This election was to be won or lost in Queensland and Victoria. Large swings to the LNP in their marginal Queensland seats, many of which were predicted to fall to Labor, show that most voters in that state remain fundamentally focused on jobs and rejected any new environment ethos.

This was the case in northern Queensland where the Adani mine was a central focus of the LNP campaign, and contradictory messages from Labor did not help their cause.

In Victoria, many Labor strategists thought they would win enough seats to secure government. This did not happen, with the coalition's negative attacks on Labor's economic policies effectively shoring up many vulnerable seats.

While we have seen these re-emerging political cleavages before, the most important legacy of this election will be in the way campaigns are conducted in the future.

Labor had a long list of bold policy initiatives while the coalition government had one mainstay promise on tax reform.

Morrison relentlessly attacked Labor's policies on franking credits, changes to capital gains tax, and on negative gearing.

This, in my opinion, was the most negative campaign ever waged by a government against an opposition since the cold war. The tactics of instilling fear into key parts of the electorate is not new in election campaigns, but it is never been so masterfully done.

Correspondingly, Labor never gained traction on its criticism of the grossly inequitable coalition tax changes. And surprisingly, its socially progressive polices weren't enough to cut through the negativity.

Labor may never present such a broad target again, and election campaigns are likely to increasingly be contests between leaders not policies and principles.

While Australian electoral campaigns have become Americanised for some time, in this campaign it rose to a new level. Scott Morrison consistently argued the election was a choice between him and Bill Shorten, not about the coalition versus Labor.

The Liberals conducted a brilliant campaign and it succeeded because key sections of the voting public were vulnerable to a scare campaign, and because Labor was not able to counter that negativity.

Election campaigns in Australia will be changed forever, and politics in this country, as a consequence, will be much the poorer.