2025 federal election guide now live

Thought I’d finally get around to putting up my predictions. This is my first election making a prediction, so could be way off, but here goes:
ALP: 68
L/NP: 60
GRN: 7
IND/OTH: 15
Changes:
Lib gain: Gilmore, McEwen, Chisholm, Aston, Bruce, Bullwinkel
Lab gain: Leichhardt, Fowler, Sturt
Grn gain: Richmond, Wills, Macnamara
Ind gain: Cowper, Bradfield, Wannon, Franklin, Fremantle
All others stay with 2022 winning party (not individual i.e. Gee, Broadbent and Goodenough lose to their old parties). Result is Labor minority government, with either Greens + Hullet, Wilkie and/or George, or a collection of teals. I can explain any seats anyone’s interested in the reasoning for.

I don’t think the Liberals have a chance in hell at winning Bruce. Their candidate has been a disaster. And with Labor recovering in Victoria now anyway, that healthy margin probably wasn’t going to be overcome now anyway.

Hawke on a similar margin would be more likely than Bruce now, although I don’t see that flipping either.

I really just based that off a leak I saw somewhere that the libs are thinking they’ve got good chances there, along with the general feeling of swings in Eastern Melbourne, although on second thought probably shouldn’t be basing my prediction off of something deliberately leaked by the libs, probably change it back to a labor hold, thanks Trent.

My map of predictions: https://jmp.sh/3999rPUL

I’m interested, Clarinet. I agree with your Lib and Lab gains, I’m less convinced of Bradfield and Franklin, and I want to believe in the Greens retains plus Fremantle… but I find it hard! So I’m interested especially in your crossbench reasoning.

Actually I made a mistake with the numbers, Lab 70 coalition 59. And now I think about it, Greens alone could be enough, but they’ll probably try and work with teals instead.

@clarient labor wont win leichardt or fowler. sturt is a tossup. they should win brisbane and maybe griffith
greens wont win wills
ind im gonna say libs hold bradfield and wannon but i think the nats are gonna lose Cowper mainly because conahan hasnt been around long enough to have the personla vote but he may hold on due to the melbourne cup field and being higher on the list so the dony vote will help him. franklin wil be lineball and can only be won in a lib v ind contest. should win bean too

agree on the lib gains except bruce but i think they wil get lyons lingiari paterson ryan and robertson and have a good chance in curtin goldstein and kooyong

they are a good chance in blair and hunter due to the onp vote

labor will work with the greens as a last resort and would go shopping with the inds first

@Josh from Brissie (where I live, so have some local insight) roughly clockwise (and sorry for flooding the comments):
Ryan & Brisbane: On the ground, lots of greens corflutes, even in the more liberal areas last time it’s 50-50. Almsot no Labor ones in Ryan, suspect their vote will crash here. More in Brisbane but still far fewer than Green ones. This goes for anyone who’s gone more than once, indie or green, but if they did decently last time I suspect a lot of people who didn’t take them seriously will. Watson-Brown is quite active in the community (this goes for all of them). I also don’t think libs will do very well among this sort of small-l demograph with Dutton as leader, and the anti-Morrison vote that got them elected will likely transfer almost entirely to an anti-Dutton vote, possibly even growing. Greens MPs tend to do well in reelection campaigns (South Brisbane is an exception at the state election, but this is mostly because McMahon’s original win was only because of Lib prefs, it wasn’t an “organic” win)
Griffith: MCM on a high margin and high profile, don’t think this is very much in contention.
Richmond: Greens did very well last time, and from what I understand Mandy Nolan has been campaigning for a long time here. As with the other three horse races, not much needs to happen for Labor to fall to third, and I reckon they’ve done more than enough.
Cowper: Caz Heise did well last time, with her higher profile I reckon she should win.
Calare: If Hook wasn’t running and/or Greens and Labor put Gee above her, Gee would win, but I suspect with their preferences Hook will make the 2CP, and many of Gee’s votes will flow back to the Nats, giving them the win. Similar reasoning for Monash and Moore so I won’t bother with them here.
Bradfield: Pretty much same as Cowper, along with Fletcher’s retirement.
Incumbent teals I reckon will all retain for same reasons I mentioned for Ryan/Brisbane (Dutton effect, personal vote)
Fowler: Reckon Labor’s preselection of Tu Le will bring enough voters back into the fold to outweigh Dai Le’s personal vote.
Wannon: Dyson’s 3rd try, this was probably the closest of the teal ones for me, not sure how well the labor vote will hold up. I suspect the state swing in Victoria is mostly confined to the outer suburbs, so it should be ok here, and Dyson’s increased profile will probably flip it.
Macnamara: I think Labor’s general decline in Victoria, combined with the issues around Israel-Palestine, and the backlash over Burns’ HTV, should swing enough votes for him to miss out on the 2CP. Semmens has also been campaigning hard and for a while.
Wills: Probably more uniformly pro-Palestine than Macnamara, and the redistribution helped them quite a bit here. Even with the loss of Bandt’s personal vote, the areas from Melbourne will vote solidly Green, and Ratnam is fairly high profile, and has also been campaigning hard, and along with the swing in Victoria against Labor should make up the 4% margin.
Franklin: This could go either way, but I’m saying the 2CP will probably (like 55-45% chance sort of probably) be George vs the Libs, the Lambie and Local party vote inflated the labor margin from a primary of only 35%, they’re not running this time and their voters will probably favour lib and ind, so labor’ll probably be pipped for the 3CP, although could hold on, in which case they’d win comfortably off of whoever’s third’s preferences.
Fremantle: This really comes down to lib prefs, which are favouring Hullet over Labor this time, where they didn’t at state. It depends on Hullet staying above the Libs in the 3CP, but that should be doable. Last time in the federal seat Greens were only 6% off libs, with Hullet’s profile she should suck up basically all of the Green vote and make up that 6%.

I’ve heard Labor’s feeling good about Leichhardt, and it makes sense. Sturt too, I can’t see how that stays Liberal. Fowler I have no local sense of though!

And depressingly I think they could get Lingiari, I can’t see Indigenous turnout being higher this time and people in the towns are still quite pro CLP. Alice was 50:50 in 2022, I think it’ll swing right and Labor will lose big primary chunks to the Greens after their results in Braitling / Araluen / the Alice booths in Namatjira – but not enough to save Marion.

i griffith the lab/grn margin is only about 3% from tipping it to labor vs while yes hes safe vs lib in an 3cp its a lot closer

@John Leichhardt they’ve got the loss of Entsch’s personal vote should give it to them. I’ve explained most of the crossbench seats above, the hunter seats will stay Labor after Dutton’s comments about it, and Robertson I think will be a narrow hold, Labor’s doing better in NSW. Blair I doubt this time thanks to Labor’s recovery and Neumann’s personal vote. Probably agree about Labor with the Greens vs inds, but you never know, and some of the teals might not want to support labor for fear of alienating their electorates. Also I missed Lingiari, I have lib gain there.

John I suspect MCM will gain primary, he’s been very high profile and as I understand it Labor’s not really trying there, he should be fine. Sturt is also small-l liberal that won’t like Dutton, and Labor’s improved in SA.

From your lips to God’s ears, Clarinet. Agree the crossbench campaigns in Richmond, Mac, Wills, Cowper, Wannon have been bangers. The tricky thing for the 3CP dependent ones like Brisbane, Fremantle, Franklin is that there are just so many dynamics at play at once that I struggle to see the crossbenchers getting lucky in all the right ways in all those places. Same goes for Griffith, which looks much safer than Brisbane but in Griffith Labor just doesn’t need to get many LNP votes or that much bigger a slice of preferences to make the 2CP and knock Max out on LNP preferences. Ryan at least the 3CP exclusion is fairly safe for the Greens and it doesn’t sound like Labor’s done what it needs to to change that.

Yeah I mean none of them are set in stone, but I don’t think the greens have pissed off much of their base despite what some might say, particularly in Griffith and the Melbourne seats, which are less tealish than the others, but yeah it possibly is a bit optimistic. Oh well, we’ll see soon enough.

The frustrating thing will be how arbitrary some of the changes will be – especially if all 7 of the Greens seats are relatively close either way. The narrative could be very different based on a few hundred votes!

Fremantle and Franklin really are quite amazing. I also enjoy that they’re both indie campaigns that have come from real local candidates and issues without too much external $ spending. Cowper and Wannon both having local candidates who’ve run before is the same kind of distinction between the various indies that really makes a difference (I hope).

Today’s Newspoll says Labor is streeting the Coalition with the women voters, haven’t seen polling on whether woen voters favor female candidates to any notable extent.
If that’s so, then the Coalition is in trouble in Cowper, Bradfield, McPherson, Dickson, Braddon, don’t like their chances in Goldstein, Mackellar, Boothby, Gilmore, and Curtin.
So, it’s conceivable that the Coalition representation could go backwards, in large part due to Labor’s targeted campaign, even though it’s been by most accounts a dismal government.

I agree with Trent in Bruce there is a lot of controversey with the Liberal candidate and there are ethnic based issues there as well. Hawke is more likely to fall as it is Anglo seat and there are local issues hurting Labor i drove through Hawke on Monday and i did see a lot of corfulutes and signs. Also i think polling in Victoria has improved since then.

the libs are up in the polls in qld and id epect them to hold alll their current seats

It feels to me very similar to how the 2024 NT election felt in hindsight. Looking back, it was a deice roll for the Greens for weather they would win 0 and 3 seats, and they ended up with one. It feels the same this time, where it is literally a dice roll between 0 and 7-10. The spin will be crazy.

actually i think the minimum they will win is 1. they wont lose melbourne now that labor has chosen to preference the greens over koutifidies. he would have been a chance had labor preferenced him but now bandt is a shoe in

Bandt got over 50% primary, and a lot of Labor voters would not follow that HTV anyway, so I reckon there’d be no chance of a loss there even with preferences going against him.

But I do agree it’s a dice roll between 1 and 10ish, with 3-7 most likely.

@clarinet they might have his primary was 49% last election and after redistribution was 44%. im saying 4 seats max i cant see the 10 seats.

Melbourne, Wills, Macnamara, Richmond, Griffith, Ryan and Brisbane is the absolute max i can see i cant see any other seats they could win. so i dont know how you get 7-10 Darcy.

I was also including Sturt, Perth and one other target. But I don’t think anybody, least of all me, are actually predicting it. It’s just possible.

I don’t know how anyone possibly thought Kouta had any shot in Melbourne.

At the council elections – where businesses and landlords not only get to vote but businesses get get TWO votes – and he ran on a totally pro business platform and barely cracked double digits.

So how he would be expected to be remotely competitive in the WAY more left wing federal seat that includes most of Yarra, no way.

@John Sturt, Perth and Moreton they’re running fairly high-powered campaigns, but I agree that’s on level with libs winning somewhere like macnamara or eden-monaro.

greens arent winning any of those seats darcy

in regards to kouta he would only need to scoop up enough preferences to get above the liberals i knw it was a long shot but he would be the only one capable of beating he greens i dont see him losing enough vote to labor to get them over the line. although it is possible

yea they wont win sturt perth or moreton

I agree there’s 99% chance they don’t, but also 99% they don’t lose Melbourne (even if labor had preferences Kouta) and 80-90% they don’t lose Griffith and Ryan. The rest are pretty much tossups, I’d say all leaning slightly Green but reasonable people can disagree here.

Kouta would struggle to get a primary vote much higher than 5%. After minor preferences he’d probably struggle to crack 10% of the 4CP vote.

im just speculating his star candicacy could attract votes from all sides

Unless you are a rabid Carlton supporter, Kouta is a small and fading star in a galaxy far far away.

the argument is mute anyway he cant win without labor preferences

@clarinet can you explain your thinking for chisholm? i think that deakin might be alp gain instead of lib retain as liberal only had a 0.2% margin on deakin.

Just realised I was mistaken about prefs in Calare, Monash and Moore, Labor preferences all go to the incumbents, it’s just the Greens who don’t understand tactical voting, this could put them in play, particularly Calare where Gee just needs to make the 2CP over Hook.

@nether portal just got around to looking at yours, bit odd ngl. Giving alp Dickson and McEwen but not Sturt? Also greens losing all 3 Brisbane seats but gaining wills?

Obviously there was no coordination with labor. Greens prefer teals over inds aligned with the coalition

Really what it is is that the greens prefer ideological purity over a non-coalition mp. And I say that as a general greens supporter, although I’d disagree with them on this sort of thing.

Although actually Monash and Moore they put the libs above the lib turned ind there, so idk what that’s supposed to be for? Maybe they particularly don’t like those guys? I didn’t think they were that controversial?

Hearing positive feedback on the booths for Labor and it seems to be well received with no obvious anger so far despite the state government problems however, still a ways to go and I’m definitely not calling it. I am interested to hear what others are getting on the ground.

I am referring to electorate of Aston.

What do people think will be the surprises? I.e. electorates retained despite a low margin or electorates lost with a substantial margin? Swings are never uniform in each seat after all – personal vote or lack thereof does factor in too, even if on paper, a seat shares characteristics with others where it stands while those others fall/vice versa. For example, Bundaberg in QLD was retained by QLD Labor despite having a wafer thin 9 seat margin going in, and ended up bucking the statewide trend and swung to Labor.

@WL April 23, 2025 at 9:13 pm
Surprises I doubt will happen:
– Labor retaining Gilmore and Aston
– Labor expanding their majority in Parliament (or even getting it)
– Losing Bendigo to Nationals
– Teals winning Calare and Monash (although the races there are messy so it’s hard to confidently predict)
– Nationals winning Durack (iirc I heard the NATs candidate there was popular)
– Liberals losing Dickson and Canning

Surprises which could happen:
– Labor retaining Bennelong, given Scott Yung’s gaffes it seems more possible now
– Labor retaining Lyons
– Greens retaining Ryan
– Greens winning Macnamara, Wills and Richmond (hard to justify it using polling, I have to use local events and on ground stories to justify that)
– Independent winning Whitlam (this is my dark horse prediction)

Independents gaining any seats would be a miracle, but if they do, it’d be surprising if they gain a foothold in QLD, Berowra, Lyne, Flinders, Forrest, Riverina and Grey (plus some other ones which I haven’t mentioned) If they win really close races like Moore, Sturt or Gilmore I’d be surprised.

I didn’t mention Cowper, Wannon, Bradfield or Fremantle since they seem like possible Teal gains

@WL
A surprise I think is plausible is labor retaining Lingiari due to increased indigenous voter turnout but simultaneously loosing Solomon.

@Andrew
Sure, Labor only wins Lingiari thru the Remote booths voters. Problem is the enrolment drive happened in 2021, but the numbers have remained static thru the 2 elections since and the Referendum.
At the Referendum, Yes won at all booths conducted by AEC Mobile teams, narrowly at Tennant Ck & Jabiru PPVCs and lost heavily everywhere else.

@Tommo9. Something you said on the Sturt page about corflutes and door knocking suddenly made me realise something broader, along the lines of Hemingway’s line about bankruptcy – “slowly, then suddenly”. But I wanted to put it here as a broader topic.

https://www.insightandforesight.com.au/blog-foresights/how-the-world-changes-slowly-then-suddenly

The realisation was that both the voter base and the party membership base in any given seat nationwide could follow the same pattern. As such, even if a suburb has been blue-ribbon for 100 plus years, if a critical mass of conservative voters all hit retirement age and decide to retire to somewhere else in big enough numbers, then maybe it’s a big enough shift to really move the dial politically. Like a kind of variation on gentrification.

Just as important, though, is that party membership base. Maybe a local party branch has limped along for two or three elections without any real growth, and those who hold positions of responsibility get sick of carrying the whole load. So since 2022, many have moved elsewhere – quietly – and when an election is called, suddenly the State Office realises that the foot soldiers they expected to rely upon in certain seats are just no longer there. As such, there’s only so much ground they can cover with volunteers from other seats.

And maybe (?) the voters look at the fact that there is no ground presence or door knocking, and conclude that said party has given up on their seat.

I’d enjoy hearing people’s thoughts on this idea.

ON’s decision about preferences could put a number of seats back into play, like hunter and Blair. Possibly also Lyons, given they’re running fairly hard in at least the senate in TAS, and the small margin. Probably also make Dutton himself even less likely to be unseated.

Ali France has taken a hit over historic attacks on Dutton years before she was a candidate.
Don’t think it matters nuch, because Community Independent Ellie Smith is the real challenger, imo.
Be interesting to know who dug it up, Dutton doesn’t want to be seen as picking on Ali France, who only has one leg and uses crutches to walk.

I think your right clarinet the one nation vote in Blair and Hunter is strong and could be a game Changer. It’s also entirely possible one nation beats nationals and faces off against Labor in Hunter. Also in Tasmania there is no lambie directing preferences to Labor in Lyons. But on the other edge of the sword no preferences to archer in bass either