Australian news and politics recap: Matt Canavan to challenge David Littleproud for Nats leadership

That’s all folks! Thanks for following our live politics coverage for the day.

Scroll back through for all the updates on the Liberal Party leadership battle, the new Labor Party cabinet, Anthony Albanese’s new phone rule and more.

Join us on Monday for more live news action.

Enjoy your weekend!

AAP’s Ethan James reports: Soul-searching after losing their leader, the Greens believe there’s still one way they can push the government hard.

Adam Bandt’s loss in Melbourne, which he had held since 2010, has left the Greens without a leader - colleagues Chandler-Mather and Stephen Bates also lost their lower-house seats.

Senator Nick McKim has taken the interim position of acting leader but has ruled himself out of the leadership race.

The Greens will hold a partyroom meeting on Thursday to decide their next leader.

Senator McKim, who previously led the Tasmanian Greens and served as co-deputy nationally, said it was “not his time”.

“If you’re going to lead a political party you have to be prepared to give it 120 per cent,” he said in Hobart on Friday.

Deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi and Sarah Hanson-Youngare early frontrunners for the party’s top job, along with Senate leader Larissa Waters and high-profile senator David Shoebridge.

“(We have) a number of terrific leadership candidates. A number ... (will) throw their hat into the ring,” Senator McKim said.

“There are already conversations under way, but I’m not going to make any predictions.”

Being leader of the opposition is always the worst job in politics but especially so after the caning we saw on the weekend.

Labor’s commanding majority means whoever takes over from Peter Dutton has only the slimmest of chances of winning in 2028.

A week is a long time in politics so who knows what will happen but, short of the Albanese Cabinet being exposed as nazi pedophiles, the mathematical reality is the blue team won’t be in real contention until 2031.

That’s a full six years of eating a shit sandwich in front of the cameras and pretending it tastes good.

Andrew Hastie worked out early that there is not enough Listerine in the world to take the job and quickly ruled himself out.

It took Dan Tehan a little longer to realise opposition leaders have the life expectancies of fruit flies. He pulled out on Friday.

So that leaves Angus Taylor and Sussan Ley duking it out in the conservative Thunderdome.

Read the full opinion piece here.

Queensland Nationals’ Senator Matt Canavan has announced he will challenge for the leadership of the National Party.

Senator Canavan is expected to challenge incumbent Nationals’ leader, David Littleproud, in a party room meeting in Canberra on Monday.

In an exclusive interview, Senator Canavan told ​The Australian​: “On Monday, I plan to stand for the leadership of the Nationals party to bring back our fighting spirit. Only if we fight, will we have a fighting chance”.

“David Littleproud can be enormously proud of his role in defeating the Voice, putting nuclear power on the agenda and having divestiture powers adopted as Coalition policy for the first time,” Senator Canavan said.

“But this debate is not about protecting his job or mine. This is about fighting for the jobs and livelihoods of the many people we represent. Many of the people that vote for the Nationals party have to shower after work, not before it.”

In a cheery post to X, Anthony Albanaese welcomed all the new MPs joining the lower house and the senate.

“New Labor MPs. Same mission,” he wrote, adding “Helping with the cost of living and building Australia’s future.”

A record number of women will be taking their seats in parliament, with women to outnumber men in the Labor partyroom.

At least 46 seats will be held by women in the Labor government out of a total of 150 in the House of Representatives.

More than a dozen new MPs will join the ranks after Labor increased its seats from 77 to at least 90 as the count continues.

Independent MP Zoe Daniel is yet to concede to Liberal challenger Tim Wilson in the seat of Goldstein, despite Mr Wilson already claiming victory.

“I understand everyone’s desire to rule a line under the election result in Goldstein. I would also prefer it was resolved,” Ms Daniel wrote on X this afternoon.

“However, there are still up to 10,000 votes to count including postals, absentee and pre-poll declaration votes. The AEC has not yet declared the seat.”

She asked people to respect the process and voters until a definitive position is clear.

On Wednesday, Mr Wilson took aim at Ms Daniel for not conceding defeat.

“The former member has continued to post content on social media suggesting that they wished the count to continue,” Mr Wilson said.

“All I will say is this: after the last election, and let’s be very honest, it was brutal … I showed respect to my supporters, to the people that voted for me by conceding because I thought it was important to provide a clean slate.”

If Ms Daniel does lose, she will be the first of the “teal” group to lose their seat since coming to power in 2022.

As the counting continues in six seats around the nation, hopeful candidates are still sweating on their results in the Federal election.

Lets take a look at the live tallies as they stand right now:

As the cards continue to fall into place within the halls of Parliament House in Canberra, Angus Taylor has now made it official that he will contest the Liberal leadership vote next Tuesday.

Mr Taylor now joins Sussan Ley as the last two standing in the race for the top job within the Coalition.

“Today, I am announcing my candidacy for the leadership of the Liberal Party,” Mr Taylor said in a statement on Friday.

“This is not a decision I’ve taken lightly, but it is one I’ve taken with conviction following discussions with many of my colleagues this week.

“Our party is at a crossroads. After the result on Saturday, we owe it to our members, our supporters, and the millions of Australians who believe in our cause to regroup, rebuild, and get back in the fight.

“We must unify our party, rebuild its foundations and take up the fight to Labor.”

Tim Ayres, Daniel Mulino, Sam Rae and Jess Walsh have been confirmed as the newest Labor cabinet members, following days of fierce internal politicking.

In the first meeting of the expanded Labor caucus, Milton Dick was nominated to be returned as Speaker.

As is protocol, Anthony Albanese has been returned as Labor leader, Richard Marles has been reelected as deputy leader, Penny Wong as leader in the Senate and Don Farrell as deputy Senate leader.

Australian property listings platform Domain has sealed a $3 billion deal with CoStar after the US suitor sweetened its offer to get its hands on the Nine Entertainment-controlled group.

CoStar, which already has a near-17 per cent stake in Domain, has been circling the company since February, when it lobbed an all-cash offer of $4.20 a share.

It returned a month later with an extra 23¢ a share — the $4.43-a-share bid is a 50 per cent premium to its one-month weighted average before the offer was revealed.

Domain said on Friday it had now entered into a binding scheme implementation deed and is urging shareholders to back the deal.

Read the full story here.