Albo, Peter & Don - Did international politics decide the Australian election?

By Ben Rosenbaum, Reading Time: 3 minutes

Stunning, remarkable, historic…those are just some of the words used to describe the recent election results in Australia on the third of May. Against the odds, the Australian Labor Party won a second term for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, in what is widely seen as a repudiation of US President Donald Trump and his ideological partners in Australia. However, can Trump alone be blamed (or thanked?) for the result?

Peter Dutton. Photo by UK Government, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Anthony “Albo” Albanese. Photo by Australian Government, licensed under CC BY 4.0

A few months ago, Anthony Albanese might have been considering what his career would look like after losing the election. In February, his Labor Party was still polling consistently behind the Coalition party group, consisting of the centre-right National and Liberal parties. Then, at the end of March, Labor’s fortunes changed, and in April, they took the lead in the polls. The election result confirmed Labor’s turnaround: With 146 of 150 seats in the House of Representatives declared at the time of writing, Labor won 93 seats compared to the Coalition’s 41. Immediately after the result was announced, questions were asked on why the polling companies had consistently underestimated Labor even when it had taken the lead.

The international influence

Several explanations now have emerged on how Coalition leader Peter Dutton squandered his chance at becoming Prime Minister. There are those commentators who focus on the parallels between Dutton and Donald Trump. In this narrative, examined in different media outlets, Australia follows the recent Canadian trend of rejecting Trump-style candidates after the recent international tensions around tariffs, territorial ambitions and Ukraine.

At first glance, there is strong support for this argument: For example, Dutton’s policy platform of right-wing conservatism leaned heavily into culture war issues, hardline immigration policies, and cutting bureaucracy, similar to his political trendsetter in the US. He likewise mirrored Trump’s new controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) unit, with his own Shadow Minister for government efficiency. 

Dutton’s opponents used these controversial policies to their advantage: During the campaign, Albanese strongly criticised Dutton and drew attention to the similarities between Dutton’s and Trump’s policies, going even further by calling Dutton “policy-lazy”. Fears that this strategy might hurt US-Australian relations after Albanese’s win are unfounded so far: After a congratulatory phone call, Trump praised Albanese and said he was “very friendly” with him. 

Yet, the question remains: Can the Trump factor alone account for Dutton’s defeat?

The domestic factors

Analysts have also pointed to other, interrelated factors such as the cost of living and the aggressive campaigning style. According to David Smith of the US Studies Centre in Australia, the cost of living was the most prominent issue for most Australians. And here, Labor might have been more convincing to voters by following a more disciplined, focused campaign. Smith pointed out that the debates in the Australian campaigns over policy intensified just as Trump came into office, making it difficult to establish a clear causality of voting decisions based on international events.

However, even after realizing the detriment of his resemblance to Trump, Dutton could not remedy this situation: His campaign has been called inconsistent, with frequent policy changes, shifting priorities, and a lack of vision while only focussing on attacking the government.

In the end, Dutton even lost his own seat at the election and resigned as party leader. But the election result was not only Dutton’s defeat but also Albanese’s success, who managed to enlarge his previous slim majority. Labor performed particularly well among women, young people, and ethnic minorities. Some analysts predict that this result may even embolden Labor to move further to the left and become more radical. Then again,  Albanese’s new cabinet does not signal such a major change of approach.

Whether Albanese's policies now become bolder and more radical or not, he has already managed to buck the trend of the crisis of incumbency and held on to power, which has been compared with Mark Carney’s victory in Canada, standing in Trump’s shadow. With the combination of anti-Trump backlash and a coherent message on cost-of-living issues, Albanese’s example might prove instructive for European liberal democracies as well.