ALP backs Latham despite loss

The Labor Party is standing by leader Mark Latham despite yesterday's rout at the polls.

The Coalition is expected to secure a majority of more than 20 seats in the House of Representatives and it may also have control of the Senate with the help of a Family First candidate.

Labor's vote collapsed in Tasmania and Western Australia.

Senior Labor figures admit there will be a review of what went wrong in the election.

But speaking to Channel Nine, the party's secretary Tim Gartrell has called for the party to get behind Mr Latham.

"The best way to recover is to have a good look at what happened in the campaign over the coming weeks," he said.

"We'll be reporting to the ALP national executive about what we thought happened in the campaign.

"But the best thing to do is rally behind Mark Latham, he's a good leader, he's now the alternative prime minister, he's not the Opposition leader, rally behind Mark Latham, and get on with the job of holding the Howard Government to account."

Mr Gartrell says the party lost because of a negative campaign by the Coalition.

"Right at the last minute I think people were affected by a very effective Liberal party scare campaign based around a lie on interest rates," he said.

But the Liberal party federal director Brian Loughnane says the government won on its record.

"At the end of the day I think the people of Australia decided there was so much uncertainty about what Labor stood for that they weren't worth the risk," he said.

Difficult task

Labor's key campaign strategist Mike Kaiser says the Opposition had a difficult task while the economy is so buoyant.

Mr Kaiser has told the ABC program Insiders Labor will be looking at where it went wrong.

"We need to have a sober post-mortem on the election," he said.

"We won't be holding a review as has been fashionable in the past.

"There's a national executive on the 26th of November and Tim Gartrell, the national secretary, and I will be reporting to that.

"It'll be a sober post-mortem. There'll be a hundred views about what went wrong.

"We need to get to the truth about what went wrong, we've got some ideas but it's probably a little early to express that in any detail."