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Earthquake: the election that shook Australia
The best of Niki Savva’s scene-setting newspaper columns from The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, along with a riveting and deeply informed analysis of Australia’s epoch-making 2025 election.
Labor’s landslide victory on 3 May 2025 wreaked havoc across the political landscape. It triggered ministerial assassinations, trashed reputations, destroyed careers, fractured the Coalition, and threatened to fracture it again. It took the Liberal Party to the brink of extinction and turned Anthony Albanese into a Labor hero.
When the Coalition government was overthrown in 2022 after nine years in office, it was tempting to portray the loss as merely a personal repudiation of Scott Morrison. Then, when opposition leader Peter Dutton torpedoed the referendum on establishing an Indigenous Voice to parliament, his standing as a political leader improved and the prime minister’s nosedived. That was when, according to Niki Savva, the conservative Coalition thought it had the upcoming election in the bag.
But Niki had noticed the ground the emergence of the teal independents and the long-term threat they represented to the Liberals; the false dawn of Dutton saying no to the Voice referendum; and the overlooked reality, even back in August 2023, that, ‘The 2022 federal election result was no ordinary defeat … It delivered last rites to the broad-church party that Robert Menzies created.’
In her highly popular columns, Niki Savva captured all this and more in her typically uncompromising, penetrating, and prescient way. Now, following on from So Greek, The Road to Ruin, Plots and Prayers, and Bulldozed, she also provides a detailed, considered analysis of what went on behind the scenes, accompanied by her trademark access to important players and eyewitnesses, of an election that transformed Australian politics.
Labor’s landslide victory on 3 May 2025 wreaked havoc across the political landscape. It triggered ministerial assassinations, trashed reputations, destroyed careers, fractured the Coalition, and threatened to fracture it again. It took the Liberal Party to the brink of extinction and turned Anthony Albanese into a Labor hero.
When the Coalition government was overthrown in 2022 after nine years in office, it was tempting to portray the loss as merely a personal repudiation of Scott Morrison. Then, when opposition leader Peter Dutton torpedoed the referendum on establishing an Indigenous Voice to parliament, his standing as a political leader improved and the prime minister’s nosedived. That was when, according to Niki Savva, the conservative Coalition thought it had the upcoming election in the bag.
But Niki had noticed the ground the emergence of the teal independents and the long-term threat they represented to the Liberals; the false dawn of Dutton saying no to the Voice referendum; and the overlooked reality, even back in August 2023, that, ‘The 2022 federal election result was no ordinary defeat … It delivered last rites to the broad-church party that Robert Menzies created.’
In her highly popular columns, Niki Savva captured all this and more in her typically uncompromising, penetrating, and prescient way. Now, following on from So Greek, The Road to Ruin, Plots and Prayers, and Bulldozed, she also provides a detailed, considered analysis of what went on behind the scenes, accompanied by her trademark access to important players and eyewitnesses, of an election that transformed Australian politics.
492 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 24, 2025
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251 people want to read
About the author
Niki Savva
5 books47 followersNiki Savva is an Australian journalist, known for her political 'insider' books. Born in Cyprus before emigrating with her family as a child, she became a cadet journalist in 1969, while still in her teens. Savva served as political correspondent for The Australian, she led the Canberra bureau of The Herald Sun and then The Age. In 1997 she moved into politics, working for a decade for Liberal Party Treasurer Peter Costello and Prime Minister John Howard.
Since 2008, Savva has returned to journalism as a columnist for print and television media, presenting insider knowledge of Australia's conservative politics but from a centrist, sometimes progressive, point-of-view. From 2016 to 2025, Savva wrote a series of four insider books on three consecutive Prime Ministers - Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison - and their would-be successor, Peter Dutton.
Since 2008, Savva has returned to journalism as a columnist for print and television media, presenting insider knowledge of Australia's conservative politics but from a centrist, sometimes progressive, point-of-view. From 2016 to 2025, Savva wrote a series of four insider books on three consecutive Prime Ministers - Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison - and their would-be successor, Peter Dutton.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
December 9, 2025
As Alan Barth once noted, “news is only the first draft of history.” These drafts both inform and shape public opinion. Some more so than others. Niki Savva is one of those writers. She has long been at the forefront of Australian politics, either shaping it as an adviser in the Howard government or analysing it as a columnist across various mastheads. In recent years, she has become the pre-eminent writer of post-election analyses in Australia. Earthquake can be considered a sequel to her trilogy examining the gradual implosion of the Abbott–Turnbull–Morrison governments.
This volume focuses on the 2025 election, in which Labor won a historic victory and the Liberals suffered a historic loss. Savva explores this across two sections of roughly equal length: first, a collection of her columns dating from the Morrison era to only a few months ago; second, a deeper account of the events that produced Labor’s victory. This structure, however, does not make for a good book, and it is hindered further by Savva’s superficial analysis, which concentrates on personalities rather than the structural forces underpinning the results.
The outcome of the 2022 election is important for understanding 2025. However, spending 100 pages—a quarter of the book—reproducing columns on this period feels superfluous, especially given Savva had already published a book covering it. These columns should have been synthesised, particularly as Savva repeats the same points again and again. There are only so many times one can read that Morrison “doesn’t hold a hose,” alongside other well-worn gaffes, before realising she may not have much new analysis to offer.
The second set of columns, covering 2022–2025, suffers from the same flaw: relentless repetition. These pieces should have been cut entirely, because the analysis section in the latter half of the book simply revisits the same events and repeats the same arguments. The analysis itself often reads like an overlong Savva column, stretched to 200 pages instead of 800 words. Key points recur, and major events are described several times. The book might have worked as a collection of columns or as a focused analysis of the election. By trying to be both, it manages to be neither.
If you read the news regularly, as I do, you will gain only minimal political insight from these chapters. For me, only three things stood out: first, that Dutton personally vetoed Andrew Hastie’s attempt to establish a bipartisan committee on AUKUS because he did not want the Greens or independents involved; second, the internal manoeuvring behind Labor announcing a tax change before the election and the Liberals deciding to oppose it; and third, the factional politics within Labor that led to Mark Dreyfus’s downfall as attorney-general.
The last example, however, is marred by Savva stating that Dreyfus’s “distinguished career had ended in the bloody night of a long knife.” A historical pun referencing a Nazi pogrom is not an apt way to describe the demise of a Jewish politician. This is a conspicuous instance of a broader problem: Savva is too often hyperbolic and prone to throwaway, unmeasured lines. Another example appears on page 160, where she describes the Liberals’ nuclear policy as “threatening to look like a cross between Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.”
Savva also devotes an exorbitant amount of space to leadership speculation. First regarding Albanese in his initial term, and now Ley as opposition leader. She even concludes the book by recounting a dinner with Albanese at the Lodge, where she mused on when he should quit politics. She had previously suggested he retire after the first or second year of a second-term government. Such assertions seem misguided. No leader since Menzies has retired while in office, and Albanese is arguably the most powerful prime minister since Howard. Why would he quit now?
This fixation on leadership speculation highlights a broader issue beyond Savva’s book: policy analysis is marginal in mainstream reporting. For example, Savva notes in passing that 31 laws were passed on the final sitting day of 2024, but she leaves unanswered what they were, their consequences for Australians, and their electoral impact. Likewise, structural forces, such as the rise of independents, shifting voting patterns among women, Labor’s move to the right, and the erosion the Liberal Party’s “broad church”, are only perfunctorily examined.
Savva is not unique in this regard. Consequential decisions are being made by the current Labor government, yet sections of the media are chronically distracted by comparatively minor matters involving the opposition. The Coalition are in the political doldrums and pose no serious threat to Labor for at least another half-decade. Who their leader is and what policies they have pales in comparison to who is in government and the new policies being implemented right now. Two interrelated examples illustrate this: one particular, one broad.
Beginning with the particular: at the same time the Coalition abandoned net zero, the government announced a new bilateral Treaty on Common Security with Indonesia. The treaty commits both nations to regular security consultations and, if necessary, joint responses to security challenges. This announcement carries significant strategic weight for Australia. Following the Pukpuk Treaty with Papua New Guinea, it marks another step in Australia’s efforts to strengthen security alliances in the Indo-Pacific amid an increasingly assertive China and a declining America.
International relations in the Indo-Pacific are central to Australia’s future. If diplomacy and deterrence fail, the consequences could be catastrophic: a great-power war involving Australia. People claim climate change is existential; a war between nuclear powers is actually existential. These agreements deserve front-page analysis, not passing mention. When this treaty was announced, much of the media was fixated on the net-zero political theatre, and the treaty was drowned out in the cacophony.
Now the broad example: the nauseating speculation about the leadership of Sussan Ley has diverted attention away from a lacklustre and increasingly secretive government. Labor currently has vast amounts of electoral capital and a massive window of opportunity to implement much-needed structural reform to make Australia fairer and more prosperous. Instead, Labor is sticking with an incrementalist approach to policy, tinkering with problems rather than fixing them.
Sean Kelly’s recent Quarterly Essay, “What Does Labor Stand For?”, highlights the problem. If it takes 20,000 words to answer the question, perhaps Labor only stands for holding power. This is also indicative of an increasingly dishonest government. Labor pilloried the Morrison government for its lack of transparency yet may now be making things worse. The Centre for Public Integrity has noted that Labor is not honouring its “commitments to transparency, respect for Parliament, robust checks and balances, and action to stamp out corruption and undue influence.”
Three instances illustrate this point. First, Labor was recently forced to release a review on the “jobs for mates” culture, which it had sat on for two years. Second, Labor is moving to weaken freedom-of-information laws by introducing fees for non-personal requests, expanding cabinet exemptions, and allowing refusals for requests taking more than 40 hours to process. Third, Labor routinely avoids parliamentary scrutiny by exempting major policies from Senate committee review and minimising debate wherever possible.
With the opposition at its weakest and the government bypassing scrutiny wherever possible, the media has an increasingly important role in holding those in power to account. Democracy depends on a press willing to scrutinise those who wield authority, not those who have already lost it. By focusing on the opposition and neglecting the details of government policy—where real power and impact lie—much of the media, including Savva’s book, falls short of this duty. The result is a less accountable government.
Subscribe for free to receive new book reviews and political analyses directly: https://callumscolumn.substack.com/
This volume focuses on the 2025 election, in which Labor won a historic victory and the Liberals suffered a historic loss. Savva explores this across two sections of roughly equal length: first, a collection of her columns dating from the Morrison era to only a few months ago; second, a deeper account of the events that produced Labor’s victory. This structure, however, does not make for a good book, and it is hindered further by Savva’s superficial analysis, which concentrates on personalities rather than the structural forces underpinning the results.
The outcome of the 2022 election is important for understanding 2025. However, spending 100 pages—a quarter of the book—reproducing columns on this period feels superfluous, especially given Savva had already published a book covering it. These columns should have been synthesised, particularly as Savva repeats the same points again and again. There are only so many times one can read that Morrison “doesn’t hold a hose,” alongside other well-worn gaffes, before realising she may not have much new analysis to offer.
The second set of columns, covering 2022–2025, suffers from the same flaw: relentless repetition. These pieces should have been cut entirely, because the analysis section in the latter half of the book simply revisits the same events and repeats the same arguments. The analysis itself often reads like an overlong Savva column, stretched to 200 pages instead of 800 words. Key points recur, and major events are described several times. The book might have worked as a collection of columns or as a focused analysis of the election. By trying to be both, it manages to be neither.
If you read the news regularly, as I do, you will gain only minimal political insight from these chapters. For me, only three things stood out: first, that Dutton personally vetoed Andrew Hastie’s attempt to establish a bipartisan committee on AUKUS because he did not want the Greens or independents involved; second, the internal manoeuvring behind Labor announcing a tax change before the election and the Liberals deciding to oppose it; and third, the factional politics within Labor that led to Mark Dreyfus’s downfall as attorney-general.
The last example, however, is marred by Savva stating that Dreyfus’s “distinguished career had ended in the bloody night of a long knife.” A historical pun referencing a Nazi pogrom is not an apt way to describe the demise of a Jewish politician. This is a conspicuous instance of a broader problem: Savva is too often hyperbolic and prone to throwaway, unmeasured lines. Another example appears on page 160, where she describes the Liberals’ nuclear policy as “threatening to look like a cross between Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.”
Savva also devotes an exorbitant amount of space to leadership speculation. First regarding Albanese in his initial term, and now Ley as opposition leader. She even concludes the book by recounting a dinner with Albanese at the Lodge, where she mused on when he should quit politics. She had previously suggested he retire after the first or second year of a second-term government. Such assertions seem misguided. No leader since Menzies has retired while in office, and Albanese is arguably the most powerful prime minister since Howard. Why would he quit now?
This fixation on leadership speculation highlights a broader issue beyond Savva’s book: policy analysis is marginal in mainstream reporting. For example, Savva notes in passing that 31 laws were passed on the final sitting day of 2024, but she leaves unanswered what they were, their consequences for Australians, and their electoral impact. Likewise, structural forces, such as the rise of independents, shifting voting patterns among women, Labor’s move to the right, and the erosion the Liberal Party’s “broad church”, are only perfunctorily examined.
Savva is not unique in this regard. Consequential decisions are being made by the current Labor government, yet sections of the media are chronically distracted by comparatively minor matters involving the opposition. The Coalition are in the political doldrums and pose no serious threat to Labor for at least another half-decade. Who their leader is and what policies they have pales in comparison to who is in government and the new policies being implemented right now. Two interrelated examples illustrate this: one particular, one broad.
Beginning with the particular: at the same time the Coalition abandoned net zero, the government announced a new bilateral Treaty on Common Security with Indonesia. The treaty commits both nations to regular security consultations and, if necessary, joint responses to security challenges. This announcement carries significant strategic weight for Australia. Following the Pukpuk Treaty with Papua New Guinea, it marks another step in Australia’s efforts to strengthen security alliances in the Indo-Pacific amid an increasingly assertive China and a declining America.
International relations in the Indo-Pacific are central to Australia’s future. If diplomacy and deterrence fail, the consequences could be catastrophic: a great-power war involving Australia. People claim climate change is existential; a war between nuclear powers is actually existential. These agreements deserve front-page analysis, not passing mention. When this treaty was announced, much of the media was fixated on the net-zero political theatre, and the treaty was drowned out in the cacophony.
Now the broad example: the nauseating speculation about the leadership of Sussan Ley has diverted attention away from a lacklustre and increasingly secretive government. Labor currently has vast amounts of electoral capital and a massive window of opportunity to implement much-needed structural reform to make Australia fairer and more prosperous. Instead, Labor is sticking with an incrementalist approach to policy, tinkering with problems rather than fixing them.
Sean Kelly’s recent Quarterly Essay, “What Does Labor Stand For?”, highlights the problem. If it takes 20,000 words to answer the question, perhaps Labor only stands for holding power. This is also indicative of an increasingly dishonest government. Labor pilloried the Morrison government for its lack of transparency yet may now be making things worse. The Centre for Public Integrity has noted that Labor is not honouring its “commitments to transparency, respect for Parliament, robust checks and balances, and action to stamp out corruption and undue influence.”
Three instances illustrate this point. First, Labor was recently forced to release a review on the “jobs for mates” culture, which it had sat on for two years. Second, Labor is moving to weaken freedom-of-information laws by introducing fees for non-personal requests, expanding cabinet exemptions, and allowing refusals for requests taking more than 40 hours to process. Third, Labor routinely avoids parliamentary scrutiny by exempting major policies from Senate committee review and minimising debate wherever possible.
With the opposition at its weakest and the government bypassing scrutiny wherever possible, the media has an increasingly important role in holding those in power to account. Democracy depends on a press willing to scrutinise those who wield authority, not those who have already lost it. By focusing on the opposition and neglecting the details of government policy—where real power and impact lie—much of the media, including Savva’s book, falls short of this duty. The result is a less accountable government.
Subscribe for free to receive new book reviews and political analyses directly: https://callumscolumn.substack.com/
November 26, 2025
Another brilliant and incisive political history and commentary from Niki Savva. This follows directly from where Bulldozed: Scott Morrison’s Fall and Anthony Albanese’s Rise left off. It's presented mostly in a diary fashion through the first Albanese government, the rise of Peter Dutton as opposition leader and covering the disastrous Voice campaign on indigenous representation through until just a few weeks ago (as I write this) into the second Albanese government.
The title of this book could very nearly have been "the fall of the Liberal Party in Australia", and I suspect the only reason that it's not is because the corpse is still twitching. For anyone not familiar with Australian politics, until recently, we have had three main political parties: Labor, Liberal and the Nationals. The Liberal and National parties usually form government together and are referred to as "the Coalition". Politically speaking, Labor are union-based centre-left, the Liberals have been centre-right and the Nationals are a rural-based party that are primarily right wing, but have been deeply captured by mining interests.
Labor and the Nationals are both doing fine. However, the Liberal Party is in deep trouble. The 2022 federal election wiped out the moderate wing of the party, and the conservative wing, already ascendant for the last decade, are running rampant. The problem with that is that the base of a conservative-only Liberal Party in Australia is too small to be elected in a country with compulsory voting (which doesn't favour either extreme), and the Liberals are more concerned with threats from the right (One Nation primarily, a small right wing party whose primary brand is racism and xenophobia) than recapturing more moderate voters.
The author goes into a lot of detail on this, including how Peter Dutton made things much worse over his tenure as the Liberal leader.
The title of this book could very nearly have been "the fall of the Liberal Party in Australia", and I suspect the only reason that it's not is because the corpse is still twitching. For anyone not familiar with Australian politics, until recently, we have had three main political parties: Labor, Liberal and the Nationals. The Liberal and National parties usually form government together and are referred to as "the Coalition". Politically speaking, Labor are union-based centre-left, the Liberals have been centre-right and the Nationals are a rural-based party that are primarily right wing, but have been deeply captured by mining interests.
Labor and the Nationals are both doing fine. However, the Liberal Party is in deep trouble. The 2022 federal election wiped out the moderate wing of the party, and the conservative wing, already ascendant for the last decade, are running rampant. The problem with that is that the base of a conservative-only Liberal Party in Australia is too small to be elected in a country with compulsory voting (which doesn't favour either extreme), and the Liberals are more concerned with threats from the right (One Nation primarily, a small right wing party whose primary brand is racism and xenophobia) than recapturing more moderate voters.
The author goes into a lot of detail on this, including how Peter Dutton made things much worse over his tenure as the Liberal leader.
November 28, 2025
hey so uh, what the fuck is this?
this is not what i expected when i bought this book. the first third is simply columns that savva has already written and which are marginally appropriate for the book, which is... odd. savva either lacked the connections she needs to write in the style of her previous books or she simply decided not to bother for this one, and it's very odd to read. i guess there's something laudable in getting paid to write an entire book and only writing 2/3rds of it, but it's frustrating that there is genuinely no effort to revist these columns and try to make them into some kind of coherent narrative. the context they provide is useful, but you couldn't do ANYTHING with them? they're just unceremoniously dumped into the start of the book.
once the actual book starts, you can start to understand why. savva does not appear to have the same inroads with labor that she has with the coalition (from being a former staffer for costello) and so a lot of her content on labor is just repeating things that were in the news, albeit with a consistent and unpleasant bias against labor. while this is understandable it also kind of sucks! the previous books are good because her insights are informed by actual reporting and conversations with the people involved, this book entirely lacks this when it comes to labor. as a result the book has to rely on savva's political nous and savvy, and unfortunately it's not hard to see that neither is really up to the task.
savva clearly tries to stay relatively unbiased in her reporting, but ultimately she's incapable of fully extracting herself from the liberal point of view. there's a section in the columns where she describes peter dutton in almost glowing terms, briefly mentioning his issues and then falling back on the same "he's actually a really good bloke in private" that was endemic in australian political circles around the time of his ascension to lead the liberal party. read with hindsight, it's hard to not think "you would not think this if you were not a liberal party member" as dutton remains the same stubbornly unelectable fuckwit throughout. there's a tone of almost shock in the second half of the book where savva seems genuinely surprised that dutton's myriad character flaws are causing problems, and it really only makes sense if she genuinely believed her own bullshit and bought into the spin. dutton was never going to be electable south of brisbane, and it's very close to being a disqualifyingly stupid opinion to think anything else.
of course, towards the end of the book there is an almost identical section praising andrew hastie as being "actually a really good bloke in private" and ignoring his myriad character flaws. doubtless he will be successful!
the actual coverage of the election takes up about half the book, which is odd given the title. we step through dutton's collapse and albo's success, and it's generally quite good! when it comes to labor savva remains thoroughly cut off from the real inside scoop, and it leads to her constantly repeating the same few cliches. albo stopped drinking. albo "curled into a little ball". albo ran a flawless campaign. how did he do that? how did the largest swing in modern federal politics happen? hard to say really, if you were to take the view of this book it largely happened in the background while dutton toured the country causing electoral disasters.
the book then moves on to a discussion of labor post the election. not in a real sense of their political goals or the weight of the victory, but in a weirdly grubby realpolitik sense. clearly one of savva's contacts is former attorney general mark dreyfus, as his removal from the cabinet gets treated with more severity than, well, the liberal national coalition collapsing. despite this being largely a factional issue that almost nobody cares or has heard about, there is page after tedious page of various unnamed labor officials slamming richard marles. it's like there's a single issue she got some real inside goss on, so the book has to pivot dramatically to investigate something that maybe 2 people in the world still care about.
the very end of the book is savva providing some unsolicited political advice to anthony albanese. albanese, having just won an historic victory and with unmitigated support in his party, should retire halfway through his second term! this would allow someone else to come in and... what? what issues would be fixed by doing this? what would be gained? these questions aren't even considered, because savva is just saying shit at this point. she talks about how menzies was the only pm to choose when he could leave office, and this is presumably enough of a justification for one of the most electorally successful politicians in australian history to simply leave the job. genuinely, savva, what the fuck are you talking about?
there's also an opportunity for savva to take yet another swipe at an entirely unrelated labor figure, dan andrews. savva clearly dislikes andrews a lot, because he appears in this book several times and she cannot let his name pass without throwing some insults his way. he is pig headed, arrogant, and definitely shouldn't have gone to china because of their human rights abuses. of course, dutton's active attempts to get donald trump onside are simply political calculations and in no way deserve criticism. but that bastard dan andrews?
overall, it's better than nothing. there's a good book here somewhere, but it's about half the length and probably more in the format of mark distefano's shorten/turnbull campaign diary. as it is, this is a particularly poor effort from one of the few people in australia who's political writing i tend to enjoy. hopefully whatever she puts out next is better, because this is far beneath her usual output.
this is not what i expected when i bought this book. the first third is simply columns that savva has already written and which are marginally appropriate for the book, which is... odd. savva either lacked the connections she needs to write in the style of her previous books or she simply decided not to bother for this one, and it's very odd to read. i guess there's something laudable in getting paid to write an entire book and only writing 2/3rds of it, but it's frustrating that there is genuinely no effort to revist these columns and try to make them into some kind of coherent narrative. the context they provide is useful, but you couldn't do ANYTHING with them? they're just unceremoniously dumped into the start of the book.
once the actual book starts, you can start to understand why. savva does not appear to have the same inroads with labor that she has with the coalition (from being a former staffer for costello) and so a lot of her content on labor is just repeating things that were in the news, albeit with a consistent and unpleasant bias against labor. while this is understandable it also kind of sucks! the previous books are good because her insights are informed by actual reporting and conversations with the people involved, this book entirely lacks this when it comes to labor. as a result the book has to rely on savva's political nous and savvy, and unfortunately it's not hard to see that neither is really up to the task.
savva clearly tries to stay relatively unbiased in her reporting, but ultimately she's incapable of fully extracting herself from the liberal point of view. there's a section in the columns where she describes peter dutton in almost glowing terms, briefly mentioning his issues and then falling back on the same "he's actually a really good bloke in private" that was endemic in australian political circles around the time of his ascension to lead the liberal party. read with hindsight, it's hard to not think "you would not think this if you were not a liberal party member" as dutton remains the same stubbornly unelectable fuckwit throughout. there's a tone of almost shock in the second half of the book where savva seems genuinely surprised that dutton's myriad character flaws are causing problems, and it really only makes sense if she genuinely believed her own bullshit and bought into the spin. dutton was never going to be electable south of brisbane, and it's very close to being a disqualifyingly stupid opinion to think anything else.
of course, towards the end of the book there is an almost identical section praising andrew hastie as being "actually a really good bloke in private" and ignoring his myriad character flaws. doubtless he will be successful!
the actual coverage of the election takes up about half the book, which is odd given the title. we step through dutton's collapse and albo's success, and it's generally quite good! when it comes to labor savva remains thoroughly cut off from the real inside scoop, and it leads to her constantly repeating the same few cliches. albo stopped drinking. albo "curled into a little ball". albo ran a flawless campaign. how did he do that? how did the largest swing in modern federal politics happen? hard to say really, if you were to take the view of this book it largely happened in the background while dutton toured the country causing electoral disasters.
the book then moves on to a discussion of labor post the election. not in a real sense of their political goals or the weight of the victory, but in a weirdly grubby realpolitik sense. clearly one of savva's contacts is former attorney general mark dreyfus, as his removal from the cabinet gets treated with more severity than, well, the liberal national coalition collapsing. despite this being largely a factional issue that almost nobody cares or has heard about, there is page after tedious page of various unnamed labor officials slamming richard marles. it's like there's a single issue she got some real inside goss on, so the book has to pivot dramatically to investigate something that maybe 2 people in the world still care about.
the very end of the book is savva providing some unsolicited political advice to anthony albanese. albanese, having just won an historic victory and with unmitigated support in his party, should retire halfway through his second term! this would allow someone else to come in and... what? what issues would be fixed by doing this? what would be gained? these questions aren't even considered, because savva is just saying shit at this point. she talks about how menzies was the only pm to choose when he could leave office, and this is presumably enough of a justification for one of the most electorally successful politicians in australian history to simply leave the job. genuinely, savva, what the fuck are you talking about?
there's also an opportunity for savva to take yet another swipe at an entirely unrelated labor figure, dan andrews. savva clearly dislikes andrews a lot, because he appears in this book several times and she cannot let his name pass without throwing some insults his way. he is pig headed, arrogant, and definitely shouldn't have gone to china because of their human rights abuses. of course, dutton's active attempts to get donald trump onside are simply political calculations and in no way deserve criticism. but that bastard dan andrews?
overall, it's better than nothing. there's a good book here somewhere, but it's about half the length and probably more in the format of mark distefano's shorten/turnbull campaign diary. as it is, this is a particularly poor effort from one of the few people in australia who's political writing i tend to enjoy. hopefully whatever she puts out next is better, because this is far beneath her usual output.
December 1, 2025
Fantastic book that adds incredible detail and personality to the events of the last two elections which this book covers. Exclusive interviews with the main players, like Dutton and Albanese give a very personal take on their respective experiences in the campaign and election, and Savva expertly analyses these and many other takes with a critical eye. There is just the right amount of editorialising that this book isn't just a list of facts, but a critical analysis of the good, the bad, and the ugly of the campaigns for all involved. As someone with a real interest in politics, it's always fascinating to see behind the curtain and hear the real views of people on the inside, rather than the bland talking points we, the public, are usually 'treated' to.
A fine book, mostly in the second half when it comes into its own where it transitions to a forensic look at the 2025 election, rather than the columns in part 1 that deal with the 2019 election and ensuing years. I think the decision to include the columns was probably a bit of an error, and would have been better to edit these into a comprehensive narrative in the same manner that Part 2 is written.
A fine book, mostly in the second half when it comes into its own where it transitions to a forensic look at the 2025 election, rather than the columns in part 1 that deal with the 2019 election and ensuing years. I think the decision to include the columns was probably a bit of an error, and would have been better to edit these into a comprehensive narrative in the same manner that Part 2 is written.
January 20, 2026
Earthquake does have lots of interesting titbits about internal party wrangling and the events that shaped the 2025 election result. And it's weirdly fascinating to know how much Tony Abbott sabotages his own side.
But the book has lots of problems. It feels like a chore to read the first half of the book, which is a collection of columns. These are better read one or two at a time.
The second half is written more like a book and has the extra insights from the insider interviews. However it rambles around. And I kept being distracted by the spelling errors. Did someone read it before publishing? Who is Tony Abbot?
But the book has lots of problems. It feels like a chore to read the first half of the book, which is a collection of columns. These are better read one or two at a time.
The second half is written more like a book and has the extra insights from the insider interviews. However it rambles around. And I kept being distracted by the spelling errors. Did someone read it before publishing? Who is Tony Abbot?
December 8, 2025
This was probably the hardest of Savva’s books to complete for a few reasons, but mainly for her decision to include over 200 pages of her syndicated Fairfax column, spanning several years before the events of Earthquake. It felt self-indulgent and unnecessary, and possibly an attempt to lengthen the book beyond the relatively short 200 pages of commentary about the 2025 election. As an avid reader of Australian politics, I had previously read these articles when they were published, so to have to return to them, in such detail, before beginning the actual commentary itself, was laborious and frustrating.
December 16, 2025
I should lay my cards on the table, I am very much ‘of the left’, however, that’s not to say that I am a diehard Labor person.
I see that government has two main roles. Firstly, to make citizens safe from both internal and external threats, Secondly, to provide infrastructure and services to meet the collective need of the society, with special emphasis on those in most need.
I have read Savva’s other publications; I found them very satisfactory reads and most informative. As they say, if journalism is the first rough draft of history, then Savva’s books are the second draft. As I read Earthquake much of the text brought back memories of the incidents and situations that were part of my daily news feed.
I did not find Earthquake as satisfying as her previous books. The first half were copies of her columns in the Sydney Morning Herald. The early pages were a repeat of what she wrote during Morrison’s period as prime minister.
I didn’t think the lead up to the May 2025 election was as coherent as it should have been. I would have preferred a more linear approach, exploring the important situations that occurred in the weeks of the campaign. I also would have liked some insights into particular seats that were significant in the election outcome.
Like Savva and most others I did not predict the result. In many ways I had hoped for a Labor minority government with the Teals holding the balance of power. I thought greater reform would have taken place than what has eventuated with Labor holding the massive majority that it now has.
On the night of the election and the immediate days after I watched with interest as Liberal seat after Liberal seat fell to the ALP juggernaut. I was particularly pleased when Dutton lost his seat of Dickson to Ali France. I had watched and hoped for this result for several elections. In several portfolios, especially immigration I found him to be an odious character.
There are probably tens of reasons the Liberal Party lost so badly. Her comments about this occurrence got me thinking about reasons for this result. She mentions and discusses several.
• Australia has changed since 2019. Women and migrants are playing a greater role in society and in politics. They can no longer be ignored and given a stereotypical classification.
• The cliché old white stale men is being noticed.
• The country/city divide is becoming more observable and comments by National Party politicians like Barnaby Joyce and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price might appeal to the National Party base but they put offside many voters in city-based electorates.
• The LNP has a women problem. With women like Nampijinpa (Indian migrants and support of Trump) Michaelia Cash (End of tradie weekend) and Jane Hume (Chinese spies) as party members how do they expect to attract Allegra Spender and Kate Chaney type women to the party?
• Failure to consider quotas to increase women participation in the Liberal Party.
• Let the Sky News After Dark be their spokesmen and spokeswomen.
• Failure to embrace environmental policies, especially climate change.
• Refuses to acknowledge the present taxation system favours older Australians and disadvantages younger Australians.
• Virtually no policies on housing.
• Willingness to put cultural wars (transgender, Welcome to Country, Woolworths not selling Australia Day paraphernalia, The Aboriginal flag) to the forefront rather than economic issues.
• Hypocrisy of COVID payments to large companies and robodebt.
• Support of Trump.
Savva goes onto write that it appears that the Liberal Party is unable to acknowledge the insurmountable problems it faces to regain the government benches.
She briefly discusses Labor’s willingness (or lack of) to introduce a reform agenda and the future for Albanese. Although the remnants of the Liberal Party appear to have failed to understand their loss the Labor Party needs to realise their victory was like an outback flood, wide but shallow. Its primary vote is still low and a minor shift in electoral support could see it lose its majority. Its post election opaque response to transparency and accountability is troubling. The future of Albanese is worth noting. He lead the ALP to an amazing victory but he is not another Bob Hawke. He does not have an abundance of charisma & one misstep could see his popularity plummet. We live in a time of turmoil and the political scene can change rapidly.
So, if you have an interest in reflecting on the recent federal election and the future of both Labor and Liberal the second half of Earthquake should interest you.
I see that government has two main roles. Firstly, to make citizens safe from both internal and external threats, Secondly, to provide infrastructure and services to meet the collective need of the society, with special emphasis on those in most need.
I have read Savva’s other publications; I found them very satisfactory reads and most informative. As they say, if journalism is the first rough draft of history, then Savva’s books are the second draft. As I read Earthquake much of the text brought back memories of the incidents and situations that were part of my daily news feed.
I did not find Earthquake as satisfying as her previous books. The first half were copies of her columns in the Sydney Morning Herald. The early pages were a repeat of what she wrote during Morrison’s period as prime minister.
I didn’t think the lead up to the May 2025 election was as coherent as it should have been. I would have preferred a more linear approach, exploring the important situations that occurred in the weeks of the campaign. I also would have liked some insights into particular seats that were significant in the election outcome.
Like Savva and most others I did not predict the result. In many ways I had hoped for a Labor minority government with the Teals holding the balance of power. I thought greater reform would have taken place than what has eventuated with Labor holding the massive majority that it now has.
On the night of the election and the immediate days after I watched with interest as Liberal seat after Liberal seat fell to the ALP juggernaut. I was particularly pleased when Dutton lost his seat of Dickson to Ali France. I had watched and hoped for this result for several elections. In several portfolios, especially immigration I found him to be an odious character.
There are probably tens of reasons the Liberal Party lost so badly. Her comments about this occurrence got me thinking about reasons for this result. She mentions and discusses several.
• Australia has changed since 2019. Women and migrants are playing a greater role in society and in politics. They can no longer be ignored and given a stereotypical classification.
• The cliché old white stale men is being noticed.
• The country/city divide is becoming more observable and comments by National Party politicians like Barnaby Joyce and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price might appeal to the National Party base but they put offside many voters in city-based electorates.
• The LNP has a women problem. With women like Nampijinpa (Indian migrants and support of Trump) Michaelia Cash (End of tradie weekend) and Jane Hume (Chinese spies) as party members how do they expect to attract Allegra Spender and Kate Chaney type women to the party?
• Failure to consider quotas to increase women participation in the Liberal Party.
• Let the Sky News After Dark be their spokesmen and spokeswomen.
• Failure to embrace environmental policies, especially climate change.
• Refuses to acknowledge the present taxation system favours older Australians and disadvantages younger Australians.
• Virtually no policies on housing.
• Willingness to put cultural wars (transgender, Welcome to Country, Woolworths not selling Australia Day paraphernalia, The Aboriginal flag) to the forefront rather than economic issues.
• Hypocrisy of COVID payments to large companies and robodebt.
• Support of Trump.
Savva goes onto write that it appears that the Liberal Party is unable to acknowledge the insurmountable problems it faces to regain the government benches.
She briefly discusses Labor’s willingness (or lack of) to introduce a reform agenda and the future for Albanese. Although the remnants of the Liberal Party appear to have failed to understand their loss the Labor Party needs to realise their victory was like an outback flood, wide but shallow. Its primary vote is still low and a minor shift in electoral support could see it lose its majority. Its post election opaque response to transparency and accountability is troubling. The future of Albanese is worth noting. He lead the ALP to an amazing victory but he is not another Bob Hawke. He does not have an abundance of charisma & one misstep could see his popularity plummet. We live in a time of turmoil and the political scene can change rapidly.
So, if you have an interest in reflecting on the recent federal election and the future of both Labor and Liberal the second half of Earthquake should interest you.
December 18, 2025
Not as thorough as Bulldozer, the early columns don't add much but the back half mostly shines. Savva at times doesn't dig far enough and glosses over some big moments of the election, parroting some media lines and misattributing the 'Dutton dressed as lamb' line which has been around from as earlier as 2018. It's still worth a read but you can skip past the Scomo columns which were covered much better in her previous work.
December 4, 2025
Too disjointed and much of it too distant from the election. Very few insights that show a connection to the people involved.
December 27, 2025
As always, Niki Savva writes in an accessible way about the behind the scenes of Australia's political arena before, during and after the May 2025 election, providing fascinating insight into the movers and shakers of politicians, staffers and the extended circle involved in politics. However it is a bit repetitive between the columns in the first half and the observations on the second half.
January 3, 2026
Liked the actual substance of the book, didn’t love the inclusion of the columns (it felt lazy, and I reckon could have been better done if accompanied by sone analysis).
January 24, 2026
I love anything Niki writes. The second half of the book was very informative. The LNP are a disaster and now we more of an insiders look as to why this is so!
December 24, 2025
First half is just columns, and the rest felt a bit flat…. Maybe bulldozed set the bar too high (it’s a fave)
January 3, 2026
Lenin says somewhere that although practice is the highest criterion of truth, it is never sufficiently robust to disprove any theory – perhaps something the Marxist that came after him might have tried to remember. If there was ever proof of this maxim, what is happening to the Liberal Party in Australia since the last two elections comes pretty close. This book started in a way I wasn’t really expecting it to. The book says it is about the election that shook Australia, but it starts with the election before the last one. The first part of the book is a series of articles Savva wrote from the defeat of the Morrison government through to the defeat of Peter Dutton in the last Australian election.
I guess it is important to remember that prior to the last election there was speculation that the best the Labor Party could do – given the cost of living crisis and a one term government that seemed to be afraid of its own shadow – was to be able to form a minority government. This was a result I was basically hoping for. I certainly didn’t want the Liberals to win – but I also wasn’t particularly hoping for the ALP to win either. It felt like the only result that might spur the ALP into action, in much the same way that it was under Gillard, was for it to have to negotiate with a crossbench to retain power. This wasn’t the outcome that happened, even if it was the most predicted one. Rather, the ALP won a massive victory – 94 seats to the opposition’s 42. But, as people have constantly said, one the basis of the ALP only winning under 35% of the primary vote, so wide, but shallow. Yet another reason why the ALP are unlikely to be adventurous in their second term.
What has been particularly interesting has been the shift away from the Liberal Party in what had once been its heartland, within the affluent, inner city seats, which have now mostly been taken from them by the TEALS – women who might once have been members of the Liberal Party, but who have become so disaffected by the shift to the right of the Liberal Party, their denial of climate change (reflected in the name they’ve been assigned, where teal is a mixture of blue and green) and the suicidal war on women that has become a reason for being of the party, that what had once been a party that referred to itself as a broad church, with conservative and moderate wings, is now dominated by conservatives. There has been talk of the moderates splitting from the party – but, as the author makes clear, this could only happen if there were some left. I’m old enough to remember Christopher Pyne getting drunk and boasting that the moderates controlled the party – no one would claim such a thing today.
Morrison had hoped that he could abandon the inner-city electorates and still win on the back of outer suburb disaffected tradies. But this imagined shift never quite eventuated. But rather than learn the lesson of the loss in the 2022, the Liberal Party decided to double down on culture wars. One of these was the loss of the referendum on an Aboriginal voice to parliament. This will go down in history as one of the great lost opportunities in the path to reconciliation. For a while it had massive support – something like 70% of the population was in favour of providing Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples a voice to parliament on matters that directly impacted them. But when the Liberal Party decided there might be an advantage to them in defeating it with a scare campaign (I was told by a person advocating a no vote that Aboriginals would take my backyard if they won…) the Liberals thought they were onto a good thing. Instead, they had won a battle that would then ensure they lost the war. They decided that punching down was the surest way to win the election.
And look, it seemed like this was going to be successful. They were riding high in the polls. A large part of the problem was that they had Dutton as a leader. Dutton is an incredibly nasty man. His main achievements in politics had been things like imprisoning asylum seekers – saying things like if we show even a little compassion it will come back to bite us. He never struck me as someone people would want to elect as Prime Minister – but after them having elected Tony Abbott and John Howard, I couldn’t rely on that. His main problem was that he held ‘the enemy’ in such contempt that he never spoke to media that might challenge is world view. He spent his time as leader of the party talking within the Murdoch echo chamber. As the author points out – he never once made an appearance at the National Press Club – and so, when the election was under way, he had no experience in how to deal with journalists asking challenging questions. Worse, but related, was the fact that he believed his own bullshit. Part of this was that the Labor government was so bad that people would recognise the mistake they’d made in electing them and vote him in. This lead to complacency, and to the party going to the election essentially without any policies. Then to them announcing policies, only to remove them a couple of weeks later. A case in point was Jane Hume announcing that she wanted public servants (who the Liberals had already said there were too many of and would be facing mass job cuts once the election was over) to stop working from home. This sent a shiver down the spine of not only public servants, but everyone who now relied on being able to work from home to have any sort of work/life balance at all.
Jane doesn’t come out of this at all well. A couple of days before the election she also said that the ALP was using Chinese spies to hand out how to vote cards. You need to remember that John Howard lost his seat on the basis of a backlash from people of Chinese ancestry. Worse still, that Jane had been one half of the two person team that reviewed the previous election loss, and found that the gratuitous insults to Chinese Australians had been part of the reason they had lost. You couldn’t make this stuff up. The fact that the people most likely to benefit from working from home are women – another group her review said the party needed to attract – also makes you wonder what she was thinking.
Since the defeat, the Liberal Party has decided that the best way forward is to shift further to the right. They have abandoned a target for green house gas reductions and look like they are going to seek to drastically reduce migration as the supposed panacea for all of our problems. This isn’t really helping. If it was meant to reassure their base, this seems to be stripping away to One Nation – a far right party that is now polling as Australia’s third party. Whether they will be able to sustain this will be interesting to see, I suspect not, given the party’s leader makes Nigel Farage look sensible, but again, that would require more faith in the electorate than I can muster. Given there is no path to victory for the Liberal Party that doesn’t involve recapturing metropolitan seats, a shift to the right seems destined to end the party. Particularly since its main support base is among people my age and older – people rushing towards death.
You might think that two drubbings in two elections would be enough to convince the party that it was time to try something new – but as Lenin said, no amount of practice is enough to disprove a strongly enough held theory – and when you’ve been told all your life that you were born to rule, the evidence of your eyes is never going to be nearly enough.
That said, the one rule with politics is that it always provides surprises. Some of the people in the party said that it was a pity they won the 2019 election – there is probably some truth to that.
I guess it is important to remember that prior to the last election there was speculation that the best the Labor Party could do – given the cost of living crisis and a one term government that seemed to be afraid of its own shadow – was to be able to form a minority government. This was a result I was basically hoping for. I certainly didn’t want the Liberals to win – but I also wasn’t particularly hoping for the ALP to win either. It felt like the only result that might spur the ALP into action, in much the same way that it was under Gillard, was for it to have to negotiate with a crossbench to retain power. This wasn’t the outcome that happened, even if it was the most predicted one. Rather, the ALP won a massive victory – 94 seats to the opposition’s 42. But, as people have constantly said, one the basis of the ALP only winning under 35% of the primary vote, so wide, but shallow. Yet another reason why the ALP are unlikely to be adventurous in their second term.
What has been particularly interesting has been the shift away from the Liberal Party in what had once been its heartland, within the affluent, inner city seats, which have now mostly been taken from them by the TEALS – women who might once have been members of the Liberal Party, but who have become so disaffected by the shift to the right of the Liberal Party, their denial of climate change (reflected in the name they’ve been assigned, where teal is a mixture of blue and green) and the suicidal war on women that has become a reason for being of the party, that what had once been a party that referred to itself as a broad church, with conservative and moderate wings, is now dominated by conservatives. There has been talk of the moderates splitting from the party – but, as the author makes clear, this could only happen if there were some left. I’m old enough to remember Christopher Pyne getting drunk and boasting that the moderates controlled the party – no one would claim such a thing today.
Morrison had hoped that he could abandon the inner-city electorates and still win on the back of outer suburb disaffected tradies. But this imagined shift never quite eventuated. But rather than learn the lesson of the loss in the 2022, the Liberal Party decided to double down on culture wars. One of these was the loss of the referendum on an Aboriginal voice to parliament. This will go down in history as one of the great lost opportunities in the path to reconciliation. For a while it had massive support – something like 70% of the population was in favour of providing Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples a voice to parliament on matters that directly impacted them. But when the Liberal Party decided there might be an advantage to them in defeating it with a scare campaign (I was told by a person advocating a no vote that Aboriginals would take my backyard if they won…) the Liberals thought they were onto a good thing. Instead, they had won a battle that would then ensure they lost the war. They decided that punching down was the surest way to win the election.
And look, it seemed like this was going to be successful. They were riding high in the polls. A large part of the problem was that they had Dutton as a leader. Dutton is an incredibly nasty man. His main achievements in politics had been things like imprisoning asylum seekers – saying things like if we show even a little compassion it will come back to bite us. He never struck me as someone people would want to elect as Prime Minister – but after them having elected Tony Abbott and John Howard, I couldn’t rely on that. His main problem was that he held ‘the enemy’ in such contempt that he never spoke to media that might challenge is world view. He spent his time as leader of the party talking within the Murdoch echo chamber. As the author points out – he never once made an appearance at the National Press Club – and so, when the election was under way, he had no experience in how to deal with journalists asking challenging questions. Worse, but related, was the fact that he believed his own bullshit. Part of this was that the Labor government was so bad that people would recognise the mistake they’d made in electing them and vote him in. This lead to complacency, and to the party going to the election essentially without any policies. Then to them announcing policies, only to remove them a couple of weeks later. A case in point was Jane Hume announcing that she wanted public servants (who the Liberals had already said there were too many of and would be facing mass job cuts once the election was over) to stop working from home. This sent a shiver down the spine of not only public servants, but everyone who now relied on being able to work from home to have any sort of work/life balance at all.
Jane doesn’t come out of this at all well. A couple of days before the election she also said that the ALP was using Chinese spies to hand out how to vote cards. You need to remember that John Howard lost his seat on the basis of a backlash from people of Chinese ancestry. Worse still, that Jane had been one half of the two person team that reviewed the previous election loss, and found that the gratuitous insults to Chinese Australians had been part of the reason they had lost. You couldn’t make this stuff up. The fact that the people most likely to benefit from working from home are women – another group her review said the party needed to attract – also makes you wonder what she was thinking.
Since the defeat, the Liberal Party has decided that the best way forward is to shift further to the right. They have abandoned a target for green house gas reductions and look like they are going to seek to drastically reduce migration as the supposed panacea for all of our problems. This isn’t really helping. If it was meant to reassure their base, this seems to be stripping away to One Nation – a far right party that is now polling as Australia’s third party. Whether they will be able to sustain this will be interesting to see, I suspect not, given the party’s leader makes Nigel Farage look sensible, but again, that would require more faith in the electorate than I can muster. Given there is no path to victory for the Liberal Party that doesn’t involve recapturing metropolitan seats, a shift to the right seems destined to end the party. Particularly since its main support base is among people my age and older – people rushing towards death.
You might think that two drubbings in two elections would be enough to convince the party that it was time to try something new – but as Lenin said, no amount of practice is enough to disprove a strongly enough held theory – and when you’ve been told all your life that you were born to rule, the evidence of your eyes is never going to be nearly enough.
That said, the one rule with politics is that it always provides surprises. Some of the people in the party said that it was a pity they won the 2019 election – there is probably some truth to that.
January 12, 2026
Earthquake: the election that shook Australia is political journalist Niki Savva's analysis and commentary on the May 2025 election and relevant events preceding it.
The book provides a comprehensive summary of the relentless litany of errors that ruined the conservative Coalition's campaign and delivered the centre-left Albanese-led Australian Labor Party a substantial and record breaking victory.
The issues on which Labor seemed vulnerable, and the Coalition failed to capitalize, is extraordinary: high cost of living, reduced housing affordability, excessive power bills, impractical and environmentally damaging net zero climate emission targets, migration pressures, and taxation inequities, to list the most obvious.
The Coalition also completely misread voter support for the working from home practices entrenched since the Covid years. A presumption that most regarded WFH as a free ride for public sector workers proved wrong. The Coalition's antipathy alienated substantial blocks of electors who benefited from this technologically enabled restructure of office work.
The Coalition was also in retrospect quite naive on one matter. It had campaigned successfully against Labor's proposed Constitutional amendment to empower an indigenous advisory 'Voice' on matters of national governance.
The Coalition trusted a substantial block of voter support remained with it after the national referendum on this matter failed in October 2023. However, the electorate proved to be very capable of discriminating between the relatively narrow Voice issue, and broader questions of government policy and capability. It judged the Coalition deficient on both criteria.
Savva's own political profile is interesting. Her journalistic work since the 1970s was mainly for reputable conservative newspapers. She also served a few years as a staffer for the Treasurer and Prime Minister in previous Coalition governments at the turn of the century. Her Coalition informants are thus relatively well placed and reliable The book benefits from many insights gleaned from Coalition participants in the 2025 election.
Savva describes herself as a 'conservative leftie', presumably meaning a mix of economic rationalism and social liberalism. She has been distancing herself from the Coalition increasingly over the last decade, mainly since the conservative Abbott premiership of 2013-15, which she seems to regard as moving further to the right, and away from the centre, where traditionally Australian elections are decided. Consequently, she has a benign view of the Albanese government, and was able to also access commentary and insights from well placed Labor people for the book.
Savva's limited respect for the Coalition seems justified, given its poor record in Opposition since losing government in 2022. Apart from the successful campaign against the Voice, it has seemed relatively rudderless. Its directionless drift partly reflects internal divisions between traditional conservatives and an increasing number of social progressives who seem indistinguishable from comparable elements of the ALP.
Her book was published in November 2025, when multiple future terms for the Labor government seemed likely. It would be interesting to learn if her expectations have altered following the horrific Bondi attack of 14 December 2025.
Bondi was the worst terrorist attack in Australia's history, one which highlights dramatic changes in Australian culture and immigration policies. It raises questions about the nature and future of Australia, with the previously unthinkable eruption of local manifestations of highly divisive and extremist Middle East politics. It suggested also a troubling failure of national government, given that Albanese and a cabal of senior Ministers seemed to largely ignore a sustained rise in anti-Semitism from recent immigrants in Australia, and were willing to voice casual anti Israel sentiments in apparent attempts to increase sectional electoral support.
Albanese's response to the attack was almost callously indifferent and politically cynical: he tried to suggest the principal cause was insufficiently restrictive generic gun laws, not the specific and brutal outbreak of radical Islamist terrorism. His reluctance to name Islamic terror reflects Australia's lax immigration policies, which have delivered considerable ALP voting blocks in several metropolitan electorates with substantial Muslim populations.
The bland response reflects also Albanese's personal history of youthful, juvenile attachment to far left ideologies, including antipathy to Israel, and support for Yasser Arafat's Palestinian National Authority and its successors. His government's response to the savage and barbaric Hamas attacks on Israeli citizens of 7 October 2023 was equivocal, urging restraint despite the obvious existential risks and dangers for Israel.
Broader voter repulsion for Albanese's inadequate, insensitive, and politically utilitarian reaction to the Bondi attack has reduced his electoral standing in recent opinion polls taken after Bondi.
The Bondi terror would seem to have prematurely dated Savva's book. The next election is scheduled for 2028. Savva's expectations of a long electoral life for the Albanese government may prove to be redundant, if voter repulsion over Bondi is sustained, and if the Coalition can both regain a sense of unity, and capitalize on voter aversion to Albanese's uncompassionate and poorly managed response to the Bondi attack.
Savva has had a long and successful career, and Earthquake is the fifth of politically themed books she has published in the last 15 years. The 2025 election may have seemed a major development in Australia's political history, ending generations of relative success for the conservative Coalition.
The Bondi attack now looks to be the more significant inflection point in Australian society and politics. Bondi seems the genuine earthquake, with the 2025 election receding quickly in the rear view mirror as more a passing tremor.
Savva had sworn that Earthquake would be her last book. Bondi has made a strong case for a further volume on Australia's now rapidly evolving social and political development, and its uncertain future stability.
The book provides a comprehensive summary of the relentless litany of errors that ruined the conservative Coalition's campaign and delivered the centre-left Albanese-led Australian Labor Party a substantial and record breaking victory.
The issues on which Labor seemed vulnerable, and the Coalition failed to capitalize, is extraordinary: high cost of living, reduced housing affordability, excessive power bills, impractical and environmentally damaging net zero climate emission targets, migration pressures, and taxation inequities, to list the most obvious.
The Coalition also completely misread voter support for the working from home practices entrenched since the Covid years. A presumption that most regarded WFH as a free ride for public sector workers proved wrong. The Coalition's antipathy alienated substantial blocks of electors who benefited from this technologically enabled restructure of office work.
The Coalition was also in retrospect quite naive on one matter. It had campaigned successfully against Labor's proposed Constitutional amendment to empower an indigenous advisory 'Voice' on matters of national governance.
The Coalition trusted a substantial block of voter support remained with it after the national referendum on this matter failed in October 2023. However, the electorate proved to be very capable of discriminating between the relatively narrow Voice issue, and broader questions of government policy and capability. It judged the Coalition deficient on both criteria.
Savva's own political profile is interesting. Her journalistic work since the 1970s was mainly for reputable conservative newspapers. She also served a few years as a staffer for the Treasurer and Prime Minister in previous Coalition governments at the turn of the century. Her Coalition informants are thus relatively well placed and reliable The book benefits from many insights gleaned from Coalition participants in the 2025 election.
Savva describes herself as a 'conservative leftie', presumably meaning a mix of economic rationalism and social liberalism. She has been distancing herself from the Coalition increasingly over the last decade, mainly since the conservative Abbott premiership of 2013-15, which she seems to regard as moving further to the right, and away from the centre, where traditionally Australian elections are decided. Consequently, she has a benign view of the Albanese government, and was able to also access commentary and insights from well placed Labor people for the book.
Savva's limited respect for the Coalition seems justified, given its poor record in Opposition since losing government in 2022. Apart from the successful campaign against the Voice, it has seemed relatively rudderless. Its directionless drift partly reflects internal divisions between traditional conservatives and an increasing number of social progressives who seem indistinguishable from comparable elements of the ALP.
Her book was published in November 2025, when multiple future terms for the Labor government seemed likely. It would be interesting to learn if her expectations have altered following the horrific Bondi attack of 14 December 2025.
Bondi was the worst terrorist attack in Australia's history, one which highlights dramatic changes in Australian culture and immigration policies. It raises questions about the nature and future of Australia, with the previously unthinkable eruption of local manifestations of highly divisive and extremist Middle East politics. It suggested also a troubling failure of national government, given that Albanese and a cabal of senior Ministers seemed to largely ignore a sustained rise in anti-Semitism from recent immigrants in Australia, and were willing to voice casual anti Israel sentiments in apparent attempts to increase sectional electoral support.
Albanese's response to the attack was almost callously indifferent and politically cynical: he tried to suggest the principal cause was insufficiently restrictive generic gun laws, not the specific and brutal outbreak of radical Islamist terrorism. His reluctance to name Islamic terror reflects Australia's lax immigration policies, which have delivered considerable ALP voting blocks in several metropolitan electorates with substantial Muslim populations.
The bland response reflects also Albanese's personal history of youthful, juvenile attachment to far left ideologies, including antipathy to Israel, and support for Yasser Arafat's Palestinian National Authority and its successors. His government's response to the savage and barbaric Hamas attacks on Israeli citizens of 7 October 2023 was equivocal, urging restraint despite the obvious existential risks and dangers for Israel.
Broader voter repulsion for Albanese's inadequate, insensitive, and politically utilitarian reaction to the Bondi attack has reduced his electoral standing in recent opinion polls taken after Bondi.
The Bondi terror would seem to have prematurely dated Savva's book. The next election is scheduled for 2028. Savva's expectations of a long electoral life for the Albanese government may prove to be redundant, if voter repulsion over Bondi is sustained, and if the Coalition can both regain a sense of unity, and capitalize on voter aversion to Albanese's uncompassionate and poorly managed response to the Bondi attack.
Savva has had a long and successful career, and Earthquake is the fifth of politically themed books she has published in the last 15 years. The 2025 election may have seemed a major development in Australia's political history, ending generations of relative success for the conservative Coalition.
The Bondi attack now looks to be the more significant inflection point in Australian society and politics. Bondi seems the genuine earthquake, with the 2025 election receding quickly in the rear view mirror as more a passing tremor.
Savva had sworn that Earthquake would be her last book. Bondi has made a strong case for a further volume on Australia's now rapidly evolving social and political development, and its uncertain future stability.
January 27, 2026
2.5 ⭐️
Finished reading ... Earthquake: the election that shook Australia / Niki Savva ... 23 January, 2026
ISBN: 9781761381898 .... 416 pp.
This volume, Savva's fourth following the election fortunes of recent Australian Prime Ministers, wasn't as good as the previous three. I found it superficial, probably because I was so closely involved as a volunteer for my local MP who won by a squeak.
It covers the machinations at federal and to a lesser extent at state level yet barely touches on what was happening in electorates beyond rating the parties' chances. I shouldn't have been surprised. I got a signed copy of the book and as the author was writing I said I'd been part of the sh!t show in my electorate. She looked at me blankly. Savva simply didn't cover electorate level campaigning in this election where it has been generally acknowledged that the lies were significantly worse than usual and the abuse at electorate level was brutal to the extent that armed police were in attendance, something I had never seen before in over 50 years of voting. I shouldn't have expected it, I guess. Her earlier books didn't go down to electorate level either.
If Savva, a journalist who has covered Canberra for what seems like centuries, had gone out into the electorates and got a feel for what was going on there, I wonder if the election result would have been less earthquake, more predictable. We'll never know.
Another book remains to be written, not by Savva though. For a writer who is interested in analysing politics on the ground, across the country, there's plenty of starting point material from the hearings of and written submissions to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters on the committee's web site.
Not as good as her previous volumes. Yes, I was hoping for more but ... half the book is previous newspaper columns and the nitty-gritty of the 2025 election and its aftermath is less detailed than the earlier volumes.
January 7, 2026
The book must be considered at what it is interdependent to be: a summarisation of the recent political situation. With this there comes all the normal problems of writing so soon after the events. Even setting those issues aside, there are a number of issues.
Firstly, the columns are rather ineffective. Indeed, they seem to be a way to fill out the books. Savva herself seems to admit in the conclusion that she was not enthusiastic about writing another book.
Secondly, the book invariably covers the same content over and over again - when should Albanese retire, the cultural failings of the Liberals, the character of both leaders. Repetition of the same them is necessary within a book but there does not seems to be any development in the analysis.
Beyond the structural problems of the book, there are some interestering information.
I felt schadenfreude when reading the sections on Morrison. The quick news cycle meant I forgot some of Morrison's great shortcomings. Reading them again was great. Some of the high lights include the disparaging comments by Berejiklian and Joyce, the list of stupid but catchy phrases and the never ending contempt for the intelligence of the Australian people.
I enjoy the discussion in page 132 and 133 about how the Conservatives Liberals thought they had hit rock bottom at the 2022 election. The Conservatives believed they had hit rock bottom and there was no where else to head but up. This could explain their embarrassing and existensial defeat in 2025.
Finally, there was some funny anecdotes scattered throughout the book. For instance, the PNG Prime Minister rang Albanese to congratulate him on the win only 1 hour and 45 minutes after voting stopped in the eastern states. Moreover, Barnaby Joyce thought he would be boring if he gave up the grog.
Firstly, the columns are rather ineffective. Indeed, they seem to be a way to fill out the books. Savva herself seems to admit in the conclusion that she was not enthusiastic about writing another book.
Secondly, the book invariably covers the same content over and over again - when should Albanese retire, the cultural failings of the Liberals, the character of both leaders. Repetition of the same them is necessary within a book but there does not seems to be any development in the analysis.
Beyond the structural problems of the book, there are some interestering information.
I felt schadenfreude when reading the sections on Morrison. The quick news cycle meant I forgot some of Morrison's great shortcomings. Reading them again was great. Some of the high lights include the disparaging comments by Berejiklian and Joyce, the list of stupid but catchy phrases and the never ending contempt for the intelligence of the Australian people.
I enjoy the discussion in page 132 and 133 about how the Conservatives Liberals thought they had hit rock bottom at the 2022 election. The Conservatives believed they had hit rock bottom and there was no where else to head but up. This could explain their embarrassing and existensial defeat in 2025.
Finally, there was some funny anecdotes scattered throughout the book. For instance, the PNG Prime Minister rang Albanese to congratulate him on the win only 1 hour and 45 minutes after voting stopped in the eastern states. Moreover, Barnaby Joyce thought he would be boring if he gave up the grog.
January 1, 2026
A Christmas gift highly desired and consumed in a few days...thanks Niki {& Santa}.
While I agree with other reviewers that this does not quite reach the heights of 'Bulldozed' {agree that was definitely her best}, I disagree with the discontent expressed about the inclusion of her political editorials for the first half of 'Earthquake'. These contextualize the political dramas of the day and, given that 95% of Niki's forecasting is entirely accurate, I feel she has the right to re-publish it.
I had initially been disappointed that this was included but actually found it to be the stronger half of the work. The second half, which was the political analysis that I so voraciously desired, I found to be a bit bogged down in repetition of the many Liberal ineptitudes. At times I almost thought this was deliberate though, a sort of pathetic fallacy of Dutton's intransigence, risk avoidance and lack of policy vision?
That said, Niki makes enough predictions that make you love her boldness, and which will only be tested with time: Albo's various vulnerabilities {highlighted since publication with the Bondi Massacre}- leading her to suggest he should retire prior to a third term, Sussan Ley's vacuous insincerity during the election campaign and since- leading to the inevitable leadership challenge, and the possible fracturing of the Liberal Party as a whole entity, with left-wingers shifting to Teals and right-wingers to One Nation {already proven since publication with Barnaby's treachery}.
To me, she seems to be on-the-ball again?! {4.5 stars}
While I agree with other reviewers that this does not quite reach the heights of 'Bulldozed' {agree that was definitely her best}, I disagree with the discontent expressed about the inclusion of her political editorials for the first half of 'Earthquake'. These contextualize the political dramas of the day and, given that 95% of Niki's forecasting is entirely accurate, I feel she has the right to re-publish it.
I had initially been disappointed that this was included but actually found it to be the stronger half of the work. The second half, which was the political analysis that I so voraciously desired, I found to be a bit bogged down in repetition of the many Liberal ineptitudes. At times I almost thought this was deliberate though, a sort of pathetic fallacy of Dutton's intransigence, risk avoidance and lack of policy vision?
That said, Niki makes enough predictions that make you love her boldness, and which will only be tested with time: Albo's various vulnerabilities {highlighted since publication with the Bondi Massacre}- leading her to suggest he should retire prior to a third term, Sussan Ley's vacuous insincerity during the election campaign and since- leading to the inevitable leadership challenge, and the possible fracturing of the Liberal Party as a whole entity, with left-wingers shifting to Teals and right-wingers to One Nation {already proven since publication with Barnaby's treachery}.
To me, she seems to be on-the-ball again?! {4.5 stars}
January 30, 2026
Niki, please don't write another book. You are past it.
If you regularly read The Age or SMH, there is not need to read Earthquake. For all of the allusion of the title and byline, there is nothing shocking, vindicating or tantalising about this book. And it is a sluggish and procrastinating 416 pages.
Two thirds of the book are simply Savva's columns. Unabridged. Relentless. Simply a summary of the 24/7 news cycle. The columns go back as far as 2021. Her readership no doubt read Bulldozed: Scott Morrison’s Fall and Anthony Albanese’s Rise. There was no need to go back there and it did not contextualise the decline of the Liberal Party. I was offended and bored that I was having so much re-explained to me.
Not until page 264 is Dutton's Chief of Staff mentioned. For a book that labours on Dutton's deficiencies as a leader, campaigner, policy nut and general human being, failure to attribute any of it to his seemingly mistrusting, juvenile and (WIP)
(Albanese on how he debated and rebutted Coalition policies) "So how do we turn their roads into cut-de-sacs?" (p. 321)
(Jane Hume on who the Liberal party should be positioning themselves towards) 'Suburban mums don't vote for submarines." (p. 323)
(Jane Buncle on the progressive failings of the Liberal party to their base) "Become dogmatic about issues that don't appeal to a wide cross-section of Australians." (p. 396)
If you regularly read The Age or SMH, there is not need to read Earthquake. For all of the allusion of the title and byline, there is nothing shocking, vindicating or tantalising about this book. And it is a sluggish and procrastinating 416 pages.
Two thirds of the book are simply Savva's columns. Unabridged. Relentless. Simply a summary of the 24/7 news cycle. The columns go back as far as 2021. Her readership no doubt read Bulldozed: Scott Morrison’s Fall and Anthony Albanese’s Rise. There was no need to go back there and it did not contextualise the decline of the Liberal Party. I was offended and bored that I was having so much re-explained to me.
Not until page 264 is Dutton's Chief of Staff mentioned. For a book that labours on Dutton's deficiencies as a leader, campaigner, policy nut and general human being, failure to attribute any of it to his seemingly mistrusting, juvenile and (WIP)
(Albanese on how he debated and rebutted Coalition policies) "So how do we turn their roads into cut-de-sacs?" (p. 321)
(Jane Hume on who the Liberal party should be positioning themselves towards) 'Suburban mums don't vote for submarines." (p. 323)
(Jane Buncle on the progressive failings of the Liberal party to their base) "Become dogmatic about issues that don't appeal to a wide cross-section of Australians." (p. 396)
December 30, 2025
Niki Savva is easily one of the very best Australian political journalists and authors. Her recent works Bulldozed, Plots and Prayers, and The Road to Ruin all tell the stories of liberal party manoeuvring from Abbott to Turnbull to Morrison and to the 2022 electoral defeat. These are important testaments to modern Australian political history. They tell the story of an era of Federation where leaders’ tenures are short lived.. and with each instalment the paralysis of indecision and reactionary platitude replaces any significant structural reforms to country or economy.
Here in this instalment Savva does something different again. The first half of the book is a collection of Age/SMH opinion pieces from Savva over the first term of the Albanese Government. When I saw this I was a bit disappointed. And wrong to be so. It was really helpful to be reminded of the changing political landscape and inspired by the foresight that Savva continually demonstrated. Politicians should ignore her articles at their own peril. She is our best.
The second half of the book is the familiar style of dissecting issues and analysing motives and intentions to explain actions of Dutton, Albanese, Ley, Marles, Hume and a host of others. It was Savva at her best.
It is a great addition to the historical accounting that Niki Savva has given us. There is much to learn from these four books. I wonder if those lessons will be learned by those that need to do so.
Here in this instalment Savva does something different again. The first half of the book is a collection of Age/SMH opinion pieces from Savva over the first term of the Albanese Government. When I saw this I was a bit disappointed. And wrong to be so. It was really helpful to be reminded of the changing political landscape and inspired by the foresight that Savva continually demonstrated. Politicians should ignore her articles at their own peril. She is our best.
The second half of the book is the familiar style of dissecting issues and analysing motives and intentions to explain actions of Dutton, Albanese, Ley, Marles, Hume and a host of others. It was Savva at her best.
It is a great addition to the historical accounting that Niki Savva has given us. There is much to learn from these four books. I wonder if those lessons will be learned by those that need to do so.
January 15, 2026
This is the latest in Nikki Savva's dissection of the travails of the Liberal Party and other Conservative political entities in Australia over the last 8 years or so. As a former political adviser to Liberal Party politicians, Savva might be expected to show some partisanship. She dies, but not in the way that you might expect. As a 'true believer' in the values of Liberal Conservatism, she is appalled - it drips from every part of her analysis - at the betrayal of those values by Abbott, Morrison, Dutton and co.
In this way, she strikes a weird sort of balance that really works (to a definitely left-inclined reader) ... though I suspect arch-Conservatives would be spitting with rage, reading her dismantling of their specious manoeuvrings and tawdry, divisive politics.
This book is constructed in two parts: half the articles she wrote for the Age/SMH analysing the turmoil that has gripped the Liberal Party and the ways that Labor has managed itself so much better under Albanese. Then the latter section goes into detail, using interviews (with those who'd deign to be interviewed!) and analysis of Dutton's demise.
It's an insider's account - or one written by someone close enough to enough people who will talk to her that the conclusions she reaches are pretty hard to context (though Dutton does!).
In this way, she strikes a weird sort of balance that really works (to a definitely left-inclined reader) ... though I suspect arch-Conservatives would be spitting with rage, reading her dismantling of their specious manoeuvrings and tawdry, divisive politics.
This book is constructed in two parts: half the articles she wrote for the Age/SMH analysing the turmoil that has gripped the Liberal Party and the ways that Labor has managed itself so much better under Albanese. Then the latter section goes into detail, using interviews (with those who'd deign to be interviewed!) and analysis of Dutton's demise.
It's an insider's account - or one written by someone close enough to enough people who will talk to her that the conclusions she reaches are pretty hard to context (though Dutton does!).
December 12, 2025
This feels a bit slapped together. The subject is the Australian Labor Party's huge win in the 2025 Federal Election, which virtually no one, especially the media saw coming. In fact, they had all pretty much written off the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. The meta narrative among the pundits that used to control the flow of information in Australia's political space was that Albo (as he is known in Aus) was a well meaning incompetent who was being steamrolled by master of the dark arts of populism and arch Trumpist, Peter Dutton. What actually happened was that Albo won the biggest landslide in over 100 years, and the biggest victory by a government seeking reelection. There isn't much real analysis, and virtually no narrative. The first half of the book is reproduction of Savva's newspaper columns starting with the final days of the venal Scott Morrison and Albo's ascent to the Prime Ministership. The second half is a long unstructured essay that mainly consists of gossip during the election and its aftermath.
It's okay, but doesn't say much that you wouldn't already know if you followed Australian politics. If you don't it would be virtually incomprehensible.
It's okay, but doesn't say much that you wouldn't already know if you followed Australian politics. If you don't it would be virtually incomprehensible.
December 29, 2025
Probably the worst book about an election I’ve ever read.
Half of it for starters is just recycled articles used as a substitute for proper scene-setting. When the book finally gets to the election, the coverage is so thin on detail it’s unbelievable. It reads like Niki simply didn't bother with the legwork or research this time.
The so called behind the scenes material is basic at best, and most of what remains is either already publicly known or self indulgent navel gazing about the journalists covering the campaign. I'm sorry, I don’t care what the reporters named their own whatsapp groups, I doubt even their own families care enough to do anything more than just smile politely when told.
If you are aching for a few chapters glazing everyone from the Teals to Andrew Hastie you're in luck. But for me, even after really enjoying some of her previous books, this will be the last one I read.
Half of it for starters is just recycled articles used as a substitute for proper scene-setting. When the book finally gets to the election, the coverage is so thin on detail it’s unbelievable. It reads like Niki simply didn't bother with the legwork or research this time.
The so called behind the scenes material is basic at best, and most of what remains is either already publicly known or self indulgent navel gazing about the journalists covering the campaign. I'm sorry, I don’t care what the reporters named their own whatsapp groups, I doubt even their own families care enough to do anything more than just smile politely when told.
If you are aching for a few chapters glazing everyone from the Teals to Andrew Hastie you're in luck. But for me, even after really enjoying some of her previous books, this will be the last one I read.
January 17, 2026
My interest in politics is relatively new, so I found the first half of the book, which is largely a collection of Nikki Savva’s articles from around 2023 to the present, useful for catching me up and filling in the gaps. If I were already well across this period of Australian politics, I likely would have found this section tedious and somewhat superfluous.
The second half of the book provided valuable insight into how the 2025 federal election result came to be, and I appreciated that Savva was able to include commentary from both Dutton and Albanese. She does not hide her own political bias, which clearly filters some of her opinions, but I do not think this detracts from the underlying truth of much of her analysis.
Realistically, few people will need a recap of Australian politics from 2023 to 2025, but if you do, this is probably the book for you.
The second half of the book provided valuable insight into how the 2025 federal election result came to be, and I appreciated that Savva was able to include commentary from both Dutton and Albanese. She does not hide her own political bias, which clearly filters some of her opinions, but I do not think this detracts from the underlying truth of much of her analysis.
Realistically, few people will need a recap of Australian politics from 2023 to 2025, but if you do, this is probably the book for you.
December 9, 2025
Another incredible read by the great Niki Savva. A fantastic exploration on the build up of the disastrous 2025 Coalition campaign, spanning back to the dying days of the Morrison government. Savva investigates both the proceeding events and aftermath which led to Labor’s triumph and the discipline of the Albanese campaign, and the contrasting calamity of the Dutton-led Coalition campaign.
Such insights are accompanied by on-the-record and off-the-record antidotes by key actors from both campaigns. Such insights underscore the both the flaws and triumphs of both Albanese and Dutton, and their political instincts during the pressure cooker of a national campaign.
A must read to understand the serious long term implications the 2025 campaign on the trajectory of Australian politics.
Such insights are accompanied by on-the-record and off-the-record antidotes by key actors from both campaigns. Such insights underscore the both the flaws and triumphs of both Albanese and Dutton, and their political instincts during the pressure cooker of a national campaign.
A must read to understand the serious long term implications the 2025 campaign on the trajectory of Australian politics.
December 14, 2025
Typically well researched and written, this book reveals the dis function in the coalition during the 2025 election campaign. Niki Savva has all the right connections across the political spectrum and they provide her with insights and information about the problems in both major parties and confirm what many of us suspected. Dutton was making it up as he went along, while Albanese had been putting his ducks in a row for months before the election. My only criticism is that reprinting so many of Savva’s newspaper columns slowed down the first part of the book.
January 11, 2026
Quite a lazy read . No insight. Libtards.
It was the Teals and the hate for the liberals that won the election. ie. Britany Higgins . The bipartisan approach to many issues the libs had with labor . The boys club.ie. Covid having a beer no masks together while everyone else was in lock-down. Unfortunately labor still is forced to carry on with the swash bucking policies their predecessors set. Without the bravado.
Still with a brown nose to the Yanks and C.I.A who cohabit, influence and corrupt our Australian domain.
It was the Teals and the hate for the liberals that won the election. ie. Britany Higgins . The bipartisan approach to many issues the libs had with labor . The boys club.ie. Covid having a beer no masks together while everyone else was in lock-down. Unfortunately labor still is forced to carry on with the swash bucking policies their predecessors set. Without the bravado.
Still with a brown nose to the Yanks and C.I.A who cohabit, influence and corrupt our Australian domain.
January 17, 2026
Felt quite hastily cobbled together from columns and then a few interviews with key players of the 2025 election. Quite repetitive and I didn't find it so insightful except for a bit of the behind the scenes stuff about how the campaigns were managed. Also on a fundamental level I think lacks a bit of self awareness in diagnosing why voters are switching off from major party politics by not once reflecting on the way that political reporting like this that treats it as sport and rushes out opinions on everything doesn't really inform the public outside of an ultra switched on political class.
January 20, 2026
Very well written analysis of the 2025 Australian Federal election. The author is a very experienced journalist. The first half of the book consists of previously published newspaper articles by the author covering the four years leading up to the 2025 election, including before and after the 2022 election which was a big factor in the outcome of the 2025 election. The second half of the book is a straightforward analysis of the 2025 election. Well worth reading. A very accomplished author of political books.
December 12, 2025
Earthquake
As a political junkie, I thought this was a good and revealing read. However, dear Niki, I think you wrote this book far too soon after the election. Let it be - let it rest - contemplate. Then write up the best-researched book ever.
Niki Savva has the best contacts in our country and is a trusted and true journalist.
There were several jarring mis-prints which would have been picked up by proof reading this book prior to going to press.
As a political junkie, I thought this was a good and revealing read. However, dear Niki, I think you wrote this book far too soon after the election. Let it be - let it rest - contemplate. Then write up the best-researched book ever.
Niki Savva has the best contacts in our country and is a trusted and true journalist.
There were several jarring mis-prints which would have been picked up by proof reading this book prior to going to press.
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