Election 2022 live: Liberals don’t have ‘a better choice’ than Dutton, Sharma says; at least 38 Covid deaths

The SMH has some interesting lines from the Liberal candidate in Gilmore, Andrew Constance, who says his party were punished for being “too focused on themselves”.

While Gilmore remains on a knife-edge, the former state government minister said he was not surprised by the outcome of the election, warning the Liberal party that it needed to refocus on community concerns:

The party has been too introverted and too focused on itself.

It has to recognise its broad-based appeal is not sectional interest. The party exists for the community … there’s no such thing as a “heartland” in Australian politics.

We’re a progressive country and people want change – that’s what the vote was about for everybody.

The party’s future depends on its ability to uphold community values, and you can’t lose sight of that. It would be very easy to pour petrol on an internal argument but there’s no point, because that’s not why we exist.

Updated at 18.56 EDT

More politicians in the media, with independent Zali Steggall, fresh from retaining Warringah and increasing her majority, telling the Today show the Liberal party should have listened to her electorate.

Zali Steggall on election day. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

She said: “Fortune favours the brave,” and added that Josh Frydenberg would have retained his seat had he listened more:

I think the Liberal party didn’t heed the warning from Warringah three years ago – that communities wanted stronger policy on climate change, on integrity and, of course, the treatment of women.

Each of those MPs that lost to independents had the opportunity prior to Cop26 last year to cross the floor and vote for debating the climate change bill, for example.

They failed to do that, and their communities judged them on it.

Updated at 19.52 EDT

Staying with Karen Andrews on the ABC, where she is being grilled about some of the decisions taken by the Liberal party on election day, including the release of a media statement from Border Force about an asylum seeker boat.

Andrews confirms that she saw the statement before it was released but denies knowledge of the follow-up text messages that went out:

The reason the media release was put out, and it was a very factual media release that was put out, I think it was a statement, but in any event, there was a statement made available by that – I think it was important given the fact that it was election day and there needed to be transparency.

I saw the statement before it was released. There is a secondary issue of texts that were sent out. I had nothing to do with the text messages.

Border Force would have been releasing it in any event, making that statement. I think it was important, given where we were, it was election day, that people did have a statement that made it very clear what washappening but in a very, in a very operationally focused statement. That was important.

Updated at 18.35 EDT

Peter Dutton will stand unopposed for Liberal party leadership, Karen Andrews says

Former home affairs minister Karen Andrews has also fronted ABC News Breakfast this morning. Asked if Peter Dutton is the right person to lead the Liberal party, Andrews says no one is running against him:

He will be standing unopposed to take on the leadership and that means there’s no one else putting their hand up. So it will be Peter. Look, because he has widespread support, you have to assume that he is going to have very strong backing.

I believe that that is the case. He has a very strong support base here in Queensland. They’re backing him in very strongly as leader. That’s why it was important that the deputy change from a state other than Queensland and, while that is personally disappointing for me, the reality is that it was untenable to have a leader and a deputy leader from Queensland.

Former home affairs minister Karen Andrews. Photograph: Trevor Collens/AAP

Updated at 19.54 EDT

Sticking with politicians in the media this morning, Nationals MP Keith Pitt has told RN Breakfast his party will not push for a more ambitious climate target.

In a testy interview, Pitt essentially stood his ground, denying that the party needed to reconsider its position – its promise of a 26% to 28% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2050:

I’ll expect we’ll hold the current position.

Updated at 18.30 EDT

Sussan Ley in box seat to become Liberal deputy

Queensland Liberal MP Karen Andrews has told Seven’s Sunrise that it is “very clear” that Peter Dutton will take on the leadership of the Liberal party and that Sussan Ley will be his deputy.

The outgoing environment minister will join Dutton, who Andrews says is likely to run unopposed:

It is very clear that Peter Dutton will be elected as the leader unopposed and most likely that Sussan Ley will become the deputy leader.

It is very important that they work across the party, that they work with whoever goes into the shadow ministry to make sure that we are all part of the leadership of the party.

Because no single person can get this right.

We need to make sure that we are working across a whole range of areas with a whole range of people with very different skill sets.

Updated at 18.09 EDT

Newly installed federal treasurer Jim Chalmers says he is a “little more confident today” that the Labor party can form a majority in parliament, as the vote count shows multiple seats going down to the wire.

Speaking on ABC News Breakfast, Chalmers said he hoped Labour could win Brisbane and get up to 77 seats:

I’m a little more confident today than perhaps I was earlier in the week. You know, I speak to people who follow this very closely and looks like we are a very strong chance of a majority.

I really want to see Madonna Jarrett, up in Brisbane, someone who I have a lot of respect for, so ideally we can get to 76 or 77 and have Brisbane included in that pile because she’ll be an outstanding contributor.

We’re pretty confident about McNamara. We think we’ll get majority but that’s not yet entirely assured.

Updated at 18.07 EDT

Dave Sharma says voters didn’t think Coalition was ‘serious’ about climate change

Dave Sharma, who lost his once safe Liberal seat of Wentworth to independent Allegra Spender, has told ABC’s RN Breakfast that the teal independents “positioned themselves quite cleverly”.

Sharma said Spender had picked up protest votes against Scott Morrison from traditional Liberal voters, as well as regular Labor and Greens voters.

Dave Sharma on election day. Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images

Many in his former electorate deeply disliked Morrison, Sharma said, saying they believed he was too religious. They didn’t like that he once carried coal into parliament and they didn’t believe he was sincere about climate change:

Undoubtedly, the prime minister had lost some prestige and credit during over the last few years. I think frustrations with the government are growing as they tend to accumulate after as being in power for as long as we were.

The teal candidates position themselves quite cleverly, I think, as a repository for an anti-government protests vote without without being a Labour/Greens vote. I think that was the secret in seats like mine.

Sharma added that he couldn’t convince constituents in his electorate of his party’s climate agenda, saying that many thought the party didn’t take the issue seriously:

It’s not our policies. I think the policies could do with improvement, certainly, but it’s a lack of belief in the sincerity of our commitment.

I can tell people till I was blue in the face that how much would reduce emissions by 2050. How much money we’re investing in renewable energy … but people just thought we weren’t serious about it because of our history on this issue.

And because of the rhetoric that people in the Coalition continued to use on the issue that suggested they thought the whole thing was a bit of a joke.

Updated at 19.58 EDT

On the vote count, AAP is reporting that Labor is ahead of the Greens in the seat of Brisbane by a tiny 34 votes, in a seat perviously held by the LNP.

Postal votes, which are still being counted, are favouring Labor candidate Madonna Jarrett over her Greens rival Stephen Bates.

As of yesterday afternoon, former minister Michael Sukkar led the contest for the Victorian seat of Deakin by 74 votes against Labor hopeful Matt Gregg.

Former NSW minister and Liberal candidate for Gilmore Andrew Constance is 105 votes ahead of sitting Labor MP Fiona Phillips.

In the Senate, the Coalition is on track to hold 30 seats, and Labor 25, in the 76-seat chamber from July.

Updated at 17.42 EDT

Good morning

Good morning, Mostafa Rachwani with you this morning, the fourth after the election.

We are expecting prime minister Anthony Albanese to return to Australia today after meeting world leaders in Tokyo.

Albanese used the opportunity to urge China to lift sanctions on Australia, adding that climate change remains the No 1 challenge facing Pacific Island nations.

He is expected to finalise his frontbench today, as the vote count continues, with Guardian Australia putting Labor on 73 seats so far, needing three more to form majority.

Elsewhere, the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that some Liberal MPs feared their government was in trouble as far back as September, and pushed for Josh Frydenberg to challenge Scott Morrison’s leadership. The report says the coup failed when Frydenberg declared his loyalty for Morrison.

And late yesterday senior NSW police announced they had “cut the head off the snake” of a drug syndicate in Sydney, making 18 arrests and seizing 34 mobile phones during 29 raids in south-west Sydney.

We will keep our eyes on Covid numbers and all the swirling reactions to the election, so stay tuned.

Updated at 17.31 EDT