Greatness has visited itself on an ordinary, suburban bloke who has done an extraordinary thing.

Winning the unwinnable election, Scott Morrison has gone from accidental Prime Minister to homespun hero of astounding proportions.

He now has a Liberal Party that owes him everything — literally.

He assembled a victory in his own name and under his own brand and he did it almost single-handedly. This brings once-in-a-generation authority; the sort of authority that's never come with minority government, or the slimmest of majorities.

Though Saturday's result — both in victor and parliamentary proportion — delivered "status quo", it was transformative.

Not for decades will another opposition — Labor or Liberal — dare take to an election an agenda of change so bold as the Shorten Labor Party's.

Bill Shorten becomes Labor's John Hewson. He proposed a starkly different policy suite for the Australian economy and, like Hewson's 'Fightback!' manifesto a quarter of a century ago, got burned by its audacity.

Labor proclaimed virtue in its adventurous, redistributive propositions on tax, its interventionist proposals on wages and its forward-leaning climate change stance.

But its flanks were left exposed and Labor grew complacent of the risks as Liberals waged war on themselves and the Coalition became a spectacle.

Some of that complacency remained throughout, so convinced was Labor that the time and vibe suited their agenda.

Australians have shown themselves to be cautious about change, susceptible to doubt and to fear.

The mood at Labor HQ was one of shock. ( ABC News: Matt Roberts )

"Hope is much more powerful than fear," Anthony Albanese told the Labor faithful. Maybe not so much this time around.

But it would be wrong to blame Labor's humiliation wholly on the Coalition's attacks, as relentless as they were.

In parts of Australia, especially Queensland, there was a repudiation of the Labor agenda. They didn't buy and didn't believe the Shorten message.

On the Adani coal mine, Shorten's word construction — that the contentious project would receive no public money under a Labor government and would have to stack up scientifically and commercially — did not convince voters in central Queensland.

It was as anaemic to them as Malcolm Turnbull's "jobs and growth" mantra in the 2016 election. To them, Adani meant jobs.

Scott Morrison's message proved to resonate more in Queensland than Bill Shorten's. ( Supplied: Facebook )

Nor did Labor's message go well in the NSW coal-rich seat of Hunter. The sitting member, Joel Fitzgibbon, suffered a 14 per cent drop in primary support, and a near-10 per cent swing on two-party basis.

The Morrison tactic — to distill the contest down to a character test between the leaders and a referendum on Labor's ambitious plans — proved to be a masterstroke, even if it was out of necessity.

He gambled, correctly, that Australians were a conservative lot who always preferred gradual evolution, not a simultaneous step-change on a number of policy fronts.

And given the blood on the Liberal partyroom floor has been barely mopped up, the Prime Minister must be delighted Australians can be so quickly forgiving.

For Mr Shorten, the loss is personal devastation. Like Mr Turnbull, he'd long seen himself becoming prime minister.

As a union leader more than a dozen years ago, he'd even predicted a Shorten-Turnbull showdown for the prime ministership.

To have your destiny extinguished so brutally would be shattering indeed.

For Bill Shorten, the loss is personal devastation. ( ABC News: Matt Roberts )

But Shorten's persistent problem in the popularity stakes — flatly denied by Labor as a serious liability for six years — didn't help. It dented the ALP's ability to convince voters of its alternative.

Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek told ABC's Insiders program that Labor's policy agenda was "big, it was bold", but "perhaps we didn't have enough time to explain all of the benefits of it to the people who would benefit".

This doesn't wash. Many of Labor's ideas have been in the cupboard for years.

If anything, Labor failed to sufficiently counter the Coalition's depiction of its franking credits policy as a "retiree tax", its curbing of negative gearing and capital gains tax as a "housing tax" and its removal of a superannuation concession as a "superannuation tax".

Some in Labor believe they simply gave the Coalition too many targets. Others say doing anything tough or different is practically impossible in the modern political environment.

Morrison didn't have much to sell, apart from not being Shorten

By comparison, Mr Morrison's sheer ordinariness was his secret weapon.

Laughed at and lampooned by the city elites, the sheep-shearing, football-kicking, baseball cap-wearing "ScoMo" offered nothing flashy.

Beyond his tax cut promises, there wasn't much for him to sell at all, beyond not being Bill.

So thin in offerings, his hastily cooked up $500 million plan for taxpayer-backed home loans for first home buyers was strung out over the last week.

The Prime Minister, now elected in his own right, must now work out what to do with it.

As Arthur Sinodinos told the ABC on election night, Mr Morrison's a restless man who needs to be busy.

The NSW senator said the PM should do what Robert Menzies did in 1961 when, after a near-death experience at the polls, he looked at the Opposition for policy inspiration "because he recognised you have to reach out to the people who didn't vote for you and find out why and ameliorate those concerns".

Energy and climate policy, which invigorated several seat contests, would be a good start. Bipartisan energy policy has eluded Australian politics for a dozen years now. Both sides have failed the population, evidenced by the spiralling electricity prices.

With former PM Tony Abbott put out to pasture by the people of Warringah, pursuing a rebooted National Energy Guarantee might now be possible.

Mr Morrison has an opportunity to use his immense authority to demand loyalty from the Coalition and steer a new direction on critical areas.