Farrer by-election, 2026

Cause of by-election
Sitting Liberal MP Sussan Ley announced her impending retirement from politics after losing the Liberal leadership on 13 February 2026.

Margin – LIB 6.2% vs IND

Incumbent MP
Sussan Ley, since 2001.

Geography
Farrer covers a great expanse of southwestern NSW. The seat covers most of the NSW-Victorian border, stretching from the Greater Hume area around Albury all the way along the Murray River, and further north to cover areas along the Murrumbidgee River. Main towns include Albury, Griffith, Leeton, Deniliquin and Corowa.

History
Farrer was created at the 1949 election as part of the expansion of the House of Representatives. In its time it has always been held by conservative parties, primarily the Liberal Party, although it was held by the Nationals from 1984 until 2001.

The seat was first won in 1949 by Liberal candidate David Fairbairn. He was included in the Menzies ministry from 1962 until 1969, when he challenged John Gorton for the leadership and moved to the backbench. He returned to cabinet for one year in 1971 after William McMahon became Prime Minister, and retired from Parliament in 1975.

He was succeeded by Wal Fife, who had been a minister in the Liberal state government of New South Wales since 1967. Fife went on to serve as a minister in the Fraser government from 1977 until its defeat in 1983. He moved to the seat of Hume following the 1984 redistribution, which had moved Wagga Wagga from Farrer into Hume, and he retired in 1993.

The seat was won in a three-cornered contest in 1984 by Nationals state MP Tim Fischer, with the Liberal coming third. Fischer became leader of the National Party in 1990 after then-leader Charles Blunt lost his seat.

Fischer went on to serve as Deputy Prime Minister from 1996 to 1999, retiring at the 2001 election. Another three-cornered contest in 2001 saw the Liberal Party’s Sussan Ley win the seat back from the Nationals.

Sussan Ley has been re-elected eight times. She served as Minister for Health from 2014 until 2017, and as Minister for the Environment from 2019 to 2022. She was elected deputy leader of the Liberal Party after the party lost power in 2022, and was elected leader following the 2025 election.

Sussan Ley lost the Liberal leadership in February 2026.

Candidates
No information.

Assessment
Farrer was held by the National Party prior to Sussan Ley narrowly winning the seat in 2001 following Tim Fischer’s retirement. It seems very likely that the Nationals would wish to contest this seat again now that it is vacant.

A rural seat like this is also likely a good area for One Nation. This could be quite a complex contest between multiple conservative candidates.

2025 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Sussan Ley Liberal 44,743 43.4 -8.9
Michelle Milthorpe Independent 20,567 20.0 +20.0
Glen Hyde Labor 15,551 15.1 -3.9
Emma Hicks One Nation 6,803 6.6 +0.3
Richard Hendrie Greens 5,085 4.9 -4.2
Peter Sinclair Shooters, Fishers and Farmers 3,577 3.5 -1.8
Tanya Hargraves Trumpet of Patriots 2,441 2.4 +2.4
Rebecca Scriven Family First 2,218 2.2 +2.2
David O’Reilly People First 2,078 2.0 +2.0
Informal 10,234 9.0 +1.4

2025 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Sussan Ley Liberal 57,916 56.2
Michelle Milthorpe Independent 45,147 43.8

2025 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Sussan Ley Liberal 64,812 62.9 -3.5
Glen Hyde Labor 38,251 37.1 +3.5

Booth breakdown

Booths have been divided into seven parts. Polling places in the towns of Albury, Griffith and Deniliquin have been grouped together, and the remainder of the seat’s population has been split into north-east, north-west, south-east and south-west.

The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in six out of seven areas, ranging from 51.5% in Deniliquin to 68.1% in the north-west. Independent candidate Michelle Millthorpe polled 58.3% in Albury, which is the largest part of the seat.

Labor came third, with a primary vote ranging from 12.3% in the south-east to 17.7% in the north-east.

Voter group ALP prim LIB 2CP Total votes % of votes
Albury 14.7 41.7 13,035 12.6
South-East 12.3 55.9 6,962 6.8
South-West 13.0 64.5 6,524 6.3
Griffith 16.3 58.9 6,469 6.3
North-East 17.7 59.1 5,930 5.8
North-West 17.4 68.1 3,756 3.6
Deniliquin 12.6 51.5 1,508 1.5
Pre-poll 15.5 56.2 46,605 45.2
Other votes 14.4 61.4 12,274 11.9

Election results in Farrer at the 2025 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Liberal vs Independent), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, independent candidate Michelle Milthorpe and Labor.

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28 COMMENTS

  1. I wonder if Michelle Milthorpe will run here and if she’ll be able to cut through that bit further. If Lee is still leader when the next election is over she’ll have to be out of the seat so if electorate doesn’t rally behind here she could be in trouble. If Lee is dumped as leader and retires I expect the Liberals will lose this and either the independent or Nationals will win it.

  2. She says she will. I’d say the libs would retain here its too urban for the Nats. In fact the libs might get a swing too them without Ley.

  3. Ley will get a a juicy pension when she retires. At this rate, I don’t see her becoming the PM. If she gets dumped this term, I’d expect her to retire from politics.

    Interestingly, the independent candidate in 2025 won the 2CP at all booths in Sussan Ley’s hometown of Albury. She even beat Ley on primary votes at some booths in Albury. It’s not surprising since there is normally a strong primary vote for Labor and the Greens in Albury.

    I doubt a teal candidate would win this. Other than Albury, most of the electorate depends on carbon-intensive primary industries.

  4. In a way it’s unfortunate that electorates have to be contained to state boundaries, because clearly Albury shares a very strong community of interest with Wodonga and they would be well served by a mostly urban seat based on the wider Albury-Wodonga region, rather than this expansive rural seat. Given how rural it is, surely Nats would win a by-election.

  5. You could make arguments for ditching state boundaries as boundaries for electorates. Albury-Wodonga and the Gold Coast-Tweed Heads are similar communities, but they’re represented way differently.

    However, when we get into the process of redistributions, that’s where it gets tricky.

  6. CJ, the issue of major urban areas crossing state borders is not a unique one to Australia. In the US, there are many examples of metropolitan areas which cross multiple state borders (most notably New York City with suburban areas that extend into adjacent New Jersey, but others like Cincinnati-Covington which straddles Ohio and Kentucky and Kansas City which straddles Kansas and Missouri). In all these cases, congressional districts cannot cross state borders and thus these urban areas will be disjoined.

  7. Adam as a resident i can assure you this would be a lib vs ind seat. Most of the population is contained in Albury. Corowa or Griffith.

    Cj the difference is albury wodonga is seperatedated by and island and river. Gold Coast is not near Tweed Heads its about 30-40 minutes away. It’s coolangatta thats near Tweed Heads. You can literally walk between them. You can stand in coolangatta and Tweed at the same time. During daylight savings you can be in two different time zones.

  8. Cross border seats would never happen as the seats are divided by state with each state being entitled to a certain. Umber of seats.

  11. I can’t confidently comment on whether Liberals will improve when Ley leaves, but an election (or by-election) without her could worsen Coalition relations and expose grievances between the Liberals and Nationals. I remember Anthony Green stating how the Nationals hated losing it in 2001 and are likely to contest Farrer. I’d also point out how the Nationals have become more emboldened, so them gunning for Farrer at the expense of the Liberals doesn’t seem out of the ordinary.

    Imo, that race is likely to become incredibly messy race between the Liberals, Nationals (I’d assume they’d run someone with a high profile like Perin Davey) and Michelle Milthorpe.

  12. @lurking it wont an unoccupied seat is fair game under the coalition agreement. they are both free to contest any seat that doesnt have a sitting coalition member. tbh i think ley has been dragging tdown the lib vote here. I for one will be still voting One Nation. (honestly its to help them out financially as they wont win the seat but they get $ per first preference.) outside of that i will wait until the candidates are announced should she retire before deciding which one to back.

  13. Let’s say One Nation’s vote increases (maybe Labor’s too by a bit) at the expense of the Liberals. If both Liberals and Nationals contest and a teal independent contests, it could create a vote-splitting scenario.

  16. @John December 5, 2025 at 10:09 am
    I am aware an unoccupied seat is fair game, but there’s no guarantee that there won’t be some grievances aired out during the campaign. I suspect some mudslinging will have to happen because Liberals are not going to idle stand by and the Nationals have a two decades old score to settle. In addition these parties will have to have to make themselves appear to be the better option.

  17. Yes but Ley needs to retire first. Secondly the nats and libs are not gonna risk giving the seat to a teal. They would rather a peaceful campaign in which one of them wins then a civil war that’s drives people to the teal. I suspect the nats will win this seat if they contest. This seat is a lot more regional then Indi. I for one will be voting on merit. 1. One nation 2&3 lib/nat. Teal last. Greens second last.

  18. There are several unknowns. Ley might even still be the leader come the next election to everyone’s surprise.

    If there’s a leadership spill this term and she loses, I reckon she’d retire as would some of her disappointed close supporters. It’s like how Gillard and her close allies retired in 2013 after Rudd retook the leadership. She might retire the next day.

  21. Ley seems to be on borrowed time. The Newspoll before the Coalition split last week had One Nation on a higher primary vote than the Coalition. The split did no favours.

    If a leadership spill is called, Ley would certainly lose. She’s hanging on partly because the National Right faction has worked out their leadership contender. Tony Abbott has come out urging the conservatives to rally behind Angus Taylor or Andrew Hastie and oust Ley.

  22. If Ley is rolled it’s likely she retire which would trigger a by-election but, I don’t think the Liberals would hold onto this.

  23. Would make for a fascinating by election as I imagine both the Nats and Milthorpe would be keen to run whilst ON has all the momentum – but do they have a local candidate ready or do they try and parachute someone in?

    Libs wouldn’t hold

  24. I agree that the Libs won’t hold this in an open contest without Ley.

    I read that Taylor is just one or two votes short of winning a spill but he might call a spill if the Ley/Littleproud spat goes on.

  28. In 2025, there was a left/right primary vote split of about 40/60, assuming the independent is left.

    Labor might as well abstain from the by-election as it will be a multi-cornered race. I expect Liberals, Nationals and One Nation and maybe an independent to run. This will be the first electoral test for One Nation following their double-digit polling surge over the past few months.