On the night of the 1969 Australian election, Don holds a party in his suburban Sydney house, where his raucous, rude, embarrassing, extrovert friends discuss sex, politics, and their lives, and seduce each others wives.

Schoolteacher Don lives with his wife Kath and their baby son in suburban Melbourne. On the night of the 1969 federal election, he invites a small group of friends to celebrate a predicted Australian Labor Party (ALP) election victory, much to his wife's dismay. To the party come Don's university mentor Mal and his bitter wife Jenny; sex-obsessed Cooley and his latest girlfriend, 19-year-old Susan; dentist Evan and his beautiful artist wife Kerry--and two Liberal supporters, Simon and Jody. As the party wears on, it becomes clear that the Labor party, supported by Don and most of the guests, is not winning. As a result, alcohol consumption increases and the sniping among Don and his male friends about their failed aspirations gets uglier, as does their behavior toward the women. Mack, a design engineer whose wife has just left him, pulls out a nude photo of her for his friends' approval; crass womanizer Cooley pursues the available women. The disillusioned wives exchange tales of their husbands' sub-par sexual performance. By the night's end, Don and some of his friends have begun to grasp the emptiness of their compromised lives.