Tens of billions of dollars in government investment in new industries and manufacturing capability is secure after Labor won the 2025 federal election and returned the Albanese government for a second term.
Key programs like Future Made in Australia, the National Reconstruction Fund and an energy innovation push would have been shuttered if Peter Dutton had formed government and returned the nation to light-touch, market-focused policy.
Instead Mr Dutton lost his seat in a resounding victory for Labor and attention now turns to frontbench shakeups and potentially more ambitious policy programs.
Labor will form a majority government, securing at least 86 seats in the lower house as of Sunday evening, with votes still being counted in some seats.
Mr Albanese declared victory around 10pm on Saturday.
“In this time of global uncertainty, Australians have chosen optimism and determination,” Mr Albanese said. “Australians have chosen to face global challenges the Australian way looking after each other while building for the future.
“And to serve these values, meet these challenges, seize these opportunities and build that better and stronger future, Australians have chosen a majority Labor government.”
In its first term, the Albanese government developed its landmark Future Made in Australia (FMiA) agenda and stood up the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund.
The industry programs underpinned the government’s post pandemic sovereign capability push and also came as a response to global markets churning on decarbonisation and geopolitics.
These programs upended decades of economic orthodoxy in the process, and last year the Albanese government went as far as directly backing an individual quantum computing firm in PsiQuantum and poured billions into industries like solar panel manufacturing despite criticism about their viability amid fierce global competition.
In the lead up to the election, Labor was largely silent on new industry or technology programs, but promised to widen FMiA to green steel and aluminium, pour another $1.2 billion into critical minerals and ramp up investments from the $15 billion NRF that was slow to get going.
The continuity was part of Labor’s month-long ‘Building Australia’s Future” campaign, pitted against a Coalition that pledged to get the nation ‘Back on Track’ amid an inflation driven cost of living crisis.
The opposition seized on high government spending under Labor, telling voters it was worsening the cost of living and reminding them that the Coalition had opposed much of it in the Parliament.
In costings released last Thursday, the opposition confirmed much of the spending would be wound back to help pay for a Dutton government’s nuclear power system and a return to market led economic growth.
The opposition’s innovation offerings focused on less targeted approaches like write off for businesses’ tech investments, tax breaks for startups, scaling up the special treatment for venture capital investors, and scrapping potential taxes on unrealised gains. It also promised more streamlined approvals of large projects and a focus on encouraging private investors to some of the industries like green hydrogen that the Albanese government plans to support directly.
Saturday’s result also means stability for the public service, which the Coalition wanted to shrink by 41,000 roles, including multi-year reform efforts on AI, privacy, procurement and competition.
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