#ausvotes2025

[axvoter]

Back in the saddle

There was movement at the TV stations this morning because word had gone around that the prime minister had got away to join the governor-general at Yarralumla. We enjoyed some motorsport for election nerds (footage of the Comcar chauffeuring Albo to have a chinwag with Sam Mostyn about dissolving parliament) before confirmation of the worst-kept secret of the past 24 hours: the federal election would be held on 3 May 2025.

Yes, as per usual, I will be reviewing the parties cluttering the ballot. At the moment there are 31 parties registered with the Australian Electoral Commission, although there is no guarantee all of them will field candidates (I've seen no indication, for instance, that Kim for Canberra intends to run either Kim Rubenstein or any other Kim). Once nominations have closed and ballots have been drawn on Friday 11 April, I will start posting my reviews. I will attempt to cover all the obscure micro-parties and try to identify nominal independents who are running on behalf of unregistered parties. I will also cover all independent candidates for the Senate in WA (where I live and vote), possibly Victoria (Melbourne still being "home" despite the fact I haven't lived there for some years), and maybe any other unusual or interesting independents who catch my eye around the country.

This is the quickest turnaround I've ever had from reviewing one election to reviewing another: the WA state count has still not yet been finalised! Data entry is ongoing for the WA Legislative Council and we are likely to know its form sometime next week. At the moment it appears Labor has won 16 seats, Liberals 10–11, Greens 4, Nationals 2, One Nation 1, Legalise Cannabis 1, Australian Christians 1, with 1–2 in doubt. Labor will be able to pass legislation with Greens support (20/37 seats) but they will also be hoping for some other decent pathways via the crossbench to pass legislation: if the Greens oppose a measure, Labor will need to find 3 votes elsewhere for an upper-house majority.

The counting in the WA Legislative Assembly, meanwhile, is all but complete, and it has been a total disaster for the Liberals. They were expected to win back a decent number more seats than they did. In my wrap-up I suggested "the Liberals might be able to form a cricket team from their members in the lower house". Instead, they could only field an XI with support from the Nationals. The final seat breakdown in the lower house is Labor 46, Liberal 7, Nationals 6. Roger Cook's ministry has cruised back into government.

This is WA Labor's second best result ever behind the never-to-be-repeated 2021 landslide, better than the 2017 landslide that brought them to power. The scale of 2021 is such that it now obscures just how much of a flogging the Liberals got in 2017 and how simply getting back to that level of representation was the bare minimum to get a pass mark: 31.23% of the primary vote and 13 seats. At this stage the Liberal share of the vote is a measly 28% (although all seat outcomes are known, the count is yet to be finalised—outstanding votes won't change the result anywhere, but might shift the exact percentages).

Will this result bode well for Labor's chances in WA seats federally? It obviously provides them with an important morale boost. Federal Labor is less popular here than state Labor—indeed, Roger Cook at times has made hay by distancing himself from his ostensible comrades over east—but I suspect they will hold on to a decent number of their gains from the 2022 federal election. I'm in a swing seat and corflutes are already going up from the Libs, Labor, and the Greens; a torrent of flyers will probably pour into my letterbox in the next few weeks.

Anyway, see you all in about a fortnight with the first of my Blatantly Partisan Party Reviews.