Finally, turning to the Senate. Below are the results of an exercise in which I have sought to model the count using ballot paper data from the 2022 election. The approach involves weighting ballot papers to reflect the extent to which the various parties’ votes shares increased or decreased at this election, and to conduct simulated preference distributions that effectively assume that each parties’ preferences will flow in the same way this time as they did in 2022. To make this doable in a manageable time, I have sampled every twentieth or every tenth ballot paper, depending on how big the state’s population is.
The only real fly in the ointment I can see in relation to this approach relates to changes in how-to-vote cards, though I only think this likely to be consequential in relation to the Liberal Party directing its preferences to One Nation ahead of Jacqui Lambie on this occasion in Tasmania, reversing its recommendation from 2022. However, this turns out not to matter since, as will be detailed below, the second Liberal will remain until the final count, meaning the preferences of those who followed the Liberal how-to-vote card will not be distributed. The other point to be noted is that I haven’t got around to doing Western Australia yet, but I’ll be on to that tomorrow.
To cut a long story short: in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and, it seems, Western Australia (see also the analysis of Adrian Beaumont at The Conversation) the results should be Labor three, Coalition two and Greens one. In Queensland, the result will be two each for Labor and the Coalition and one each for the Greens and One Nation. The closest contest looks like being Tasmania, not between Jacqui Lambie and Lee Hanson as I might have figured, but between the third Labor and the second Liberal, with the latter favoured. The results in the territories will be one each for Labor and the Coalition in the Northern Territory, and one for Labor and one for David Pocock in the Australian Capital Territory. Together with Senators carrying over from the last term, that will likely mean Labor 30, Coalition 27, Greens 11 and One Nation two, plus Ralph Babet, Jacqui Lambie, Tammy Tyrell, Lidia Thorpe, Fatima Payman and David Pocock.
New South Wales. I’m projecting a result here of three Labor, two Coalition and one Greens. The relevant players start out as follows: Labor 2.6097 quotas (37.86%), Coalition 2.0487 (29.77%), Greens 0.7661 (11.13%) and One Nation 0.4122 (6.01%). That gives Labor and the Coalition two each off the bat, and the Greens eventually reach a quota at a point where the third Labor candidate has 0.8934 and One Nation has 0.7686. The Greens surplus then flows mostly to Labor, who win the last seat with 0.9377 quotas to One Nation’s 0.7711.
Victoria. The same basic story here, the relevant starting point being Labor 2.4129 quotas (34.82%), Coalition 2.1919 (31.54%), Greens 0.8635 (12.42%), One Nation 0.3064 (4.38%), Legalise Cannabis 0.2478 (3.58%) and Trumpet of Patriots 0.1710 (2.47%). From there the Greens accumulate enough preferences to get a quota, after which things unfold as follows:
| LIB #3 | LC | ALP #3 | ToP | ON |
| 0.2501 | 0.3186 | 0.5021 | 0.2113 | 0.3622 |
| 0.2782 | 0.3406 | 0.5303 | Excluded | 0.4761 |
| Excluded | 0.3750 | 0.6011 | 0.5366 | |
| Excluded | 0.7398 | 0.6082 | ||
| Elected |
I note that Labor got slightly more preferences upon the Liberals’ exclusion than One Nation, and would think that unlikely to happen this time. But I’d doubt it will be enough to account for the size of the projected margin. UPDATE: I said that not realising the Liberal how-to-vote recommendation included One Nation this time and not last time, a fact I am now alerted to by Kevin Bonham in comments, so that was undoubtedly an understatement — though probably not enough of one to account for the final gap of 0.7398 to 0.6082.
Queensland. Here there is the challenge of a 5.16% vote for a joint Gerard Rennick/Katter’s Australian Party ticket, which has no precedent from 2022, and which I’ve dealt with by substituting it for the United Australia Party, thereby writing Trumpet of Patriots out of contention, which matters not because they aren’t competitive anyway. The starting points are Labor 2.1138 quotas (30.80%), Coalition 2.0971 (30.89%), One Nation 0.4754 (6.98%), Greens 0.7174 (11.25%), Gerard Rennick 0.3349 (5.16%) and Legalise Cannabis 0.2389 (3.70%). After the Greens get over the line leaving one seat to go, One Nation has 0.8204 quotas, Rennick 0.4962 and Legalise Cannabis 0.4733. With the exclusion and distribution of the latter, One Nation wins 0.9145 to 0.5732, a margin that would presumably widen if Legalise Cannabis edged ahead of Rennick and the latter’s preferences were distributed instead.
Western Australia. Forthcoming, but pretty clearly Labor three, Liberal two and Greens one. UPDATE: I speak too soon. This in fact looks to be a very close race at the last between Labor’s third candidate and One Nation. The relevant players start at Labor 2.5355 quotas (36.55%), Coalition 2.0899 (30.03%), Greens 0.8949 (12.98%) and One Nation 0.4044 (5.82%). The Greens accumulate enough preferences to win the fifth seat, after which Trumpet of Patriots and then Australian Christians go out. This leaves Labor’s third candidate on 0.7264, One Nation on 0.7257 and Legalise Cannabis on 0.4071. The exclusion and distribution of the latter then gets Labor home by 0.8723 to 0.8246. A complication here is that the Nationals had a ticket this time but not last time, which polled 3.57%. I’ve dealt with this by merging Liberal and Nationals in determining the weighting applied to Liberal votes from 2022, which may mean One Nation gets stronger flows out of the Coalition than I’m crediting them with, since I assume they will do better out of the Nationals than the Liberals. But I’d doubt there’s much in it. It also means I’m not accounting for whatever share of the Nationals vote fails to pass on to the Liberals as preferences, but since they are assured of two seats at a fairly early stage in the count and nothing further, I don’t think this will matter.
South Australia. The starting points here are Labor 2.689 quotas, Liberal 1.9164, Greens 0.8885 and One Nation 0.3606. The Greens and the second Liberal accumulate enough preferences to get elected at around the same point in the count, after which the third Labor candidate wins the last seat like so:
| ALP #3 | JLN | ON | LC | ToP |
| 0.7584 | 0.2337 | 0.4600 | 0.2406 | 0.2628 |
| 0.8850 | Excluded | 0.4983 | 0.2600 | 0.2839 |
| 0.9748 | 0.5452 | Excluded | 0.3325 | |
| 1.0290 | 0.7426 | Excluded | ||
| Elected |
Tasmania. The likely outcome here is two Labor, two Liberal, one Greens and Jacqui Lambie, but I’m leaving open the possibility of three Labor and one Liberal. The relevant starting points are Labor 2.2521 quotas, Liberal 1.4012, Greens 1.1027, Jacqui Lambie Network 0.4744 and One Nation 0.3478. Two Labor, one Liberal and one Greens will be elected off the bat, with the last two seats to play out following exclusion of sundry also-rans:
| ON | ALP #3 | LIB #2 | JLN |
| 0.5897 | 0.7395 | 0.7983 | 0.7791 |
| Excluded | 0.8522 | 0.9183 | 1.0011 |
| 0.8523 | 0.9184 | Elected | |
| Excluded | Elected |
Can we please keep this thread for discussion of the Senate result. The open thread for general discussion is here.
Impressive modelling, given the assumptions.
I do question the QLD candidate list you include, as it doesn’t have Gerard Rennick who has 0.3359 of a quota, whilst Trumpets and Legalise Cannabis start at 0.2513 and 0.2407 respectively.
The One Nation 0.4892 might be too much to overcome, and they are competing for the same pool, but Rennick did lead the ‘most viewed politician’ on Facebook, so may get more name recognition than Malcom Roberts with above the line voters. With his name in the party title along with Katter.
William, I think it may be that the coalition will have 27 senators, not 26. Your current total is only 75 not 76.
Hmmm… do those numbers mean the Greens do not have the sole BOP?
BW
William projects ALP 30, Greens 11. Which totals 41, more than the 39 required for a simple majority in a Senate with 76 seats.
the LNP and Greens in this model have 37 between them, 1 short of a blocking vote which they would surely get from ON or Babet.
sprocket_ @ #5 Sunday, May 11th, 2025 – 7:47 am
Well, if it’s the Greens opposed, it’s more likely the 38th will be from someone like Thorpe over One Nation. If One Nation, Greens and the Coalition are all opposed to something, the entire crossbench is likely to be united in opposition.
Labor could technically pass things (that are opposed by the Opposition) without the Greens but it means going through all the far right Senators as well as Pocock and Thorpe. I struggle to imagine any legislation that would gain the support of such a rainbow vote but be opposed by the Coalition and the Greens.
While I can’t align myself with the right conservative position of the outgoing Senator David Fawcett, I respect his strong support of, Ukraine, Australia’s defence capabilities, and military veterans. I have met him on several occasions at Ukrainian community events where his support was clear-eyed and sincere. By today’s standards I’d consider him a principled liberal party moderate.
I had to vote below the line to preference Fawcett and avoid the loony Antic. It was hard finding 12 SA Senate candidates away from both the right and left lunatics fringe.
But what a great opportunity for SA ALP’s 21 year-old third Senator elect Charlotte Walker. The crowd at Boothby’s Louise Miller-Frost’s watch party sang her happy birthday before the Senate results started coming through, but the trend from the seat results were pointing cautiously even then to her election. I met Charlotte briefly. She’ll be fabulous.
As I noted elsewhere, it’s extremely counterintuitive that Tasmania, where Labor and the Greens have 3.63 quotas, looks like electing 2 Coalition and JLN while Victoria, where the left have a comparatively paltry 3.31, looks like electing three Labor and a Green. It seems like JLN is vacuuming up preferences from the minor right much more efficiently than One Nation are.
Serves them right, I guess.
In Queensland Trumpets, Libertarian and Family First had Gerrard Rennick above One Nation and others. Even with a big preference leakage this should push him up the ranks. If the preferences are tighter then he could be in with a chance to knock off Malcolm Roberts.
It should have said 27 Coalition senators after this election, not 26. I’ve fixed this. That means Coalition plus Greens are a blocking majority.
I just realised my error when I also thought it was 26. I was only counting the expected Senators from the six states. I forgot to account for the NT.
So yeah, unless defections happen, all government legislation is either going to have to be supported by either the Greens and/or the Coalition in order to pass in the next term. All other crossbenchers are superfluous (although it doesn’t necessarily mean they should be ignored.)
Yeah, 27 seats. Being modelled on the 2022 result, my Queensland projection can’t/doesn’t account for the Rennick/Katter ticket. I may come up with a fudge for it when I do an update. It hardly matters though in the final analysis.
Eston K. David Fawcett in SA right faction. But not as way out as Alex Antic group – more like Downer.
The Greens have the balance of power unless Labor prefers to deal with the LNP. Of course the LNP are spoilers so it may not be possible esp. if Taylor is the leader.
There’s mutually self-serving bills like stitch-up donations “reform” but will Labor try on more?
Given they are now centre right in all but name. Heavily corporate too eg captured by gas interests almost if not as much as the LNG…sorry, LNP.
I’ve run the Western Australian result, and it’s not the foregone conclusion I thought: three Labor, two Liberal and one Greens (as occurred in 2022) is most likely, but there’s a chance One Nation takes the last seat from Labor (as almost happened last time).
By popular demand, I’ve re-run Queensland so as to give Gerard Rennick the respect he deserves, which I’ve accomplished by using the United Australia Party as a proxy for him, such that he both gives and receives preferences the same way they did in 2022 (and deprecating any chance of Trumpet of Patriots winning the seat, which clearly isn’t going to happen). Rennick makes the final count, but it’s still not close: Malcolm Roberts wins 0.9145 to 0.5732.
“The only real fly in the ointment I can see in relation to this approach relates to changes in how-to-vote cards, though I only think this likely to be consequential in relation to the Liberal Party directing its preferences to One Nation ahead of Jacqui Lambie on this occasion in Tasmania, reversing its recommendation from 2022.”
It is potentially significant to the tune of about 0.05 quotas in Victoria where the Coalition omitted One Nation from its card in 2022 but has included them in 2025, though that depends on the size of the Coalition surplus.
I wasn’t alert to that. When I run this next time, I’ll make it so those who followed the HTV cards for the major parties in 2022 have their orders replaced with the HTV cards from this time — finicky, but worth doing.
Thanks William. This is good.
@Wat Tyler “I struggle to imagine any legislation that would gain the support of such a rainbow vote but be opposed by the Coalition and the Greens.”
One potential piece of legislation that fits that description is increasing the size of the Senate to have 14 Senators per state (7 per half Senate election), possibly tied to an increase in territory representation (which was shelved last term due to lack of Coalition support)
The Greens would be disadvantaged by it as they would likely go from claiming the last Senate seat each time from just under a quota, to still having one Senate seat with just over a quota – a reduction in their relative power in the Senate. The Coalition might vote against it on “government waste” grounds, or just to oppose something Labor proposes if there is no clear benefit for them. The remainder of the cross bench would be advantaged as they are typically in tighter races for the last Senate seat and would find it easier to get re-elected with a smaller quota.
“I wasn’t alert to that. When I run this next time, I’ll make it so those who followed the HTV cards for the major parties in 2022 have their orders replaced with the HTV cards from this time — finicky, but worth doing.”
Would be especially finicky for WA 2022 where the Liberals used three different how to vote cards (one endemic to Curtin, one for most of the other inner city seats and one for everywhere else – the everywhere else ones including One Nation and the others not. List at https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2022/04/2022-senate-how-to-vote-cards-variants.html). And Labor used local variations for 2025 in two Vic, three NSW and three Qld seats, some of which seem to have served no purpose other than annoying modellers. I’ve kept a record of those I found but may find more in the post-analysis.
I think that’s ’tilted’ not ‘titled’ distinctly leftward.
Signed, a pedant 🙂
Adrian Beaumont @ #10 Sunday, May 11th, 2025 – 10:01 am
Again. Back to the Future.
Is the senate going to be more friendly to the alp – has hanson lost her seat?
The loosest of unit
I don’t think Pauline was up for election this time. She will remain until next election.
The Senate will be easier for the ALP. They will only have to negotiate with The Greens or Coalition on legislation. The other crossbenchers will only matter if parties have a little disension on legislation. Whether that is “friendlier”, we will see.
I’m interested in the case of SA’s final seat. You currently have JLN knocked out first, followed by LCP, then ToP. But the gap between JLN and LCP is quite small, about 0.007 quotas. This seems like a small enough gap that it could end up being different this time around.
And with LCP’s HTV including JLN (whereas JLN’s HTV doesn’t include LCP), I could see the lion’s share of LCP preferences flowing to JLN… which would then push JLN comfortably above ToP.
And then ToP’s HTV also includes JLN, plus I suspect a lot of ToP voters would put JLN anyway.
Would it be possible to re-run SA with a fudge to knock LCP out first, to see where it lands in that scenario?
That sort of thing mattered a very great deal during the era of group voting tickets, but with preferences spraying around like they do now, it doesn’t really matter what order JLN, LC and ToP get excluded in. None of them would be able to get ahead of One Nation, and no more than One Nation would they be able to get ahead of Labor if they did.
“One potential piece of legislation that fits that description is increasing the size of the Senate to have 14 Senators per state (7 per half Senate election), possibly tied to an increase in territory representation (which was shelved last term due to lack of Coalition support)”
Because of the nexus provision, this would require increasing the HoR to a 176 or 180 seat target, making slightly more compact seats in the lower house. I suspect the Greens would take that.
FWIW, I wouldn’t be surprised to see LCA pick up more preferences than expected in Victoria off every count, although closing BillBowes projected 0.16 quota is another thing.
No real mystery: NSW, Qld, SA, Territories
6th still interesting: Vic, WA, Tas
Martin Bsays:
Monday, May 12, 2025 at 9:00 pm
… Because of the nexus provision, this would require increasing the HoR to a 176 or 180 seat target, making slightly more compact seats in the lower house. I suspect the Greens would take that.
Good point about the number of HoR seats being derived from the number of senators; this would require installing some extra seating to the HoR. I counted from a photo and came to a capacity of 164, although Wikipedia tells me it has permanent seating for 172. Either way, a couple more benches at the top of the U.
[The Senate will be easier for the ALP. They will only have to negotiate with The Greens or Coalition on legislation.]
Labor should start negotiations with both, so if either the Greens or Coalition don’t negotiate in good faith then the bill that passes will have amendments that they do not want.
ShowsOn
[Labor should start negotiations with both, so if either the Greens or Coalition don’t negotiate in good faith then the bill that passes will have amendments that they do not want.]
Intriguing! I like it.
That would absolutely confound them all and seems like a completely sustainable standard practice. Kind of operationalises and neutralises the whole idea of negotiating compromises. Is that how it might actually work?
“this would require installing some extra seating to the HoR. I counted from a photo and came to a capacity of 164, although Wikipedia tells me it has permanent seating for 172. Either way, a couple more benches at the top of the U.”
I’m pretty sure new parliament house was designed to allow for a fair bit of expansion in seating for the HoR although I forget the precise number. (Australia does *not* follow Churchill’s advice that a “characteristic of a Chamber formed on the lines of the House of Commons is that it should not be big enough to contain all its Members at once without overcrowding, and that there should be no question of every Member having a separate seat reserved for him [sic].”
Does anyone know which of the LNP senate seats in the senate that it look like they’re going to lose?
Fawcett, Reynolds, Davey, Henderson, and Antic? Three women and two men.
Antic is 1 on Liberal SA senate ticket. Will be elected. Fawcett is no. 3 and is out.
Antic being #1 probably explains why the Libs are going so badly.
I do find it strange that we spend so little time looking at the Senate result – it’s it many ways more interesting and varied than the House, everyone’s vote is equally consequential (with the state of course), and it’s just about as powerful a chamber in terms of legislating.
I guess the government and thus executive isn’t formed in the Senate.
If anyone’s feeling sadistic, I just listened to a small snippet of content from election night, featuring Ralph Babet, Avi Yemini and some other freedom tinfoil hat wearers discussing the senate election. I believe from a podcast or some such.
FMD these guys are in a parallel universe. Early on election night, based on their numbers guy’s reading (I don’t know what he was looking at, or if he was just clueless) they were pretty sure that there was going to be one “freedom candidate” elected to the senate from each state, including Alex Antic and Gerard Rennick, who they count as being on their side. Then when it confusingly (?) fell apart for them, they started getting stuck into the Libs for being such a failure. At least they didn’t just go straight for the “it was rigged” line.
The scary part is though, that it’s clear they think the average Australian is completely on their side. Oh and Monica Smits is going to join the Liberal Party and become the next prime minister or something, couldn’t quite follow that bit.
Question re the senate preferences, when a party has 1 or more full quota’s and is later eliminated in the count, how specifically are the preferences worked out?
Do they do a full preference count of ALL the votes to that party?
I’ll use the Libs in NSW as an example. They have 2.07 quota;s. There are a few below .07 and they’ll get some but lets say they get eliminated early, do they do a proportional count of all votes they have at that point, and allocate based on a % of votes to all of the remaining groups and apply those percentages to the 7% of the 688.702 votes (quota number as per AEC senate page currently)
So if 60% of those go to PHON then phon would get that allocation (28925 approx votes + any extra from other elimanated parties) and so on to the other remaining parties.
Or is it done another way?