What the Liberal Party does next is important to them and irrelevant to Australia.

They attracted the lowest ever primary vote for a ‘major party’ since 1943. They have their fewest House of Representatives members since 1946 (when there were half as many seats to win).

What remains is a party even more dominated by Queensland MPs than it was before the election.

The Liberals hold only a small handful of seats in Sydney and Melbourne, and none in Adelaide or Hobart. Indeed, the Liberals hold no seats in Tasmania at all. The National Party seems to have succeeded in its reverse takeover of the Liberals.

But who cares.

Labor has a thumping majority in the lower house in its own right.

Throw in the Greens and the so-called ‘teal’ independents and progressive representatives hold close to 100 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives.

If the Liberals want to continue their anti-science, anti-democratic culture wars, no one should worry, or try to stop them. Their future is a “them problem”.

For progressives, the news is great in the Senate as well, with Labor increasing its Senate representation, the Greens upper house vote solid and independent David Pocock winning a thumping mandate in the ACT, where the Liberals’ Senate vote collapsed to just 15 per cent. And with 42 per cent, Pocock even outpolled Labor’s Katy Gallagher.

It’s not uncontroversial to suggest Anthony Albanese’s first term was a cautious one, but the interesting question now is whether the second term Labor government will make the big changes that Australians clearly want or need.

Or whether, despite the Liberals’ desultory performance, Albanese keeps giving them a veto over energy policy, the structure of our National Anti-Corruption Commission or whether Australians get a fair share from all the fossil fuels we export.

For decades, progressive voters have........

© InDaily