Former opposition leader offers ‘regrets’ as Anthony Albanese says senior frontbenchers must take responsibility for the loss

Bill Shorten has blamed “powerful vested interests” for the party’s shock election defeat, as new leader Anthony Albanese says senior frontbenchers must take responsibility for the loss.

Speaking to Labor MPs for the first time since the election, Shorten said the party would take time to reflect on the reasons for the defeat, but offered his “regrets” for not being able to form government.

“We were up against corporate leviathans, a financial behemoth, spending unprecedented hundreds of millions of dollars advertising, telling lies, spreading fear – they got what they wanted,” Shorten said.

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“Powerful vested interests campaigned against us, through sections of the media itself, and they got what they wanted.”

Thanking his staff, party volunteers, “true believers” and candidates who “fought and fell short”, Shorten said supporters would still look to Labor for a better future. He congratulated Albanese for taking the helm of the party, and pledged to help him and new deputy Richard Marles win the next election.

“We in Labor are not going to waste time feeling sorry for ourselves because we are not in it for ourselves,” Shorten said.

“We are the party of progress, we are the party of reform, we’re the party of the big picture, the party that champions the big changes. There are still big things for Labor to do.

“I love the Labor party, I love the Labor movement, always have and always will. “What I love most about our movement are the ideas that we champion and the people we empower. Our Labor mission goes on. Our ideas, our values, endure.”

After being officially endorsed as the party’s new leader by the new Labor caucus, Albanese thanked Shorten for leading the party for the past six years, acknowledging that his predecessor had “given a lifetime” to the Labor movement both as a unionist and an MP.

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“No one could have done more to try to get us in the room where we want to sit after the next election than Bill Shorten as leader, ably assisted by his loyal, passionate and talented deputy, Tanya Plibersek.”

Albanese said he would take advice from Shorten and Plibersek after they had endured the “furnace” of an election campaign, and offered a mea culpa for the party’s poor campaign performance.

“In the election campaign, it has to be said, and I say it unequivocally today – I accept my share as a senior shadow minister in the show, for the fact that we weren’t successful,” Albanese said.

“I think the senior members, all of us, have to accept responsibility, that those many millions of Australians who rely upon us and the tens of thousands of people who have worked on our campaigns, need us to do better next time. And today we resolve to do just that.”