Sawt Falasteen - Australian PM basks in win, vows 'orderly' government

Residents clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee Jodie Haydon visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and TV journalists.

Albanese's Labor Party is on course to win at least 82 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton's conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 36 seats, and other parties 12. Another 20 seats were still in doubt.

"We will be a disciplined, orderly government in our second term," Albanese said, after scooping ice cream for journalists in a cafe he used to visit with his mum.

"She would be very proud," Albanese said of his late, single mother Maryanne, who raised him in a modest government-subsidised Sydney flat.

"We've been given a great honour of serving the Australian people, and we don't take it for granted, and we'll work hard each and every day," he said.

Dutton, a hard-nosed former policeman -- who critics tagged "Trump-lite" for policies that included slashing the civil service -- endured the rare humiliation of losing his own seat.

- 'One for the ages' -

US President Donald Trump's trade tariffs, and the chaos they unleashed, may not have been the biggest factor in the Labor Party victory -- but analysts said they helped.

"If we want to understand why a good chunk of the electorate has changed across the election campaign over the last couple of months, I think that's the biggest thing," said Henry Maher, a politics lecturer at the University of Sydney.

"In times of instability, we expect people to go back to a kind of steady incumbent."

The scale of Albanese's win took his own party by surprise.

"It's still sinking in," Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.

"This was beyond even our most optimistic expectations. It was a history-making night. It was one for the ages," Chalmers told national broadcaster ABC.

But the win came with "healthy helpings of humility", he said, because under-pressure Australians want "stability in uncertain times".

Albanese has promised to embrace renewable energy, cut taxes, tackle a worsening housing crisis, and pour money into a creaking healthcare system.

Dutton wanted to slash immigration, crack down on crime and ditch a longstanding ban on nuclear power.

- 'Full responsibility' -

Before the first vote was even counted, speculation was mounting over whether the 54-year-old opposition leader could survive an election loss.

"We didn't do well enough during this campaign. That much is obvious tonight and I accept full responsibility," Dutton told supporters in a concession speech.

Economic concerns have dominated the contest for the many Australian households struggling to pay inflated prices for milk, bread, power and petrol.

"The cost of living -- it's extremely high at the moment... Petrol prices, all the basic stuff," human resources manager Robyn Knox told AFP in Brisbane.

The 36-day campaign was a largely staid affair but there were moments of unscripted levity.

Albanese tumbled backwards off the stage at a heaving campaign rally, while Dutton drew blood when he hit an unsuspecting cameraman in the head with a stray football.

Leaders around the world congratulated Albanese on his triumph.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he hoped to "promote freedom and stability in the Indo-Pacific" with Australia, a "valued ally, partner, and friend of the United States".

An unnamed Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Beijing was "ready to work" with Australia's government.

Albanese said he had spoken with the prime ministers of Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, and received "some good text messages" from leaders in Britain, France, "and a range of others".

The premier said he planned to speak with the leaders of Indonesia and Ukraine, promising to back Kyiv against Russia's invasion: "That's my government's position. It was yesterday. It still is."

D.Khalil--SF-PST