Anthony Albanese’s electoral landslide has set him a personal goal: to be the first prime minister since Robert Menzies in 1966 to step down on their own terms.

The prime minister is backed by a swathe of new members in a caucus that, as reported last week, is historically skewed to his own Left faction.

With the return of parliament just over a fortnight away, The Saturday Paper publishes the remaining responses to its survey of the Class of 2025. When they take their seats in parliament, there simply won’t be enough for all 94 Labor members to sit on the government benches, so some will spill into what had been crossbench space.

“It’ll be enormous and it will have a huge psychological impact,” a senior Labor source says.

“It’s phenomenal. We’re setting ourselves up for a long-term government.”

The last prime minister to leave office at a time of their own choosing was Liberal giant Robert Menzies 59 years ago when, after 18 years, he passed the leadership to then treasurer Harold Holt.

Former Labor adviser and author Nick Dyrenfurth says Albanese’s victory may well be comparable with that of Labor’s John Curtin in 1943. “I take the view that you need sort of 10 to 15 to 20 years to actually judge the performance of a prime minister, but on electoral terms, it sends him into that highest pantheon,” says Dyrenfurth, who is executive director of the John Curtin Research Centre.

“Along with Hawke and Whitlam, he’s now one of only three Labor leaders to take the party from opposition into government and win re-election, which is pretty extraordinary given that the federal party is 124 years old now. He’s only one of three. So, he’s already up there with Hawke and Whitlam.

“If he’s to bed down a three- or four-term government, you would have to be talking about him in the same breath as Menzies.”

The alternative future is one closer to that of former prime minister Tony Abbott, whose Coalition secured 90 seats in the 2013 election, only to lose its leader in a spill two years later.

With one term already under his belt, and an enlarged caucus voicing its enthusiasm for Labor’s agenda, Albanese at this point looks empowered to shape his own legacy.