lost leading some analysts to believe the party will now go through a time of reckoning about its message and appeal Become an NPR sponsor Critical Conversations: bridging pathways forward to greater understanding and creative solutions and academic leader joins Pratt Institute from Mercy University Dr. Peter West, a distinguished writer, scholar, and academic leader with decades of experience championing the humanities, has been appointed the next dean of Pratt Institute’s School of Liberal Arts and Sciences (SLAS) following a rigorous national search West joins Pratt from Mercy University in New York where he currently serves as the dean of the school of liberal arts West to Pratt,” said Provost Donna Heiland West is an accomplished scholar with wide-ranging experience as an academic leader He brings to Pratt a deep understanding of the liberal arts and of how powerful it can be to engage with those disciplines across the fields of art He is also a wonderfully generative thinker who works tirelessly to support faculty in their teaching and creative practices; to center student learning; and to collaborate with staff colleagues in the service of our shared enterprise I am very much looking forward to working with him to further elevate SLAS and the Institute.”   During his five-year tenure at Mercy University West’s primary roles were as the dean of liberal arts and as a professor of English he secured over $5 million in federal grants to transform undergraduate education and improve outcomes for underserved populations He has been integral in advancing interdisciplinary He also assumed the role as interim provost and vice president for academic affairs for a year and during that short time accomplished a great deal including updating hiring protocols to emphasize equitable search processes and faculty diversity and establishing institutional partnerships to expand student learning opportunities and build enrollment pipelines West held leadership roles at Adelphi University including associate provost for student success associate dean for general education and academic operations He also served as assistant professor of English at the University of Wyoming As an administrator at both graduate and undergraduate levels he has collaborated closely with faculty and executive leadership to promote academic excellence improve student and faculty experiences and outcomes and create meaningful relationships with institutions and community partners.  His writing and scholarly work explores the connectivity of humanities and the arts with notable research on the history of the painted panorama in Great Britain and the United States that culminated in the publication of The Panorama: Texts and Contexts This work revealed a long-forgotten mode of visual art and storytelling as a complex cultural form and exemplifies his commitment to investigating questions of identity He has published a range of peer-reviewed articles and has given presentations and led workshops at conferences across the country.  “Pratt is a unique and dynamic institution one that represents everything that drives my work as an educator and administrator,” said Dr “I’m excited to collaborate closely with Pratt’s outstanding faculty and staff to support and advance the Institute’s mission combining its belief in the creative act with a longstanding commitment to students and to the power of higher education as a force for change at both the individual and societal levels.”   As dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences West will oversee five departments (History of Art and Design and Writing) and will support both undergraduate and graduate programs across a rich variety of scholarly disciplines The School’s 63 full-time and almost 230 part-time faculty are expert educators and practitioners in their fields.  Karyn Zieve will continue to serve as interim dean until Dr West holds a PhD in English from Emory University and a BA in English from Wesleyan University Simon Birmingham backs quotas to preselect women while Alex Antic says it’s time to make the party great again Senior Liberals are warning that the party must urgently reconnect with traditional supporters, women and younger Australians if it is to find a pathway back to relevance, describing John Howard’s broad church as “broken” after Saturday’s election drubbing As remaining MPs and party strategists begin to consider the scale of the loss under the outgoing opposition leader most agree that a major policy and messaging reset is needed to return the party to its roots under its founder some leading Liberal figures are pushing for a move to the right arguing that the party has not been conservative enough The senior moderate and former finance minister Simon Birmingham said on Sunday that the melding of liberal and conservative thinking within the party had been lost “The Liberal party has failed to learn lessons from the past and if it fails to do so in the face of this result then its future viability to govern will be questioned,” he said 2:25Australian federal election 2025 recap: Albanese wins Greens in the air – videoBirmingham used a lengthy reflection on the result to call for quotas for women in party preselection while Labor has reached gender parity in its caucus since implementing them in 1994 “The Liberal party is not seen as remotely liberal and the brand of conservatism projected is clearly perceived as too harsh and out of touch,” Birmingham said “A Liberal party fit for the future will need to reconnect with and represent liberal ideology belief and thinking in a new and modern context.” Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter Early discussions about the leadership took place in private on Sunday, even as a slew of seats remained too close to call. Most MPs contacted by Guardian Australia agreed that a root-and-branch policy review was needed, with some pointing to Dutton’s plan for nuclear power and divisive rhetoric on Indigenous welcome to country ceremonies. The New South Wales senator Dave Sharma said the Liberals had suffered a devastating loss due to a failure of strategy and campaign management. Read more“It is clear we failed to convince the public that we would be a better government even if they had misgivings about Labor,” he said “A loss of this magnitude demands a serious set of reflections and internal conversations about our policies and direction “The nation is best served by a strong opposition We need to ensure the Liberals can provide this.” Internal party polling put the Liberals ahead in a series of Labor-held seats in the final days of the campaign, including Werriwa, Whitlam and Gilmore in NSW. The results gave false hope to the Dutton camp, even as published polls showed Labor on track to win. Some party figures blamed key strategists in the campaign, including the former minister turned Dutton adviser Jamie Briggs. Some Liberals said Dutton’s efforts to promote party unity after the Coalition’s 2022 election loss meant not enough policy fights had taken place. Others said the Coalition had drawn the wrong lessons from the no vote in the voice to parliament referendum, believing it was a sign of a rightwards shift in the electorate. The Liberal grandee and former Howard government minister Philip Ruddock said party MPs elected on Saturday were responsible for charting a course back to power. “My father said the Liberal party always knows how to bake a bigger cake, and the Labor party only know how to cut it up,” he said. “If you’re looking at the way forward, you need to be very focused on how you’re going to create wealth and opportunities. The Liberal party of the future has to be very focused on building a bigger economy, creating the opportunities, and then later deciding on how you might better apportion the gains.” Free daily newsletterOur Australian afternoon update breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters MPs said more checks and balances were needed to the new party leader’s authority. “We lost the trust of metropolitan voters and need to urgently work out how to get it back again,” said one MP, who was narrowly re-elected. Read moreThe re-elected NSW moderate Andrew Bragg said Australia was “drifting” under Labor “It was the toughest night for the Liberals ever,” he said the road back starts with a deeper understanding of modern Australia “We must offer an ambitious economic agenda and a centrist Reclaiming enterprise and the centre is not a departure from our values – it is a return to them.” The former senator and party strategist Arthur Sinodinos said the Liberals needed to return to first principles and rebuild Howard’s broad church “Grievance politics was not enough to win,” he wrote in an opinion piece for Guardian Australia “An opposition must have a clear and coherent plan that demonstrates they are ready to govern grappling with the complexity of demographic and social change in a way consistent with Menzian values will succeed if we do the hard work.” The former deputy prime minister and Nationals frontbencher Barnaby Joyce declined to say who should lead the Liberals While the junior Coalition partner will have a stronger presence in the joint party room due to fewer Liberals winning their seats Joyce said there was little room for celebration There is no winner in our loss but you can’t turn yourself into another party You have to do what you’re meant to do better.” The rightwing South Australian Liberal Alex Antic blamed policies which did not resonate with voters we’ve sent the troops into battle without ammunition,” he said Antic told Sky it was time to “make the Liberal party great again” TORONTO (AP) — As Canada’s Liberals celebrated election victory in a stunning turn of fortune the country would not know until later Tuesday whether the party of Prime Minister Mark Carney would have an outright majority or need help in Parliament Populist Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre — in the lead until U.S President Donald Trump took aim at Canada with a trade war and annexation threats — was voted out of his Parliament seat in Monday’s election the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation projected READ MORE: Mark Carney’s Liberals win Canadian election upended by Trump, CBC projects That capped a swift decline in fortunes for the firebrand Poilievre who a few months ago appeared to be a shoo-in to become Canada’s next prime minister and shepherd the Conservatives back into power for the first time in a decade taking a page from the “America First” president by adopting the slogan “Canada First.” But his similarities to Trump may have ultimately cost him and his party The Liberals were projected to win more of Parliament’s 343 seats than the Conservatives It wasn’t immediately clear if they would win an outright majority — at least 172 seats — or would need to rely on a smaller party to pass legislation Elections Canada said it decided to pause counting of special ballots — cast by voters who are away from their districts during the election — until later Tuesday morning The Liberals were leading or elected in 168 seats when counting was paused Elections Canada estimated that uncounted votes could affect the result in about a dozen districts Canadians won’t know until later in the day whether Carney’s Liberals have won a minority or majority mandate Carney stressed the importance of unity in the face of Washington’s threats He said the mutually beneficial system Canada and the U.S Poilievre hoped to make the election a referendum on former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau whose popularity declined toward the end of his decade in power as food and housing prices rose became the Liberal Party’s leader and prime minister In a concession speech before the race call on his own seat Poilievre vowed to keep fighting for Canadians “We are cognizant of the fact that we didn’t get over the finish line yet,” Poilievre said And that’s why we have to learn the lessons of tonight — so that we can have an even better result the next time Canadians decide the future of the country.” McGill University political science professor Daniel Béland said nothing prevents Poilievre from remaining the Conservative leader without a seat but he would need to run in another district — perhaps by asking a Conservative member of Parliament from a safe Conservative district to resign losing your seat when some people within your own party think you’re the main reason why it failed to win is a clear issue for Poilievre,” Béland said not having the leader of the official opposition in the House of Commons when Parliament sits again would obviously be a problem for the Conservatives especially if we do end up with a minority Parliament.” WATCH: What’s on voters’ minds as Canada elects a new prime minister Even with Canadians grappling with the fallout from a deadly weekend attack at a Vancouver street festival suggesting again that Canada should become the 51st state and asserting he was on their ballot “It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!” Trump’s truculence has infuriated Canadians, leading many to cancel U.S. vacations refuse to buy American goods and possibly even vote early A record 7.3 million Canadians cast ballots before election day said he voted Liberal because Poilievre “sounds like mini-Trump to me.” He said Trump’s tariffs are a worry all the shade being thrown from the States is great but it’s definitely created some turmoil Carney and the Liberals have daunting challenges ahead If they don’t win a majority in Parliament the Liberals might need rely on a smaller party is a separatist party from French-speaking Quebec that seeks independence Trudeau’s Liberals relied on the New Democrats to remain in power for four years but the progressive party fared poorly on Monday and its leader said he was stepping down after eight years in charge “It appears the Liberals will not attain a majority but the (New Democrats) will prop them up as before I do not expect any formal deal between the parties,” said Nelson Wiseman professor emeritus at the University of Toronto Foreign policy hasn’t dominated a Canadian election this much since 1988 free trade with the United States was the prevailing issue In addition to the trade war with the U.S. and frosty relationship with Trump, Canada is dealing with a cost-of-living crisis. And more than 75 percent of its exports go to the U.S., so Trump’s tariffs threat and his desire to get North American automakers to move Canada’s production south could severely damage the Canadian economy Carney vowed that every dollar the government collects from counter-tariffs on U.S goods will go toward Canadian workers who are adversely affected by the trade war He also said he plans to keep dental care in place return immigration to sustainable levels and increase funding to Canada’s public broadcaster The party will need to think long and hard about their history if they are to find a way out of their current mess Read moreThe Liberal party’s two failed policy documents of last century were both produced out of the leader’s office There was some use of outside consultancy firms but almost no consultation with the parliamentary party or with the party organisation including its joint standing committee on federal policy Following the 1993 election loss to Paul Keating who had subjected the nation to “the recession we had to have” the organisational structures which allowed an unpopular tax to become the centre of an election campaign were reviewed There was a renewed emphasis on the need for a policy partnership between the parliamentary party and the organisation The party’s fortunes continue to be hostage to one man’s leadership abilities So where does this massive defeat leave the party? The answer is, in dire straits, perhaps as dire as the situation after the 1943 election when the major non-labour party, the United Australia party, was reduced to 13 seats and 18.33% percent of the vote. These were the ashes from which Menzies and others reconstructed the party into a viable party of government which went on to win the 1949 election and govern for 23 years. Looking across the diminished ranks of Liberal parliamentarians, one sees no one of Menzies’ stature. The loss of Liberal moderates is a huge problem for any rejuvenation of the party. The competent, professional women who won old blue-ribbon Liberal seats in 2022 have mostly held them. But the marginalisation of Liberal moderates has been going on since the 1980s as Howard and the dries defeated the so-called wets. Read moreThis is nowhere better seen than in the relegation of Petro Georgiou In 1994 Georgiou succeeded Andrew Peacock who had succeeded Menzies to the prized Melbourne seat of Kooyong and he held it for 16 years before retiring with lived understanding of the changes postwar migration was making to Australia restoring Kooyong to its historic place in a Liberal government until he lost it to Monique Ryan in 2022 though his doubling of the Hecs fees for humanities degrees when he was minister for education was a dreadful decision showing that he too places little value on understanding our history But the Liberals will need to think long and hard about their history if they are to find a way out of their current mess It has put its faith in the capacity of the leader to develop the policies which will win the confidence of the electorate Judith Brett is a political historian and biographer and an emeritus professor of politics at La Trobe University Her latest book is titled Fearless Beatrice Faust TORONTO (AP) — As Canada’s Liberals celebrated election victory in a stunning turn of fortune vote counting resumed Tuesday to determine whether Prime Minister Mark Carney’s party gains an outright majority or needs help in Parliament from a smaller party populist Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre President Donald Trump took aim at Canada with a trade war and threats to annex it as the 51st state Poilievre not only lost his bid for prime minister Monday but was voted out of the Parliament seat that he held for 20 years who a few months ago appeared to be a shoo-in to become Canada’s next prime minister and shepherd the Conservatives back into power for the first time in a decade taking a page from the “America First” president by adopting the slogan “Canada First.” But his similarities to Trump may have ultimately cost him and his party The Liberals were projected to win more of Parliament’s 343 seats than the Conservatives It was not immediately clear if they would win an outright majority — at least 172 seats — or would need to rely on a smaller party to pass legislation The vote-counting agency Elections Canada said the counting of special ballots — cast by voters who are away from their districts during the election — has resumed When the counting was paused early Tuesday the Liberals were leading or elected in 168 seats Carney stressed unity in the face of Washington’s threats He said the mutually beneficial relationship Canada and the U.S “We are over the shock of the American betrayal but we should never forget the lessons,” he said But we also must recognize the reality that our world has fundamentally changed.” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said the Canadian election “does not affect President Trump’s plan to make Canada America’s cherished 51st state.” became the Liberal Party’s leader and prime minister “We are cognizant of the fact that we didn’t get over the finish line yet,” Poilievre said And that’s why we have to learn the lessons of tonight.” losing your seat when some people within your own party think you’re the main reason why it failed to win is a clear issue for Poilievre,” Béland said especially if we do end up with a minority Parliament.” Even as Canadians mourned a deadly weekend attack at a Vancouver street festival asserting that he was on their ballot and erroneously claiming that the U.S “It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!” he wrote Trump’s truculence has infuriated Canadians refuse to buy American goods and possibly even to vote early said he voted Liberal because Poilievre “sounds like mini-Trump to me.” He said Trump’s tariffs are a worry Foreign policy hasn’t dominated a Canadian election this much since 1988 when free trade with the United States was the prevailing issue If they fail to win a majority in Parliament Trudeau’s Liberals relied on the New Democrats to remain in power for years but the progressive party fared poorly on Monday “It appears the Liberals will not attain a majority I do not expect any formal deal between the parties,” said Nelson Wiseman Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet said he would be open to working with the government for a year if it’s a minority “The last thing that the Quebec people and Canada people want is instability in the federal Parliament,” he said Canada is dealing with a cost-of-living crisis And more than 75% of its exports go to the U.S. so Trump’s tariffs threat and his desire to get North American automakers to move Canada’s production south could severely damage the economy Carney has vowed that every dollar the government collects from counter-tariffs on U.S goods will go toward Canadian workers who are adversely affected He also said he plans to offer a middle-class tax cut return immigration to sustainable levels and increase funding to Canada’s public broadcaster Associated Press journalist Mike Householder in Mississauga The Coalition hoped its path to victory this election would lead through the southern state but instead it has been left with a bare handful of seats Fears of a Labor bloodbath in Victoria in the federal election were utterly confounded with the Liberals recording a statewide swing against them and the party all but certain to lose several seats according to the Australian Electoral Commission Labor had won 23 of the state’s 38 seats while the Coalition was at six – three held by the Nationals and three by the Liberals The Liberals had seen a swing of nearly 2% away from them The Liberals had campaigned hard in the state, running advertising tying Anthony Albanese to the long-serving and poor-polling state Labor government, led by Jacinta Allan, in the hope of clawing back outer suburban seats such as Aston, Chisholm, Dunkley and McEwen, and gaining seats such as Bruce, Hawke and Gorton. Read moreEven senior members of Victorian Labor expected a swing away from the party of about 1.5%-2.5% – with some members of the state caucus actively considering a leadership challenge against Allan if several seats were lost there was a swing of about 1.8% towards the party on top of the 54.8% two-party-preferred result in 2022 as well as winning the seats of Deakin and Menzies from the Liberals one of the most marginal seats going into the election Labor’s Matt Gregg was expected to defeat the Coalition housing spokesperson Labor’s Gabriel Ng was on track to take the seat from the Liberal MP Keith Wolahan 2:25Australian federal election 2025 recap: Albanese wins, Dutton concedes, Greens in the air – videoVictorian Labor insiders claim the result in the eastern suburbs is a repudiation of the Coalition’s election commitment to cut funding to the Suburban Rail Loop – one of the state government’s flagship infrastructure projects which stretches across Melbourne’s inner bayside suburbs Labor’s Josh Burns was expected to retain the seat defying expectations that a result would take days as it was among the tightest three-cornered contests in the country in 2022 About 10% of the electorate’s population is Jewish, making it the second-largest Jewish electorate in the country. The community was angered by what it said was Labor’s failure to stand firmly with Israel amid the war in Gaza sparked by the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023 one of the few Jewish MPs in federal parliament also faced a relentless campaign from Advance Australia and J-United during the campaign “I honestly didn’t think this night would happen We had blue to the right and green to the left but the red army turned up,” Burns told party faithful at Port Melbourne Bowling Club “We have had a lot thrown at us and the lesson is one where you have to be true to yourself and this party.” Greens leader Adam Bandt addresses the crowd at the party’s election night event in Melbourne. Photograph: Diego Fedele/AAPThe Greens leader, Adam Bandt, suffered a 5.4% swing against him in his seat of Melbourne, leaving the seat in doubt on Saturday night. Bandt remained ahead on primary votes, but Liberal preferences were expected to flow to Labor. Bandt did not address the swing against him when speaking to supporters, but said the party was confident it would retain between one and four MPs in the lower house. He said he was confident the Greens would retain the Queensland seat of Ryan. The Greens were also behind in the seat of Wills late on Saturday night, despite a huge campaign mounted by the former state leader Samantha Ratnam. “From the numbers we have tonight, we have had at least a 10% swing towards us,” Ratnam told the Greens election party in Melbourne. “We still have a lot of counting to go – watch this space.” Read moreThe Liberals’ attempt to win back ground from the teals also looked set to fail with Amelia Hamer in Kooyong and Tim Wilson in Goldstein both behind Monique Ryan and Zoe Daniel respectively Allan said Victoria had yet again defied the polls “A lot of commentators and conservative politicians have built a career on kicking down on our state our party and our unions – and every time we prove them wrong,” the premier said “The incredible results for Labor in our state aren’t despite what’s happening in Victoria but because of what’s happening here in Victoria.” a former senior Liberal staffer now with the political consultancy RedBridge blamed the Liberals’ poor showing in Victoria on the state branch which has been bitterly divided since the former leader John Pesutto expelled Moira Deeming from the party room in 2023 At the end of 2024 Deeming won her defamation action against Pesutto as his “representative to the western suburbs” days before the federal prepoll opened “The great problem for the Liberal party as a whole is to rebuild such a broken institution,” Barry said With Peter Dutton booted out of parliament the question has quickly turned to who will take over the party’s leadership and if it can survive the changing mood in the electorateNour Haydar talks to chief political correspondent Tom McIlroy about what comes next for the Liberal party Here's what to know and what comes nextWith this result the Liberal Party's leader and current prime minister With this result, the Liberal Party's leader and current prime minister, Mark Carney and will form a new government with a new cabinet It's still unclear if the liberals will have a majority in the Parliament or whether they will need to look for alliances with other parties Here's what to know and what comes next: Canadians voted for all 343 member of the House of Commons The winning candidates were those who finished first whether or not they won a majority of the votes A party needs 172 seats in Parliament for a majority The prime minister is chosen by parliament rather than elected directly by the voters the party that assembles a majority in the House of Commons - either alone or with the support of another party - forms a government That's expected to happen in coming days The leader of the party forming the government will be the new prime minister who was sworn in on March 14 as prime minister after Justin Trudeau resigned he won a full term as the head of the government The next prime minister and his government will have to address both external and internal challenges the main one will be to manage a recently tense relationship with the United States after President Donald Trump has been threatening Canada with steep tariffs and demands that Canada should become the 51st state the new government will still have to deal with issues like rising food and housing prices and a surge in immigration a 60-years-old economist educated in the U.S had no experience in politics until he succeeded Trudeau as prime minister in March He was a Goldman Sachs executive for more than a decade until he started working in the Central Bank of Canada in 2003 He was then the head of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013 and headed the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020 Hollie Hughes says shadow treasurer offered ‘zero economic policy’ and she didn’t know ‘what he’s been doing for three years’ Liberal leadership frontrunner Angus Taylor will have to overcome significant internal opposition to take the top job with outgoing senator Hollie Hughes criticising the shadow treasurer over a lack of economic policy for voters Taylor is among a group of possible candidates to replace defeated opposition leader Peter Dutton and frontbenchers Dan Tehan and Andrew Hastie A vote for the Liberal leadership is expected as soon as next week Hughes’ intervention on Monday makes public the criticism of Taylor, which has persisted for months inside Coalition ranks. She said many Liberal MPs did not support Taylor, blaming him for failures during the disastrous election campaign. Read more“I have concerns about his capability I feel we have zero economic policy to sell,” Hughes told ABC radio on Monday “I don’t know what he’s been doing for three years The NSW Liberal senator is due to leave parliament in July after losing a preselection fight was partly responsible for a more than 3.5% swing against the opposition on Saturday “Whilst [he has made] efforts to get rid of people like me in his leadership ambitions I am still in the party room until 30 June and get to vote for the next leader,” she said “The biggest issue – and I am hearing this from everyone I am speaking to – [was] the complete lack of policy and economic narrative was incredibly difficult for everyone out on the ground Hughes said the Coalition’s expenditure review processes delivered very few fully formed policies with proposals from MPs either ignored or quietly rejected “There’s a reason I won’t be voting for someone in the leadership ballot should they put their name forward,” she said NSW Liberal senator Andrew Bragg said the party needed to offer voters more differentiation from Labor Free daily newsletterOur Australian afternoon update breaks down the key stories of the day telling you what’s happening and why it matters and I don’t think we did enough to capture the centre of the Australian public support,” he said “Traditionally, people have voted for the Liberal party for a better life and I don’t think we had enough strong economic policies to win the day.” Citing Dutton’s dumped policy to force federal public servants back to the office rather than working from home Bragg said the Coalition had been guilty of “fundamentally misreading the Australian society” “We have a healthy ‘live and let live’ ethos in this country and generally speaking that’s what most Australians are comfortable with and so I think it’s very important that we focus on the economic issues and that we avoid these cultural issues at all costs.” The Liberal leadership vote is yet to be formally announced. Dutton was soundly defeated in his Brisbane seat of Dickson, won by Labor’s Ali France following a swing of more than eight percentage points Ley said in a statement on Sunday night that the party would meet when counting was complete in all remaining seats Victorian Liberals expect former MP Tim Wilson to win back the electorate of Goldstein as counting continues against teal independent Zoe Daniel The Liberal party room meeting will be organised by MP Melissa Price She was named as acting party whip following the defeat of Queensland MP Bert van Manen Chris LaCivita speaks as President Trump looks on The co-manager of Donald Trump’s 2024 election campaign told undercover reporters he provided advice to the Liberal Party about leader Peter Dutton The campaign chief credited with masterminding Donald Trump’s 2024 victory claimed to have secretly advised the conservative Liberal Party on strategy ahead of Australia’s upcoming general election according to footage obtained by the Centre for Climate Reporting (CCR) and German non-profit media outlet told undercover reporters that he provided advice to the Liberals about their leader in the weeks leading up to Saturday’s election As with the Canadian general election earlier this week comparisons to Trump have proven an electoral liability for Australian conservatives with accusations that the Liberal Party has mirrored Trump’s tactics Dutton has pledged to cut “wasteful’’ health and education spending along with 41,000 civil service jobs and sought to stoke culture wars calling ABC and the Guardian ‘’hate media’’ criticising “woke” corporate policies and pledging to scrap Indigenous flags from government press conferences During the final leaders debate, Dutton rejected comparisons to Trump arguing that he didn’t want to be “anyone but himself’’ But during a series of meetings with undercover reporters posing as prospective clients LaCivita claimed he had discretely provided advice to the Liberals ”I was in Australia two weeks ago helping the Liberal Party there on some of their structural issues that they were having with Peter Dutton,” LaCivita said “Things somewhat seem to be moving in the right direction there.” suggesting that the advice he claimed to have provided to the Liberal Party would have been given just as the official election campaign began LaCivita also explained that he likes to “work discretely’’ to avoid public scrutiny and “maintain a degree of freedom of movement” the Australian public “never knew I was there.’’ A Liberal Party spokesperson told CCR and Correctiv: “Mr LaCivita is not advising and is not involved in any way with the Coalition campaign When asked whether the Liberal Party denied having met with LaCivita to discuss strategy earlier this year CCR and Correctiv held meetings with LaCivita and his business partner during which LaCivita pitched his services and outlined his playbook for winning elections on a MAGA platform LaCivita explained that his consulting work is not simply business – it’s ideological migration and net-zero policies amount to “an ideology that needs to be broken because it puts the collective ahead of the individual… that’s your boogeyman.’’ he advised a radical break from traditional centre-right policies “you’re going to have to break some china.” In concrete terms that would mean taking a much stronger line on migration by reaching out to work with far-right parties a veteran Republican consultant who worked with a pro-Trump super PAC during the 2024 election told the undercover reporters that conservatives should “create a broad coalition” around immigration policy LaCivita then advised putting the victims of migrant crime on television ‘’Telling the story through the lens of the victims or the victims’ family members is a very important one And it’s quite different having a grieving widow or mother tell the story of who they lost because of the politicians as opposed to having the politician tell the story about the people that were lost’’ “As long as migration isn’t controlled Then the opportunity exists for illegal migrants to commit crimes,” Nelson concluded with LaCivita having made immigration the major issue of the US presidential campaign Trump himself was apparently responsible for the most viral moment – ‘’they’re eating the dogs He internalized it and it just came out of his mouth.” Australia is not the only election LaCivita claims to be working on although he acknowledged that overt MAGA influence has generally proven unpopular outside the United States it was reported that LaCivita was advising Albania’s conservative Democratic Party on their election strategy American meddling in their elections is encouraged LaCivita and Nelson did not respond to requests for comment by CCR and Correctiv. In a statement to Guardian Australia LaCivita said: “I did not and do not work for the Liberal Party of Australia I provide consulting to a wide variety of business interests – some in Australia some in the US etc in terms of a political party – I have not.” but I hope to when he is elected prime minister.” supersonic jets and floating power plants: Undercover in Saudi Arabia’s secretive program to keep the world burning oil Party written off months ago completes remarkable comeback after US president’s threats boosted campaign Mark Carney has used his victory speech to claim Donald Trump wanted to “break us” as he led Canada’s Liberal party to a fourth term in office, in a race that was upended by threats and aggression from the US president. The Liberal triumph capped a miraculous political resurrection and marked a landmark victory for Carney, the former central banker and political novice who only recently succeeded Justin Trudeau as prime minister. Results on Tuesday confirmed that the Liberals fell just short of a majority government and would therefore need the support of political rivals to govern. Read moreMirroring a theme of the campaign Carney told election-night supporters that Trump wanted to “break us He also gave a stark assessment of a world order once defined by an integrated global trading system with the US at the centre and he pledged to reshape Canada’s relationships with other nations “We are over the shock over American betrayal But we will never forget the lessons,” he said the two leaders struck a more conciliatory tone and agreed to meet “in the near future” which said Trump had congratulated the prime minister for his victory “The leaders agreed on the importance of Canada and the United States working together – as independent sovereign nations – for their mutual betterment,” it said In a shock result, the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, lost the seat he has held since 2004, even as his party performed better than had previously been expected The Tory leader pledged to keep his job during his election night speech but the loss is expected to inflame tensions within the party “While we will do our constitutional duty of holding the government to account and proposing better alternatives we will always put Canada first as we stare down tariffs and other irresponsible threats from President Trump,” Poilievre told supporters “Conservatives have been leading the debate and we will continue to put forward the best arguments to improve the lives of our people right across this country.” leader of the progressive New Democratic party leader also lost his seat in a national vote that saw the NDP have their worst-ever result losing party status and most of their seats In an emotional speech Singh announced he would resign as leader ‘Let’s put an end to the division and anger of the past,’ Carney said in his victory speech Photograph: Blair Gable/ReutersCarney praised other party leaders for campaigns that he said had strengthened the country’s democracy “Let’s put an end to the division and anger of the past We are all Canadian and my government will work for and with everyone.” After a narrow victory in the previous federal election the Liberals relied on the leftwing New Democratic party to help it pass legislation Monday’s vote appeared likely to produce a similar result with the Liberals and the NDP together holding enough seats to pass legislation For the Liberals, the win marks a remarkable recovery for a party that was served as prime minister for nearly 10 years but the twilight of his leadership was marked by repeated threats of mutiny internal discussions within the Liberal party were grim: under their most optimistic scenarios they could only hope of holding the Conservatives to a minority government Outright victory was nowhere on the party’s radar Now we are going to form a government,” David Lametti “We have turned this around thanks to Mark.” Carney celebrating at the Liberal party campaign headquarters in Ottawa Photograph: Sean Kilpatrick/APTrump’s threats to annex the country to make it the 51st state his belittling of Trudeau as “governor” and threats of economic coercion have all contributed to a sharp feeling of anger and betrayal towards Canada’s southern neighbour “The shift in polls was absolutely without precedent,” said David Coletto “But to see the honeymoon that followed – and the way that support held I can’t think of other jurisdictions around the world where we’ve seen this complete reset And this turns on two factors: how unpopular Justin Trudeau was and how much of a threat and gamechanger Donald Trump has meant to Canada.” defeat marks a disappointing end to an election campaign the party had been demanding for months the Tories had for the past two years seemed all but certain to form a government But within weeks of Trump’s threats and the emergence of Carney as the new Liberal leader, their 25-point poll lead evaporated Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives had been demanding an election for months. Photograph: Amber Bracken/ReutersTo have come inches from victory and then to lose is likely to kick off a sombre postmortem for the party – and internal feuding over the future of the Conservative movement. For Carney, who served as prime minister for only nine days before calling a snap election, the gambit was one in which he hoped to make history for the party. But also on the line for Carney was the prospect of making history for an entirely different reason: had he lost, he would have inherited the mantle of Canada’s shortest-serving prime minister. Ian Laroque, a campaign volunteer who lives in Carney’s Ottawa electoral district, said: “I saw how Carney conducted himself and I felt like he was really a man who met the moment. He wasn’t a polished politician. But he’s the kind of person we need to lead the country right now. It’s not every day you get an economist during an economic crisis.” Monday’s vote was unusual in other ways, too: for the first time in nearly 70 years, the two main parties were set to take more than 80% of the vote between them, reflecting the collapse of other smaller opposition parties including the NDP and the separatist Bloc Québécois. In an emotive speech to supporters, Jagmeet Singh announced he would step down as leader of the NDP after failing to win his seat. In its worst-ever performance, the progressive party failed to meet the 12-seat threshold needed to retain official party status – the second time in its history it has been unable to do so. The loss of party status means the NDP loses certain parliamentary privileges, including the ability to ask questions during question period as often as recognized parties. These rules can be amended at the discretion of the speaker, however. The NDP will also lose out on money allocated to parties for research purposes, which is distributed proportionally to the number of seats held by a recognized party. Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the world 2025 at 12:11 PM EDTBookmarkSaveTakeaways NEWCanada’s Liberal Party won a fourth straight election as voters chose former central banker Mark Carney to manage the country’s response to US President Donald Trump’s trade war Liberal candidates were leading or elected in 168 seats ahead of the Conservative Party’s 144 seats You will also start receiving the Star's free morning newsletter Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney walks after a press conference in Ottawa on Friday If the Liberals forget what it felt like to be on the edge they’ll start acting like they’re entitled to the centre And that’s how near-death experiences become just preludes to the real thing Based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts Éric Blais is president of Headspace Marketing in Toronto a marketing communications firm helping clients build their brands in Québec A near-death experience often leaves survivors permanently changed The brush with mortality strips away illusions of control They understand that survival is not a reward the Liberal Party of Canada was facing its own near-death experience Even insiders were bracing for the worst — a party reduced to third place possibly without official opposition status that same party received 43.7 per cent of the popular vote winning enough seats to form a minority government a man with no political experience but with an impressive career in political circles It’s an astonishing political comeback — from presumed extinction to renewed power in a matter of months But as any survivor of a near-death experience will tell you It’s the beginning of a very different one The Liberal party now finds itself in that uncertain space between survival and transformation And what it chooses to do next will define whether this moment becomes a renaissance or just a brief return before the next collapse — something its opponents the bitterly disappointed and finger-pointing Conservatives there’s the uncomfortable truth about why they survived It was not a groundswell of grassroots re-engagement the result of an external force: the re-emergence of Donald Trump combined with threats of economic coercion and political chaos changed the stakes for many Canadian voters The ballot question shifted — from domestic dissatisfaction to global stability a near-death experience doesn’t offer immunity If the Liberals believe this win signals a restoration of their “natural governing party” status they will have misunderstood the moment entirely History is full of near-death survivors who squandered their second chance she called a snap election expecting to solidify her power ahead of Brexit negotiations she lost her majority and was forced to govern with a weakened mandate That moment — politically humbling and wholly avoidable — could have been her near-death experience and govern with greater humility and consensus she doubled down on as though nothing had changed She had failed to learn from the moment she almost lost everything Mark Carney had a front-row seat to that failure As Governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020 He knows exactly what it looks like when a leader survives — and then squanders their second chance That makes the lesson for the Liberals all the more urgent: survival buys time Carney didn’t live through the full extent of the party’s recent trauma grinding descent in the polls or the wave of internal doubt that swept the party just months ago He inherits a party that was humbled by the electorate — and rescued His job now is to ensure the party doesn’t forget how close it came to losing everything Because if the Liberals forget what it felt like to be on the edge Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details Your browser is out of date and potentially vulnerable to security risks.We recommend switching to one of the following browsers: Account processing issue - the email address may already exist Invalid password or account does not exist Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the email address listed on your account As Coalition projected to have less than 10 women in 150-seat House of Representatives Linda Reynolds condemns ‘comprehensive failure’ of campaign Senior Coalition figures are warning the federal opposition faces an existential crisis and must urgently attract more women calling for Peter Dutton’s replacement to overhaul policy development and candidate recruitment processes The calls came as Andrew Hastie ruled himself out of the race for opposition leader despite having being urged by colleagues to stand A spokeswoman for Hastie told Guardian Australia on Monday afternoon that the shadow defence minister would not be a candidate for the Liberal party leadership. The shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, the deputy Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, and the shadow immigration spokesperson, Dan Tehan, are all consulting on possible tilts at the Liberal party leadership, testing support with MPs who survived Saturday’s electoral rout. The former home affairs minister Karen Andrews on Monday warned the opposition had reached a new low under Dutton’s leadership, saying the election loss had sent “shock waves” through the Coalition. Read more“The Coalition is facing an existential crisis The first warning bell sounded in 2022 but the thinking of many in leadership positions didn’t change; if anything they locked into the old ways,” Andrews said “Recriminations are disappointing to hear at this time If those with the ability to influence the direction of the party had stood up and voiced their opinion when they had the chance perhaps the situation would not be so dire now “It’s not too late to rebuild but action should start today.” On current numbers, the Coalition will have fewer than 10 women in the 150-seat House of Representatives. Helen Coonan, a former Howard government minister, told Guardian Australia the party needed to do more to build a pipeline of quality candidates, including women. But she stressed that quality policy offerings to improve the lives of Australians were essential to win over voters. “If you ignore the contribution women make, and what their expectations are, for organisations, that’s not going to augur well. “I think women have looked at the Coalition and not liked what they’ve seen in some policy positions, so have looked for something else. “Politics, or at least what parties offer, should be about how to enrich people’s lives, how to enable people, and not just be a laundry list of things that might not have much relevance to them.” 2:25Australian federal election 2025 recap: Albanese wins, Dutton concedes, Greens in the air – videoCoonan said female MPs in the parliamentary Liberal party deserved credit for their advocacy. “To attract women to run as candidates, whether you’ve got quotas or no quotas, if they haven’t got a good story to sell, if they don’t feel that they are part of a compelling narrative that appeals beyond being in a party, that’s not really going to help attract good women,” Coonan said. “They will ask, ‘where is this going, where is my place?’” Outgoing Liberal senator Linda Reynolds on Monday called for Ley to lead the party, calling the election campaign “a comprehensive failure”. “You can see, through successive reviews in federal and state, in terms of where we have taken the wrong turn, but we haven’t comprehensively understood those lessons and we certainly haven’t implemented the reforms that are needed.” Reynolds, a former defence minister, said the party’s male dominance was holding it back. “Ten years ago I was part of a review into gender … and we recommended targets and how to get there without quotas. That’s been the Liberal party policy for 10 years but it’s just sat on a shelf,” she told ABC radio. “We do have to have the hard conversations now about how we become more gender-balanced but also a broader diversity.” One former Liberal MP said damage from the plan caused a fundamental shift in the campaign’s early weeks stopping some prospective voters considering Dutton at all It didn’t sound good from the moment it was mentioned If you are not listening to your constituents “I am a great believer in the strength of democracy and the party system A leadership ballot is expected after results in a string of close seats are determined Labor looks to have more than 85 seats in the new parliament with the Coalition leading the count in about 40 seats How our culture grooms CHILDREN When you take a stand for traditional values like marriage liberals often accuse you of being on the wrong side of history The president of the United States and the United States of America has stood on the right side of history They say you should just give up or else society is going to move on and you’ll just be remembered like the bigoted losers of the past who oppose things like interracial marriage I only care about being on the right side of truth not the right side of history because God is the Lord of history and he knows the final ending besides the Catholic church was correct when it fought against interracial marriage bans in the mid 20th century And the church is still correct in its refusal to acknowledge so-called same-sex marriage when you acknowledge our channel by hitting the subscribe button and by acknowledging us through your support@trenthornpodcast.com this is what allows us to boldly and publicly advocate for the right side of truth in the public forum So please head over there if you like our channel and support us once again@trenthornpodcast.com I want to show you three times that liberals defended horrible ideas and now they try to forget those times that they were on the wrong side of history eugenics and four sterilizations liberals often praise Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr For his dissent in the 1905 case of Lochner versus New York and other cases that forbade states from passing minimum wage laws or capping workdays at 10 hours Holmes joined seven other justices to uphold mandatory sterilization laws in the case of Buck versus Bell which upheld the right of the state to forcibly sterilize people that the state deemed feeble-minded people like Carrie Buck Holmes delivered the court’s opinion writing it is better for all the world if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their iil society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the fallopian tubes The only judge on the court who dissented against the mandatory sterilization rule was Pierce Butler a conservative Catholic whose nomination was opposed by liberal senators and magazines as well as the Ku Klux Klan America Magazine founded by the Jesuits 1909 wrote in an editorial after bell that fundamentally our objection is based on the fact that every man that he’s a human being and not a mere social factor Other early progressives that supported eugenics included Teddy Roosevelt and of course Margaret Sanger the founder of what would later be called Planned Parenthood there are a lot of fake quotes attributed to Sanger like colored people are like human weeds and need to be exterminated so don’t share memes of these fake quotes her uncontested writings show she believed that contraception could be used to promote good breeding among people like it’s done with animals or as their magazine banner headline birth control to create a race of thoroughbreds Here is saying her in 1947 saying Women should stop having babies for the next 10 years it seems to me that it is more practical and humane I believe that there should be no more babies planned Parenthood issued a public apology saying Margaret Sanger’s eugenicist ideas were wrong in 1916 and they’re wrong the most vocal group to oppose eugenics were Catholics because they were some of the biggest targets of this program Sharon Leone points out in her book An Image of God the Catholics struggle with eugenics that eugenic policies were often aimed at largely Catholic and Slavic immigrants who were considered to be an inferior race in comparison to white Protestants Even as support for eugenics in the US waned by the mid 20th century liberals still supported mandatory birth control policies many of them supported this because of their pet environmental cause of stopping overpopulation the battle to feed all of humanity is over hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death Soylent Green depicted a hellish New York city of 2022 with a population of 40 million people in it Today liberals believe the only feasible solution to the population crisis was contraception including forcing people to be sterilized if they wouldn’t go along with the program the population of the United States is already too big Birth control may have to be accompanied by making it involuntary and by putting sterilizing agents into staple foods and drinking water and that the Roman Catholic Church should be pressured into going along with routine measures of population control This reminds me of the following line from Pope Francises encyclical Lato Sea Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate At times developing countries face forms of international pressure which make economic assistance contingent on certain policies of reproductive health there are still people who push for this nonsense philosophy Professor Sarah Conley wrote in 2015 in favor of China’s now defunct one child policy and proposed a worldwide one child policy we don’t have a right to have so many children fulfilled lives with just one child and one child per couple will keep the human race going here’s the second time liberals were on the wrong side of history There’s a common cycle when it comes to liberals and communism First liberals praise communism as being the solution to problems like poverty and inequality Then they cover up the crimes that communists commit against innocent people in order to keep its reputation pristine when they can’t cover up those crimes anymore they say the regime in question wasn’t true Communism and the game starts all over again with a new case of how real communism works the Soviet Union implemented the communist policy of overproduction in order to make goods more plentiful but they focused on heavy machinery instead of food to fix this Soviet troop seized food from Ukrainian farmers and Soviet propaganda blame the ensuing famine on those same farmers who they called Kol locks The famine that lasted from 1932 to 1933 is called the Hello Toor a Ukrainian word that means to murder by starvation And millions of people were indeed murdered in this way in an area that once produced the most grain in all of Europe Hunger drove desperate people to cook shoes who killed their own children and ate them Some western intellectuals at the time who supported the Soviet’s policies denied the very existence of the famine George Bernard Shaw wrote to the Manchester Guardian After visiting the Soviet Union in 1933 everywhere we saw hopeful and enthusiastic working class that provided an example of industry and conduct which would greatly enrich us if our system supplied our workers with any incentive to follow it Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Walter Duranti wrote in the New York Times that quote any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda when Catholic Cardinal Theodore in its are pleaded for Western relief efforts for Ukrainians who were resorting to infanticide and cannibalism The Times uncritically published the Soviet Union’s chilling response they wrote in the Soviet Union John Stossel also recently covered this topic on his channel Soviet officials lauded the New York Times for its coverage until as the movie Mr Jones explains independent reporter Gareth Jones saw people starving and told the truth The New York Times made it a point to denounce him as a liar in a fraud The Times star reporter claimed the famine was A scare story that Jones’s judgment was hasty I assume he doesn’t want people to star I think he doesn’t care when you’re the biggest guy in the most interesting country on earth And when that’s the most important thing to you The same whitewashing of communist history can be seen on TikTok communist China’s competing social media platforms that are named after the Little Red Book of Mao Sayong His communist policies caused the worst famine in human recorded history one that killed nearly 30 million people in the 1950s Half the victims were under 10 years old and like Walter Durante before them Western intellectuals denied the existence of the famine and praised Mao as a revolutionary figure who fought for the poor The feminist philosopher Simone de Bovar said in 1958 that life in China today is exceptionally pleasant And American journalist Hans Koenig wrote in 1966 that China was almost as painstakingly careful about human lives as New Zealand The same whitewashing can be seen in liberal pleading for brutal dictator states like North Korea a director general of the World Health Organization said in 2010 that the oppressive policies of North Korea aren’t all that bad because at least there were no signs of obesity in North Korea that’s not surprising given that the country had experienced government caused famines that killed 12% of the population a nighttime satellite image of North and South Korea will always be the perfect example of why capitalism works and communism sucks Although the worst things that liberals do when they defend communism is to make nauseating actual qualifications when it comes to their brutal crimes against humanity Here’s one article defending the Communist Party it says the Communist party of Peru did not boil children alive I have seen nothing like this written anywhere They did apparently use scalding water as a method of execution along with stones and machetes They did also engage in the act of killing infants and pregnant women at the village of Luke Ken Marca in 1983 This act was ostensibly retaliation for the murder of PCP Cadre Ole Carmi by villagers Sorry for the misunderstanding about the mass murder the Soviet Union often referred to non-communist liberals who defended them as useful idiots or raki useful fools It’s an apt description as can be seen in cases of people like Malcolm Caldwell a Scottish Marxist who oppose capitalism and did everything he could to defend Pol pot’s genocidal Khmer Rouge regime Maxwell finally got the chance to meet Pol Pod in Cambodia and the dear leader had him executed a few days later The cycle is complete though in modern liberals who cannot ignore early 20th century communist atrocities like Walter Duranti or other liberals did Communism in the early two thousands when Venezuela was thriving on lucrative oil sales liberals praised Venezuela as true socialism and academics like Noam Chomsky and activists like Michael Moore praise Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Hugo Chavez Chavez was lionized in Oliver Stone’s 2009 film south of the border He had promised far reaching reforms to raise the living standards of the poor enhanced democracy and share the oil wealth of the country with those who had never benefited from it Although nowadays Chavez will be remembered for causing one of the largest migrations in human history in response to the humanitarian nightmare that followed Venezuela’s economic collapse in the 2010s All of this confirms the original warnings the Catholic church made regarding the dangers of communism Pope Leo XIII called socialism a deadly plague that reaps a harvest of misery communism is intrinsically wrong and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever So here we see that liberals were on the wrong side of history and Catholics were on the right side the entire time After no fault de force became legal in the United States in the 1970s liberals promised that it would be great for society But now the data overwhelmingly shows that children living with their married biological parents in low conflict homes do better than children in any other household arrangement One study even showed that divorce causes more trauma to a child than the death of a parent Liberals in the 1970s and eighties also downplayed the dangers of sexualizing children and some of them supported child liberation I can’t say the real word because I don’t want YouTube to ban me Hollywood was constrained by the Hayes Code which censored what could be allowed in films the Code’s founder was a Presbyterian but everyone agrees the code was guided by Catholic principles And while the code was overreaching in some aspects it prohibited the depiction of child sex organs Directors like Stanley Kubrick pushed the limits of the code with his 1962 adaptation of Lolita using 14-year-old actress Sue Leone that makes a comedy out of a novel about child molestation Leone has also said the film’s 31-year-old producer James B Harris molested her and that Lolita ruined her life you see Hollywood using nude underage girls in sexual roles like 16-year-old Olivia Hussey and Romeo and Juliet 11-year-old Brooke Shields in 1970 eight’s pretty baby and 17-year-old Michelle Johnson who appears nude in the 1984 alleged comedy which features a teenage Johnson seducing a 50-year-old Michael Kane I’m glad at least that Roger Ebert honestly said to the film at the time that it has the mind of a 1940s bongo comedy and the heart of a porno film Shields also started at the age of 14 in the 1980s film The Blue Lagoon where the production team encouraged her and her 18-year-old co-star to have a romantic relationship to help the scenes feel more authentic and things were even more brazen in Europe where Ava and Seko was published nude in Playboy at the age of 11 and nude in Germany’s Dear Spiegel newspaper at the age of 12 exploits most shockingly between 1969 and 1980 pornography that involved miners was legal in countries like Denmark and Sweden And it wasn’t just Hollywood or the entertainment industry Academic elites also promoted the lie of child sexual liberation philosopher Michael Fuca feminist Simone de Bovar and many others argued for the decriminalization of pedophilia the Ped information exchange worked with the National Council of Civil Liberties to lower the age of consent The campaign for homosexual equality voted overwhelmingly to God condemn the harassment of the ped information exchange by the press in the US founder of the Beatniks Movement and Camille Paglia argued in favor of decriminalizing this and academics still pedal this which covered articles where the author says he wanted his kids to see sexual kinks at gay pride parades I’m confident that in 50 years and hopefully much sooner people will look back at drag queen story hours for children pornographic books and elementary school libraries and gender reassignment surgeries for children the same way we look back at the widespread use of lobotomies in the 1950s and they will ask the same question Thank you so much for watching and if you’d like to learn more about some of the issues discussed in today’s episode As well as the book I co-authored with Layla Miller Made this Way Thank you for watching and I hope you have a very blessed day The scale of Labor’s victory highlights structural problems within the Liberals that have been papered over for years It was a tall order for Peter Dutton to topple a first-term government – and so it proved But first-term governments have often gone backwards The scale of the Labor victory highlights structural problems with the Liberals that have been papered over for years Dutton lost because of mixed messaging and not the medium Labor had done its best to lose the election over the last three years but came good at the right time when people were switched on and thinking about the election their presentation firmly grounded in Labor values and appealed across various demographics There was a clear choice and Australia opted for a version of relaxed and comfortable over a leap into the unknown. The risk of a prime minister Dutton was leveraged with none too subtle references to the “Americanisation” of policies. Just as in Canada, the Trump factor played to the incumbent’s strengths. All politics is local. Read moreThe danger for Labor now is hubris and overreach this victory is thanks to their opponents’ fumbles If they think this victory is an endorsement of the status quo they are setting themselves up for a mighty fall Labor does not have a proper mandate to grapple with the tough questions of economic reform and grand strategy in a world order that is changing rapidly An opposition must have a clear and coherent plan that demonstrates they are ready to govern The polls over the preceding few years were a false dawn for Liberals They were not an indicator of final voting intention but a snapshot of voter frustrations Dutton amplified those frustrations and acted as if the deal was sealed before the campaign started Matching your opponent’s policies only works if you then move the agenda on to your preferred areas of battle for the Liberals this has always been the economy and national security Too little too late on defence and mixed messages on the economy (higher deficits in the next two years and then budget improvement) When the Liberals lost in 2022 it was easy to pin it all on Scott Morrison who ran a very centralised operation The Abbott-Turnbull rivalry pitted the broad church of liberals and conservatives against itself Longstanding differences over climate crippled the government The Morrison era moved somewhat on issues like net zero but was consumed by the urgency of dealing with a once-in-a-century pandemic Necessary deficit spending in that era played into a public insouciance about debt and deficits The decision to target outer suburban and regional seats made sense, given Dutton’s persona – but it conceded inner-city seats to the teals and other minor parties. A broad church has an all-of-the-above seat strategy. The Menzies Liberals were not populists and would be bemused by the so-called culture wars. Menzian Liberals do not divide the electorate into us and them. No snide references to the elites v “the real people”. We value education and science, and meritocracy based on having a fair go. Pragmatism and practicality are preferred to social experimentation and ideology. Liberals eschew identity politics, considering people on their own merits rather than as part of a group, and upholding the rights of the individual in the face of the collective. Economic populism or business bashing is also at odds with traditional Liberal equities around smaller government and lower taxes. The argument for these traditional policies is economic efficiency (a bigger pie that makes more fairness possible) and restraining the power of government over people. Effective competition policies are the best way to restrain the power of big business. A further round of economic reforms in the Hawke-Keating and Howard-Costello mould has become increasingly urgent. Along with smart industrial policies to leverage sovereign capabilities in critical and emerging tech. But advocates need to stand up and explain why and how. It won’t happen by itself. Rational economic policies are entirely compatible with a strong social safety net that balances protection with incentives to self-improvement. Strong families and communities are part of that safety net. The social role of housing is an important priority given the fracturing between generations that we are witnessing in Australia. On social cohesion, the Liberal creed used to be that the things that unite us are greater than those that divide. Social cohesion is not a function of enforcing conformity to a predetermined set of national characteristics. In liberal democratic Australia, freedom to celebrate one’s heritage, religion or beliefs is baked into our values. The only caveat is an overriding loyalty to Australian institutions like democracy and the rule of law that make this freedom possible. Rights and responsibilities in equal measure. This second-term opposition should go back to first principles and build policy on those foundations, in tandem with keeping the government of the day accountable. Read moreListening to our fellow Australians grappling with the complexity of demographic and social change in a way consistent with Menzian values will succeed if we do the hard work The countdown to the next election has begun Arthur Sinodinos is a former Australian ambassador to the US He is the partner and chair of the Asia Group’s Australia practice and was a former minister for industry Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis Today Americans across the country shall peel apart the pages of their local newspaper to read the day’s biggest headline: “Canada Elects New Prime Minister.” I like to give Americans a bit of grief over their solipsism but things have been domestically on fire for the past 100 days or so Who could expect you to pay attention to anything north of Montana and find out what’s happening to your closest ally turned frenemy I don’t actually want to read this and just need to know who won Mark Carney and the Liberal Party of Canada won so right now it’s a clear minority government What do they teach you in American schools fine: Winning a minority would mean that the Liberals fell short of the 172 seats needed to form a majority government That would mean that they would have to (vaguely) cooperate with other parties to get things done in Parliament But because the votes are still being counted it remains to be seen just how powerful the Liberals actually are Pierre Poilievre was leading the actually-quite-far-right Conservatives, and Jagmeet Singh was leading the left-of-centre (YES, THAT IS HOW WE SPELL CENTRE) New Democratic Party. The Bloc Québecois, which Canadians around the country continue to ignore, is helmed by Yves-François Blanchet. The Conservatives remain the official opposition party with a little over 41 percent of the popular vote The Bloc and NDP are both hovering around 6 percent of the vote Tailing pretty far back in fifth place is the Green Party, led by Elizabeth May, the little engine that could and, miraculously, did. Unlike both Poilievre and Singh, she actually won her seat for a fifth term Well, against all odds, he’s won this election, after never having sought any kind of public office before.* He’s the former governor (the kind that’s appointed and not elected) of the Bank of Canada, namely during the 2008 financial crisis, and he also ran the Bank of England through Brexit and the early stages of COVID. Here’s a video of him presumably using his body for the first time in his entire life so I suspect you’ll forget about him at the end of this sentence depends on how you’re feeling about the recent overreach of fascist states he was also embarrassingly conciliatory to both Conservative and American aggressors His efforts to push back on tariffs and ugly rhetoric about immigrants and Canadians came too late one based on interest rates and what the stock market does—and not My president swayed the election for Canada There are indeed a lot of Canadians who oscillate between voting for the Conservatives and the Liberals despite their vast differences (mostly because these parties are both huge disappointments but they do make up a good swath of Canada’s eligible voters Carney also ran what a lot of people considered an anti-Trump campaign speaking directly to whatever policies Trump is trying to put into place on Canada in these wretched early days of his unbelievably long presidency The cost of living in Canada is really high right now when Biden was still running things down south.) With Trump causing further chaos to world economies Canadians were seeking a particularly Canadian fix: a milquetoast man in a suit who knows how the economy works and will likely do nothing revolutionary in the next few years What will this mean for My President’s tariff war crazy that you keep calling him your president Carney is perhaps most equipped to deal with Trump’s ever-shifting understanding of reality and time and space Well, Poilievre not only lost the election but also lost his seat after two decades. Surprising that no one in his Ottawa riding (I think you call them electoral districts) wanted to vote for an aging Richie Rich–looking dweebus who prattled on a few weeks ago about women’s “biological clocks.” What would things have been like if Poilievre had won My Canadian passport would have very quickly become a “51st state” certificate Does this mean that Canada is again a socialist leftist heaven waiting for me to apply for asylum stupid: It means that the bar is in hell and we are all in the hell with the bar But whenever a liberal politician wins an election against a conservative stalwart everyone talks about how it’s a “repudiation” of conservative politics it’s repudiation if you’re not paying attention to anything except who is now the prime minister This election has been less a reaction to conservatism and more a place to stop and catch your breath. Trudeau was, for Liberals and Conservatives, a disappointment. Early data shows that Liberals got more votes this year than in the previous federal election the NDP lost about as much as the Liberals gained considering the now-unclear future of the party Singh offered nothing for the NDP or its voters to feel encouraged by; he wasn’t a particularly inspiring candidate, and he also had little to offer in the way of tangible improvements for Canadians. He performed so poorly, in fact, that he stepped down after the election, since the NDP’s showing was so bad that it lost official party status How much of a repudiation of far-right politics can this election be if the NDP sagged so significantly The NDP is failing in the same way the Democrats have been, by giving voters nothing real to hold on to during elections when they are desperate for progressive solutions to things like unaffordable housing, sky-high food prices (don’t get me started on Galen, my nemesis) and the safety of marginalized groups across the country The Liberals survived only because they were the least terrifying option in a sea of political cruelty America-based bogeyman for everyone to unite against and has opted instead for more of the same even if it’s not that gratifying long term Do I have to remember all these other names and parties For you? Nothing, I guess. Hey, have you ever heard of the North American house hippo 2025: This piece originally misstated that Trudeau became party leader before having sought public office He was elected to Parliament twice before being elected Liberal Party leader Community convincingly chooses Labor in Melbourne and Sydney seats despite opposition efforts to engage after 2022 review Suburbs with significant Chinese Australian populations in key marginal seats recorded huge swings to Labor of up to 30%, and strategists and analysts warn the Liberal party has failed to rebuild trust with the community The Liberal party’s review of the 2022 federal election found hawkish rhetoric on China cost it votes in several seats with high numbers of Chinese Australians It called for greater community outreach and to rebuild trust before the 2025 poll Read morePolling booths in Chatswood and Eastwood – two suburbs in Bennelong where more than 40% of people have Chinese ancestry – recorded swings to Labor of between 15% and 26% Labor’s Jerome Laxale boosted his wafer-thin margin of 0.1% in Bennelong to almost 10% “[The Liberal party] had good candidates in Reid and Bennelong,” the Labor strategist said “Two young people of Asian heritage [Grange Chung and Scott Yung] who on paper would have been quite compelling So we made our strategy to link their candidates to Peter Dutton as often as possible “If you were at those polling stations on election day all the material you would have seen from us was ‘Vote Yung get Dutton’ with oversized images of their faces on corflutes When asked on Sunday what mattered most to his constituents in Bennelong every polling both with a double-digit swing to Labor had a significant amount of voters with Chinese ancestry The same trend was replicated across neighbouring Chisholm A senior Victorian Labor source said “virtually no resources” went into Menzies and that there was no field organiser on the ground They said the campaign capitalised on statements from Dutton that appeared hawkish on China “When in the final debate Peter Dutton said China was the biggest threat to national security we couldn’t believe it It all got packaged up for RedBook and WeChat right away,” the Labor source said “It was yet another huge own goal in a campaign full of them.” The NSW strategist said the Liberals’ decision to preference One Nation in seats across the country was not, on its own, “a vote shifter”. He suggested it instead “reinforced a view among the Chinese community that Dutton was anti-China and racist” – and that the same applied for Hume’s comments. an academic with Chinese ancestry researching Chinese migrant media at the University of Melbourne lives and votes in Aston and worked in a polling booth during the Saturday election He also counted votes for a Chisholm outpost centre in the 2022 election He said the voting intentions of Chinese Australians are not as simplistic as they are often portrayed in the media “I suspect many Chinese Australians felt the Coalition was not inclusive enough,” Wang said “This is very different from the mainstream discourse around ‘pro- or anti-China’: this binary is misleading and misinterprets the community’s sentiment “When the Liberal party played up the ‘Chinese spy’ rhetoric and also their very hard rhetoric around ‘immigration’ it made many Chinese voters feel excluded from the so-called mainstream society in Australia and that their contributions to our society have not been properly recognised a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne who focuses on citizenship said “many in the Chinese community felt isolated and targeted by the Liberals on several occasions during the campaign” “Their loyalty to Australian democracy was questioned and smeared publicly on TV.” News Corp commentator blames Liberal party for allegedly shying away from culture wars as Peta Credlin in furious agreement: ‘we didn’t do enough of a culture war’ It was a result that Andrew Bolt was not expecting and could not countenance By 9.46pm the rightwing commentator had penned a piece on the Herald Sun blaming the Australian electorate for the Coalition loss It was because the Liberal party “refused to fight the ‘culture wars’” A little over a hour earlier on Sky News Australia he had recognised it was all over for the Liberal leader that he had dubbed Scary Guy Peter Dutton was comprehensively beaten by Anthony Albanese, Bolt said, because everyone agreed the prime minister looked like a “nice easy going guy” compared with Dutton. Read moreBut that’s where Bolt’s praise for the Labor leader ended that a government that “left Australians poorer it did because Anthony Albanese didn’t look threatening,” he said Because there is no person one can say ‘that man is a leader By the time Dutton’s gracious concession speech was over at 9.39pm Sky News was calling the election result a “bloodbath” and recriminations were flying between Sky’s commentators and their political guests “People don’t like Peter Dutton,” Clennell said matter of factly as he recounted what happened when he went door knocking it’s just one of those unfortunate things.” a former ABC and Nine political editor who has embraced his conservative side over on Sky News the Coalition’s primary vote is down to a “horrific” 30% and the party is facing “an existential crisis” “This is a party that will tear itself apart while it tries to work out how it articulates itself to appeal to enough people in Australia to be able to form a government in future.” But shadow minister Sarah Henderson was not conceding defeat “It’s looking pretty challenging,” she said “There’s no doubt about that … but there is some green shoots there looks like a very strong swing to the Country Liberal Lisa Bayliss.” Greens in the air – videoWhile everyone expressed their surprise at the magnitude of the loss Clennell suggested the election drubbing was far from a shock to many senior Liberals as Sky producers had struggled to get them on air on Saturday night “I just want to take you through how big this is,” Clennell said “I don’t think there’s any doubt that Albanese has got an increased majority Sky’s election analyst Tom Connell called it not long after 8pm: “This contest is effectively over Albanese will be prime minister of Australia.” For much of the night Sky After Dark host Sharri Markson was hanging on to the pre-poll results as a path to redemption predicting that when those results came in the gap between the parties in some seats would narrow But it was also Markson who recently predicted the national opinion polls were inaccurate and the Coalition’s private polling was positive: “the polls you’re reading in the news are wrong when it comes to this federal election”. said it was disgraceful that Dutton had been “demonised” as he was a decent guy But she came alive when suggesting her side of politics should fight more culture wars “I’d argue we didn’t do enough of a culture war,” Credlin said She went on to suggest the Liberals make a “simple statement” about the rights of biological women and when she was shouted down by the panel she fired up but I’m sick of being mansplained about what biological women feel about biological female rights who hasn’t lost his talent for the one-liner said the Liberals have got to ask themselves where do we go now “We’ve tried Dutton - what else have we got Well not much because if Angus Taylor is the answer Paul Williams is a research associate with the T.J and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment Monash University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU the federal election result is definitive: a pro-Labor landslide and an opposition leader voted out how did Australians in the key seats in each state vote six experts break down what happened in New South Wales Swing to Labor: 3.4% a stronger than predicted swing to the government Not only did Labor hold all its NSW marginals, many with increased margins, but it appears to have gained from the Liberals the seats of Banks and Hughes in suburban Sydney. Labor’s Jerome Laxale has retained Bennelong which was notionally Liberal after the redistribution The Liberals appear likely to lose Bradfield to Teal Nicolette Boele and former National Andrew Gee seems likely to retain Calare in the central west as an independent The three sitting Teals were all easily re-elected and right wing independent Dai Le held Fowler At the time of writing, Labor has won 28 seats in NSW to the Coalition’s 12 with four independents so far and the probability of two more The ALP two-party preferred vote in NSW was 54.8% Labor’s primary vote was 35.0% to the Coalition’s 31.8% Albanese staged a Houdini-like escape from what seemed to be, in 2024, a steady decline in his prospects. Although only an average campaigner in 2022 he ran an almost flawless campaign three years later and projected an image of stability in government the government should have been vulnerable Albanese transformed this into a strength by persuading voters he was best placed to deal with the crisis associate professor of politics and journalism I long argued Queensland would be inconsequential as to who would win the keys to The Lodge at this election I was partly right. If Labor, as projected wins 93 of the 150 House of Representatives seats the six Queensland Labor appears to have seized from the Liberal-National Party (LNP) are but a small fraction of the government’s national haul Albanese could still have governed with a comfortable majority But I was also partly wrong. The fact there were primary swings of up to five percentage points away from the LNP across Queensland (even in very safe seats like Maranoa), and the fact Labor appears to have captured two seats (Brisbane and Griffith) from the Greens suggests the state has behaved very differently from expectations and Labor now looks to hold 13 of the state’s 30 seats, the LNP 15, the Greens one, and Bob Katter returned in Kennedy for the KAP. Few would be surprised that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON) and Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots failed to win any House seats, although PHON’s Malcolm Roberts is likely to be returned to the Senate So, too, are the LNP losses in the outer-suburban “battler” seats of Forde and Petrie (held by the LNP since 2010 and 2013 respectively) that embraced former Liberal PM Scott Morrison The additional reality of an LNP losing such contrasting seats as Leichhardt in far north Queensland and Bonner in middle Brisbane suburbia now points to a deep existential crisis for conservatives even in their Queensland heartland In the Northern Territory, Labor’s Marion Scrymgour has retained the seat of Lingiari and strengthened her position had already vented their wrath on a state Labor government six months ago Or did the state finally warm to an Albanese it now concluded was a more competent economic manager reject a hard-right Peter Dutton – offering little in meaningful policy amid a ramshackle campaign – as out of touch with a moderate After defeats at local and state elections in 2024 associate professor of politics and public policy On first glance, South Australia did not seem to be at the centre of the Albanese government’s landslide win. Of the ten electoral seats in the state, only one changed hands – the seat of Sturt which Labor’s Claire Clutterham won from the Liberals’ James Stevens This is a seismic result and exemplifies all of the Coalition’s electoral problems Sturt was a classic Liberal blue ribbon seat which the Liberals had held since 1972 might well be disappointed not to have scored a higher primary vote than her 7.2% Elsewhere, Labor handsomely improved its position in the hitherto marginal seat of Boothby A 8% swing to Louise Miller-Frost saw the Liberals’ Nicolle Flint easily routed To confirm the Liberal misery in the state, the Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie consolidated her place in Mayo. The scale of Labor’s performance also brought into scrutiny the Liberal regional seat of Grey where long-standing member Rowan Ramsay retired The Liberals will retain it despite a swing against them Overall, this is now a solidly Labor state, and the party holds a remarkable seven of the ten seats. Those with long memories, will know seats like Kingston and Adelaide The Liberals’ loss of Sturt confirms the party now has only two seats in the state and no representation at all in the major cities around the country It might well be a long road back for the centre-right deputy director of the Tasmanian Policy Exchange If the Liberal Party’s ranks were thinned out on the mainland The state elected four Labor candidates out of five In Braddon Labor’s Anne Urquhart overturned the 8.3% margin enjoyed by retiring Liberal MP Gavin Pearce It looks like the swing to Labor will be around 15% with Urquhart’s pro-salmon farming and pro-jobs position resonating in the traditionally conservative electorate Lyons was Tasmania’s most marginal seat after the 2022 election White’s popularity as a state MP transferred smoothly to the federal level – Labor’s primary vote in the seat looks to have jumped by more than 14% So why was the swing to Labor in these Tasmanian seats so much greater than on the mainland Astute candidate selection played a role – in particular White and Urquhart were well-known in their communities State politics isn’t usually considered to have a big impact on federal elections but these issues may have been high profile – and long running – enough to make a difference The southern seat of Franklin was a focal point for a lot of drama during the campaign but the ABC currently projects her overall margin will be cut in half Anti-salmon farming independent Peter George achieved the second highest primary vote but wasn’t close enough to Collins for preferences to get him over the line As expected, independent Andrew Wilkie won the Hobart seat of Clark for a sixth time but it looks like Labor will shave a tiny amount off his margin The Liberal Party’s fortunes in Victoria went from bad in 2022 to much worse in 2025 The ALP’s primary vote increased by about 1% while the Liberal Party’s primary vote fell by about 2.5% While the percentages are smaller than in other states this performance had a significant affect on the representation of the parties in Victoria The Liberal Party lost Deakin in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne the seat has been marginal for several elections The primary vote swing against the Liberal Party was 4.2% Deakin now appears to be a relatively safe seat for Labor The Liberal Party primary vote also went backwards in Kooyong which was held by independent Monique Ryan High profile Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer could not reclaim the seat which had previously been held by then-Treasurer Josh Frydenberg Goldstein the other inner metropolitan seat won by an independent at the last election looks to be a closer contest with the Liberal Party’s Tim Wilson experiencing a rise in the primary vote but it may not be enough to defeat incumbent Zoe Daniel this was a disastrous result for the Liberal Party in the state of Victoria WA didn’t disappoint for Labor. Although the two-party swing was more muted than in other parts of the country, it came off the back of a more much stronger electoral position entering this contest. On a two-party preferred basis, Labor gained 56.2% of the vote One of the unexpected wins for Labor was the former Liberal held seat of Moore Labor won the seat on the back of +0.9% increase in the party’s primary vote Assisting Labor’s electoral fortunes was a former Liberal incumbent who ran as an independent and whose vote accounts for much of the -10.4% swing against the Liberal candidate But it wasn’t all good news for Labor, going backwards on primary votes in Fremantle (-4.48%) Brand (-5.96%) and Pearce (-0.01%) The Liberals’ performance affirms just how much trouble the party in the West. The Liberals recorded a swing of -5.66% in their primary vote, winning only 28.5% of the first preference vote In addition to the loss of Moore, the party failed to win back the once-prized seat of Curtin, despite a heavy investment of resources into the contest. The Liberals also have a fight to retain the seat of Forrest, where is registered a -13.4% swing in its primary vote. The Liberals are, however, expected to win it In the senate, the swing against the Liberals on primary votes was even more pronounced (-7.36%) although the party are on track to elect two senators enjoying a very slight increase (+0.74%) and comfortably returning a senator Labor has two senators confirmed and the possibility of the election of a third In today’s newsletter: Mark Carney has pulled off an astonishing turnaround in his party’s fortunes How did he do it – and what can progressives learn from his victory but he is in serious danger of losing his seat the result isn’t surprising: even with well-documented antipathy to the Liberals after a decade in office the task for a party that could so easily be portrayed as sympathetic to Donald Trump became insurmountable once the American president started threatening to annex Canada and ramping up tariffs the lessons for other western democracies may be quite limited But the result is still an index of Trump’s power as a recruiting sergeant for his opponents as well as his supporters – and in Canada a major blow to the prospects of rightwing populism You can follow the latest on the live blog here reporting for the Guardian from the Liberals’ headquarters in Ottawa European blackout | Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said “everything possible is being done” to restore power following an unprecedented blackout in Spain and Portugal The blackout – blamed by the Portuguese operator on extreme temperature variations – left tens of millions of people without trains Ukraine | Vladimir Putin has declared a three-day full ceasefire in the war with Ukraine in May to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union in the second world war Ukraine responded to Putin’s announcement by calling for an immediate month-long ceasefire Asylum | Foreign nationals convicted of sex offences will be banned from claiming asylum in the UK, home secretary Yvette Cooper has said Human rights organisations warned that “irresponsible” changes to immigration law are being rushed through to challenge a surge in the polls from the Reform party ahead of Thursday’s local elections Politics | Pay rises for NHS staff and teachers must be paid from existing budgets, the Treasury has warned setting up the potential for strike action Separate independent pay review bodies for teachers and NHS staff in England are reportedly set to make higher pay rise recommendations than ministers had suggested Donald Trump | Senior Whitehall officials have asked golf bosses whether they can host the 2028 Open championship at Donald Trump’s Turnberry course after repeated requests from the US president One person with knowledge of the discussions said: “The government is doing everything it can to get close to Trump.” the month-long campaign was defined by Donald Trump Even yesterday, Trump told Canadians to “elect the man” who would make Canada the 51st state which appeared to be a reference to himself The election can broadly be described as pitting Liberal efforts to place that issue front and centre against Conservative attempts to play down their ties to Trump neutralise the subject and pivot back to the cost of living concerns that had previously given them such a massive advantage Despite that drama, the extraordinary reversal in fortunes against the state of play when Justin Trudeau stood down in January was largely baked in by the time his successor Mark Carney called the election And while there was a late tightening in the polls that ate into the Liberals’ lead nothing happened during the campaign to change the fundamental calculus The Liberals were leading or confirmed as victorious in 166 of 343 electoral districts a short time ago Whether the Liberals reach the 172 threshold for an outright majority may not be confirmed until the last seats in the westernmost province but the authoritative Canadian Broadcasting Corporation projected a Liberal win they will need the support of smaller parties to govern – but either way “There was a bit of a sombre mood early on as Conservatives picked up some seats in Newfoundland,” Leyland reported from their headquarters “But as it became clear that Liberals were outperforming that level elsewhere Now they’re in a weird ‘can we have it all’ feeling – but in the context of where they were a couple of months ago Leyland’s news story features a quote from former Liberal justice minister David Lametti that summarises the mood: “We were dead and buried in December What does this mean for Canada’s relationship with the US whom British readers will remember from his stint running the Bank of England is the model of a modern central banker: competent more likely to be popular at Davos than in retail politics While the conventional wisdom for years has been that such figures are no longer viable political leaders the specific circumstances in Canada this year have turned that analysis on its head As he said himself in March: “I’m most useful in a crisis Carney has promised to negotiate a new trade deal with the US, and said he hopes to meet Trump in person soon – but adds that Canada has the leverage to wait until the time is right to do so he wants to focus on lowering internal trade barriers and bolstering major investment projects He has also said that the old relationship with the United States is over and emphasised closer ties with the UK and Europe in his brief tenure as prime minister since he replaced Justin Trudeau In his victory speech less than an hour ago and we decide what happens here.” And he added: “We are over the shock of the American betrayal “Senior members of his team expect a call with Trump in the next few days,” Leyland said We’re not talking about Europe becoming the dominant trading partner – but there will be an examination of whether the extent of the relationship with the US is still in Canada’s national interest.” What does it mean for Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives Canada’s Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife Anaida at the party’s election event in Ottawa Photograph: Minas Panagiotakis/Getty ImagesBefore the tariff and annexation issues blew up generally regarded as an effective and experienced politician thought he had hit on a winning formula: stop short of Trump’s most radical positions on issues such as immigration and the role of the government but mimic the Maga movement’s embrace of culture war issues and persuade Canadians that someone aligned with Trump would be the best possible leader to deal with the White House It is now clear that this alignment was toxic But whether the Conservatives are likely to tack back towards the centre is much less obvious because the circumstances of this election were so remarkable – and it is anyone’s guess as to whether Trump will present such problematic baggage during the next election campaign “Poilievre leaned heavily on this more aggressive approach that energised the party base,” Leyland said But the collapse in the vote share for the smaller parties tilted things towards the Liberals.” It’s too soon to say if Poilievre will be held personally responsible for the defeat “Change did not get over the finish line tonight,” he said about an hour ago The CBC reported that he has told allies he wants to stay on as party leader pointing to the fact that the Conservatives have their highest vote share in many years The most immediate and stunning challenge to his hopes: he may have lost his own seat in Ontario where he was trailing his Liberal opponent not long ago with 86% of votes counted As the election turned into a binary choice about such a fundamental issue as which prime minister would be best placed to deal with the threat from Trump the smaller parties appeared bound to suffer – and that was borne out in the results The proportion of the vote share going to the two biggest parties is on track to be comfortably over 80% “The race was presidentialised,” Leyland said “A lot of people who voted for the NDP in the past couldn’t see the point now Free daily newsletterOur morning email breaks down the key stories of the day Is this result a model for other progressive parties Some liberals will undoubtedly take heart from the idea that a moderate centre-left politician without a radical prescription for reconstructing how the state operates has prevailed against a Trump-adjacent opponent – and the election stands as evidence that Trump’s unpopularity can be turned to his opponents’ advantage around the world But the circumstances in Canada are so specific and Canada’s ties to the United States so unusually deep that the parallels for other democracies are likely quite limited And there is a danger that anyone who concludes that the way forward is to come across as a defender of the status quo is learning the wrong lesson Studying Kamala Harris’s defeat in the US elections or looking at the state of French politics But that is not to understate the significance of a seismic victory “It’s an incumbent government surviving in what has recently felt like a sweep against them And Donald Trump was on the ballot,” Leyland said “This is the first major electoral repudiation of Trump outside of the United States After yesterday’s extraordinary blackout across Spain and Portugal, this picture gallery gives a sense of the wide-ranging impact “A lot of Russians have been killed. We like this” – Luke Harding’s dispatch from the frontline of the war in Ukraine where he stuck to the hip of an artillery unit and meets those living in the towns and villages is a stunning read on the soldiers and civilians dragged into the war Border walls are meant to stop people moving freely – but they also have consequences for animals. Phoebe Weston’s report is a fascinating and bleak look at the ecological consequences with one remarkable fact: there are now 74 border walls globally Author Quinn Slobodian has a great take on the Trumpian right’s obsession with IQ – where it comes from and the dark path this “fetishism” leads down Run out of patience with your petulant pup? Sarah Phillips has helpfully spoken to a trio of experts on how to tame your badly behaved dog (or putting them on track to finish the season on 100 points and clinch the Championship title Leeds fans chanted manager Daniel Farke’s name amid reports that he could be sacked ahead of the club’s ascent to the Premier League Cricket | Fourteen-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi became the youngest centurion in men’s Twenty20 cricket on Monday as he guided Rajasthan Royals to an eight-wicket victory over Gujarat Titans in an Indian Premier League match Football | Mikel Arteta has told the Arsenal support to “bring your boots” and “play every ball” with their team in the Champions League semi-final first-leg at home against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday night The manager described the game as the biggest of his career and one of the most significant hosted by the Emirates Stadium Guardian front page 29 April 2025 Photograph: Guardian“Spain declares state of emergency after power blackout causes chaos” is the splash on the Guardian today a story that also led the news on many other papers “Net zero blamed for blackout chaos,” says the Telegraph while the i runs with: “Spain and Portugal thrown into chaos after ‘rare weather event’ leads to mass blackouts.” “Pain as Spain mainly off the mains,” quips the Metro while the Financial Times says: “Trains halt and traffic snarls as huge power cut strikes Spain and Portugal.” “Culture of the untouchable,” is the lead story on the Mirror “Now Labour is facing a Summer of Discontent,” says the Mail while the Express quotes Kemi Badenoch as saying: ‘“I will not let Labour destroy rural way of life.”’ Meanwhile the splash in the Times is: “Milkshake tax looms in broader sugar levy.” Reform UK leader Nigel Farage holds a mug with his picture on during a campaign visit to Frodsham Market on 17 April Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty ImagesLabour v Reform UK: on the road in Runcorn Helen Pidd heads to the industrial town before this week’s byelection How will Labour fare in its first big electoral test since taking power Opinion cartoon Rebecca Hendin Illustration: Rebecca Hendin/The GuardianThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad the film is palpably a product of its era – visible in its own stylings and those of the contemporary works it responds to – but the Python sensibility remains so strangely dizzily sui generis that it can’t really date all that much,” he reckons it remains “a film made to be recited by heart and still possessed of pleasures and surprises that generations of cultists haven’t yet spoiled” the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply Icon DONATE who surged since the resignation of Justin Trudeau will remain in power for a fourth consecutive term On April 28, Canada’s Liberal Party won the country’s federal election, granting Prime Minister Mark Carney a full four-year term. The win marks the start of a fourth consecutive term for the Liberal Party. The Conservative Party captured the second most seats, though its leader, Pierre Poilievre, lost his own seat in the House of Commons who fell three seats short of occupying half of Parliament “Predictable in that most of the polls had the liberals winning in some fashion the Conservatives had a significant lead that some were calling insurmountable.” In late December and early January, before Trump’s inauguration and Trudeau’s resignation, opinion polls showed the Conservative Party had a lead of almost 25 percentage points over the Liberal Party “The elections in the United States and the positioning of the U.S administration around Canada—in terms of not just tariffs and threats of additional tariffs but also designs on Canadian territory—unified the Canadian people around issues that wouldn’t normally drive Canadian elections,” said Farnsworth the United States really is domestic policy The United States relationship is so fundamental to Canada’s own wellbeing and third issue outside of Canada’s borders that is dealt with It’s as much a domestic issue as a foreign policy issue.” The election was a tight race in which the Liberal Party emerged victorious with 169 of the 343 seats in the House of Commons. Canadians do not vote directly for their prime minister, but rather for individual members of Parliament. In 2023, Canada implemented a redistribution of federal electoral districts “I think Prime Minister Carney is going to be focused on two things: One is managing the relationship with the United States and two is juicing the Canadian economy—and the two are directly related,” said Farnsworth During his victory speech, Carney called the race the “most consequential election.” He spoke directly about President Trump saying he is “trying to break us so that America can own us that will never ever happen.” He also said that Canada’s “old relationship with the United States AS/COA covers 2025's elections in the Americas An overview of how Guatemala’s democracy and economy are faring a year after President Arévalo was nearly prevented from taking office Carney is positioning himself as a counterpoint to Trump © 2025 Americas Society/Council of the Americas Party wiped off the map in Adelaide and Tasmania and fails to win back any seats from teal independents The Liberal party has been decimated in major cities – with just a handful of seats left in Melbourne Brisbane and Sydney – and must overhaul its appeal in urban areas despite a Coalition party room now dominated by regional Liberals and the Nationals The Liberals have also been wiped off the map in Adelaide and Tasmania and lost another seat in Perth the party has failed to win back any seats from the teal independent MPs who strongly appeal to moderate Liberal voters In Melbourne, where the Coalition was widely tipped to win outer suburban seats, it has gone backwards. It is set to lose the seats of Menzies and Deakin with the Liberal party also suffering swings against it in La Trobe and Casey who won Menzies in 2022 after winning pre-selection against the former Liberal minister Kevin Andrews said it was clear the party had a major problem with voters in urban areas who was a member of the now further diminished moderate wing of the Liberal party urged a rethink about the party’s identity and how it appeals to young professionals and women “We need to turn our mind to that like we have never done before,” Wolahan said “We need to really dig deep and think about who we are and who we fight for and who makes up Australia.” When asked how the party would do that, when regional Liberals and the Nationals will have a much greater share of the Coalition party room Wolahan said the party must not ignore the feedback from urban voters So far, speculation about who should lead the Liberals names regional-based MPs – Dan Tehan in western Victoria, Sussan Ley in Albury-Wodonga, and Angus Taylor in Hume, which takes in the regional areas around Goulburn in New South Wales. In south-east Queensland, the Liberals have bled seats to Labor. Dickson, Bonner and Petrie have turned red and Longman and Forde are also tipped to fall. Labor has gone from one female MP in Queensland – Annika Wells – to seven. Read moreAs the Liberal vote is decimated in big cities, the Nationals will have a much larger share of the Coalition party room. The so-called junior Coalition party may hold more seats than the Liberals in NSW and Victoria. In Sydney, the Liberals lost Banks, held by the shadow foreign affairs minister, David Coleman, to Labor. It has also lost the seat of Hughes, held by another moderate Liberal Jenny Ware, to Labor. It may also lose Bradfield – previously a Liberal stronghold – to a teal independent, Nicolette Boele. The Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, a moderate who has been re-elected, urged his party not to shift to the right in response to a decimation in the cities and to overhaul its strategy. “We must offer an ambitious agenda and a centrist, inclusive social vision,” Bragg said. “Reclaiming enterprise and the centre is not a departure from our values – it is a return to them. The country is drifting and we remain Australia’s best chance for course correction and renewal.” In Western Australia, Labor has won the seat of Moore in Perth. The seat was formerly held by Ian Goodenough, who ran as an independent against the Liberals after losing his preselection battle. the Liberals have lost the seat of Sturt for the first time in more than five decades It now has no MPs in the South Australian capital At a Liberal party event on Saturday night the former leader of the Liberal’s moderate wing warned that if this trend continued “there won’t be much of a party” “It’s critical that people see this as a chance to turn the corner and to look at how they better identify the Liberal ideology in a way that is relevant to modern audiences,” Brimingham said, as reported by the ABC The Western Australia seat of Moore was won by Labor not the Liberal party as an earlier version said Katerina Sviderska receives funding from Fonds de Recherche du Québec and the Gates Cambridge Foundation Leandre Benoit receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada University of Cambridge and University of Oxford provide funding as members of The Conversation UK Just months ago, Canada’s Conservatives were leading the polls, surfing the wave of radical right ideas and rhetoric sweeping across the globe But with the election victory of Mark Carney’s Liberal Party Canada now stands out as a liberal anchor in a fractured West This election may not only shape Canada’s domestic trajectory but also carries significant implications for its international partnerships amid rising geopolitical uncertainty As some European countries and the United States head towards isolationism, authoritarianism and turn to the East — even flirting with Russia — Canada’s continued Liberal leadership reinforces its position as a key ally for the European Union Carney’s centrist and pro-EU attitude provides stability and relief for Europeans Canada and the EU share deep economic and strategic ties offering both sides what they need the most: a reliable like-minded partner at a time of transatlantic unpredictability What does Carney’s victory mean specifically for the Canada-EU relationship Trade remains the foundation of the Canada-EU relationship, and both sides should aim to build on it. At the heart of this partnership is the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which has increased EU-Canada trade by 65 per cent since 2017 European Council President António Costa has called the deal a success story providing clear proof “trade agreements are clearly better than trade tariffs.” CETA has become more than a commercial agreement — it’s a strategic anchor in the global liberal order One of the Liberal government’s early priorities is likely to consolidate and strengthen CETA Canada can position itself as an ambitious partner ready to seize new opportunities as European countries seek to reduce their reliance on the American market Climate and energy, too, offer new opportunities for co-operation. Both Canada and the EU are navigating the tensions between pursuing ambitious decarbonization goals and managing economic and inflationary pressures. After scrapping Canada’s carbon tax on his first day in office Carney has already hinted at a more pragmatic environmental stance While pledging to maintain key climate policies — including the emissions cap on oil and gas — Carney’s government may recalibrate Canada’s approach to energy. This would mirror shifts among some European allies’ climate policies This evolving transatlantic consensus — less about abandoning climate goals, more about making them economically viable — paves the way for closer co-operation based on a common goal: bolstering economic competitiveness while maintaining environmental credibility Both Carney and the EU view the investment in new technologies as the path forward As Europe accelerates its green agenda and implements new sustainability rules only countries with strong environmental standards qualify as long-term partners provided it stays the course on climate policies is well-positioned to be a key partner in Europe’s green transition This signal of rearmament reflects not only alignment with NATO expectations but also a broader understanding that liberal democracies must be prepared to defend themselves Nowhere is this more pressing than in Ukraine the epicentre of Europe’s geopolitical storm Canada has been among the most reliable supporters of Ukraine since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion, aligning itself with Europe’s most committed nations — France, Poland, the Baltics and, increasingly, Germany But as threats evolve, the battlefield also extends beyond Ukraine’s frontlines. Hybrid attacks — cyber, disinformation campaigns and foreign interference in democratic processes — now wash up on all shores. Canada’s National Cyber Threat Assessment 2025–26 identifies state-sponsored cyber operations as one of the most serious threats to democratic stability In strengthening its defence collaboration Ottawa is hoping to get a seat in the fight against autocracies The question is no longer whether to engage but how to lead in this era of layered and compounding threats coming from rivals like Russia and China — and now from the U.S. Canada is likely to pursue a pragmatic and globally engaged liberalism definitively aligned with Europe As Canada and the EU are both looking for reliable allies to weather the storm this renewed western alliance could solidify around Ottawa and Brussels — anchored in shared democratic values and pragmatic leadership Global Climate Agreements: Successes and Failures How Tobacco Laws Could Help Close the Racial Gap on Cancer Could Trump’s Tariffs Replace Income Tax for the Bottom 90% Peter McColough Series on International Economics With Robert E CFR’s flagship morning newsletter summarizing the top global news and analysis of the day.  A summary of global news developments with CFR analysis delivered to your inbox each morning. Weekdays examining the debates and efforts to improve health worldwide. Weekly But their pledges to staunchly defend the country’s sovereignty amid Trump’s tariff and annexation threats saw the party’s popularity soar.  “In no country has the political impact of Donald Trump been more dramatic than in neighboring Canada…Instead of facing a sympathetic Conservative prime minister in Poilievre Trump now faces a Liberal who sold himself to voters as the best man to ‘stand up to Donald Trump,’ and a Canadian population that has rallied behind him.” —CFR experts Edward Alden and Inu Manak tell CFR.org The plan for resolving the dispute comes at a time of extreme drought conditions in northern Mexico; farmers in the region seized a dam in 2020 to stop water delivery to the United States amid shortages The UN’s World Food Program said last week it had run out of food to distribute in Gaza and the UN General Assembly asked the ICJ to rule on the case Israel declined to appear before the court.  The UAE has denied arming Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) the UAE referred back to a previous UN panel report that mentioned the UAE as peacekeepers who will govern in coalition with Merz’s group are expected to reveal their ministerial choices after a coalition deal vote concludes tomorrow The result will bring back Kamla Persad-Bissessar as prime minister; she held the post from 2010 to 2015 before her party lost to its center-left rival in the last two elections Outgoing Prime Minister Stuart Young had called a snap election soon after taking office last month over concerns that his appointment was unconstitutional.  A Tale of Two Elections: Trump Casts Shadow Over Australia and Singapore World Press Freedom Continues Decline at a Time of Upheaval tells undercover reporters he advised on ‘structural issues’ related to Peter Dutton; the Coalition denies LaCivita was involved in campaign in any way One of the architects of Donald Trump’s 2024 victory claims he made an unpublicised visit to Australia to advise the Liberal party about “structural issues” related to Peter Dutton ahead of the federal election The veteran Republican strategist Chris LaCivita told undercover reporters posing as prospective clients for political consulting work he was working as a private consultant on the visit to Australia not in an official capacity or as an adviser to the US president Footage of the undercover conversations was published on Thursday by the Europe-based organisations Correctiv and the Centre for Climate Reporting ‘‘I was in Australia two weeks ago helping the Liberal party there, on some of their structural issues that they were having with Peter Dutton,” LaCivita said on 16 April in the first of two calls Australia’s election campaign began on 28 March “Things somewhat seem to be moving in the right direction there… those efforts are strictly political in nature and don’t require me to engage with the United States government.” 1:33Trump campaign chief tells undercover reporters he advised Liberal party ahead of election – videoLaCivita told the undercover reporters in a second call on 24 April he made the trip without publicity. He contrasts this to media reporting about his paid work with Albania’s opposition party in reference to his claimed visit to Australia “I try to maintain a degree of discretion … it just it gives us a degree of freedom of movement.” A Coalition spokesman denied LaCivita had any connection to the Dutton campaign LaCivita told Guardian Australia: “I did not and do not work for the Liberal Party of Australia I provide consulting to a wide variety of business interests – some in Australia some in the US etc in terms of a political party – I have not LaCivita was Trump’s co-campaign manager in his successful 2024 presidential run along with the current White House chief of staff Susie Wiles Trump thanked LaCivita in his victory speech and LaCivita briefly took the microphone to thank the president and he’s going to be a hell of a great 47th president” Visits and knowledge-sharing between like minded political parties and consultants are not uncommon in election campaigns Anthony Albanese has previously talked up ties with UK Labour The ALP’s campaign boss Paul Erickson offered advice to strategists working to elect Sir Keir Starmer ahead of the UK’s 2024 election Erickson was later invited to present at Labour’s annual party conference A US Marine veteran who received a Purple Heart for service in the first Gulf War LaCivita helped craft the infamous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign considered a fatal blow for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in his 2004 race against George W Bush During the second leaders’ debate of the campaign, Dutton said: “We trust the US Labor has tried to tie Dutton to Trump-style politics as polling showed voters were increasingly uncomfortable with the actions of the US president particularly following the implementation of trade tariffs has labelled the opposition leader “Dogey Dutton” referring to the so-called department of government efficiency (Doge) set up by Trump under the leadership of Elon Musk Labor is likely to point to claims about LaCivita’s visit as more evidence Dutton’s agenda is being guided by the unpopular Trump but it also signals close ties between the Coalition and key members of the president’s inner circle likely advantageous if Dutton wins Saturday’s election Albanese said Dutton was concerned with fighting “culture wars” “The campaign of the Liberal party has become more and more right-wing under Peter Dutton That’s just the truth of the matter,” he said LaCivita’s credentials within Trump’s orbit are strong. Donald Trump Jr called him “a supremely competent nuts-and-bolts guy,” in an interview with New York magazine he doesn’t care about stroking his own ego he only cares about getting the job done and delivering for my father,” Trump Jr David Yamane has received funding from The Louisville Institute for the Study of American Religion to study church security and financially supports the Liberal Gun Owners 501c4 and Walk the Walk America 501c3 organizations Wake Forest University provides funding as a member of The Conversation US An Asian American and lifelong liberal from the San Francisco Bay Area, I became a first-time gun owner as a 42-year-old in 2011. I began a now 14-year journey into an unfamiliar and complex world of firearms. In my work I draw on both my personal experiences and sociological observations to understand the long-standing presence of a robust legal gun culture in America In contrast to the dominant scholarly approaches I find there is more to firearms than criminal violence injury and death; more to gun owners than straight white men; and more to gun culture than democracy-destroying right-wing politics Let me share five observations essential to understanding guns in America: About 86 million American adults – 1 in 3 – own at least one of the estimated 400 million firearms in the U.S Imagine if everyone who uses TikTok in the U.S owned a gun – and then add the population of New York City That is enough gun owners to fill over 1,000 NFL stadiums The right of everyday Americans to own guns is a deep part of American culture The culture of guns in the U.S. has evolved over time people primarily used firearms for practical purposes: hunting for food defense from and offense against indigenous populations expanding territory and fighting against oppressive rulers Americans developed a more complex gun culture that included recreational hunting organized target shooting and gun collecting Americans increasingly own guns for self-defense Evidence for the evolution to what I call “Gun Culture 2.0” appears in three key areas: surveys about why people own guns, the loosening of gun-carrying laws beginning in the 1980s, and changes in both the types of firearms sold and how companies market them Black Americans have a particularly strong tradition of gun ownership dating at least to the 19th-century abolitionist movement Gun Culture 2.0 is more diverse and inclusive than the United States’ historical gun culture because security is a universal human concern The response to feelings of insecurity varies Portfolios of protective measures in the U.S the hyperlocal social networking service Nextdoor Many tools like knives and chainsaws are lethal, meaning they have the capacity to cause death. Guns differ because their lethality is by design guns can make dangerous situations more deadly While the U.S. has a moderate overall suicide rate compared with other developed countries, it has a firearm suicide rate that substantially exceeds these other nations. This is because firearms are widely available and highly lethal. When people attempt suicide using guns, they die in up to 90% of cases Similarly, although the U.S. is not exceedingly violent or criminal compared with peer nations, its criminal violence is more deadly because these lethal tools are more frequently involved Despite high rates of firearm suicide and homicide, most guns in the U.S. will not kill anyone, and most American gun owners will not commit violence against themselves or others. My calculations, based on the 2023 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data indicate that just one gun death occurred per 8,560 firearms and 1,840 gun owners – meaning at least 99.99% of guns and 99.95% of gun owners were not directly involved in fatalities that year These observations collectively point to a final insight: Guns resist simple categorization and embody multiple paradoxes They take on different meanings according to the various purposes to which people put them A realistic view requires maintaining a clear-eyed understanding of the lethal capabilities of firearms But the tendency to focus exclusively on firearms-related harms when it fails to acknowledge the normality of guns and the diversity of gun owners parties have also reported arson threats and alleged attempts to intimidate diaspora communities New South Wales police have launched multiple investigations in the last week into alleged violence harassment and antisocial behaviour related to the election including the smearing of poo across a truck carrying an ad for the Liberal party Political parties have also reported arson threats against campaign offices and alleged attempts to intimidate diaspora communities into voting for their candidate by referencing historical figures linked in crimes against humanity in Afghanistan The misconduct and alleged criminal behaviour has led the electoral commissioner to condemn “isolated instances of aggression intimidation and potential violence near prepoll venues [that] are not in keeping with Australian democratic values” In the NSW electorate of Eden-Monaro, a Liberal party volunteer was horrified to find a truck with a campaign ad attacking Labor’s policy on vehicle emission standards smeared with poo, including on door handles. A NSW Police spokesperson confirmed it has launched an investigation into the alleged “intentional damage”. Read moreA Coalition office in Eden-Monaro received a hand-written letter on Sunday warning: “If this office opens again it will be burnt to the ground!!! A Liberal party spokesperson said local staff were urged to take the matter seriously Police confirmed it is now being investigated A truck carrying a Liberal party campaign ad in the seat of Eden-Monaro was smeared with poo including on door handles.In the ultra-marginal seat of Bennelong in Sydney a video seen by Guardian Australia shows a man kicking throwing and removing Liberal signs for its candidate The man is also filmed screaming abuse at Liberal volunteers before pointing a finger at one and pursuing him A NSW police spokesperson confirmed a 30-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday afternoon He was subsequently charged with intimidation and granted conditional bail the Liberals have alleged a man shoulder-charged one of its volunteers at a polling station A police spokesperson confirmed an investigation has been launched into the alleged assault The Liberal candidate in the seat of Grayndler has had his campaign corflutes spray-painted with swastikas Greens corflutes were also defaced with swastikas A video uploaded to Facebook on Thursday afternoon showed a Trumpet of Patriots volunteer being kicked and punched by a man wearing a bike helmet but the video shows him raising frustrations about the party’s ads and its immigration policies On Thursday a Greens volunteer in the seat of Kooyong told Guardian Australia a Liberal volunteer forcefully grabbed her arm during a disagreement about where to place campaign signs A handwritten letter threatening arson that was delivered to a Coalition office in the NSW electorate of Eden-Monaro.Labor has also referred its own allegations of wrongdoing to authorities for investigation. The party has raised concerns about the alleged “disturbing and intimidatory behaviour” of Liberal volunteers in the Victorian seat of Bruce. Read moreA letter sent to the commission on Thursday alleges one Liberal volunteer referenced the name of the former emir of Afghanistan Abdur Rahman Khan in exchanges with Pashtun and Hazara Australian voters Bruce has one of the largest Afghan diasporas in Australia Labor alleges the volunteer told people that a vote for anyone other than the Liberals would betray Khan Khan is linked to the Hazara genocide in the late 1800s “I am concerned that the reason Liberal volunteers are invoking Abdur Rahman Khan’s name is to harass and intimidate members of the local Hazara community,” said the letter to the commission from Jett Fogarty, an Australian Labor party official Pope said that campaign activities are a very important part of the federal election process and respectful behaviour is a firm expectation” “The AEC is not a police force and does not have jurisdiction to undertake conflict resolution or get in the middle of a dispute outside our polling places,” Pope said we do have close relationships with local police forces around the country who are closely monitoring activities the AEC has written to candidates and branches of registered political parties to alert them to the reports being received and to remind everyone of the right for voters to have a comfortable voting experience.” The election wash-up continues, with the Labor party now expecting to extend their majority in the Senate. While the upper house looks like it will be awash with more red the party will still have to work with the 11 Greens senators who have all retained their seats ‘Concerns about his capability’: Liberal senator launches extraordinary attack on Angus Taylor amid search for new leader Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’ Parents of Bondi Junction killer confiscated his ‘pigging knives’ year before stabbings, inquest told Alleged mushroom murders trial: husband denies asking Erin Patterson ‘is that what you used to poison them?’ Westpac CEO believes Australia now pulling out of cost of-living crisis Photograph: Annabelle Gordon/Reuters Donald Trump addresses the White House press pack, saying he was “very friendly with” Anthony Albanese, but had “no idea” who Peter Dutton was. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian“We do have to have the hard conversations now about how we become more gender-balanced [and have] a broader diversity.” Outgoing Liberal senator Linda Reynolds has blamed the male dominance of Liberals for the election failure, and thrown her support behind deputy leader Sussan Ley the platform of Sweden’s national broadcaster Composite: Facebook/Drag NamesLindor Evangelista. Shak Shookher. Paula Roid. This Facebook group about drag names became Lucinda Price’s favourite place on the internet Photograph: The GuardianToday’s starter word is: SATI . You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply Opposition leader Peter Dutton lost his seat of Dickson ShareGet SBS News daily and direct to your InboxSign up now for the latest news from Australia and around the world direct to your inbox.Your email address *Morning (Mon–Fri) This blog has now closed. Follow our Tuesday Australia federal election 2025 live blog here for the latest results and reaction with 16 seats still in doubtJosh ButlerLabor has won the election but the size of its majority in the House of Representatives remains unclear There are a number of seats still to be decided and the counts are progressing slowly The ABC’s election results show 16 seats are still in doubt The Australian Electoral Commission hasn’t officially declared any seats yet, but says Labor is leading in 86, the Coalition leading in 40, independents in 11, Bob Katter in his seat and Rebekha Sharkie in hers; another two seats are too close to attribute, and in nine seats, the two-candidate-preferred count is still being calculated. Some of the closest seats include Longman, Goldstein and Bullwinkel, where the vote is currently 50.05 to 49.95, or separated by about 100 votes. Liberal Tim Wilson is currently 95 votes behind the independent Zoe Daniel in Goldstein; Labor’s Trish Cook leads the Liberals by 85 votes in the new WA seat of Bullwinkel; and LNP’s Terry Young is ahead of Labor in Longman by 102 votes. It might be some time before we get those results, as well as in the seats of Bradfield, Kooyong and Wills. Monday 5 AprilThanks for reading our coverage today as counting continued in several electorates after the election on Saturday night Anthony Albanese held his first press conference since being re-elected as prime minister with an increased Labor majority. Albanese said he had a “warm and positive” conversation with US President Donald Trump and foreshadowed an in-person meeting the president described Albanese as “very good” and said he had “no idea” who Peter Dutton was Trump also announced 100% tariffs on movies made in “foreign lands”, prompting alarm in the Australian film sector and promises from politicians to stand up for the local industry The size of Labor’s majority in the House of Representatives remained unclear and a number contests remain on a knife-edge The ABC was reporting 16 seats still in doubt at 5pm the independent candidate Zoe Daniel walked back her claims of a Victory as counting of postal votes narrowed the gap between her and Liberal Tim Wilson It looked like Greens leader Adam Bandt could lose the seat of Melbourne to Labor Liberal senator Hollie Hughes launched an extraordinary attack on Angus Taylor – who had been touted as a possible new Liberal leader saying the shadow treasurer offered ‘zero economic policy’ and that she didn’t know ‘what he’s been doing for three years’ In other news, the trial of Erin Patterson continued in Victoria. Patterson faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in Leongatha in South Gippsland in 2023. Updated at 09.54 CEST19h ago09.10 CESTSarah Basford CanalesGina Rinehart urges Liberals to go harder on Trump-like policies Mining magnate Gina Rinehart has encouraged the Liberal party to stick with Donald Trump-like policies after the opposition’s electoral thumping on Saturday night in a campaign overshadowed by the controversial US president The mining billionaire also singled out Italy and Hungary which are governed by populist rightwing coalitions where people were “abandoning the myths or untruths of the left” and returning to “common sense and truth” Gina Rinehart says the ‘left media’ frightened ‘many in the Liberal party from anything Trump’. Photograph: Hollie Adams/ReutersAnthony Albanese clinched victory against his conservative challenger, Peter Dutton, on Saturday, after the latter failed to brush off comparisons with Trump and ended up losing his own seat. In a lengthy statement to the Daily Mail on Monday, Australia’s richest person broke her silence following the Coalition’s wipeout on Saturday night. The left media did a very successful effort, frightening many in the Liberal party from anything Trump, and away from any Trump-like policies. This has been especially obvious this year, with the Liberals instead becoming known as the ‘me too’ party. Trump-style ‘make Australia great’ policies via cutting government tape, government bureaucracy and wastage, and hence being able to cut taxes, [were] too scarce in Australia this year to rate a mention. No doubt the left media will now try to claim that the Liberal loss was because the Liberal party followed Trump and became too right! The two simply don’t add up! The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, has vowed to defends the local screen industry in response to Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on film production. US president has announced 100% tariffs on movies “produced in foreign lands”. It is a bad decision for films and movies whether they’re made in Australia or the United States. It’s shortsighted and won’t work. We’ll be defending our screen industry as well as the local jobs it creates. NSW is home to more than half of Australia’s screen production businesses and film industry. It’s estimated to be around $1.15bn to the local economy. We’re talking films like Mad Max: Fury Road, The Great Gatsby, The Fall Guy, Anyone But You. These are major movie productions. Updated at 09.16 CEST19h ago09.00 CESTVictorian AG warns Liberals’ bail changes would place shoplifting ‘in the same category as manslaughter’ The Victorian attorney-general, Sonya Kilkenny, has responded to the state opposition’s new bail policy. The experiences of victims of crime are always front of mind, as is community safety – that’s why we’ve listened and acted with the toughest bail laws in the country. These are already seeing alleged offenders refused bail – and we’ll have more changes to come soon. They’ve reheated policy from the past that does nothing for community safety and would see petty shoplifting placed in the same category as manslaughter. Brad Battin’s Liberals are irrelevant. We’re getting on with the work that needs to be done to keep Victorians safe. Updated at 09.14 CEST19h ago08.56 CESTBenita KolovosVictorian opposition proposes changes to bail laws Brad Battin has announced a suite of proposed changes to Victoria’s laws young offenders who breach their bail conditions would be remanded in custody called a “loophole” created by the state government If you’re under 18 and you breach your condition of bail We’re going to bring that loophole to an end just like every other offender who receives the privilege of bail with conditions will be required to meet those conditions or they will be committing an offence they will face a much tougher test if they want to stay on bail The opposition’s announcement comes just months after the Allan government reintroduced the offences of committing an indictable offence while on bail and breaching a condition of bail But they did not make them apply to children Under the opposition proposal, these changes would come into effect right away. Battin said the government could account for an influx in people on remand by keeping open the Port Phillip prison in Truganina, which is slated for closure. Battin and O’Brien were joined at the presser conference by Nat Gordon, the sister of Ash Gordon, a GP who was killed during a home invasion earlier this year. Updated at 09.24 CEST19h ago08.55 CESTBenita KolovosVictorian Liberal leader focused on state issues after resounding Coalition loss Following the federal Coalition election defeat, the Victorian opposition leader, Brad Battin, has said he’s firmly focused on state issues, with preparations under way for the 2026 Victorian election. Speaking in Morwell, where he announced his first major policy since being elected leader in late December, Battin said the announcement is an attempt to “reset our agenda to move forward” following the federal result. He went on: We’ve got a whole policy platform we’ll start to roll out over the next 572 days before Victorians go to the electorate and make sure that we’re listening, that we’ve got our policies in the right place, that we’re listening to the community keeping Victoria safe, and that’s our priority. Unlike some of his colleagues, Battin says he wasn’t stunned by the result. He said: I wouldn’t say I was stunned … I watched the election almost from afar. I stayed in contact with the federal counterparts as we went through [and] there’ll be elements of that we can learn from, and we can always learn from. But I think it’s really important that for our focus here in the state, that it stays exactly where it was. We already knew the issues that were happening here in Victoria. We know that crime and cost of living are two of the biggest things impacting people in our state. He also argued voters were able to distinguish between state and federal government’s – pointing to the swings to Labor in Queensland just months after it elected a Liberal National government. Battin said: Victorians and Queenslanders have both said that they know the difference between state and federal issues. So now I’ll be refocusing on those state issues. He denied the Liberal brand was “toxic” and said he trusted the party’s administration, its polling and campaigning ability ahead of the state election. Updated at 09.06 CEST19h ago08.54 CESTGreens’ ‘blocking’ a factor in Labor’s Griffith win The new MP for the Brisbane-based seat of Griffith has explained why she believes she was able to regain the seat for Labor by toppling the Greens’ Max Chandler-Mather The big issues in Griffith are pretty much the issues nationally so cost of living [is] the number one issue [and] housing [are] incredibly important to people in Griffith and also climate change and the environment were really important issues Griffith fundamentally is a progressive electorate and people were wanting to see real change and progress so I think there was some disappointment with some of the blocking that went on and this idea of protest Chandler-Mather, who acted as the Greens’ housing spokesperson, locked horns continuously with Anthony Albanese during the last parliamentary term in very public debates over housing policy The Greens voted with the Coalition to delay Labor’s housing legislation, demanding the government provide more support for renters. Updated at 09.19 CEST19h ago08.45 CESTChaney says independents don’t need to become a formal voting bloc ‘at this point’ The re-elected member for Curtin, Kate Chaney, says she and the other teal independents and crossbenchers in the lower house don’t need to become a “more formalised voting bloc”. Labor has again secured a majority in the House of Representatives, meaning it doesn’t need to negotiate with crossbenchers to pass legislation in the lower chamber. Asked about the role of the crossbench during an interview on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, Chaney said: I don’t think there is any need at this point to become a more formalised voting bloc. The role I can play now is much the same as the role in the last parliament and that is to look at everything on the merits and represent the values of my electorate and keep submissions on the agenda that the major parties would rather sweep under the carpet. Having those voices in parliament, have more voices in parliament that can speak up without being constrained by a party structure, means we have richer discussions about the big challenges we’re facing a country. I have more potential to influence legislation by having a constructive working relationship with the government than my electorate would if it was represented by a Coalition backbencher. Updated at 08.56 CEST20h ago08.34 CESTLabor worked for two years to stage Queensland comeback Watt says Labor worked hard on campaigning in Queensland “for some time” to stage a comeback in his home state Labor has picked up a slew of seats in Queensland, including Petrie north of Brisbane and Leichhardt, where it defeated the Liberal National party Labor’s Ali France also won Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson becoming the first person to unseat a federal opposition leader at an election Murray Watt celebrates with newly elected Queensland Labor MP Ali France. Photograph: Jono Searle/EPALabor also won back two Brisbane seats that it lost to the Greens in the 2022 election. Speaking on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, Watt acknowledged 2022 had not been a good year for Labor in Queensland and said the candidates, sitting MPs and the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, had all put in significant “time and effort” to reverse that trend. If you go back to the 2019 election, federally we got thumped in Queensland, lost a lot of seats, a very low primary vote, lost a second Senate seat for the first time in decades. [We] went back further in the last election in 2022 and recognised we needed to make a bigger contribution … and frankly to retain government federally, we have needed to win seats in Queensland, so we have been applying ourselves for some time. I looked back at my Facebook posts yesterday and it was two years ago almost to the day we began campaigning in some of the Greens-held seats in Queensland. It has taken a lot of hard work [and it] has not been an overnight success. Watt also said people in Queensland could “differentiate between state and federal issues”, given the LNP won the most recent state election off Labor. Updated at 09.27 CEST20h ago08.18 CESTLabor not given credit for ambition of election agenda – WattLabor senator Murray Watt has denied his party has not been ambitious and says the re-elected Albanese government intends “to live up to” its campaign promises. Watt, a cabinet minister who most recently held the employment and workplace relations portfolios, has been interviewed on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program. The Queensland senator denied the Albanese government had not been ambitious in its first term, pointing to wages growth: I know there is commentary around we can now be ambitious and we have not been ambitious before, and I think is completely wrong. I think the agenda we took to the election was much more ambitious than it is given credit for. The idea we can get back to a situation in Australia where 90% of Australians can get a bulk-billed GP appointment is huge in terms of cost of living. It may not be exciting in terms of headlines but it makes a huge difference to people’s lives, so [that is] what we will focus on. Updated at 08.33 CEST20h ago08.06 CESTBenita KolovosPremier maintains Loop a decisive issue for Labor in Melbourne But Allan on Monday rejected that suggestion: If you speak to locals, if you spend any time out and about on the ground in local communities, the Suburban Rail Loop was being talked about. It was being talked about on doors. It was being talked about on the streets … It was understood there was a Labor government and a Labor team that were backing the Suburban Rail Loop and a Liberal outfit that wanted to cut it. Updated at 08.11 CEST20h ago08.05 CESTBenita KolovosAllan seizes on Labor’s success in Melbourne’s east to propel Suburban Rail Loop The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, has used Labor’s strong showing in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs at the federal election to push forward the state’s signature transport project, the Suburban Rail Loop. If you live in this community, like so many others, you understand that as you welcome more people who live in your community … [you have] got to get in and invest in big rail projects like this one that absolutely shifts more people on to rail, just like what the Metro Tunnel is going to do later this year when it opens. Updated at 08.09 CEST20h ago07.43 CESTSize of Labor majority remains unclear The Australian Electoral Commission hasn’t officially declared any seats yet, but says Labor is leading in 86, the Coalition leading in 40 Bob Katter in his seat and Rebekha Sharkie in hers; another two seats are too close to attribute the two-candidate-preferred count is still being calculated Updated at 07.56 CEST21h ago07.22 CESTAlbanese has ‘very warm’ conversation with Trump Anthony Albanese said he had a “very warm” conversation with the US president about tariffs and Aukus following Labor’s election win Albanese also foreshadowed an in-person meeting with Trump told reporters in the US that he was “very friendly with” Albanese and said he had “no idea” who Peter Dutton was Our multimedia team has prepared this clip of Trump’s full remarks: I’ll be with you on the blog until this evening.