Why Australia election result is a double loss for opposition’s Peter Dutton

There’s the famous adage — ‘you win some, you lose some’. However, for Peter Dutton, the Liberal Party leader and head of the opposition in Australia, it’s been all loss and no win at the Australian federal elections.

Not only has his party lost the election to the Anthony Albanese-led Labor Party , but the 54-year-old cop-turned-politician has lost his own seat of Dickson in suburban Brisbane become the first federal opposition leader to suffer such a loss.

We take a closer look.

Dutton loses Dickson seat

Opposition leader Peter Dutton was handed an embarrassing defeat in his seat of Dickson at the hands of Labor’s Ali France. A disability advocate, former journalist, and world champion para-athlete, France did the impossible by defeating Dutton in a seat, which he has held for the past 24 years.

France also ran against Dutton in 2019 and 2022 and gradually chipped away at his lead. It became the state’s most marginal conservative electorate at the 2022 election, with just 3,360 votes separating the two.

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The loss at France’s hands makes Dutton the first sitting party leader to lose their seat at an election since then-Prime Minister John Howard was beaten in Bennelong on the same night he lost government in 2007.

Conceding defeat in Dickson, Dutton told his supporters in Brisbane that he had called France to congratulate her on her victory, saying: “She will do a good job as a local member… I wish her all the best.”

He added that he was proud of breaking the “one-term curse” in Dickson in which the seat had regularly changed hands between major parties before his victory in 2001.

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“Dickson had a one-term curse, it was only ever held for one term at a time and we have held it for 24 years,” Dutton said in his concession speech.

“I do want to say thank you to the people of Dickson who have placed faith in me over a long period of time.”

A Labor landslide at the polls

For Dutton, it wasn’t just the loss of his seat. His party, the Liberals, who are part of the Coalition, have suffered a bruising defeat in the Australian elections.

While votes are still being tallied, ABC News, the local media, has reported that the Labor will form a majority government after recording strong swings in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia and a small swing in Victoria.

The ABC has called 86 seats for Labor, but it is leading in several more, and ABC election analyst Antony Green has said it could end the count with a “thumping” majority. It will make Anthony Albanese the first prime minister elected twice since John Howard.

Speaking on the loss, Dutton said, “We didn’t do well enough in this campaign, that much is obvious tonight. It is a historic occasion for the Labor Party and we recognise that. I congratulated the prime minister and wished him, Jodie (Albanese’s fiancé) and Nathan (son) all the very best and I said to the prime minister that his mother would be incredibly proud of his achievement tonight and he should be proud of what he has achieved.”

Dutton also apologised to Liberal candidates who have “lost their seats [and] their ambition… We have an amazing party, and we will rebuild.”

A poll reversal Dutton didn’t expect

Saturday’s election results are a complete reversal from the beginning of the campaign. Dutton entered the race on a strong footing. But analysts say his chances were badly damaged by policy misses and reversals, and weighed down by US President Donald Trump’s wrecking-ball approach to the global order.

Moreover, Dutton struggled to shake off comparisons between him and the US president. During the campaign, one of his candidates declared that she wanted to “Make Australia Great Again” — a reference to Trump’s tagline of ‘Make America Great Again’.

He was also accused of “stoking division, trying to turn Australians against each other, trying to start culture wars”.

As Henry Maher, a politics lecturer at the University of Sydney, noted in an AFP report that Dutton’s perceived “Trump-lite” policies had turned some voters off.

For now, the future looks uncertain for Dutton. He has lost his seat in parliament and it is being speculated that his role as head of The Coalition will also come to an end. In fact, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that even before the votes had been cast, senior Coalition figures had held meetings weighing up leadership options in the event of a bad result for Dutton.

Only time will tell what awaits Dutton.

With inputs from agencies