Good morning, I have been writing this blog post after getting home to wrap my own head around the scale of the count. I expect I will have some issues with the website’s accessibility today, so some of this may also be posted over on Tally Room in Exile, my backup blog.
Firstly, it appears that there has been a significant increase in the number of contests involving minor parties and independents, but it will be some time before we can say how many seats are now non-classic.
Right now, 116 seats appear to be classic contests, 15 are Coalition vs Independent (including Katter and Sharkie), 10 are Labor vs Greens, 8 are Labor vs Independent, and one is Coalition vs Greens (Ryan).
But there are 19 seats where it is not clear at this point which parties should be in the 2CP, and it will require further counting to make that clear. I’m sure some of these seats will require a 3CP. That isn’t to say all these seats are in play – in some cases there is a clear winner and two parties competing to come second.
In theory as many as 43 seats could be non-classic, but at the moment 34 are leaning that way. As a reminder, the 27 non-classic seats in 2022 was an enormous jump. It’s hard to see the number not being higher this time.
I’m going to introduce a term I haven’t used much in the past: “Maverick”. The AEC uses this term to apply to seats where their initial chosen 2CP turns out to be wrong. This year, an enormous 22 seats were declared Maverick, although the Maverick status of Macnamara was later overturned. I think there’s three others where they could arguably do the same, and resume counting the initial 2PP count.
The Maverick status also covers two seats in WA where they picked the wrong party out of Liberal and Nationals. Ten of these 21 seats continue to be unclear as to what 2CP pairing will apply. There is thus a further 9 seats where it is unclear which parties make the 2CP, but since the likeliest pairing is the current pairing, they will continue counting until they decide otherwise.
The main reason for all of this complexity is the closeness of the second-placed and third-placed candidates. There are 30 seats where that gap is less than 5%.
I previously analysed these gaps at the 3CP level, which is not quite the same thing but is usually similar, and I have found the gaps have kept getting smaller. Well it looks like this trend is continuing in 2025. It is getting harder and harder to know which two candidates are the top two.
As for the seat outcomes, my current estimates are:
- Labor winning 86, leading in another 7
- Coalition winning 36, leading in another 4
- Independent (including KAP and CA) winning 10 and leading in 5
- Greens leading in 2
I won’t go into what those seats are now. Right now it looks like five of the six urban teals, plus Sharkie, Katter, Dai Le, Wilkie and Haines have all been re-elected. Zoe Daniel is leading in Goldstein, as are independents in Bean, Calare, Bradfield and Cowper, with the Calare candidate being ex-Nationals MP Andrew Gee. The total vote for independents (not including CA or KAP) has surged again to 7.8%.
The historic scale of Labor’s victory and the Coalition’s defeat forced me to collate some data on previous results, and this chart shows, as a proportion of the House, how many seats the government, opposition and crossbench have held after each election.
The exact record will depend on the final results, but it seems likely that this election result will produce more seats than the 90 seats won by Tony Abbott in 2013. There’s a chance Labor could surpass John Howard’s result in 1996, although I don’t think they’ll quite get there. As for Labor results, this is their best result in seat terms since 1943, and I don’t think any other result before that was any better.
For the Coalition, this looks like the worst result for any major party since 1943, even producing a lower seat proportion than Whitlam’s Labor in 1975. Of course the ballooning size of the crossbench means the defeat of the Coalition is a bit more impressive than Labor’s victory – an exaggerated version of the mismatch we saw in 2022.
For this whole campaign we have been looking at the declining major party votes, and what is amazing is that Labor has achieved this enormous victory while barely raising their primary vote.
The combined major party vote has continued to drop, currently sitting at 66.4%, just below two thirds of the total vote. The Coalition has also broken their own record for their lowest vote share since 1943. And the combined vote for the minor parties and independents has now passed the Coalition, and is over one third.
The final point I want to touch on is the Greens’ performance. At the moment it looks like they will scrape by in Melbourne and potentially win other seats like Wills and Ryan. Their result wasn’t particularly impressive, but I want to emphasise how much they are victims of the electoral system. Nationally the Greens vote is steady, just over 12%, and part of the story is that the Greens suffered primary vote swings in many of their best seats while gaining votes elsewhere. The map at the end of this post makes this very clear in cities like Melbourne and Brisbane, although you don’t see it in the same way in Sydney.
But in a number of their seats, their defeat did not primarily come due to a dropping primary vote, but a rearrangement of their opponents. In Brisbane and Griffith, the rising Labor vote pushed the LNP into third, and thus LNP preferences will elect Labor.
It’s a perverse part of our system that the most conservative voters decide who wins in some of the most progressive seats. Elizabeth Watson-Brown likely will survive while Max Chandler-Mather will be defeated because she represents a more conservative seat where the LNP is the main opponent.
And this is a challenge for the Greens because so many of their best seats are now Labor vs Greens contests where Labor will easily win the 2CP on Liberal preferences.
And finally, this map shows the swings for Labor, Coalition, Greens and One Nation on the primary vote, and a 2PP swing for the 124 seats with 2PP counts at the moment.
Amongst those 124 seats, the biggest 2PP swings were again in Inner Metropolitan seats, averaging 5.08%. Outer Metropolitan averaged 4.07%, Provincial 2.55% and Rural 2.12%. The urban-rural divide is growing even now.
also given previous turnout results and current preference flows Bendigo could go down to the wire
@Nimalan I agree, having played both tennis is very different to rugby.
But again, the two Williams sisters famously played against the 200th or so ranked man, who was just coming back from injury, smoked between ends, and beat Serena 6-0 6-0 then Venus 6-0 6-1. That is not to knock Serena and Venus, two of the greatest ever to play (Serena probably the greatest) but to point out just how big the differences are between men and women in a sporting capacity.
Men have a natural advantage physically over women why do you think men who cant even qualify for events or suck. Can come in and smoke even the best females.
Im gon a revise my predictions on close seats.
Bradfield Ind gain. Gisele would move ahead on postals but absent and provisonals will push boele over the line.
Bendigo. Very marginal labor retain. Chesters is done come 2028 i think.
Bullwinkel. Lineball.
Goldstein lib gain postals will push wilson into the seat.
Kooyong hamer wins just on current postals recieved if all are recieved she wins comfortably.
The Victorian Liberal Party may be one of the most useless organisations ever invented but geez they do a good postal vote ground game. The rates in Victorian Liberal seats are so much higher than NSW – Thng or eve Libs postal vote lead in Bradfield and Berowra is puny compared to Kooyong or even Deakin.
Less than 48 hours after a seismic federal election and the Tallyroom discussion boards are off topic.
Nature is healing.
Very interesting to see the strong increases in southeastern Melbourne in both Labor’s primary vote and 2PP. In Isaacs, Hotham, Bruce, Holt, La Trobe. Much bigger than Western or Northern Melbourne even though demographically they aren’t all that different.
Following on from my examining the booth results in Collie (division of O’Connor) being quite good for the Liberals, I thought I’d check the other booths around proposed nuclear sites.
Calare – Impossible to say because of the nature of the contest. Across the four booths near Mount Piper, the only similarity was Labor losing a lot of votes and Gee gaining a lot of votes.
Gippsland – Around Traralgon and Morwell there was definitely a primary swing away from the Nationals, but it basically got absorbed by One Nation. And most of it ended back with Chester in one of the safest seats in the country. But that swing against the Nats on primaries is bigger than in the rest of the electorate.
Grey – Big swings towards Anita Kuss and away from the Liberals in Port Augusta (inc. Stirling North), about half of those went back to the Liberals on preferences but still a 2PP larger than the whole electorate.
Flynn – Only a few small booths anywhere near Callide, no discernable pattern. Flynn as a whole swung to the LNP though.
Maranoa – No 2PP count yet, but some of the booth around Tarong (which doesn’t have its own booth) had large swings away, but mostly to People First or One Nation. But that still might indicate something, because Littleproud only lost 3.5% of first prefs across the whole seat.
New England – All these booths moved to New England from Hunter (except Jerrys Plains), so might be misleading, but Labor lost a lot of votes and the Nats stayed stable. 2PP swing bigger to the Nats here than in the seat as a whole.
@North by West:
Perhaps the locals aren’t all that worried about a nuke plant in the district?
Reading the ag supplement in saturday’s Australian, broadacre farmers are still using Paraquat, the Ag and Vet chemicals regulator have been reviewing it for 27 years, with a decision due soon.
So, broadly, there’s a lot of people in these rural primary industry areas that either don’t know, don’t want to know, or don’t care.
I don’t know how Bandt and others are claiming Wills is still winnable by the Greens. The maths just doesn’t check out.
Assuming declaration prepolls, provisionals and absentees all swing about 7% towards the Greens (the swing on election day, even though prepoll was a 4.4% swing towards Khalil – I’m being generous towards the Greens here)
And, assuming that the postal votes are going to remain at roughly the same percentages (67% for Khalil with 42.7% of all possible postal votes counted, although 57% of all returned postal ballots counted)
That means Khalil would end up with around 52.2% if no more postal votes come in and current postal votes keep going 67% towards him.
The Greens would need over 65% of remaining postal votes to go towards them. That would require the postal votes to be lower than his current primary vote, which just isn’t in the realm of possibility.
I really don’t understand why the ABC hasn’t called it for Khalil yet. Nine Fairfax and News Corp both have hours ago.
@Will T
You’re certainly right, however, I suspect the ABC is holding out for a preference distribution.
@Jim F
They’ve done a preference distribution of the 9741 postals counted? 67.1% LAB/32.9% GRN.
Overall primary has Labor at 35.9%, Green 35.4%, and Liberals next at 12.6%, so it’s not like there’s any chance of a 2CP count being mavericked here. Overall preferences are flowing 53.2% Labor, 46.8% Greens, but postals way stronger for Labor. 9741 is a pretty representative sample of postals too.
@Will T, I agree, I think I’m gonna call Wills for Labor. I’m still gonna leave Melbourne and Ryan in doubt.
The ABC still has Calwell, Flinders, Franklin and Monash in doubt, but I’ve already called Calwell and Franklin for Labor and Flinders and Monash for the Liberals.
The rest remain in doubt for now.
Nether portal what about Goldstein and Kooyong in your view
Why each seat is still in doubt for me:
* Bean, Bendigo, Bradfield, Bullwinkel, Fremantle, Goldstein, Kooyong, Longman, Menzies: very close seats
* Melbourne: just a gut feeling plus the general surprise (in a good way) that Adam Bandt is (finally!) on his way out of office
* Ryan: second place is too close, but whoever comes second (either the Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown or Labor candidate Rebecca Hack) will defeat Maggie Forrest (unfortunate given she’s been a great candidate)
Can an independent winning Calwell be ruled out? What’s the reasoning?
Ben, I love you work, but the part of this post about the Greens is just pure whining. The exact same process and “perverse part of the system” by which they won these seats in 2022, is how they have lost them in 2025. Even the horrible James McGrath mad that point on the ABC coverage.
The libs are preferencing labor in calwell. No chance.
@High Street
I found that description intriguing too.
Labor was the Condorcet winner in Brisbane, Griffith, and Ryan in 2022. If there is any “perverseness”, it is that The Greens were elected in these seats then. I wouldn’t describe it as “perverse” though. It is a fact – indeed a mathematical fact – that there is no perfect electoral system.
Not ahead of Moore and Youhana they’re not.
@Darth Vader
The Liberal HTV in Calwell has both Moore and Youhanna above Labor.
@Ben, Goldstein and Kooyong are still in doubt for me. Too close, especially Goldstein.
And the Greens have Youhana ahead of Labor on their HTV. Moslih has Labor higher than those two independents, but how many would follow his card?
@np im saying libs will win goldstein and probably kooyong too. Postals are favouring them too heavily. Youve got to wonder. If the liberals are so bad then people obviosuly rate these too worse. The other teals didnt do so well either. They didnt do much better then last time and with the exception of beadfield arent going to win any additional seats
Some very quick back of the envelope calculations – if the 2CP is Labor versus independent and two-thirds of Liberal preferences go to the independent, then about two-thirds of all of other candidates’ preferences will need to go to the independent for them to defeat Labor.
Ben, you need to get the Greens bias stick out of the way when writing stuff like this. Labor “barely” raising their primary vote, it’s unfair and perverse for the Greens to lose on Liberal preferences but apparently not when they won on Liberal preferences…. Not very scientific.
@Nether Portal, looking at Melbourne, it seems very possible for Sarah Witty to win.
Using 2022 preference flows (and considering an equal 50/50 split for the independents flows, although perhaps that’s kind to Bandt), and assuming the postal votes stay at about the same rate for Labor (64%), that would get Labor to 51.2% in Melbourne assuming no more postal votes are received.
Labor would need to stay above a 2CP of 60.8% for postals to win Melbourne, which last time postals ended up going 55.8% Bandt. Seems unlikely, but if Labor is swinging really strongly on postals, then perhaps.
@Darth Vader, I’m not to sure about Kooyong, but I agree it’s more likely than not that the Liberals have won Bradfield and Goldstein due to postals. Bendigo will go to the Nationals I reckon. Not too sure about Bullwinkel, Longman or Menzies just yet as they’re both very close seats.
my bad on calwell i never actually checked the full results. Yea if the libs drop lut whcih seem likely. Labor would likely lose a 30% primary is pretty low youhana would be in the box seat getting both lib and grn prefernces
Bradfield has far fewer postals to count and absents will help boele. Im giving goldstein to wilson and belive hamer will win kooyong given shes getting nealry 2:1 postals. Bendigo seems like the nats will win now. They threw everything at it. I bet all those who said the nats had no chance and woulddnt come close are eating their words. Bullwinkel is still complocated due to the nats not being out of the race but ypud think that if they get over the libs they will win due to stronger prefence flows and the fact labor would go backwards if the nats make the count.
I’m just going to add one more thing on the “unfair” issue, besides being generally cheesed at seeing anyone on the left wanting to erode trust in Australian democracy out of pique – down that way is Trump.
In the Canadian election, because of first past the post, there were a number of seats where the Liberals and more progressive parties won a combined 60-66% of the vote combined but the Conservatives won the seat because the more progressive vote was divided anywhere from 2 to 4 ways. THAT is unfair.
Preferential voting in Australia ensures that doesn’t happen and also ensures people are free to show their true first preference among candidates that run without fearing their vote is wasted, it’s far better. So in a seat like the Canadian examples – for example, Ryan, where the Liberals are first on primary with 34.8 but the combined Labor and Greens vote approaches 60 – one of the progressive parties wins, not the Liberals.
The suggestion that it’s then unfair that voters for the parties below first and second still get a say via their preferences just because they are Liberal votes is frankly astounding, Ben. Somehow in seats where a progressive party is in the top 2 vs the Liberals and there’s a big vote for Labor or the Greens or a climate indie in 3rd I don’t think you’d say it is unfair their votes are kingmaker between the progressive party and the Liberals. You ought to take that comment back.
The preferential voting system does favour the median position in each electorate rather than the mode like First Past the Post, that’s a design feature.
Oh, and I’ll add that given Max Chandler Mather is behind Labor on primary votes (and by a fair distance) it is an even bigger whine to complain about LNP preferences. There’s simply nothing about the vote in Griffith this election to say he deserved to win save for some kind of unfairness. He lost because he didn’t get the votes – not on primary, not on preferences.
I remember once hearing about a variation on preferential voting where a Condorcet winner is always declared the winner. If there is no Condorcet winner, IRV (preferential voting as we know it) is applied.
Under this system, Labor would have won Brisbane, Griffith, and Ryan in 2022. It would generally make it harder for The Greens – or any party to the left of Labor or to the right of the Coalition – to win. However, independents and minor parties in the centre would have a better shot at winning, and especially so in seats that are marginal between the major parties.
(For those who aren’t familiar, a Condorcet winner is a candidate who wins against every other candidate on a two-candidate-preferred count.)
It would be unusual under normal circumstances for there not to be a Condorcet winner – you would need a situation where A preferences B over C, B preferences C over A, but C preferences A over B. The preferences, in a sense, form a cycle. In Australian politics, that would look like The Greens directing preferences to the Liberals over Labor (without reciprocation from the Liberals). And here you can see why the absence of a Condorcet winner would be unusual (under normal circumstances).
While this deals with one form of strategic voting, it actually opens up another – Suppose a contest is between Labor, the Liberals, and a centrist independent. It may be rational for a Labor voter to put the Liberals above the independent to prevent the independent from becoming the Condorcet winner. With no Condorcet winner, the winner is decided by IRV – which may result in the independent’s exclusion on the 3CP and preferences electing Labor.
All of this is simply a reflection of the fact that there is no perfect voting system. Gibbard’s theorem is a mathematical theorem that states (in essence) that there is no voting system immune from strategic voting. More precisely, there is always a situation that can arise where a voter’s “optimal ballot” depends on the behaviour of other voters. Moving from FPTP to IRV eliminates the spoiler effect but introduces the phenomenon we’ve been discussing that led to The Greens winning the three Brisbane seats in 2022. Moving from IRV to this “Condorcet-winner-otherwise-IRV” system eliminates that form of strategic voting, but introduces yet another.
Anyway, I hope someone found that interesting.
@Darth Vader agree with you about Bradfield. Nicolette Boelle is likely to scrape by 30-40 votes if the current trend of 58.5-41.5 will prevail for the remaining postal/provisional votes to be counted.
Though thar would trigger a recount
Well yes, but ultimately most recounts end up at the same conclusion we hope!
Doing my best to keep track of the the wide variety of contests, so I thought it’d be useful to share my notes. This is the state of play as of Monday night based on seat calls by the ABC, Kevin Bonham and Poll Bludger.
=========================
131 of 150 DIVISIONS CALLED:
– ALP – 83 certain (+ 8 defending + 5 attacking = 96 potential)
– L/NP – 38 certain (+ 7 defending + 4 attacking = 49 potential)
– GRN – 0 certain (+ 2 defending + 2 attacking = 4 potential)
– IND – 10 certain (+ 2 defending + 8 attacking = 20 potential)
=========================
CLASSIC CONTESTS
– Bendigo (VIC) – Reset as ALP vs. NAT count with NAT ahead by 1,840 votes (only 31.2% counted)
– Bullwinkel (WA) – ALP ahead by 28 votes (76.9% counted)
– Forde (QLD) – ALP ahead by 2,789 votes (70.2% counted)
– Longman (QLD) – LIB ahead by 309 votes (78.1% counted)
– Menzies (VIC) – ALP ahead by 1,384 votes (78.1% counted)
GREENS CONTESTS
– Melbourne (VIC) – Reset as GRN vs. ALP count with ALP ahead by 1,710 votes (only 5.3% counted)
– Richmond (NSW) – ALP in 1st by over 2% which leads to victory off either GRN or NAT preferences
– Ryan (QLD) – GRN ahead of ALP by around 1% in race for 2nd and resulting victory over LIB
– Wills (VIC) – ALP ahead by 2,813 votes (74.5% counted)
LIBERAL-TEAL CONTESTS
– Bradfield (NSW) – IND ahead by 416 votes (83.6% counted)
– Goldstein (VIC) – IND ahead by 95 votes (79.2% counted)
– Kooyong (VIC) – IND ahead by 992 votes (78.4% counted)
LABOR-TEAL CONTESTS
– Bean (ACT) – Reset as ALP vs. IND count with ALP ahead by 157 votes (only 6.9% counted)
– Franklin (TAS) – Reset as ALP vs. IND count with ALP ahead by 952 votes (only 4.7% counted)
– Fremantle (WA) – Reset as ALP vs. IND count with IND ahead by 541 votes (only 12.4% counted)
3CP/4CP DISTRIBUTION NEEDED
– Calwell (VIC) – 4CP count needed between ALP, LIB and IND x 2 (Carly Moore and Joseph Youhana)
– Flinders (VIC) – 3CP count needed between LIB, ALP and IND
– Forrest (WA) – 3CP count needed between LIB, ALP and IND
– Monash (VIC) – 4CP count needed between LIB, ALP and IND x 2 (Deb Leonard and Russell Broadbent)