The Australian federal election took place on Saturday 3rd May, and, while many Australlians felt a momentary sense of relief, they didn’t end up with Peter Dutton—sometimes likened to Voldemort from Harry Potter—as Prime Minister, they are quickly reminded that the one elected, Anthony Albanese, is not much better.
Several notable events occurred in the wake of the recent election. The Australian Labor Party (ALP) won its largest-ever majority with 97 seats out of 150, and Anthony Albanese is the first Prime Minister to regain his position since 2004. Despite Peter Dutton’s feeble attempt in his last week of campaigning to wage culture wars, the Coalition (the Liberal and National Party) scored their lowest vote in the party’s history. Peter Dutton became the first opposition leader to lose his seat.
The Greens came into the election with four seats in the House of Representatives, but, despite receiving their highest number of votes nationally, retained only one. Adam Bandt, former leader of the Greens, conceded defeat in his electorate of Melbourne where he was the member since 2010.
Bandt attributes this loss to the massive swing away from the Liberal party due to the “Trump effect”: Dutton positioned himself as part of the populist right associated with Trump, pushing voters away from the Liberal party.
What does this have to do with the Greens losing seats? Many former Liberal voters are more likely to shift their vote to the ALP than the Greens; and under Australia’s preferential voting system, a Liberal supporter is unlikely to rank the Greens second. So, the ALP’s monumental win wasn’t due to their strength, but rather the laughably bad campaign of the Liberal party, which included promises to establish nuclear power in Australia and sack thousands of public servants.
Despite the left’s criticisms of the Greens party, their loss in the House of Representatives is a setback for Australians who support the Palestinian movement. The Greens continuously called for an end to the occupation in Palestine, Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and for Australia to place sanctions on Israel.
The ALP, on the other hand, has continued to endorse Israel as an ally. Under Anthony Albanese, the government froze $6 million in funding to the UN aid agency in Gaza, and approved military exports to Israel. They have also attempted to delegitimise pro-Palestinian protests by labelling them as violent and antisemitic.
Additionally, when Fatima Payman, former ALP Senator, argued for sanctions against Israell, she was met with criticism from the ALP and was labelled as antisemitic for saying: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
When Payman crossed the floor (voting against a party’s position) on a motion stating the urgent “need for the Senate to recognise the state of Palestine”, she was told not to join caucus meetings for two weeks.
Albanese suspended Payman indefinitely after she told ABC Insiders she would cross the floor again. The ALP once celebrated Senator Payman as the first hijab-wearing Muslim woman in the Senate. This pride disappeared when Payman challenged the party line.
The ALP’s claims to value diversity aren’t the only lies they’ve been dishing out. On the night of the election, Albanese said in his speech: “Today, the Australian people have voted for Australian values, for fairness, aspiration and opportunity for all.” But where exactly what the ALP claims to stand for?
Is it “fair” that the number of women killed in gender-based violence has been increasing under the Albanese government? Is it “aspirational” that between 2002 and 2024, the house price-to-income ratio almost doubled, and homelessness increased by 25% in the last five years? Is it “opportunity for all” that First Nations people are significantly overrepresented in the prison system? From June 2023 to 30 June 2024, the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners increased by 15%, now accounting for 36% of total prisoners, despite only representing 3.8% of the population.
Aside from these horrific numbers, Australia has the largest proportion of inmates in for-profit prisons globally, meaning that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are being incarcerated for profit.
This doesn’t sound very “fairness, aspiration, and opportunity for all” of Australia.
Sadly, it isn’t surprising that the ALP exchanges lives for profit.
Notwithstanding the number of homes and habitats in Australia that have been ravaged by drought, fires and floods in recent years, the ALP ignores the climate crisis and actively contributes to the destruction of Australia’s environment. According to government data, Australia exported 57 million tonnes of coal between October and December 2024, marking the highest-ever coal export recorded for a three-month period.
Not only has the ALP approved over 28 new coal and gas projects, they have also scaled back Australia’s environmental laws, despite promising to improve them, limiting the government’s ability to reconsider environmental approvals when an activity is harming the environment.
Then again, why dwell on the past when the ALP has made new promises they can backpedal on in their next term? Australians can look forward to (if we’re lucky!) the ALP putting $8.5 billion into Medicare, allowing access to 5 percent deposits for first-home buyers, and outlawing supermarket price gouging, delivering a small tax cut that, by its second year, should save taxpayers a whopping $10 a week, and taking 20 percent off all HECS debts (student loans).
But how much will these promises change the lives of everyday Australians?
Is offering a 5% percent deposit on homes going to combat Australia’s dire housing crisis and end homelessness? Everybody’s Home, a coalition of housing, homelessness and welfare organisations, argues that Australia’s social housing growth is failing to meet demand. The government’s five-year target of 1.2 million homes, according to spokesperson Ms Azize, will still result in a shortfall of 640,000 homes.
Can outlawing price gouging really do much to alleviate the strain of the cost of living crisis? Price gouging is already outlawed in other parts of the world, including the European Union, which prohibits “imposing unfair purchase or selling prices” (the definition of which is rather murky). And despite the ban, actual enforcement is rare, and, as we can see in Germany, the cost of living is still rising and, for many of us, unaffordable.
As the ALP continues to ignore the causes of the diminishing living standards, namely the transfer of wealth to the rich, their policies will do little to improve people’s lives. They’ve prioritised profit over people while claiming to be the lesser evil. Everyone deserves affordable housing, healthcare, and education, yet the ALP hands these out in scraps.
But our industry, education, housing, and healthcare system shouldn’t exist to benefit the rich.
This is what newcomer-party Victorian Socialists (VS) claim to be fighting for. Established in 2018 as a collaboration between the Socialist Alliance and Socialist Alternative, the VS declared to push back against the war waged against workers and the lie that both the ALP and the Liberals perpetuate: that there is no alternative to capitalism.
The main goal of the party is to abolish capitalism in Australia, which, according to the party’s aims, must be achieved through workplace, community and political organisation.
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) candidate, Morgen Peach, has criticised the VS, labelling them as a “pseudo-left” party that promotes the Greens as allies that instead of mobilising workers, attempts to appeal to the powers that exist within the framework of capitalism.
However, others have argued differently. Gary Pearce writes that an important part of VS’s strategy is “not to seek to represent a largely passive constituency in government, but to fight alongside different communities”. The party has involved themselves in and organised protests opposing wage theft, public housing sell-offs, and Israel’s occupation of and genocide in Palestine.
And while the Victorian Socialist party does commend the Greens party on being one mainstream party that offers a “left alternative”, they denounce the Green’s focus on “gentrified inner city seats” and their unwillingness to campaign and immerse themselves amongst working-class migrant communities.
Australia’s desire for a left-alternative is evident in the election results in Thomastown, Epping Views and Campbellfield, where the VS saw a vote share increase of 15 to 20 percent. For that reason, the VS, on 11 May 2025, decided to expand the project across Australia. James Plested, VS communications manager, writes: “Where socialists can run a decent campaign, we can gain a hearing and often win people away from voting for the faux anti-establishment parties of the far right.”
The party aims to build branches in every state and territory, and eventually, every city and town in Australia, claiming that “The more of us there are coming together across Australia to fight the rotten status quo of capitalist politics, the more powerful our movement will become.”
While the VS are expanding nationally and provide a left alternative, Australians have a responsibility to do more than simply wait for the next election to vote. Because, in the end, what is important is not an extra seat in the Senate or House of Representatives, but actively working and organising to achieve a better world where equality, freedom and justice apply to everyone.