Joyous celebrations have erupted at Labor’s official election function, with the opposition on track to form Australia’s next government.
Cautious optimism at the start of the night has given way to widespread celebration at the Canterbury-Hurlstone RSL Club, where the almost 1000-strong crowd erupted after news came through Labor would win the election.
However, it remains to be seen whether Labor would govern as a minority or majority government, due to a large number of crossbenchers set to join parliament.
Anthony Albanese is watching the election results from his Marrickville home, and the Labor leader is expected to address the crowd later tonight.
The crowd at the event burst out into chants of “Albo, Albo”, and even chanting “yes, WA” and “yes Mark McGowan”, following large swings to the party in the state.
There have been swings to Labor across seats in NSW, Victoria and South Australia, with the opposition taking the electorates of Reid, Robertson, Chisholm, Deakin and Boothby.
The success story of the night has come from WA, where Labor is likely to win Hasluck, Pearce, Swan, with the potential for Moore to also fall.
Large cheers also erupted upon results in Dickson, where Labor look set to take the seat off Defence Minister Peter Dutton.
There was also large cries in the room when results flashed up showing Treasurer Josh Frydenberg could also lose his safe seat of Kooyong to independent Monique Ryan.
However, the opposition could still lose some of its Queensland seats to the Greens.
Parachuted candidate Kristina Keneally is also likely to lose in the Sydney seat of Fowler to independent Dai Le.
The decision to parachute her from outside the electorate was deemed by many to be controversial.
Party supporters have said the results were already better than it 2019 defeat.
“This is the campaign we should have run last time,” one person said.
Anthony Albanese is expected to become just the fourth Labor leader to lead the party to victory from opposition since World War II.
Celebrations at the official function are set to go well into the night, with many punters also celebrating with the specially made Albo Ale beer.
By Andrew Brown in Canberra
