Voters punish Liberals across blue-ribbon seat, even in rusted-on areas like Vaucluse and Double Bay • Katharine Murphy: The Wentworth byelection isn’t just a loss for the Liberals. It’s a disaster

The high-profile independent Kerryn Phelps has pulled off a stunning victory in the Sydney seat of Wentworth, crashing through the seat’s 17.7% buffer, and forcing Scott Morrison and the Liberals into minority government.

Phelps claimed victory on Saturday night eight weeks after conservatives rolled the popular former local member, Malcolm Turnbull, triggering a byelection contest that allowed Sydney voters to vent their anger, and strip Morrison of a working majority on the floor of the lower house.

Voters punished the Liberals in all parts of the Wentworth electorate, even in rusted-on areas like Vaucluse and Double Bay, and the protest vote went straight to Phelps rather than to alternatives in the field.

Wentworth byelection: Kerryn Phelps claims victory for 'the people of Australia who need a voice' – live updates Read more

Counting in the byelection contest was still under way on Saturday night, but the swing against the government was over 20%, which is historic for an Australian byelection, and a shocking portent for the Liberals, who will face the voters between now and next May.

The result wasn’t even officially declared before the Labor frontbencher Linda Burney said the country needed an election now rather than next year given Morrison had now lost his parliamentary majority. “This is an unprecedented result for the Liberal party, and I think Mr Morrison needs to think about calling a general election,” she told the ABC.

A jubilant Phelps told a sea of supporters at her victory party in North Bondi: “My friends, we have made history”. She said when she began her campaign for Wentworth, friends told her it was an impossible task, that winning the seat “would be a miracle”.

Play Video 1:06 Independent Kerryn Phelps wins Wentworth byelection: 'We have made history' – video

Phelps characterised her win as a great moment for Australian democracy, because it would “signal a return of decency, integrity and humanity to the Australian government”.

She said her campaign had sought to engage local constituents about the issues of concern to them “not the issues about survival for a particular political party”, and her objective as a federal representative would be return decency and heart to politics.

Kerryn Phelps and her purple army shake up politics-as-usual in Wentworth stunner Read more

Conceding defeat for the Liberal candidate, Dave Sharma, in Double Bay, the prime minister said when he took the Liberal leadership eight weeks ago he knew there would be “tough days and there would be great days”.

Morrison characterised Saturday night as “a tough day” but declared “the great days are coming”.

Morrison said the thumping loss was “on us, the Liberals, not on Dave Sharma” and he pleaded with the party faithful to stay the course with the government through to the next federal election.

“We will stand up for what we believe until the bell rings, and the bell hasn’t rung, Liberals, the bell hasn’t rung,” Morrison said.

“We will take this all the way to the next election”.

A low-key Sharma quipped to supporters he was happy he’d kept his day job – and he paid tribute to Turnbull who had “made a fine contribution as prime minister”.

The Phelps insurgency in Wentworth did not start strongly, but the fortnight leading up to Saturday night’s result was entirely chaotic for the government – with the leaking of the Ruddock review of religious freedoms, a vote in which government senators first agreed it was ‘OK to be white’ before it was struck from the record because of the association of the phrase with white supremacist groups, Morrison’s signal that Australia could follow Donald Trump’s policy on Israel – a putative shift prompting criticism from our nearest neighbour Indonesia and a warning by the spy agency of a potentially violent backlash, and leadership stirrings in the National party.

The Liberal frontbencher Trent Zimmerman, who fronted live election coverage on the ABC, said his party needed to absorb the lessons, avoid changing leaders before it had the opportunity to face the voters, and present a centrist stable face to voters.

Timeline Australia - six prime ministers in 10 years (and five in five) Show Hide Kevin Rudd (2007-10) swept to power in a landslide after 11 years of conservative rule under John Howard. Enjoyed immense popularity as the bookish "Kevin from Queensland … here to help", but after he faltered on climate change (having previously described it as “the greatest moral challenge of our generation”), his convictions were questioned and his administration became increasingly erratic. Alienated his colleagues with an at-times abrasive manner, he was ousted by his own deputy …

Julia Gillard (2010-13), Australia’s first (and only) female prime minister, who narrowly won an election after disposing of Rudd, but was forced to govern in minority. She was remarkably productive given the constraints of parliamentary numbers, passing significant legislation on climate change and addressing clerical abuse, but faced misogynistic attacks from the opposition and was undermined from her own side, led by … Kevin Rudd (2013), who assumed the foreign ministry under Gillard, but never put his field marshal’s baton back in his knapsack. He is widely regarded as having led a campaign of leaks against Gillard, destabilising her. Having failed in one tilt to return to the leadership, he succeeded at his second try. However, he had only three months in the job before losing the election to … Tony Abbott (2013-15), who was widely regarded as the best opposition leader in Australia, but an ineffective and inconsistent PM. His term was marked by an adoption of hardline asylum policies, an abandonment of climate change action, and poor economic management. After a series of gaffes and controversial "Captain’s Calls" (including knighting Prince Philip), he was unseated by ... Malcolm Turnbull (2015-18), a former investment banker and lawyer, who was seen as an urbane, articulate, centrist who could appeal to a broad swathe of the Australian population. But he was mistrusted by the conservative wing of his party, and openly derided by some as "Mr Harbourside Mansion", a reference to his grand house on the opposite side of Sydney Harbour to the PM's official residence. But it was Turnbull’s commitment to action on climate change that incensed the climate-sceptic right wing of his party, and he was stalked by his arch-conservative home affairs minister, Peter Dutton. However, Dutton’s attempted coup failed, and the numbers fell 45-40 for the treasurer … Scott Morrison (2018 to date), who as immigration minister had established Australia’s controversial hardline asylum-seeker policies – including indefinite detention on remote foreign islands. The son of a police officer and an active member of a Sydney Pentecostal evangelical megachurch, he voted no in Australia’s plebiscite on same-sex marriage, listed “church” as one of his interests in his Who’s Who report, and regards former prime minister John Howard as his political inspiration. Howard was prime minister for 11 years – a lifetime by today's standards. Ben Doherty

The New South Wales Liberal rejected the idea that Morrison should call a snap election. He conceded a hung parliament would increase the degree of difficulty for the government, but Morrison had shown resolve since taking the leadership after the chaos of the spill fortnight.

“The anger that’s there from what happened to Malcolm Turnbull, obviously, is palpable in tonight’s results, but in the period since, Scott Morrison has been given the job of bringing the party back together, that has been going well,” Zimmerman said on Saturday night.

“I think that since that awful week, you have seen the party united and that’s been a positive development.”