Election LIVE: Ali France reveals what Dutton told her in private call

One of the most significant wins for Labor on election night was in Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson.

Labor’s Ali France won the seat in her third time contesting the electorate, booting the Liberal leader out of parliament after a 24-year career.

It gives Mr Dutton the unenviable title of first Opposition leader in the country’s history to lose his seat at an election.

The win for Ms France’s would be made sweeter considering the challanges she has overcome.

In 2011, she had leg amputated after a driver lost control of their car and slammed into her at a shopping centre. She later went on to become a paracanoeing world champion.

She and her husband divorced in 2019 and he subsequently died on cancer.

Then in 2024, her eldest son Henry died of leukaemia.

On Sunday. Ms France revealed what Mr Dutton had said to her when he personally called to concede late on Saturday night.

‘He was lovely,’ Ms France said.

She continued that he told her ‘congratulations, you’re going to make a great MP’ before going on to speak about her son.

‘He said ”your son, Henry, would be so proud of you”. He said ”it’s going to be an easy transition – we’ll make things easy for you”, and I congratulated him on his 24 years of serving the Dickson community.’

Ms France said she agreed that Henry would indeed be proud.

‘This is something that Henry and I talked about constantly – he loved that I was doing this.’

‘When we were talking about it, he just relapsed after a transplant and I didn’t expect to be doing this – I was expecting to be caring for him for at least another few years, and being by his side all the time.

‘He kept on saying ‘no, Mum, I will not be the reason you don’t win Dickson … I will not be the reason – don’t ever make me an excuse for not doing important things.

‘So I hope I’ve made him proud, because he made me proud.’

In his victory speech on Saturday night, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese congraulated fellow Labor winners before adding ‘excuse me for singling out one, who ran for the third time in Dickson: Ali France’.

The crowd responded with chants of ‘Ali, Ali, Ali’.

Despite her newfound star status in the party’s ranks, she remained humble.

‘I actually see all the grassroots campaigners as the heroes,’ she said.

Mr Albanese also expressed sympathy for Mr Dutton following the election result.

‘It’s a tough business, politics, there’s no doubt about that, and it would have been a tough night for Peter.’

The outgoing Liberal leader said he would take full responsibility for the election loss as the coalition looks to rebuild.

‘We didn’t do well enough during this campaign, that much is obvious,’ Mr Dutton told party supporters in Brisbane on Saturday.

Former deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has revealed he will undergo surgery after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, just hours after being reelected.

Mr Joyce, 58, underwent a prostate-specific antigen blood test following advice from his doctor.

The test returned an elevated result, and he underwent an MRI scan and biopsy which confirmed the diagnosis.

‘Prostate cancer, if you get it early, is very, very treatable; in fact, about 97 per cent successful,’ he told ABC News.

‘I’ll have the operation on Monday and I will then have a couple of days in hospital and will recuperate after that. I’m very blessed and lucky to discover this early.’

Mr Joyce said he had no symptoms before getting tested.

He will continue to serve in his role as the MP for the NSW seat of New England.

Deputy leader of the Opposition, Sussan Ley, who has assumed the top role after Peter Dutton lost his seat, has released a statement about her party’s decimation at the polls.

‘Last night was a very difficult night for the Liberal Party and today we reflect on these results with humility,’ the Member for Farrer said.

‘Firstly, I want to thank the many millions of Australians who voted for the Liberal Party (and National Party) and the thousands of volunteers who supported our campaign.

‘As acting leader of the Liberal Party, and deputy leader for the past three years, I want to pay particular tribute to Peter Dutton and thank him for his 25 years of deeply valued service to our country.

‘He has been an outstanding member of parliament, senior cabinet minister, leader of our party and friend.

‘We wish him, Kirilly, Bec, Harry and Tom all the very best for their future. They will rightly be very proud of his outstanding service to Australia.’

Ms Ley said that her thoughts were with many Liberal colleagues who have lost their seats – all 150 candidates who ran for the Liberal and National parties across the country.

With 85 per cent of the vote counted, she is set to retain her own seat with 64.8 per cent of the vote, compared to Labor’s Glen Hyde on 35.2 per cent.

‘I look forward to their significant individual contributions being appropriately recognised in the near future,’ she said.

‘As per our party rules following an election defeat, the Liberal party room will meet in order to elect a Leader of the Opposition and Deputy Leader of the Opposition.’

She said both positions would be declared vacant at the meeting.

‘I have consulted with our party’s senior leadership and it is clear that there are several seats where preferential counting must continue before this meeting can take place.

‘As that count does continue, the Member for Durack, the Hon. Melissa Price MP is the Acting Chief Opposition Whip and will communicate further about these arrangements in due course.

‘Finally, I thank our many dedicated Liberal and National Party members, Australia-wide, for supporting us so well during this campaign and at this time.’

Labor and Greens will almost certainly control the balance of power in the Senate in their own right.

This is big news for anyone worried about Labor potentially pandering to the Greens in the coming three years.

The grab bag of other crossbench senators are now rendered irrelevant to Labor’s policy agenda in the upper house, unless the Greens oppose it and a collection of the others coupled with the Opposition side with Labor.

That is an almost impossible proposition.

While there has been plenty of talk that the Greens underperformed during this election, they look set to have all six of their senate team re-elected.

It is the surge in Labor’s vote in the Senate that will see its share of seats swell.

At the moment the counting suggests Labor is ahead in the race for the final seat spot in three states – NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

It’s going to only need one of those states to come through to push its numbers to 28, and alongside the Greens’ likely 11-strong Senate team, that’s a majority of 39 in the 76-seat chamber.

If Labor win more than one out of the three final Senate spots it’s in contention for in these three states as voting continues, its share of it grows, and it can afford to drop a Green senator or two who breaks party lines.

Or if someone in its own ranks defects to the crossbench, just as WA Senator Fatima Payman did after the 2022 election.

While voting for the Senate is complicated and can see many twists and turns, reforms a few years back minimised that possibility.

Right now, Labor and the Greens look like they are in the box seat to control the Senate, all on their own.

Barnaby Joyce was one of the Coalition’s few winners, returning an even larger majority than he did in 2022.

They do love him up in New England.

But, despite his personal success, Joyce wasn’t pulling any punches when it came to analysing the Coalition’s wider performance.

‘We lost, didn’t we, and you can’t spin it any other way,’ the twice former deputy PM told the ABC.

‘If you do and try to sort of embellish it and gild the lily, then you are not fixing up the problems that you had.’

When Daily Mail Australia caught up with Joyce during the campaign – where he was effectively held prisoner in his own seat by a Nationals Party rule – he hinted that he might have helped make the difference for the Coalition cause in other marginal electorates.

He may well have been right.

You can read that full piece here:

Simon Holmes a Court has declared that Australians ‘love independents’.

‘The election was a ringing endorsement for the community independents,’ he told ABC Local Radio.

‘It looks like a million people voted for them.’

Simone Holmes a Court helps fund the Climate200 fundraising vehicle, which supported 35 community independents around the country.

All those who swept into parliament in 2022 were returned safely – some by the thinnest of margins.

For example, Kate Chaney retained her seat of Curtin in WA by a tight margin of 1.3 per cent.

The teal ranks have also been swollen with the addition of Nicolette Boele (pictured, below) who took Bradfield in Sydney’s North Shore at the second time of asking.

‘What we do know in Bradfield is that we have made Australian political history,’ Boele reportedly told her supporters on Saturday night.

‘We have proven that there is no such thing as a safe seat.’

She will join fellow NSW teal MPS Allegra Spender, MP for Wentworth, Sophie Scamps, MP for Mackellar and Zali Steggall, MP for Warringah on the crossbench.

Jacinta Price was not happy with the ABC’s Sarah Ferguson after she asked a VERY ponted question.

South Australian Liberal senator Alex Antic was scathing of the policy offering the Coalition put to voters.

‘It simply didn’t have policy that resonated … many of the policies were, in my mind, reminiscent of a mobile phone contract, for the first 12 months you’ll get something free,’ he told Sky News.

‘Unfortunately, we’ve sent the troops into battle without ammunition.’

Aussies are set to get a cash boost following Labor’s resounding election victory.

Increasing its majority in parliament thanks to its massive win, Labor has gained a second term with a plan to enable all first-home buyers to get into the property market with a five per cent mortgage deposit – regardless of their income.

Anthony Albanese also won the youth vote by promising to cut university student debt by 20 per cent.

Jacinta Allan is basking in the glory of Labor’s win.

The Victorian Premier praised Albanese’s ‘historic and emphatic’ victory.

She also suggested that the federal vote was an endorsement of her deeply unpopular state government, claiming Labor’s landslide showed support for the suburban rail loop and the long-awaited train line to Melbourne airport.

‘Victorians and Australians said an emphatic no to those blockers and said yes to building more homes, building the airport rail, building the suburban rail loop, and that also is a big yes to supporting the rights of workers, and protecting those workers, which we know are always under threat from a Liberal government,’ she said.

Anthony Albanese isn’t the only the one celebrating a landslide victory in the federal election, with the team at the ABC also cleaning up when it came to what channel the country tuned after the ballot boxed closed.

The public broadcaster dominated the national television ratings, claiming the top three spots on Saturday night with its election night coverage.

The ABC’s Australia votes 2025: Election Results special attracted a total average audience of 2,364,000 viewers across the country, and a total reach of 4,092,000 throughout the broadcast – more than all the commercial outlets and Sky News Australia combined.

This is despite the fact that the public broadcaster was beset by technical failures throughout the evening, with chief election analyst Antony Green forced to analyse data from the Australian Electoral Commission’s website while standing in front of a blank screen.

A caption on its website said: ‘We’re having some server problems.’

Channel Seven was the nation’s favourite commercial network on the night, pulling in an average national audience of 580,000 for its 7News: Australia Decides: The Results Live, with a total reach of 2,782,000 across the country.

The network had pushed its election coverage hard in the lead up to the key ratings battle and certainly came out on top, with the network’s election panel comprising hosts Natalie Barr and Michael Usher, veteran political editor Mark Riley and young gun Hugh Whitfeld all attracting plaudits for their incisive coverage.

Seven thumped its traditional rival Nine, which pulled an average national audience of just 527,000, and a total reach of 2,418,000, with the panel of experts on its Election 2025: Australia Decides – Election Night Live special, led by A Current Affair host Allison Langdon and political editor Charles Croucher, in comparison.

Ten confirmed its place as the country’s forgotten network, pulling in a surprisingly low average audience of just 97,000, for it’s 10 News First Saturday: Australia Decides special, and finishing outside the top 10 shows on the night.

While Ten did pip Sky News’ Australia Decides: Election Night offering, the ratings figures for Sky only included its free-to-air regional audience of 68,000 – meaning that it more than likely beat Ten overall was its paid subscription viewers are also included.

If you thought ousted Opposition leader Peter Dutton was feeling bad today, spare a thought for the election team at Ten.

The Liberal Party is expected to rapidly seek to replace its ousted leader and task them with the unenviable duty of rebuilding the shattered party its worse-ever defeat in a federal election.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton was the highest-profile casualty as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party swept to victory in an historic landslide win at the ballot box on Saturday returned them to parliament as a majority government.

Dutton conceded defeat not only in the election but his own seat of Dickson, which he had held for almost a quarter of a century, at 9.30pm on Saturday after being toppled by Labor’s Ali France in her third tilt at the west Brisbane electorate.

Read on to find out who the runners and riders are for the Liberal leadership:

Anthony Albanese has promised to lead a united government in his second stint as prime minister following Labor’s decisive election win.

Speaking for the first time since his landslide victory, Mr Albanese thanked supporters in his home electorate of Grayndler in Sydney’s inner-west.

‘The Australian people voted for unity rather than division,’ he told reporters on Sunday.

‘We will be a disciplined, orderly government in our second term, just like we have been in our first.

‘We’ve been given a great honour of serving the Australian people, and we don’t take it for granted, and we’ll work hard each and every day.’

With 71 per cent of the vote counted, Labor has won 85 seats with the Coalition going backwards to sit on 37 seats, while 18 seats remain in doubt.

Labor has increased its majority through substantial swings across all states, picking up marginal seats and formerly coalition strongholds.

Among the significant wins for Labor was Peter Dutton’s electorate of Dickson, as he became the first opposition leader to lose his seat at an election.

Labor’s Ali France won the seat in her third time contesting the electorate, booting Mr Dutton out of parliament after a 24-year career.

Mr Albanese expressed sympathy for Mr Dutton following the election outcome.

‘I feel for Peter Dutton. He was generous in his comments. I wish him and (wife) Kirilly and his family all the best,’ he said.

‘It’s a tough business, politics, there’s no doubt about that, and it would have been a tough night for Peter.’

The outgoing Liberal leader said he would take full responsibility for the election loss as the Coalition looks to rebuild.

‘We didn’t do well enough during this campaign, that much is obvious,’ Mr Dutton told party supporters in Brisbane on Saturday.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said Mr Albanese will go down in history as a Labor hero following the result.

‘This was beyond even our most optimistic expectations,’ he told ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.

‘It was a history-making night, it was one for the ages.’

The Trumpet of Patriots leader Suellen Wrightson has acknowledged that the ‘Australian people have spoken’.

She sent her congratulations to Albanese and shared her commiseration with Dutton, who, she claimed, ‘gave it his best’.

‘Importantly we will use this decisive Labor victory to re-evaluate our position, listen, learn and continue to present the important political issues to the Australian people,’ she added.

Wrightson ran in the seat of Hunter in NSW and received just 2,801 votes.

Well, I think we can all agree that was $60million of Clive Palmer’s money well spent.

Anthony Albanese has made his first appearance following his election win, visiting Bar Italia in Sydney’s Leichhardt, a coffee shop he used to go to with his late mum.

‘I used to visit this coffee shop with my mum,’ he said.

‘I grew up just down the road here. And I did certainly think of her last night as well.

‘She would be very proud.’

It was a point made by Peter Dutton in his gracious concession speech.

‘I said to the PM that his mum would be incredibly proud of his achievement tonight,’ Dutton said at Liberal HQ in Brisbane.

The PM appeared alongside Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Jerome Laxale, who has retained his ultra-marginal seat of Bennelong in Sydney’s lower North Shore.

Albanese also revealed the first international leader who called him was James Marape, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea.

‘He called me at about 7.45pm,’ Albanese said.

‘Since then, I’ve had good discussions with New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, and I’ve exchanged messages with world leaders, including Emmanuel Macron of France, Keir Starmer, and others.

‘I have some phone calls booked this afternoon, including one with President Noboa of Indonesia, a great friend of Australia, and President Zelenskyy, who has shown immense courage in leading the Ukrainian people against the aggression of Vladimir Putin and the Russians.’

Albanese said the Government would continue to support Ukraine.

Insiders on the ABC has now moved on to ‘Talking Pictures’ with photographer Mike Bowers.

One of the first images to be analysed is a now-iconic photograph of Peter Dutton on the campaign trail with Kooyong candidate Amelia Hamer and Senator Jane Hume.

To read a full analysis of why the picture will come to symbolise the campaign, click below:

After bombarding almost every Australian with constant text messages throughout the campaign, it seems Suellen Wrightson doesn’t like a taste of her own medicine.

The Trumpet of Patriots leader has now locked her Facebook profile.

Perhaps she is not a fan of being on the receiving end of incessant messages.

Teal MP Zali Steggall, who retained her Sydney electorate of Waringah, has hit out at how ‘vicious’ the election campaign has been.

‘Nationally there were pockets where it was vicious,’ she told Insiders.

She slammed ‘third party actor organisations’ who allegedly sought to undermine many independent candidates.

‘You got a lot of these attack fronts for the Liberal Party with a lot of money from fossil fuels attacking in these communities,’ she added.

It has been a frontbench bloodbath for the Coalition.

Apart from losing the election, delivering Labor a clear majority and Peter Dutton losing his seat, a stream of shadow ministers have also been defeated, alongside up and comers who had been viewed as the future of the party.

Not anymore, unless they make a comeback in three years time.

The shadow foreign minister David Coleman lost his seat of Banks.

New manager of opposition business and shadow housing spokesman Michael Sukkar lost his Melbourne seat of Deakin.

Frontbencher and salt of the earth Liberal MP for Petrie in Queensland Luke Howarth lost his seat.

Those are the fronthbenchers whose parliamentary careers are over, at least for now.

Added to that list are up and coming backbenchers Jamie Stevens in Sturt and Keith Wolahan in his Melbourne electorate of Menzies.

These are two of the last remaining Liberal MPs to hold inner city seats. Also two moderates their defeats have further gutted the moderate ranks of the Liberal Party after teals did the same three years ago.

Outspoken maverick backbencher Bridget Archer (pictured, below) has also lost her Tasmania seat of Bass.

The Coalition only has 37 confirmed wins in the 150 seat House of Representatives.

More will join them when counting is completed amongst the 19 seats in doubt, but the Opposition’s best case scenario is a total somewhere in the mid 40s, more than a dozen fewer seats than it won at the disastrous 2022 election defeat.

Teals have unanimously been re-elected, with likely new additions to their ranks. The only sitting teal whose seat remains up in the air is that of Zoe Daniel in Goldstein, but late counting last night had her slightly extending her lead over Tim Wilson who was attempting a comeback.

The Greens are looking at wins and losses, but the biggest news is that its leader Adam Bandt looks like scrapping home after appearing in deep trouble last night during the count.

As a result his leadership might come under pressure.

The real game in the next parliament for the Greens will be in the senate, where it will continue to play a role controlling the balance of power. A leader based in the senate would make more sense for the minor party.

There’s an avalanche of criticism that can be levelled at Peter Dutton’s lacklustre election campaign.

From his pie-in-the-sky nuclear power plan, to the ill-advised proposal to create an Australian version of Elon Musk’s DOGE, and his pledge to hold a referendum on deporting dual citizens convicted of serious crimes.

It has been a groggy start for many Liberals this morning, as they contemplate the train wreck from last night.

MPs I have talked and texted with this morning seem to think that shadow treasurer Angus Taylor will emerge as the clear frontrunner to take over the leadership now that Peter Dutton has lost the election as well as his seat.

But they have concerns that Taylor’s stewardship of the Opposition’s economic messaging was poor, including during the campaign, coupled with his questionable performances in parliament.

‘He’s not great but might be all we have for now,’ one Liberal MP said.

The feeling is that deputy leader Sussan Ley might be ‘too risky and too loose’ to take over.

Ley is also 63 years of age, older than the PM.

‘But as a woman perhaps that will help us at this time,’ the Liberal MP said.

Ley might be worth considering as a stop gap contender, but it’s hard to think she wouldn’t risk being undermined from day one.

At any rate, as part of Dutton’s leadership team she was part of the failure that played out last night. That has to count against her.

Other options who would involve renewal include defence spokesman and WA MP Andrew Hastie or Victorian MP Dan Tehan, but if they are to emerge as serious contenders ‘it will only become clear in the days to come, not this weekend’, the Liberal source argued.

Hastie is certainly a long-term option seen as capable of winning, but is he ready right now?

Tehan might be too folksy to be taken seriously. One name I would like to throw in the mix is Sydney MP for Berowra Julian Leeser.

A moderate who resigned from Peter Dutton’s frontbench over the Voice, he might serve as a clear sign of a clean out and new direction for the party, which voters seem to want.

But who are the moderate Liberals left in the parliament to get behind him?

Most have lost their seats, both at this election and the last against Teals. It is slim pickings for the Liberals when considering new leaders.

Dutton has largely been a one-man band for the last three years. The dominant figure to be sure.

The lesser names now left don’t jump out at you as natural successors.

Which is perhaps why Taylor is the favourite, simply because he’s the most obvious contender.

But how long will Taylor last if he doesn’t shine quickly after taking over? Liberals have a habit of blowing themselves apart in opposition, especially when times are tough….and these are certainly the toughest of times.

Scott Morrison’s former adviser Andrew Carswell has unleashed on the Coalition campaign, describing it a ‘complete catastrophe’.

‘It’s a complete catastrophe for the Coalition, an unmitigated failure,’ he told AM.

‘This is a party now staring down the barrel at three terms in opposition, having watched the Liberal rump of the Coalition get decimated.’

He said the Dutton experiment had ‘failed’, adding that the new leader had to unite the shattered party.

‘There are some very good up-and-coming MPs and Andrew Hastie is one of those that should be putting up his hand to lead the party,’ he added.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has revealed the two reasons why Labor won such a historic landslide: voters’ desire for stability and Anthony Albanese.

‘One of the reasons we gained such a big majority last night is that people recognised that if they wanted stability while the global economy was going crazy, then a majority Labor government was the best way to deliver that,’ Chalmers told Insiders.

And that desire for stability amid an increasingly uncertain world found its answer in Albanese, who Chalmers described as a ‘Labor hero’.

The Treasurer insisted he was keen ‘not do dance on the political graves of our opponents’.

But then he stuck the knife in.

‘There was a real kind of darkness at the heart of the Coalition’s campaign, this kind of backwards looking pessimism, which Australians rejected,

‘And in rejecting that I think they embraced the kind of leadership which Anthony Albanese provides which is practical, pragmatic, it is problem solving and it’s very forward-looking.’

And the work has already started.

Chalmers said he had already had a briefing from the Treasury today at 6.45am.