The 2025 Australian federal election was held on Saturday 3 May 2025. This FlagPost provides an overview of the election, including electoral trends and results.

Election timeline

Key election dates were:

Parliament prorogued and House of Representatives dissolved	Friday 28 March
Issue of writs	Monday 31 March
Close of rolls	Monday 7 April
Close of nominations	Thursday 10 April
Declaration of nominations	Friday 11 April
Start of mobile polling	Monday 21 April
Start of early voting	Tuesday 22 April*
Close of postal vote applications	Wednesday 30 April
Election day	Saturday 3 May
Last declaration votes accepted	Friday 16 May
Writs returned	Thursday 12 June

*Early voting began on a Tuesday due to Easter Monday and was unavailable on Anzac Day (Friday 25 May). The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Electoral Act) prohibits pre-poll voting on a public holiday.

Electoral matters

Candidates

In the 2025 election, 1126 candidates nominated for the House of Representatives, and 330 for the Senate (down from 1203 and 421 in 2022). The number of House of Representatives seats reduced from 151 to 150 after redistributions in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia.

Of all candidates, there were 898 men, 547 women, and 11 who reported their gender as ‘unspecified’. Women made up 38% of candidates, up from 29% in 2022. The majority of Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Greens candidates were women (56% and 51% respectively). Women comprised 35% of Liberal/National Coalition candidates and 25% for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

Political party postal vote applications

Under section 184AA of the Electoral Act, political parties and candidates may send unsolicited postal vote applications (PVAs) along with campaigning material. They may also request PVAs be returned to them, where they gather data from voters before sending the PVA to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).

Early in the campaign, the AEC issued a warning about ‘third party’ PVAs amid concerns around eligibility, timeliness, privacy, integrity and reputation. Such concerns are long-standing, as the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) report on the 2022 federal election recommended amending the Electoral Act (recs 20 and 21). In the last Parliament, some crossbench senators sponsored a private senators’ bill which proposed restricting the use of party PVAs.

Record enrolment

At the close of rolls, 18,098,797 people were enrolled representing a record enrolment rate of 98.2%, which is exceptionally high compared to similar democracies. The high enrolment rate is probably attributable to the Federal Direct Enrolment and Update program, which has allowed the AEC to automatically enrol people based on trusted government data since 2012.

Figure 1: Enrolment rate

Source: AEC

Voter participation

Voter turnout (a measure of votes cast as a proportion of enrolled voters) was 90.7%, a slight increase from 89.9% at the 2022 election. Turnout has been trending downward over recent elections; however, due to the rising enrolment rate, the participation rate (measured as the number of votes cast as a proportion of the eligible population) has increased.

Figure 2: Measures of voter participation

Source: AEC

Informal voting

The informal voting rate for the House of Representatives has remained steady at 5.6%. However, there is significant variation among electoral divisions (between 2% and 17%). Factors affecting informal voting may include English proficiency, number of candidates on the ballot paper, and differences with state electoral systems. Given the AEC’s last analysis of informal voting occurred in 2016, further research would likely enhance understanding of current informal voting trends.

Early voting

Early voting, which includes pre-poll voting and postal voting, continued to rise with more than half of voters (55%) casting a vote before election day.

• 6,778,467 voters (42% of the total) cast a vote at a pre-poll voting centre
• 2,167,417 postal votes were cast (13% of the total).

Figure 3: Early voting

Source: compiled from AEC data

Results

The ALP was returned for a second term of government with an increased majority in the House of Representatives. The final election result was:

	House of Representatives	Senate
Australian Labor Party	94	16
Liberal/National Coalition	43	13
Greens	1	6
Independents/Other	12	5
Total	150	40

After every election, regardless of the top 2 candidates in each seat, the AEC distributes preferences to the 2 major parties: the ALP and the Liberal/National Coalition. At this election, the government secured the largest two-party preferred (2PP) vote (55.22%) since 1975.

This election was also the first time a second term government had an increased 2PP vote. Figure 4 shows governments’ national 2PP vote. Each line initially trends downwards, indicating a reduced 2PP vote after a single term in office, until 2025 when the ALP increased its 2PP vote.

Figure 4: Government 2PP vote

Source: AEC

Close seats

The election result in Bradfield, NSW, had the narrowest margin, where after the full distribution of preferences the Liberal Party’s Gisele Kapterian led Independent Nicolette Boele by 8 votes. As this was less than 100 votes, the result triggered a recount after which the final margin was 26 votes in favour of Nicolette Boele.

Gisele Kapterian has lodged a petition with the Court of Disputed Returns challenging the result.

Other close seats were Goldstein, Vic (margin of 175 votes after a partial recount), Longman, Qld (margin of 269) and the previously ‘safe’ seat of Bean, ACT (margin of 700).

Further highlights

• First time since World War II a second term government was returned with an increased majority.
• First time an opposition leader has lost their seat.
• Third time a major party leader lost their seat (after Prime Ministers Stanley Bruce in 1929 and John Howard in 2007).
• 12 of the 16 seats the Coalition lost were metropolitan. The 4 non-metropolitan seats lost were Calare in NSW (which was retained by former National and now Independent Andrew Gee), Bass and Braddon in Tasmania and Leichhardt in Queensland.
• 35 seats were ‘non-classic’, meaning the final 2 candidates were not from the ALP and the Liberal/National Coalition. This has been a growing trend given the increase of the minor party and independent vote.

Figure 5: Non-classic seats

Source: Compiled from AEC data