Australian news and politics live: Peter Dutton tells radio ‘Albo deserved to win’ after Federal election

Following what has been described as a “humiliating loss” for the Coalition, former Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has offered a new assessment on the 2025 Federal election result.

After conceding the election and his seat of Dickson, Mr Dutton has remained rather quiet, however, 2GB host Ben Fordham revealed new comments from the former MP on his Sydney program on Wednesday.

Fordham, who had a private conversation with Mr Dutton, revealed the former leader didn’t want to “buy in” on excuses. Instead, Mr Dutton told Fordham that “Albo deserved to win”.

The radio host paid tribute to Mr Dutton’s political legacy, saying: “When his record is considered, away from this election campaign, he’s got plenty to be proud of.”

Labor’s Cabinet and full ministry can be expected to reflect the high proportion of women returned to the caucus after the recent election, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has said.

“We were the first female majority government in Australia’s history in 2022 – 53 per cent of the caucus were women. And I expect that it will be higher than that when all of the seats are determined in our caucus from 2025,” she told ABC Radio National Breakfast.

“So that makes our job easier, making sure that it’s reflected through all positions in the party, because it’s not just the ministry, it will be a whole lot of other positions as well,” she said.

Senator Gallagher will be retaining her finance portfolio, which she held in the last term, as well as serving as Minister for Women and Public Service.

Future portfolio decisions lay in the hands of the Prime Minister, but he had been “very proud of the fact that he had a Minister for Women who was Minister for Finance, that we had a gender equal cabinet,” she said.

“The thing about gender equality in the Labor Party is everyone in the caucus is for gender equality, that conversation or that argument has been won. So it’s an easy discussion for us.”

National Party Senator Matt Canavan says the Coalition with the Liberal Party is a “business relationship, not a marriage”, as the fallout from the 2025 election loss continues.

Speaking to Sky News, Senator Canavan said he wasn’t seeking a Coalition break-up, however, wanted “all options” on the table to allow the Nationals to “fight” for Australians.

“We’ve always found a way to work with our Liberal colleagues in that time,” he said.

“But I would argue that when we’ve been at our most successful is when the National Party has instigated debate on many of these issues.

“It was the National Party that first stood against Kevin Rudd’s carbon tax. Six months later, he was no longer the Prime Minister.

“It was the Nationals Party that saved the Adani mines by a bunch of bedwetting Liberals that wanted to kill it. And that saved the 2019 election of the Morrison government.

“And so we should never be shy in the National Party of putting forward our view.

“I worry that we have been gun-shy in this last term of parliament in a futile attempt to give the Liberals space or some sort of opportunity to win seats in the city.”

Labor Senator Murray Watt has shared his thoughts on Teal Zoe Daniel’s premature victory claim after she sensationally lost her seat on Tuesday.

“Politics is all about timing, isn’t it. You can get these judgment calls wrong,” he told Sunrise.

“We all have people crunching the numbers throughout the night, and in the days following, to try to work out where preferences are going to go and things like that. And in these really close seats, it can be really hard to work out what is going to happen.

“I obviously feel for her. It’s not a great experience.”