After asking everyone last night their state of intoxication from zero to Bob Hawke (courtesy of our brutal drinking game), the answer was a resounding, gurgled, ‘yes’. Hangover weary souls of Australia: for those of you mourning the loss of a Labor leadership, last night wasn’t a nightmare, it actually happened; for those of you who are giddy at the result, carry on.
But in the heady drama of last night’s polls and incessant news coverage, you may have missed some of what went down last night. Caress those pained heads of yours, here’s what the fuck happened:
– Obviously: The Coalition came out with a resounding victory in the House of Representatives. At the time of writing, The Coalition scored 76 seats, Labor 54, the Greens 1, Independents 2 and 6 seats are still to be decided.
– Fortunately the clever people of
Greenway realised that Pedestrian’s favourite gaffe factory
Jaymes Diaz was totally daft and completely ill fit to represent his community, losing the seat to ALP member
Michelle Rowland by a 3% swing. Also, his brother
crashed his publicity van. Not looking good, bud.
– IT LOOKS LIKE CLIVE PALMER WON HIS SEAT OF FAIRFAX. Vote counts at present still unconfirmed, but all signs point to Clive. This is unbelievable – just when we thought the circus of Palmer was just about over, now he’s going to be in the House of Representatives… for three years, doing this forever and ever and on repeat:
– Kevin Rudd phoned Tony Abbott to concede defeat.
– Nova Peris became the first indigenous woman elected to Federal Parliament.
– Kevin Rudd won his seat of Griffith, but announced that he would step down from the Labor leadership, which makes the 2 and a half months of his renewed leadership seem depressingly fruitless.
– Fiona “Sex Appeal” Scott won her seat of Lindsay.
– Arcade Fire fan Adam Bandt took one for the Greens team and won his seat of Melbourne.
– PAULINE HANSON MAY HAVE WON A SEAT IN THE SENATE. Former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennet summed up everyone’s feels on the issue on Channel 7: “It is depressing. It’s absolutely depressing.” Australia, what have you done.
– Kevin Rudd’s defeat speech was LONG and relatively rambly, but let the pet have his last say. Nobody will be listening to KRudd for a while now. He optimistically said, “Gees, a couple more days we might have got there,” and introduced his Deputy Leader Anthony Albanese, to which the crowd responded with cries of “Albo! Albo! Albo!” Watch the full 22 minutes below.
– Tony Abbott’s victory speech sadly didn’t include a victory LAP on his bicycle of choice, however he did bring his hot daughters along who all dressed in white, presumably to symbolise purity, or virginity, or boring sartorial choices. Moreover, Abbott proudly said, making our nation sound like a franchised
7 Eleven: “I declare Australia is under new management and is once more open for business.”
The highlight, however, was this legendary troll who clambered on stage to join in the Abbott’s family press shots only to be dragged away almost instantly, as you can see below – note one Abbott Daughter on the right glaring straight at him. Doing us proud, mate.
Watch Tony Abbott’s victory speech below:
Tony Abbott will be sworn in as Prime Minister by The Governor General in the next week or so.
Julia Gillard emerged on Twitter, congratulating everyone, being bloody lovely, oozing class and making everyone miss her dearly:
The new labor leadership will be decided soon enough, crossing fingers and toes it’s new leader is Penny Wong, though bets seem to be between Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese. Health Minister Tanya Plibersek admitted that the Labor party suffered from internal woes that brought the party to its knees, saying, ” I would give us 9/10 for governing the country. I’d give us 0/10 for governing ourselves. And I think it’s pretty plain we had too many people playing their own games and not playing for the team.”
All eyes will be on Tony Abbott and his government over the next few weeks to see where their priorities will lie on their first day in parliament. In 2008, Kevin Rudd’s second day in Parliament as Prime Minister saw him make an historic apology to the stolen generation of Australia. Mr Abbott, what’s on the table?
But something else is bothering me today. Everybody is congratulating Tony Abbott, but aren’t we forgetting the real winner of yesterday? Rupert, you did it. You killed Kevin. Congratulations.
Lead and press conference images via Getty.
