If the 2019 Australian election was shattering, relief sums up the 2022 election. That relief is shared across the political spectrum, with Scott Morrison’s own party colleagues describing him as a “psycho” and a “fraud.”

After Morrison’s unexpected narrow win in 2019, there were parallels with former conservative prime minister John Howard who won four elections in a row, provoking fears of long-term conservative dominance. Instead, there were three years of aimlessness, exposed by the federal government’s pandemic response failures, failed attempts at culture warring, and sheer ineptitude. With Morrison’s popularity cratering, the election became a referendum on the prime minister and delivered the biggest conservative defeat since World War II.

It is a historic victory, with Labor now on track to form government, either as minority or a narrow majority, and has delivered a realignment of Australian politics with a breakdown of the two-party system. Labor was not the main beneficiary of big primary vote swings against the Liberals except in Western Australia. The two-party preferred result masked record low primary votes for both major parties, and a record-high vote for independents and minor parties. The rise of organized independents and the breakthrough of Greens in the House of Representatives suggests a European-style fragmentation of the party system is happening.