Scott Morrison was not up to the job, fatally misread Australian voters and was never going to listen as the Coalition hurtled towards defeat.
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As many Liberals told us along the way to this disastrous showing, right or wrong, it was his way or the highway. Ultimately, Mr Morrison was wrong.
The self confessed "bulldozer" was never going to change and voters saw through his wafer-thin eleventh-hour pledge to change, if only he could get elected again.
Morrison offered little during the campaign apart from himself. And voters, particularly women, did not like what was on offer.
He was toxic in Liberal seats and so was Barnaby Joyce, but there was no comparable hit in the Nationals vote.
The independents were not widely taken seriously in the media throughout the campaign, but let us listen to incoming member for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel now.
"The Liberal Party lost its centre," the former foreign correspondent told Insiders.
"People who would normally be small-l Liberals or who are potential swinging voters like me who sort of drift across the centre had no-one to vote for."
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The offence at how women were treated - and how little room there was at the table - was so much so that smart, qualified female independents ran against some of the Liberal top and emerging moderate talents and smashed them.
Simon Birmingham is belatedly, in the entrails of the election, offering to look seriously at getting more women representing the Liberal Party. It has been staring them in the face for decades.
Morrison made the Liberal demolition job complete by abandoning the inner-city seats including the one held by the treasurer and likely successor and clumsy opening a dumb and dangerous culture war over trans people in sport. It turned out that no one but Sky After Dark was buying.
The strategy to pick up outer-suburban seats did not materialise. It backfired.
The rout came at the right flank as well so it is not entirely a clean out of the moderates. Michael Sukkar, Zed Seselja and Ben Morton appear gone. It did look close for Peter Dutton but he will survive and is expected to run for the leadership.
The result was transformative. A record number of crossbenchers are set to be elected and it is the Coalition's turn to enter the political wilderness. Soul searching and recriminations have begun.
Voters have given a mandate for a federal ICAC with teeth and serious climate action.
Labor will be pushed in the house and in a seriously progressive senate. This is not a clear win, but as Tanya Plibersek stated, "A win is a win is a win."
And the ALP will have to look inside itself.
How could Kristina Keneally be hung out like that? Her Fowler adventure was a debacle.
And the Greens have knocked out Terri Butler in Brisbane.
The ALP has been out of power for nine years. It is truly a celebration that an Australian-Italian is about to be sworn in as the 21st Prime Minister.
And it is fitting that the first pledge was a commitment to implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full.
It feels like everything has changed. A thorough clean out has happened with women right at the centre of this new arrangement.
There is a ton of Liberal voters who have shifted their votes for climate, integrity and good leadership. And they want action now.