The Australian federal election will be held at some point in the first half of 2025, and I have now completed my guide to all 150 electorates.
I published guides for 50 seats in mid-2023, but electorates in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia had to wait for the conclusion of redistributions. These redistributions concluded around the time of the Queensland election, and I’ve now finished all of these guides.
We are also part way through a minor redistribution of the two federal electorates in the Northern Territory. The likely outcome seems certain, so I have updated those two seat guides to reflect the proposed boundaries.
The guide also features profiles for the eight Senate contests.
Most of the guide is an exclusive to Tally Room members – those who donate $5 or more per month via Patreon. I’m going to be increasing the price for membership from $5 to $8 per month from the start of January, but if you join now you can lock in the lower price going forward.
I have unlocked a handful of profiles as a free sample. I’d already unlocked Dickson, Lyons and the Queensland Senate race, but now I’ve added the new seat of Bullwinkel, along with Gilmore and Macnamara.
You can find links to each profile from the guide front page. There is an alphabetical seat list, a list by state, a pendulum and a map. I’ve also posted the map below:
One final note: it will be a big ongoing job to track candidate lists. For now I haven’t added any candidates to the new 100 profiles, but I will be doing an update of my list over the course of the next week, and they’ll be added to profiles then.
Nice to see john making his predictions, coincidentally I was going to post mine’s today. There’s been a huge influx of news and polling coming out since the election was called. I didn’t post my prediction at the start of the campaign, but my March prediction would basically be that.
Labor’s polling recovery has continued and the Coalition has slipped up in policies and candidates (e.g., Whitlam, Bennelong, Leichhardt, Wills, Bruce) However, there’s still 2 weeks left in the election and anything could happen which may reverse Labor’s optimism.
This prediction will be an improvement for Labor, but definitely not as extreme as YouGov’s “Labor one short of majority” MRP.
April 17th Mid-Election Prediction:
Seat Count:
ALP: 70 (-8)
LNP: 65 (+11)
GRN: 4
KAT: 1
CA: 1
WSC: 1 (+1); Dai Le retains Fowler
IND: 8 (-5)
Specifics:
– LNP gain Gilmore, Patterson, Bennelong, McEwen, Aston and Lingiari from ALP
– LNP gain Bullwinkel (from nominal ALP hold)
– LNP gain Calare, Moore and Monash from IND
– LIB gain Ryan from GRN
– ALP gain Brisbane from GRN
– GRN gain Wills and Macnamara from ALP
Result: Labor Minority Government (most likely with Independents)
Changes since March 2025:
– Robertson, Chisholm, Lyons and an Eastern Melbourne seat (Dunkley OR Bruce) from LIB gain to ALP retain
– Macnamara from ALP retain to GRN gain
– Result changed from Toss up to Labor Minority Government
I do have explanations written up on why I made those changes + seats whose status I’m reconsidering, so if anyone’s curious I can post them here.
Yes please do.
I’ll wait until shortly before the election before making a full prediction, but on the current numbers I can’t see Labor falling more than a couple seats short of majority, and most likely they will get to it.
By the way – the polls haven’t “tightened”, John. They crossed into Labor’s favour more than a month ago and the gap is now widening.
A good will be indicator will be the Canadian election, if there centre left party win then there’s chance Labor can do it here. I’m personally not convinced at the moment that Labor will get a second term as they are still struggling in Victoria and NSW with some seats on the outskirts of Brisbane and Perth. I’ll be on pre poll on Tuesday next week so it will be interesting to see.
History says no first term government did as well second time around, going back to when Scullin lost in 1931. Chifley lost 6 on a 4% 2PP swing in 1946, Ming nearly lost in 1951, Whitlam webt backwards in 1974, Hawke in 1984 increased the seat numbers by 23, 1.9% Swing, finished 7 ahead, and so on.
Albo will be on 77 election day, hoping for 76, he’s got history against him.
Apologies for flooding this page
@Darth Vader April 17, 2025 at 5:07 pm
Robertson-
Labor’s poll recovery nationally and in NSW means that any grievances/unpopularity of Labor won’t be strong enough to get a popular MP in Gordon Reid to be voted out. For a less reliable reason, it’s a traditional bellweather seat, so it’d be fitting for Labor to retain Robertson.
Chisholm-
Polling in VIC has improved for Labor, being reduced from a 5% swing back in Jan/Feb to just a 3.2% swing against Labor in April according to Pollbludger. If this poll recovery improves, Labor’s chances at retaining Chisholm looks better.
Also according to recent polling, it seems like the Chinese Australian vote is coming back to Labor. I assume this to be the case due to the current new trade war btw China and the US, and maybe Dutton’s rhetoric over Chinese ships being near Australia.
However, this prediction hinges on Labor improving on their polling in VIC and amongst Chinese Australians. There’s still 2 weeks left and anything could happen. (Although part of me having less confidence in his is due to my longstanding belief that Labor would lose Aston, McEwen and Chisholm at minimum in VIC)
Lyons-
This is, as described by Anglo Election Insights, a “Wildcard seat”. Lyons is held on a narrow margin and has been trending towards the coalition. It doesn’t necessarily move with the national polling trends; fits in well is Kevin Bonham’s assessment of Lyons being a seat which heavily depends on a candidate’s local connections.
Rebecca White’s high profile and popularity in Lyons might prove to be the factors that might help her retain Lyons for ALP, especially since there was a recent seat polling showing her winning against Bower in 2pp (even if it’s a narrow result- 50.6%)
Sentiment towards Labor seems to be improving, which adds some confidence in putting Lyons as an ALP hold. However I question whether Salmon Farming issue might harm them in Lyons, although the Liberals also support Salmon Farming so ig it won’t be that a big factor
@lurking this will be the last election labor will be able to win Lyons, Whitlam, Bruce and Blair. the redistribution in qld and tas will push those seats to the liberals. Bruce and Whitlam are trending to the coalition and they should have no problm overcoming the ex green in whitlam with a decent candidate.
adda. they will tighten back towards the libs especially fi we see more of that peter dutton from last night. but i cant see labor losing govt only a handful of marginal seats.
Macnamara:
Iirc there’s ~300 votes btw ALP and GRN in 3CP (accounting for redistribution), if Labor loses enough votes to both Liberals and Greens in that race the Greens will overtake Labor and proceed to 2pp count
Labor’s unpopular stance on Israel with Jewish voters, Macnamara trending towards Greens, Labor being a bit on the nose in VIC, and now backlash from both sides of the isle might prove enough for Burns to lose 300 or more votes in 3CP.
Even if the 4% swing in VIC won’t be pronounced in an inner city seat like Macnamara, Labor having an open ticket rather than preferencing the Greens has led to Burns taking backlash from both Progressives and Jewish voters. The latter’s attacking Burns for not putting the Greens last whilst Greens are attacking him as a non-left option who’s not doing his part to keep Liberals out of government.
Whether his personal vote will survive this and manage to keep Burns in 2nd place in 3CP count is up in the air. This is my most shakiest prediction and will definitely be subject to change.
also i cant see greens winning Wills especially since the libs will be preferencing
@adda they will face the loss of a t least 2 seats in Bean and Frematle due to libs preferencing the teals there. though Collins will hold in Franklin due to liberal preferences.
I don’t think Fremantle or Bean is a done deal yet. Whilst there are independent challengers who have Liberal preferences the margins should be enough for them to hang on and the other thing is that especially with Fremantle, the electorate takes in more than just Fremantle itself unlike the state seat. It also encompasses suburbs that are less teal friendly around Cockburn and Coogee, Henderson, Bibra Lake. If Hulett was able to come close but still fall short in a friendlier race it’s quite likely that she’ll cut into Wilson’s margin but still fall short. I think Fremantle’s a Labor retain unless anything happens inbetween now and then.
Bean, well it’s never a seat that should’ve been taken for granted as it’s the most conservative but it’s quite likely to be close but not close enough. The Liberal vote isn’t going to be much higher this time round considering the Liberal candidate just made some really awful remarks around Welcome to Country (which would fit fine in regional QLD and other places but not ACT) and David Smith is boring but not controversial. It’s not like a Denison 2010 style campaign where Labor didn’t even bother and Wilkie ended up narrowly overtaking them on preferences in a seat they should’ve easily won. It’ll be close but I still think Labor will retain but with the Independent in 2CP.
Fremantle was only by labor on liberal preferences I’d say they are simply retaliating for Curtin. At state level they were able to labor preferences in 4 seats vs the nats
Yeah Fremantle at a Federal level includes more bread and butter suburbs. Also Bean in the least progressive part of the ACT
Yea unfortunately canberra is too progressive for a teal
The coalition needs to press Labor on power lrices and negative gearing is where Dutton can wedge Labor and regain momentum
Two weeks out and it looks like Labor will be returned with a small majority or just in minority. However, it would seem that it will be driven by little or no enthusiasm because there is even less for Peter Dutton and the LNP. There will be a post election bounce but even by Christmas it will be grim for them. For the same reason that things were looking grim last year. But in a second term a government has nowhere to go. If the Libs don’t go backwards and get some new blood they might be on the hunt or they collapse in a heap like 1943 – that can’t be ruled out. Labor have had a majority in this term and done little since the end of 2023 – imagine how little they can do in minority. Not sure what the circuit breaker will be but there will need to be one.
Negative gearing not an issue
Im saying Labor minority. It will be a seat by seat battle. I don’t think the libs will lose any seats to Labor except maybe Sturt. The libs have 2 weeks to claw back some votes by election day. They just have to continue to press negative gearing and power prices.
Mick yes I bet bill shorten thought that in 2019.
It’s looking like an election where half the voters make a decision at the booth.
Not seeing much credibility in polling, if at least a third are voting 1 for other than the majors, then there are few seats that couldn’t be flipped by tactical voting.
Labor will start May 3 on 77, lose 2 and they’re a minority. No doubt Albo’s got a Slipper ready to don the gown, history going way back to 1931 tells us first term governments lose way more than 1 seat when chasing the second term.
@ John
bill shorten actually sort a mandate to reform negative gearing just like Hewson did with the GST and John Howard did in 1998.