Labor lost, but you would never have guessed it from the body language. And at the Liberal party, Malcolm Turnbull was giddy with relief • Katharine Murphy: Malcolm Turnbull savours Bennelong moment, but there’s little room for hubris

Kristina Keneally jubilant in defeat as Bennelong voters please both sides

It was possibly the happiest concession speech ever delivered.

As Kristina Keneally stood triumphantly hands aloft with opposition leader Bill Shorten in a sea of red T-shirt-wearing volunteers at the Ryde Club, there was a sense of jubilation and a tantalising hint that Keneally was auditioning for something greater.

The swing to Labor, according to Shorten, will be 7% on the primary vote and 5.5% to 6% on a two-party-preferred basis.

It was short of what the polls had forecast two weeks ago, but good enough to cast as a sign of victory to come. Which is what Labor did.

Relief for Liberals as Bennelong byelection win saves Turnbull's majority Read more

“If this result was replicated in a general election, we would see 24 to 28 seats. It would mean a Labor Bill Shorten as our prime minister,” Keneally said to wild cheers.

It was “a vote on Malcolm Turnbull’s lousy leadership” she said in her usual combative style.

“This wasn’t Newspoll, Malcolm. This was a real poll.”

For Shorten it was a chance to paint the reality of a win in 2018 or 2019, when the federal election is held.



“I have no doubt we will form government and we will form a government that governs for the middle and working class, not for the top end of town,” he said.

“Labor will present positive policies. I promise 2018 will be a year of courage. We will be courageous and we will put people first.”

Graciously, Keneally thanked her family who had been thrust into an unexpected political campaign just before Christmas. But the Keneallys, Kristina included, are probably heaving a sigh of relief that she lost.

Imagine life in a seat that is naturally a Liberal stronghold.

Endless BBQs, school fetes, Chinese banquets, Korean festivals, church services. Every Saturday morning at a shopping mall. No time to be a minister or even a shadow minister. Every waking moment would have been spent with constituents – with the likelihood Bennelong would have turfed her at the next general election, even if Shorten won.

Now the world is her oyster. Having shaken Turnbull’s terra firma, by a sizable swing, Labor will owe her big time.

An effusive Shorten thanked his star candidate.

“You have given us an election-winning swing at the next election. I salute a most remarkable candidate, who has secured Labor a most remarkable swing,” he said.



As Labor sought to spin another loss in its favour, the Liberals were quick to label the result a disaster for Shorten.

At the Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club, where the Liberals held their post-election function, the celebrations started before the music.

While the Jerry Allen duo set up in the bistro downstairs, the party faithful partied to the sight of themselves cheering themselves Sky News. Chants of “JA” and “Turnbull” struck up whenever the red lights on the camera turned on. No one minded that the party pies had run out hours earlier, or that for much of 2017 this government has lurched from disaster to disaster. Tonight, the swing was not on. Well, not enough anyway, and sometimes that’s enough.



“This loss was a judgment on him [Shorten],” one Liberal party operative told whoever would listen in the cordoned off media area. “2018 will be about putting the pressure back on Bill Shorten.”



The truth is that John Alexander’s 9% margin in Bennelong was always going to be tough to nudge, but the choice of Keneally as candidate combined with the general malaise the government seemed to slip into in the face of the citizenship saga had them in a bolshie mood in the campaign.

Downstairs in the main bar though, where the cricket played on three television screens and the election results played on none, a quick scan of the crowd suggested that the Liberal party’s personal campaign against Keneally had worked in theme if not specifics.

Kristina Keneally concedes Bennelong byelection to John Alexander – as it happened Read more

“Has he done it?” one punter asked the Guardian. Informed that he had indeed done it, he broke into a broad grin.

“Good. I don’t trust Keneally,” he said. “She’s the one who brought Shanghai Sam into politics.”

Not true, of course, but also a sort of cribbed version of the basic thrust of the campaign against her.

In any case, a fired-up Malcolm Turnbull and decidedly more measured John Alexander – whose victory speech contained an odd, weirdly garbled anecdote about a bad back and disability sticker – received a heroes’ welcome when they appeared before 9.30pm.

“This is the renaissance of your leadership,” Alexander proclaimed to the prime minister.

He can only hope.