Click here for full display of House of Representatives election results.
I’m not presently in a position to offer the result the commentary it undoubtedly deserves, so hopefully the live results feature speaks for itself. Rest assured that this will be supplemented with voluminous analysis of late counting in close races in the weeks to come. Two changes keen observers might note from the close of play last night are that Bendigo is now rated a lineball contest between Labor and the Nationals – which would be an extraordinary success for the latter given the general course of events – and in allowing for the possibility that an independent who is on only 12.6% of first preferences will snowball to victory in Calwell. These changes result from me changing the candidates designated for my three-way projection, which had originally excluded the potential winners.
I have just finished writing an article for Crikey on the Senate race, which should be available to subscribers later this morning (UPDATE: Read all about it). The upshot is that the Coalition will only win two seats in each state, and could be reduced to one on a worst case scenario in Tasmania, which will reduce it to its lowest representation since parliament assumed its present size in 1984. Labor and the Greens look likely to have a majority between them, even without accounting for further left-of-centre votes from David Pocock (who romped home in the Australian Capital Territory), Fatima Payman and Lidia Thorpe.
Mavis
says:
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 7:23 pm
The Murdoch media empire has forfeited more of its waning political influence. For instance, the “Courier Mail” (on Friday) cautioned, in no uncertain terms, about a Labor/Greens House. It didn’t even come close. None of my young relatives read newspapers, and I guess they’re indicative of most of the young. So, whatever the outcome of the Murdoch irrevocable family trust appeal will mean almost zilch, though I do hope the decision goes in the favour of dear Jim, dear Liz & dear Pru.
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Be ironic if all that scaremongering about a minority government drove soft voters to Labor.
I think Andrew Hastie will probably be the next Liberal Prime Minister. He is one of few people in parliament I have a great deal of respect for. Dutton was very unwise to bench him during this campaign, although i appreciate Hastie is unpopular with parts of the Chinese community that the Coalition have been trying to rebuild a relationship with. I’m not sure now is his time.
After this kind of result, leader of the opposition is definitely a poisoned chalice. You are going to be leading a very weak team for 3 years.
Robert Lynchsays:
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 8:48 pm
Looks like Wilson is back as is Hamer along with Wolahan if current postal trend continues.
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Daniel looks gone.
You should never give Victory speeches until you are absolutely certain.
I recall that in 2015, Hastie was the trigger point for Turnbull to challenge Abbott for the leadership. If Abbott had remained as PM, word was spreading around that he’d lose the Canning by-election, so it had to be done there and then.
Andrew_Earlwood says:
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 8:47 pm
Griff says:
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 8:21 pm
Melbourne is looking tasty: https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2025/guide/melb
_______
Boom!
Excellent. Not done yet, but looking encouraging.
“If any of you had met Pyne for a few minutes you’d realise he isn’t a lightweight. He’s very very smart and able.”
I never thought Pyne was a lightweight. He played the frothy camp jester on TV with more humor than most Liberals can summon but he was an effective leader of the Coalition in the House in both opposition and government. Not as effective as Tony Burke or anything – I feel compelled to note Pyne managed to lose votes on the floor of the House as Turnbull’s leader of the House while Gillard never lost a vote on the floor in fucking minority government – but always sharp. Just weapons-grade insincere.
Plus he was one of those guys who walked straight from his Ministerial portfolio into a job that was a plain conflict of interest, and had it lined up while he was still Minister to boot.
I think Andrew Hastie will probably be the next Liberal Prime Minister. He is one of few people in parliament I have a great deal of respect for. Dutton was very unwise to bench him during this campaign,
@The Wombat
Did Peter Dutton bench him or was Andrew Hastie more worried about holding his very marginal seat? There was a suggestion Hastie was avoiding been seen with Dutton because he wasn’t popular with the voters.
I would have said Hastie to takeover before the election result. But this result is so bad, that he would be wise not to put his hand up straight away because it is going to suck to be Liberal leader for at least the next two years.
There is a lot of soul searching to be done, that frankly should have been done post 2022 but wasn’t. 2022 was the coalitions worst performance since going to 150 seats and yet they seemed to think they could just waltz back in with policies and with a leader who was simply not up to it. In 2018, when Turnbull looked like he was to be rolled by Dutton but was instead rolled by ScoMo in middle of Kooyong someone painted “Dutton NO!” on Auburn Road. He stayed there for years.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/moderate-wipeout-puts-regional-mps-right-wingers-in-box-seat-for-liberal-leadership-20250503-p5lwbp.html
Looking like Hastie will give it a miss.
As people point out, never say never in terms of political comeback. LNP will probably clawback some seats next time. But they are coming from a long way back, both in terms of seats to be won and in some cases, facing very significant seat margins. I think what will continue to bite is the iron law of demographics. I remember reading an article some time back – like 6-8 years ago – possibly by Bernard Salt pointing out the coalition would at some point have its base overtaken by younger generations. ALP will however have to be careful with not being distracted hubris and focusing on actual reform. They said the right things on the night, but there are significant policy problems that are difficult to solve and that they’ll need to face up to in the coming term.
Yikes!
https://insidestory.org.au/are-the-liberals-in-danger-of-becoming-the-kodak-of-australian-politics/
The Coalition has had a problem with policy detail for at least 5 years now. They looked vacuous during the campaign. They need to get back to the hard work of developing good policy. Rather than just doing whatever Gina Rinehart suggests.
@Political Nightwatchman and Wombat:
Dutton literally had to visit Hastie’s seat in order to make an announcement involving Hastie. Hastie didn’t go to his leader.
I think it’s fairly plain that Hastie actually understood his seat was under threat and spent the election campaign sandbagging home court to great effect. He’s a tactician. I don’t like him or anything but he’s not a lightweight like some of the others.
I imagine Hastie also understands that being the Brendan Nelson in this situation is a thankless job best left to the delusional and he ought to make his move later on, but we’ll see.
The parties should be looking at how to get new voters born overseas on their side.
The proportion of Australia’s population born outside Australia was 31.5% – the highest since Federation.
England, India, China and New Zealand were the countries of birth with the largest populations.
Hastie ran as Not-A-Lib. This is unsurprising considering the estrangement of the WA Liberals from the electorate.
Really, unless and until the reactionaries reform themselves from the ground up it won’t matter who leads them. They need to address their many phobias and doctrines. Their leafy gardens – so full of grazing sacred cows – need to be cleared out..
Confessionssays:
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 9:13 pm
_____________________
Just to let you know, posting large slabs of text is against the rules.
The other thing is Hastie is 42. He can be around two decades more.
Taylor is 58, Tehan is 57 and Ley is 63. All of them do not have two election cycles left to wait to try and get into government.
I’d love a racist, baptist nutter like Hastie to take over. It’ll keep the party irrelevant for some years more
The Wombat says:
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 9:14 pm
The Coalition has had a problem with policy detail for at least 5 years now. They looked vacuous during the campaign. They need to get back to the hard work of developing good policy. Rather than just doing whatever Gina Rinehart suggests.
5 years?
I think 50 years is more accurate.
Their gig is incurable, inestimable, intransigent hostility to the new. That is what they do.
At least Hastie might drag votes back from PHON.
Kevin Bonham has his postcount page up for the seat of Melbourne.
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2025/05/2025-house-of-reps-postcount-melbourne.html
TLDR version is that it’s very close.
Taylormade says:
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 9:17 pm
Confessionssays:
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 9:13 pm
_____________________
Just to let you know, posting large slabs of text is against the rules.
中华人民共和国
LOL Taylormade
Evening all
A few observations after an extraordinary 24 hours.
1. If ever there was a victory for the true believers in Australian democratic institutions last night was it.
2. From the day Labor was elected in 2022 Albanese made it clear his number one objective was to restore faith and confidence in the Australian political system after the degradation that climaxed with Morrison’s rule. He has stuck to this objective all the way through to last night and was finally rewarded resoundingly after his efforts were, at best, ignored and, at worst, taken advantage of by the Coalition and the Greens against the best interests of the country.
3. The Coalition were the authors of their own downfall. They had no substance in their public policies. They thought they could win with the Tony Abbott playbook from 2010-2013 while ignoring how fundamentally different their opponents were from the 2010 mess. They also thought they would get the free ride from the media that they did in 2013. Surprisingly the media were quite a lot more active in questioning and challenging. They tried to win on every device other than their own merits. The campaign showed them unfit for government.
4. There is a difference between a minor party like the Greens, with balance of power in the Senate, seeking to improve legislation and policy on the one hand as opposed to seeking to impose their policies on the other. That is not to say that the Greens should agree with policies they are essentially opposed to. But in the last term they tried to insist on imposing their policies such as rent freezes which were not the stuff of the legislation they were considering. It was great that Albanese stared them down. They have an important part to play if they go back to trying to improve legislation but trying to impose their policies with 12% of the national vote is stupid and the consequences have been seen in this election.
Looking at the 1943 situation, the UAP ran with Billy Hughes as their leader – completely unsuitable to have an 81 year old leading when there was an existential global crisis going on the background. Wisely the coalition technically had Fadden as leader, but that didn’t help. They had lost government in parliament and felt that was unfair. And the UAP went into that election devoid of policies and those they did have were unpopular with the public, with incredibly poorly run campaigns (mostly because the party only came to together for elections).
The parallels are similar. Bad leadership, not sellable policies, a few crazy ones……
Menzies realised that there was a need for a real party with a real structure and hence the Liberal party was born. I think they might need to do a similar thing this time.
Mavis
What a wonderful story. Perhaps I need to re-read Hemmingway. But for me, Eric Arthur Blair, aka George Orwell, had a great balance between brevity and communication.
I haven’t actually counted but it looks like more than half of the coalition MPs will be LNP. Anyone got a feel for how many of these are L and how many NP? I gather nationally they caucus separately.
davidwh
says:
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 8:08 pm
I remember some people saying the Coalition was finished after the 2007 election. Anything can happen in politics. However I’m confident they won’t win the next election. Wouldn’t be as certain about 2031.
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Several important things to consider now that are different to post-2007 election:
— the low historic Coalition primary vote this election (low primaries for majors is here to stay)
— Bigger crossbench with proven sticky independents
— Liberals are now left with basically no city seats (and no HoR Tassie, NT or ACT seats). The Coalition are now a regional/rural party with members that will reflect that and will be leashed to a certain degree in any ideological shift.
— Most of their state parties and organisations are in shambles, and many for quite some time (this is how you get terrible candidates up), and many of their branches overrun with religious crazies
— As Barrie said on the recent Guardian podcast, no one of high calibre is going to run for the liberals if they: can’t ace the Sky News purity tests administered by the branch members, or more likely, they will just be repelled by all the Barnaby, Caravan, Price, etc. crawling around.
That’s a farrrrrr bigger mountain to climb then just being turfed out of a 11yr old govt which was still highly rated on the economy, defence, migration etc. They were seen as competent, it was just time to try the other fresh, young, forward looking model. We all know what happened next. That RGR soap opera (in appearance only, not in policy delivery substance) saved the Coalition from at least a decade in the wilderness, and instead Labor did the time plus (brand) damages. And opted to refuse early release on parole by choosing to give the LOTO to THE face of the faceless men.
Aww look at Taylormade, whining about the posting of copied text. Given that is not the largest “slab of text” copied and pasted here in history, I can’t help but fear it isn’t the amount of copied text Taylormade finds so offensive, but the actual words written about their beloved Coalition.
Taylormade:
you are going to have to find some way of coping with the commentary that is to come about your party over the coming weeks and months. I’ve been saying for years the Liberals need to preselect more women to winnable seats, develop policies that are a match for modern Australia and dial back their tendency to flock to the base when things get hard. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that with this election result the msm has finally caught up with reality.
C@tmomma – agreed. If the LNP actually want to contend, they need to rediscover the concept that there are certain things which are common ground in this country and should not be used as a political football. Most significantly, this is the second time in a row the electorate have emphatically told them:
1. Keep your greasy mitts of Medicare; and
2. We need actual climate policies not pretend climate policies.
If they have any sense at all, they’ll lock away those issues as no longer up for debate – Medicare is not to be touched, and a genuine commitment to climate action (both emissions reductions and mitigation measures) is non-negotiable.
I suspect a few other topics should be on that list too: ‘woke’ crap; public education funding; indigenous affairs.
The problem they have, is that they have been persuaded by Trump and previously Boris Johnson that there is no such thing as objective reality, and so they can harness positions at odds with reality. They seem to think the electorate will come along with them if they just screech it loud enough. But the climate will keep changing, people will keep using public services, telling them it ain’t so just doesn’t reflect reality and in the end voters can look out their window and see the real world, whatever Murdoch and Sky might be trying to tell them.
Peter Dutton joins a “select” group of “Liberal” Federal leaders who never became Prime Minister:
Peter Dutton
Alexander Downer
John Hewson
Andrew Peacock
Billie Sneddon
Arky says:
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 9:28 pm
Kevin Bonham has his postcount page up for the seat of Melbourne.
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2025/05/2025-house-of-reps-postcount-melbourne.html
TLDR version is that it’s very close.
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Thanks Arky. A drawn out affair is rather tasty indeed 🙂
More realistically, a party divorced from its values? That’s exactly where today’s Liberal party finds itself.
My father has been a Liberal voter all his life until Howard when he switched to Labor. We spoke earlier about the election result and his assessment is that today’s Liberal party is unrecognisable from the party he used to vote for in the 1980s and 1990s.
Steve777 – Brendan Nelson?
Luigi Smith says:
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 9:25 pm
At least Hastie might drag votes back from PHON.
I think the Liberals and PHON are becoming interchangeable. Both the rump Reactionaries and PHON appeal to the similar echelons…to disaffected Right-identifying/anti-woke militants. Together, they attract about one-third or so of the self-coding Reactionaries, an echelon that is aggro and on the defensive.
I’ve seen quite a few thousand of them in the last couple of weeks. They evince a quite wearied passive-aggression. They are cheerless.
Dio
Please No. A “New Earth” Creationist as our opposition leader and possible next Prime Minister?
Have we learned nothing from the US debacle of letting these people et control of the levers of power?
Steve777says:
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 9:35 pm
Peter Dutton joins a “select” group of “Liberal” Federal leaders who never became Prime Minister:
Peter Dutton
Alexander Downer
John Hewson
Andrew Peacock
Billie Sneddon
======================================================
Brendan Nelson
Steve777 @ #1028 Sunday, May 4th, 2025 – 9:35 pm
What about snivelling Brendon Nelson!
I’m amazed by all the comments that Hastie is an obvious leadership choice, a future PM etc – what do people think is impressive about him? He’s a former military guy who does the American thing of pretending that serving in the military somehow gives you defence policy level acumen (instead of being good at running around following orders carrying a lot of stuff), he’s a far right religious nutter (both qualities the electorate as a whole is not keen on) who opposed legalising same sex marriage, and he has a heavy dose of ‘aggro male’ vibes which both Abbott and Dutton had.
I will give him some credit for his response to the Roberts-Smith saga.
I wonder if he’s being talked up by some to kill off his chances in the future.
@Patrick Bateman:
“If they have any sense at all, they’ll lock away those issues as no longer up for debate – Medicare is not to be touched, and a genuine commitment to climate action (both emissions reductions and mitigation measures) is non-negotiable”
I’m sure they would insist that they always agreed Medicare is not to be touched and it was just a Labor scare campaign otherwise, natch.
Climate action, now.
The Liberals would have to be willing to give up the funding they get from certain climate-skeptic rich people and companies.
And face down the crazy branches they’ve cultivated full of Sky News After Dark addicts who would howl it down.
They should do it – both because it’s the right thing to do and politically.
I’m yet to see any sign of them having the courage or intestinal fortitude to do it though.
Wat Tyler
Ahh, ’tis only a venial sin.
I’m also not complacent. I’m looking at what’s going on in the UK with some worry. Nigel Farage has been banging at the door since 2015, and after the Local Elections there, it looks like in 2029 they’ll let him in. Similar with the AfD in Germany. And something similar could happen here if Labor isn’t careful, whether it be the MAGA populists take over the Coalition Trump-style, or another far-right party takes their place as the opposition, then government.
Just checked booth by booth in Bennelong. Simon Yung leads in one booth only, Hunters Hill. The other two Hunters Hill booths are solidly Labor. Even since yesterday, Longueville and Putney are both now showing Laxalle in front. The seat currently is little different for the coverage to the time when Howard was first elected. Back then it was blue ribbon Liberal. After yesterday it’s now safe Labor.
Simon Yung was a captains pick by Dutton. Chinese Australian, so the Chinese diaspora will vote for him.
Apparently a great campaigner. My observation is he wasn’t, he was a story teller who impressed few. The predominantly Asian booths swung against him wildly. During a meet and greet, the Chinese politely smiled, but said, nice boy but we will get Dutton, no thanks. Yungs volunteers harassed voters at the pre polls as well. Is it any wonder all he managed was a 1/3 of the vote.
I hope that Jerome manages a Ministry. As for Yung, he can return whatever part of Sydney he came from and be a proud local there, instead of moving recently and claiming he was proudly local.
Arky, yes I agree that they probably won’t have the courage. Especially now with the Nationals effectively in the majority in their coalition – the Nationals will never give up the bullshit opposition to transmission lines and offshore wind projects and the like, it’s too easy for them to convince gullible rural voters to oppose these things.
Your comment is sort of hitting on what I mean though – yep, they will say they were never going to hurt Medicare, for example, but it’s clearly not true. Just like they would claim at the moment that they genuinely think nuclear is the solution to climate change. If they want to be electable they need to shift back to having policy positions that actually correlate with reality.
PS one small downside to their crushing defeat is that any whisper of anything to do with nuclear power will now be sacrilege for at least a decade. Which is not necessarily a good thing – I’m not pro-nuclear, but the energy (and defence) debate must remain steadfastly fact-based and it may yet have a role to play, particularly if small reactor tech does improve.
Hastie has 2 things going for him.
He is in a metropolitan seat which is the type of seat the libs need to win to become competitive again
His age could make him appeal a.bit more to gen z and millennials although he is a bit conservative.
Sussan is a lightweight and Along with Taylor are in rural seats which are not their target seats.
Patrick Bateman – He looks like a leader and he sounds like a leader. He is also smart enough to know that he have to moderate his stances to become a leader.
It is a pool of talent is not very deep.
Taylor has some issues but is probably smart enough. He just lacks something.
“Butterknife” Tehan is not smart enough.
Ley is kind of a bit crazy.
B. S. Fairman so basically he’s the winner of the ‘least unelectable’ competition in a party whose most recent choices are Peter Dutton, Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott…
B. S. Fairmansays:
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 9:48 pm
Patrick Bateman – He looks like a leader and he sounds like a leader. He is also smart enough to know that he have to moderate his stances to become a leader.
It is a pool of talent is not very deep.
Taylor has some issues but is probably smart enough. He just lacks something.
“Butterknife” Tehan is not smart enough.
Ley is kind of a bit crazy.
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Time they cut out the middle man. Parachute Gina into a seat and stop the ruse that she is not the leader anyway.
David Rowe 😀
BS Fairman and others
”Steve777 – Brendan Nelson?”
Of course – for less than a year in 2007-08 before being deposed by Malcom3 Turnbull. Then Kevin07 in a spirit of bipartisanship that was strictly one-sided gave Brendan a plum job, head of the Australian War Memorial.
Who could forget Brendan Nelson? (Answer: Everyone).
Robert Lynch @ #994 Sunday, May 4th, 2025 – 8:48 pm
Not so in all cases you mention:
Australian Federal Election 2025 Live Results
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2025/results