Labour Returns To Power, Albanese To Become PM Monday

Early vote count suggests that Scott Morrison's Liberal Party was decimated in Saturday's federal election, which paves the way for Labour's Anthony Albanese to be sworn in as Australia's Prime Minister as soon as on Monday.

• Albanese will take office in one of Australia's quickest transitions of power, in order to be able to represent the nation at a Quad summit the following day.
• Environmental issues proved particularly salient, driving historic support for the Greens and climate-oriented independents.
• When this is being typed, Labour is four seats short of simple majority (76 seats), with 14 constituencies too close to call.
• There remains an outside risk of a hung parliament, which would force the government to reckon with a handful of independents, but Labour hopes to avert such a scenario.
• Final results may take several more days to arrive, with a record 2.7mn of postal votes yet to be counted.