Australia election 2022 live: Anthony Albanese promises to ‘bring Australians together’; Liberals mull inner-city rout after ‘teal revolution’

The election result will trigger all sorts of bloodletting within the Coalition.

Matt Canavan, the Queensland Nationals senator who has long campaigned against the net zero target, spoke with Guardian Australia a short time ago to give his take on the results.

While there have been big gains for the teal independents and the Greens, which have campaigned for much stronger climate action, Canavan says the election sent a clear message to the Coalition that “when we go left, we lose”.

Canavan contended that the Coalition went to the election with “a leftist agenda” on climate, but that wasn’t a credible platform:

McDonald’s can’t sell health food and the LNP can’t sell socialism.

Canavan pushed back at the idea, advanced by senior moderate Liberals, that the Coalition needed to take a stronger climate action policy to the next election, saying: “What more should we do? Should we adopt a carbon tax, should we double the dole?”

(Quick side note: neither major party has a policy proposal for a carbon tax, and the Coalition temporarily doubled the jobseeker payment in the early stages of the pandemic.)

Canavan, who was pushing for the Nationals to oppose the net zero target last year, said the loss of inner-city seats to the teal independents showed that “the Faustian bargain proved to be a complete failure”, and he blamed the moderates:

The policy agenda we took to the election was signed, sealed and delivered by the moderate wing of the Liberal party … Doubling down seems to be the definition of insanity.

Asked whether the Coalition should strive to win back those inner-city seats at the next election, Canavan said it should try to win as many seats as possible, but the path to victory would be through the regions and the suburbs.

Canavan said the biggest issue for voters was the cost of living but the Coalition “didn’t have a coherent platform” to address that, and it must return to a focus on “kitchen table economics”.

We forgot the forgotten people.

He said the Coalition should focus on winning back votes that it had lost to One Nation and Clive Palmer’s United Australia party.

Asked about Liberal senator Simon Birmingham’s suggestion that the Coalition should now embrace a stronger formal 2030 emissions reduction target, Canavan said:

This is all ridiculous – I mean, what the hell? Who cares?

Canavan questioned whether there was still an appetite for deep 2030 targets in major emitting countries including the US.

By contrast, he said, the National party “had a great night” at the election and he hoped Barnaby Joyce would stay on as leader, citing the need for stability.

The teal independent candidates often mentioned Joyce in their campaigning, saying the self-proclaimed moderate Liberals vote the same in the parliament as the Nationals leader.

But when asked whether Joyce should be seen as responsible for the Liberal party’s losses in inner city seats, Canavan said he was “not going to apologise for delivering results for regional Australians”. He said that was the nature of Coalition governments.

Birmingham told the ABC’s Insiders program earlier today:

I would hope that we can continue to work together, but obviously the National Party need to look at where the Liberal Party has felt this pain and reflect upon how it is that we, together, can manage to form majority government in the future and what will be necessary for us to [achieve that].

When asked about this comment, Canavan said:

I hope the Coalition stays together. With all due respect to the Liberal party, perhaps they could take a leaf out of the National party … maybe the Liberal party could learn something about the need to stay true to values and principles.