Poll Roundup: Coalition In Freefall

2PP Aggregate: 52.2 to ALP (+1.1 in two weeks)
With One Nation adjustment (optional) 51.6 to ALP
If polls are accurate, Labor would win if everyone voted now, with a slim majority or close to it

(Figures above updated for YouGov)

The election has started already (people are now voting by post, even if the Greens HTV website doesn't seem aware of that) and the Coalition campaign appears to be in big trouble.  The polling swing back to Labor that started in late January and became more noticeable in late February has accelerated in the past two weeks and Labor is now polling majority government numbers from several pollsters.  It's too early to be confident that that will be the result, since elections are on average closer than even the final polls have it, but what we are seeing at the moment is a polling meltdown.  The Coalition primary vote is plummeting, and while this may yet turn around or be underestimated they now face the reverse version of Labor's problem during Labor's long decline last year.  There will be a bottom to this somewhere but no-one yet knows if this is it or where it might be.  By the time an underdog effect kicks in (if it does) will it be too late?

Overall what is happening at the moment according to most polls is the Coalition is shedding polled primary vote rapidly.  The lost primaries are spraying but enough would end up with Labor as preferences that Labor is surging on 2PP even without that much of a primary vote pickup.  The boom in the non-major vote at the Coalition's expense is such as to produce this startling statistic.  Prior to last Monday there had been no case all term where the combined non-major primary beat both the Labor primary and the Coalition primary. In just four isolated polls scattered through the term the non-majors had tied for the lead.  Since last Monday the non-majors have led both majors in five out of the seven polls that have been released!

To illustrate what has happened with the Coalition primary, in last week's Morgan it was down two points in a week, before rebounding by half a point this week.  In Newspoll it was down a point last week and another point this week (four points all up since early March).  In YouGov it was down 1.5 points in a week.  In last week's Redbridge, down two in a week.  In Essential down two in a fortnight.  In Resolve down three in a fortnight.  It was already falling before that.  We have yet to see Labor with a primary vote lead from anyone, but if this continues even that might not be far away.  The one black sheep in this story is Freshwater, which this week has the Coalition's primary stable on 39%, four points higher than anybody else.  

Aggregation Details And What Is The Deal With Morgan?

Once again I don't propose to replicate other services that spell out the primary votes, but just discuss how my last-election prefs aggregate sees the released polls.

Last week's Morgan was 53.5 to Labor by respondent preferences and 54.5 by last-election prefs.  This week's is 54.5 by both.  My aggregate has been heavily adjusting Morgan because of its very high recent numbers for Labor and aggregated these at 52.5 and 52.2 respectively.  Morgan's very high numbers for Labor have led to a lot of comment (have they changed something? Is this Morgan returning to its historic ways?) but I have a theory on what's happening here.  Morgan respondents seem to be highly engaged and Morgan's use of SMS may result in enthusiasm bias.  Morgan was actually slightly worse for Labor than my aggregate in general for months leading up to Labor starting to really improve in late February, but since then it's diverged rapidly.  However the reaction in Morgan weeks ago is now being picked up by other polls - consistent with something starting in more engaged voters and gradually spreading to more representative samples.  Of course, it's hard to know as Morgan is so non-transparent, but this is what may be going on.  

Last week's Redbridge was 52 to ALP, which I converted as 52.1 and aggregated as such.

Last week's YouGov was 52.5 to ALP by YouGov's modified preferences, which I got as 53.6 by last-election preferences.  YouGov by last-election preferences has been strong for ALP since it switched to generic ballot so I aggregated this as 52.3.

Newspoll's 52-48 by modified previous elections preferences seemed a little lucky for Labor based on the primary votes but this could be either rounding or the impact of, eg, a low TOP and high independent reading.  I aggregated this per my last-election conversion at 52.2.

Resolve came in as a rather startling 53.5 (method not stated) off the same major party primaries (ALP 31 L-NP 34) that they had in their very good final 2022 poll.  Resolve has been volatile lately having thrown a 45-55 outlier only six weeks earlier (though that one was partly a respondent preferences thing).  Because Resolve has been bad for Labor lately on average my aggregate took this one as a pretty big signal and aggregated it at 54.

This week's Essential came out with 50-45 to Labor (=52.6) by Essential's mostly respondent preferences; I got 53.2 by last-election.  My aggregate processed this as 52.6 given Essential's recent fairly good results for Labor.  

Finally this week's Freshwater came out with 50.3-49.7 to Labor prior to rounding. This was off the same primary votes that produced the previous 49-51; I have since found out that Freshwater is using respondent preferences.  I aggregated this at 50.9 to Labor given Freshwater's recent fairly strong form for the Coalition (this one being further away from the aggregate than other recent Freshwaters.)

By last-election preferences the nine polls released since the previous edition come out at an average of 52.8, but this is a sample including two Morgans (the strongest poll for Labor) and only one Freshwaters (the weakest).  There's a case that my current last-election prefs aggregate figure of 52.1 is actually a little overcautious (because of the way it adjusts for a poll's form relative to the aggregate in a situation where voting intention is now changing pretty fast) and it could reasonably be a few tenths higher.  Anyway I'm not going to fiddle with that now.

As I write Redbridge/Accent have issued a new MRP taken February 3 - April 1.  The very long time frame and the age of the data mean that I haven't included it in my aggregate, but will have a look at it soon and may edit some comments into this article.  The fact that it dates from a time before the Coalition vote went flop should not deter looking at it completely as it may be useful as concerns relative trends, especially if the polls come back.  

Leadership stats are also continuing to back in the trend as Peter Dutton's fate now looks sealed as the second Opposition Leader to record an entire term of negative netsats (Bill Shorten also did this but in his second term as leader).  Anthony Albanese has beaten Peter Dutton on net approval in every poll since the previous Freshwater, by an average of ten points (even the current Freshwater which is very different to the others, though his advantage there is only one point).  He even polled a net +2 in  Resolve which in its outlier a couple of polls back had him net -22.  While Albanese's preferred prime minister leads are still underwhelming by historic standards of such things skewing to incumbents, he did at least get double digit leads in three of his last four readings, after having only one such since May last year.  

The Shrinking Preference Shift

Through the term there has been a general view that Labor's preference flows in 2022 could not possibly be matched and Labor might even do far worse on preference flows in 2025, as Greens and One Nation voters especially became disillusioned with the government from their various perspectives.  But in the two polling series that regularly issue respondent preferences results, the gap between respondent and last election preferences in the Coalition's favour has been falling.  First, Morgan:

Secondly, Essential:

Morgan at one stage had the gap at 1.5 points and now has it as half a point.  Essential once had the gap at nearly two points and now has it less than one.  For whatever reasons the Coalition is tanking both on primary vote share and on respondents saying they will preference it.  Furthermore, the latter started well before the former.

I have been using a One Nation adjusted figure that routinely chops 0.5-0.6% off the last-election 2PP for modelling purposes and recommending that such a preference shift be assumed, but for the time being I'm more of the view that a meaningful shift isn't a lock to occur.  While I do still think One Nation preferences will shift, several pollsters are still amalgamating Trumpet of Patriots and Independent under "other".  The TOP vote will probably be well below the 2022 UAP vote as TOP are running in only two-thirds of divisions.  The Independent vote is likely to be higher than 2022 as there are more indies and more well resourced ones.  This suggests the use of a last-election "others" flow for these polls, which my aggregate does, could be underestimating flow from "others" to Labor.

For the time being, Labor appear to be winning and to have prospects of winning quite strongly.  If current polls were reflected they would be quite likely to remain in majority and might even increase it, while the Coalition's weak primary (if accurate) could see them drop some more seats to those pesky tealoid entities.  If Labor did lose their majority, it would probably be a manageable minority a la NSW, not a messy one.  But there is still much that can happen and the ghosts of federal elections past always suggest caution about ALP polling leads.  

What's All This Then?

It's common for governments to make up ground in polls if trailing during campaigns, but a government taking the lead and continuing to surge like this is quite unusual (it happened in 2004 but only in the last couple of weeks).  A government polling at its previous election result at this stage is rare; we last saw this in 2001 (when a massive national security bubble following the 9/11 attacks was diminishing) and last for a first term government in 1984 (when the polls of those days were rubbish anyway; they greatly overestimated Labor's lead).  What has been happening the last two weeks is unusual in Australia. 

Obituaries are already being written for the Coalition's campaign. It's hard to tell how much of the polling slump has to do with various errors and a remarkably lopsided tally of candidate problems, and how much has to do with forces beyond the Opposition's control, in particular economic uncertainty caused by Donald Trump.  But while the Coalition can't stop Trump from existing they can decide how to react to him,  The problem here is they have been all over the map.  People who hate Trump think the Peter Dutton is way too Trumpy and people who like Trump think he is not nearly Trumpy enough.  Making Jacinta Price a shadow minister for government efficiency when they already had one may have seemed like a fun tip to the Trump movement when they were ahead but it is not so funny now, especially when Price accused the media of being obsessed with Trump then was found to have been wearing a MAGA cap.  Some Labor supporters are enjoying the Coalition suffering its own dose of how Labor gets stuck (or gets itself stuck) between the Greens and anti-Greens.

To some degree this election reminds me of 1990.  The Coalition then seemed to be competitive in the leadup but their campaign was pretty silly from slogan down ("The Answer Is Liberal") and they ended up caught in an absurd xenophobia fight about the imaginary Multi-Function Polis and getting their leader branded "Peacock a danger in the Lodge" in The Australian.  Peacock's ratings were way worse than Dutton's.  In that case though the Coalition, generally written off by election day, did perform surprisingly well on the night, to the point that it wasn't immediately clear what the result was (leading to the introduction of indicative 2PP counts).  

Seat Polls

The last two weeks saw the most ridiculous seat poll claim possible with Compass Polling claiming to have found a 29% primary vote swing against Chris Bowen in McMahon with ex-Liberal independent Matt Camenzuli on 41%, and for some reason The Australian published this.  No methods details were available.  

Much of the action in seat poll reporting has been in Dickson where at last count four non-neutral seat poll results have been claimed, with only one of these (a conservation group uComms that had Labor ahead 52-48) surfacing with partial detail (the raw primary votes anyway).  The others claimed were a Coalition Freshwater at 57-43, a Labor internal at 50-50 and a uComms for independent Ellie Smith supposed to have Labor 51.7-48.3 ahead (a flip of the current margin).  Without seeing far more details of this shell game it's hard to say much about any of these. As the Coalition's polling overall has worsened, Peter Dutton's slender margin in Dickson has been getting attention lately outside the more excitable ALP faithful.  I would expect Dutton to get a boost for becoming leader (particularly in Queensland which has not had many home-state leaders) but that can be muted by the fact that he had a very high profile as a long-term major minister and leadership contender in previous elections.  Dickson as a seat is not that demographically easy for the Coalition at the moment as it has a fairly high income and also a high education level, and such seats are in general transitioning away.  The other thing to bear in mind here is that Queensland federal polling has a long history of being nonsense.  

I have commented on recent Tasmanian seat polls on my Tasmanian guide here but don't have the time or energy at present for a full roundup of others out there.

Betting

Betting isn't reliable but can be interesting to watch.  Betting sites now have Labor around a 77% chance; while this may appeal to people who make dimwitted "follow the money" posts on Twitter (I am thinking of a policy of blocking on first sight for those) this is still below where Labor was on election day 2019 when they lost.  Type of government markets have Labor minority slightly ahead of Labor majority, which at one stage was at a ridiculous $15 and is now around $2.50.  

Seat betting was very slow to follow the headline odds and polls up but over recent weeks has come through.  When I checked on April 10, markets had flipped Lingiari and Robertson back to Labor, made Labor a unanimous but long favourite in Brisbane and become split about Bradfield.  When I checked again yesterday, Paterson, Chisholm, Bullwinkel and McEwen had joined the flood back to red (though with Bullwinkel tied in one market) and independents were now favourites in Curtin (with one tie), Bradfield and Cowper, the latter two being the first seats the Coalition was favourite to drop.  This made Labor favourite in 75 seats, Coalition 62, Greens 2 and others (mosrly independents) 12.  After considering close seats, a reasonable read of what the markets "think" is 74.8-61-2.8-11.4 - the Coalition now has more seats where it is wobbly than Labor.   The long list of seats markets expected Labor to lose has been pared back to Aston, Bennelong, Gilmore and Lyons with Bennelong very close to flipping.  This is not very different to the Australian Election Forecasts take (which is lightly influenced by betting) though AEF is more bullish on the Greens,  having them favourites in Ryan and Brisbane albeit not odds on, and on a median result of four seats.  

There is too much going on at this election!  I am struggling greatly with the problem of there being only one of me but hopefully the Easter break from other work will give me more time to get some more pieces written (and also deal with the Tasmanian Legislative Council Pembroke hot war!)

Election Night

Finally my election night plans are still unresolved; I've been too busy to do anything about it!  If any established reliable non-Murdoch media source with capacity to handle high visitor numbers wants to hire me for live blogging, preferably not behind a paywall, I'd be interested to discuss (link to email in profile).  If nobody does, I'll do it here with an extra tedious level of begging for donations, and possibly pay for a live cover style feature to avoid the need for refreshing, and just hope it doesn't overload this ancient platform!  

YouGov update

The new YouGov saw a major party tie on the primary vote (33-33) with a 53-47 2PP to Labor by their modified preferences.  I got 53.6 by last-election preferences which was aggregated at 52.4.  

How To Make Best Use Of Your 2025 Senate Vote

 People are starting to vote already (by post) so I thought I'd get a revised version of this guide up for this year.  It is again largely copied from the previous one but I have again made some minor changes and dropped some no longer relevant content.   Many regular readers of the site will already be aware of many of the points below.  I hope the main part of the post will also be useful, however, for those who want to know what advice to give less politically engaged (or more easily confused) voters.  I will vote below the line and number every square, and I'm sure many other readers will too (at least in the smaller states!), but not everyone is up for that.

Under the system introduced in 2016, voters determine where their preferences go - there is no longer any "group ticket voting" in which if you vote for one party, your preference automatically flows next to another.  Voters have great flexibility - they can vote above the line (in which case they are asked to number at least six boxes) or below the line (in which case they are asked to number at least twelve).  Voters who vote below the line are no longer forced to number all the boxes.  

Many social media accounts have been claiming that you need to vote below the line to stop parties from sending your preferences somewhere you don't like, or to "control your preferences".  It isn't true! That said, voting below the line does give you control at individual candidate level if that's something you consider important - at the cost of being more effort.  

The freedom of the new system is fantastic, but it's still taking some getting used to, and most voters are not using their vote in the most effective way they could.  If you don't have time to use your vote effectively and just want to get out of the polling box as fast as you like, that's fine, that's up to you.  But not making the best use of your vote might end up helping a party you can't stand beat one you are merely disappointed by.  This guide tells you how to avoid that, if you want to.   

Here I give some answers to the sorts of questions people are asking or likely to ask about the system.  At the bottom there is a section on tactical voting for advanced players only.  The vast majority of readers should stop when they get to that point.

Don't confuse the Reps and Senate voting rules

The House of Representatives (green ballot paper) is the smaller ballot paper with candidate names down the page in a single line.  On the House of Reps ballot paper, number every box.  If you apply the Senate above the line rules on the House of Reps ballot, and vote 1-6 and stop, then if there are 8 or more Reps candidates in your seat, your vote will be informal.  It is only for the Senate (large white ballot paper) that you can number some of the squares and stop.  Sounds simple, but I have evidence that in those seats with 8 or more Reps candidates - which is more than half the seats in 2022 - quite a few voters (nearly 1% in 2019, lower in 2022) are invalidating their Reps vote specifically by confusing it with the Senate.

(NB A House of Reps ballot paper with only one square left blank is saved under the savings provisions, but I don't recommend voting this way as there is no point to it. Number all the Reps boxes.)

Should I vote above the line or below the line in the Senate?

You should vote below the line in the Senate if any of the following apply to you:

1. You wish to vote for a range of candidates across party lines, rather than just putting all the parties in order of preference.  You might be the sort of person who will really like some candidates from a given party and really dislike others (perhaps because of their positions on social issues), or you might want to preference candidates with a certain background, or who you know, whatever party they're running for.  Voters who want to separate the Liberal and National Parties, or put one entirely ahead of the other, in NSW and Victoria where they run on joint tickets are another example of this.  

2. You are happy to keep your vote within party lines, but you want to put the candidates for some parties you vote for in a different order to the order their party lists them in. For instance you like a party but think it should have put someone else on the top of its ticket or higher on its ticket.  Some voters also vote BTL to juggle the order within their chosen major party for strategic voting reasons (as discussed in the strategic voting section at the bottom.)

3. You wish to vote for an ungrouped candidate (an independent or a sole candidate for a party, who does not have a party box above their name) or preference one or more ungrouped candidates higher than some other candidates or parties.  These candidates appear on the far right of the ballot paper.  Be aware that ungrouped candidates are usually completely uncompetitive as they cannot get above-the-line preferences, so if putting the ungrouped candidates ahead of a nasty party is your only reason for voting below the line, you may well be wasting your time.  

4. You want the satisfaction of putting a particular candidate last even if it means numbering three times as many boxes!  I've given this one its own section this year.  Be aware that if the candidate you detest is #1 for a major party ticket in a state (as distinct from territory) that they are going to win anyway so putting them last will not in reality make any difference compared to voting above the line and putting their party last.

If none of those apply, voting above the line is easier.

If voting below the line, be extra careful with votes 1-6

If you vote below the line, you'll be asked to number 12 boxes and should ideally number more.  However, if voting below the line make really sure you have put one and only one candidate number 1, one and only one candidate number 2 (etc) up to 6.  If you omit any of the numbers 1-6 when voting below the line your vote won't count. (At least one Tasmanian voter in 2016 numbered every box but skipped the number 6, so their vote was disallowed.) If you double any of the numbers 1-6 when voting below the line, your vote won't count.  If you make a mistake after number 6, however, your vote will still count up to the point where you made that mistake.  Remember, if you make a mistake while voting at a booth, you can ask for another ballot paper.  (Also, don't use zeros or negative numbers for candidates you dislike - this can cause your vote to not be counted.)

Be extra careful if you like to number a few boxes then number backwards from the bottom up.  It's very easy to skip a number then end up with two 5s.  If you like to do this sort of thing, best to practice at home first.

You might think this sounds simple.  It's amazing how many people still manage to stuff it up.

Write clearly!

Whether you're voting above the line or below, I recommend writing as clearly as possible.  The reason for this is that ballots are scanned using computer character recognition that is verified by humans, but the humans work very fast to get the count done in time.  An audit of Senate ballot entry accuracy found that there are some errors in this process, more than I'd ideally like.  The risk of error is lower if you write clearly.

So I should just number 6 boxes above the line or 12 below?

You can, but I strongly encourage you to number more if you want your vote to be the best it can! Whether you are voting above the line or below the line, the more squares you number, the more powerful your vote potentially becomes. 

If anybody - even an electoral official - tells you that voting for more than six above the line or more than twelve below will make your vote invalid, then that is wrong.  

If anybody tells you that preferences beyond 6 above the line or 12 below can't matter, that is also wrong.  Depending on how you vote, it may well be that later preferences never have any impact, but if your first six parties above the line are not very popular, there's a big chance that other parties you include beyond six could get your vote at full value after your top six are excluded.

I've numbered, say, 14 boxes and I don't like any of the other parties/candidates.  Should I stop now?

You certainly can, but it's more effective to keep going.  One of the most important messages in the system is that while you can stop when you run out of parties that you like, this may result in a candidate you strongly dislike beating a candidate who you think is the lesser evil.  Just voting for the parties you think are OK and then stopping is not making the best use of your vote. 

A lot of voters - especially a lot of idealistic left or right flank voters - are a bit silly about this and worry that if they preference a party they dislike they may help it win.  Well yes, but your preference can only ever reach that party if the only other parties left in the contest are the ones you have preferenced behind it or not at all! If that's the case then someone from that list is going to win a seat, whether you decide to help the lesser evils beat the greater evils or not. 

To make best use of your vote, you should only stop when one of the following happens:

1. You could not care less which of the remaining candidates wins (assuming that at least one is elected).

2. You so strongly dislike all the remaining candidates that you feel morally opposed to even helping them beat each other.  Be aware that this could help the worst of them beat one who, while still terrible from your perspective, is not the worst.

3. Although you actually dislike one of the remaining parties less than one or more of the others, you want to exhaust your vote in protest to encourage that party to listen to your concerns.  (To make your point effectively, I suggest you send that party a letter after the election telling them you did this, since they won't be able to work it out from your vote.)

Of course, some voters just "don't have the time" to number more than the minimum number of squares, or reckon it's not worth the effort for the sake of one vote.  Completely fine.  It's up to you whether voting effectively is a real priority for you or not.  I'm just suggesting what you should do if it is.

I want to vote above the line for Party X but they've done a preference deal with Party Y and I don't want my preferences to go to Party Y, at least not ahead of Party Z.

They won't.  Preference "deals" involve recommendations by parties to their voters only.  Your preferences above the line can only go to Party Y if you choose to preference Party Y yourself, and only in the position in your order that you put them.  You can vote for party X then direct preferences to whatever other parties in whatever order you like.  If you put party Y well down on the list, then your preference can only help Party Y beat any parties you have ranked even lower down or anyone you have left blank (this includes the ungrouped candidates).  Any "preference deals" your party has done, or any preferences they give on their how-to-vote card, have no impact on your vote unless you follow that card yourself.   

I want to vote below the line for a candidate, and I want to put a certain party last, but I don't want to number several dozen boxes.  Is there a shortcut?

In the 2016 edition I said there was: bear in mind that the great majority of minor party tickets have no chance at all of getting more than one seat in any given state.  So there is no need for you to send your preferences to all the candidates for every micro-party, just the lead candidate will do.  Make sure you still preference up to the top four candidates from the bigger parties if doing this though (except the party you are putting last) and just to be on the safe side you might want to include second candidates for the Greens and One Nation.

However, that was before Section 44 started to bite.  The small risk you do take if you leave out the minor candidates is that if a candidate for one of these parties wins, and if that candidate is then disqualified, your vote might be less effective in the special count to replace them.  So if you want to be sure of keeping your vote effective if there's a special count, then the very best thing is to number all of the boxes.   

Can I vote above and below the line?

There is not much point in voting both above and below the line. Under the old system voters sometimes voted both above and below the line so that if they made a mistake below the line their vote above the line would still be counted.  This still applies, but it's so much easier to just make sure you don't make a mistake in the first six numbers if you vote below the line.

Also (and this is one to watch for when telling confused relatives how to vote!) do not cast a vote that crosses the line (eg a 1 above the line, then a 2 below, then a 3 below, a 4 above etc).  At best this will cause your vote to exhaust very quickly and at worst it will not count at all.

If you vote formally both above and below the line then your below the line vote counts and your above the line vote is ignored.  But there have been cases of voters making their vote less powerful in this way by making their vote exhaust faster.  

This is all confusing! I just want to do what my party wants!

That's up to you.  If your party is popular and you are voting at a booth, your party will probably hand out how-to-vote cards that tell you how they suggest you vote in the Senate.  If you are voting for a little-known party, you may need to check their website to see what they recommend (if anything). 

Be aware that it is possible your party will deal with parties you do not agree with and hence recommend you vote for someone who you would not actually like.  

The big drawback with following a how to vote card is that your party wants to keep the message simple and hence will probably only recommend six boxes above the line.  But such a vote is more likely to exhaust (or at least to have part of its value exhaust.)  If you're voting for a major party, your party may, for instance, leave both the other major party and One Nation off its card.  If you want to preference the other major party ahead of One Nation, then you will have to keep going and number at least one more box than your party recommends.

I've heard that I can just vote 1 above the line and stop and my vote will still be counted!

That's true, but only to a degree.  If you do this (disobeying the official instructions) then your vote will only count for the party you've voted for.  Once all that party's candidates are elected or excluded, your vote will exhaust and will play no further role in the election.  It might make sense to vote this way (despite what the instructions say) if you only like one party and couldn't care less about any of the others, but really if that's your view you should learn more about the different parties.  You will almost certainly find some of them appeal to you more than others.

I've heard that I can just vote 1 below the line and stop and my vote will still be counted!

That's not true.  Such a vote would be informal.  If you vote below the line you need at least the numbers 1 to 6, once and once only each, for your vote to be counted at all.  It is better to follow the instructions and vote for at least 12.

This party I've never heard of has a cool-sounding name.  Should I vote for it or preference it?

That's up to you, but again I suggest being cautious about parties you don't know much about.  Their name may misrepresent what they are really on about, or some of their candidates may go off on a completely different track if they're elected.  

If you don't have time to research parties before voting, then the best place to put parties you've never heard of is somewhere between the ones you moderately dislike and the ones you really cannot stand.  If you don't dislike any parties, best to put the ones you've never heard of at the end.

There are some blank boxes above the line in my state.  What are they, printing errors?  Doesn't look right.  Can I put numbers in those?

Blank boxes above the line (this year in NSW and Vic only) are the above the line boxes for candidates who run together as a group but who are not endorsed by any registered party.  A number in their box works the same way as a number in any other above the line box.  You can see who the candidates that box applies to are as they are listed below the box.  Yes you can number these boxes.  If you hear someone say that you can't, please show them this article.  (At this election there are very few such cases, most of them involving the unregistered Socialist Equality Party).  

Trumpet of Patriots, whatever that is, has a tick above its box.  Should I vote using ticks and crosses?

That mark in the TOP column is simply its party logo and it is very disappointing that logos containing ticks and crosses are allowed. You should vote in the Senate using numbers only.  Ticks and crosses in the Senate are converted to ones, meaning that a ballot paper with more than one tick or cross, or with a tick and a 1 (for example) won't be counted.  Ticks and crosses in the House of Representatives are informal.  

Do you have a video on this?

I don't, but the Vic-Tas branch of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia do (from the 2016 election).  I'm not associated with them, and I don't agree with all of it (they're very anti-above-the-line, but under the new system above-the-line voters have a greatly increased amount of control over their preferences, even if slightly less than below-the-line voters).  But on the whole it's OK and does at least explain why people should keep filling in boxes, and not just stop when they reach the minimum.

The AEC has many excellent short videos on aspects of the voting system.

I reviewed Topher Field's marbles video, which is popular in right wing minor party circles, here.  

Are there tools to help planning my vote, especially below the line?

Depending on where you live, there may be a lot of parties on the Senate ballot, as a large number of micro-parties with no chance of winning are still running anyway.  (The number of party groups has come down again from last time in all states though.)  If you want to vote below the line and go more or less all the way, you may want to prepare your ballot beforehand so you have something to take to the booth and copy.

A few sites that may help you to vote below the line (if you want to) are likely to emerge and I will list them here as I become aware of them and they appear to be up to speed for the 2025 election.

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That concludes the simple questions (but feel free to ask me more in comments; you may want to check the comments from 2016 or 2019 or 2022 to see if your question was already covered).  On to the tricky, slightly naughty bit!  The bit below the line is rated Wonk Factor 3/5 and is mainly for serious election and voting system junkies.

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Tactical Voting

Strong disclaimer: If you have read this section and are not sure that you completely understand it, please ignore it and pretend you never read it.

Most voting systems are prone to tactical voting of some kind; indeed, in some it's necessary.  Under the first-past-the-post system in the UK it is often necessary for voters to vote tactically for their second or third preference party to ensure their vote isn't "wasted".  In the 2018 Wentworth by-election, many left-wing voters voted 1 for Kerryn Phelps because she was more capable of winning from second than Labor was.  In 2022 a similar thing happened in several seats with "teals". Our preferential systems are much fairer than first-past-the-post, of course, but there are still ways of voting that can make your vote less than optimally powerful, and ways to get around that if you want.

In this case I am not arguing that voters should vote tactically - I'm just explaining how they can do it if they want to.  The ethical decision involved (since voting tactically effectively reduces the value of other voters' votes) is up to them. 

Here is a good example.  A voter really likes two candidates.  One is on top of a major party ticket, the other is in a lowly position and considered in danger of not winning.  They slightly prefer the first candidate, but might it actually be worth voting 1 for the second and 2 for the first instead?

Generally, the answer is yes, but only if not everyone does it, since if everyone did it then the first candidate wouldn't be so safe anymore.  However, it's a fact that not everyone will do it, and you can rely on the party vote being high enough at this election that top-of-the-ticket major party candidates in states will definitely win.

The one reliable principle of tactical voting I recommend to those who really want to do it is do not vote 1 for any candidate who you know or suspect will get elected more or less straightaway.  Generally a strategic voter would therefore avoid a 1 vote for the top major party candidate in a state, in many cases the second major party candidate as well.  Voting below the line and starting at the bottom of your preferred party ticket - if you're a major party voter - is a common trick.  Another one is to vote 1 for the second candidate (just to be really safe) of an agreeable micro-party which has no chance of winning at all, and then number the rest of the squares as you would normally. (The downside of this method is that your originally preferred party misses out on a few dollars of public funding.  For people who think no parties should be funded, that's a benefit.)

You can also do this above-the-line if you want to, under the new system.  Instead of voting 1 for any party that will poll more than 14.3% of the primary vote, you can deliberately give your 1 vote to a micro-party with absolutely no hope of winning and your second preference to your preferred party (then continue numbering parties in order).    Your vote will flow at full value to the candidate from your party who is most likely to be fighting for the final seat.  However, this does get a bit risky, because if too many people do it and select the same obviously hopeless micro-party, that micro-party might someday actually win!

Here's the mechanics behind all this.  If you vote 1 for someone who is going to be elected right off the bat, you are giving them a vote they do not need.  A portion of your vote is in effect left behind with them when their surplus is passed on, and your ballot paper in effect carries on to other candidates at a reduced value.  (In some cases its value may be reduced to zero, through "loss due to fractions".)  However, your vote also slightly increases the total passed-on value of all your chosen candidate's other votes.  Effectively, 1 vote is still passed on, but instead of it being your vote at full value, it's a mishmash of your vote and bits of the vote of everyone else who voted for the same person.

This can make a big difference if you're voting across party lines.  In some cases, voting 1 for a very popular candidate and then 2 for someone from a different party could actually harm the candidate you put second! (Note: don't do this deliberately to try to harm an opposing candidate, since you can harm them more then by just voting as you normally would.)

Advanced players may like to engage in a form of "preference-running" in which they try to strategise their vote so that it never gets caught with anyone who is elected until right at the end, and stays in the hunt at full value.  It is actually really hard to pull this off, because multi-seat elections are so unpredictable.  It often involves making difficult decisions about whether you would rather be sure of your vote reaching a favoured candidate, or take some risk of it not doing so to greatly increase the chance of another candidate you like (or the chance of defeating one who you want to lose).  This sort of thing is so easy to misunderstand that I am not going to publicly give any advice on how to do it. Please don't ask. 

Those interested in some real examples of the principle I recommend should see this old Tasmanian Times article (wonk factor 4/5).  That article covers the Hare-Clark system as used in Tasmanian state elections.  There is a slight difference with the Senate system in that in the Senate, if your vote reaches someone who is elected with a quota at a later count, part of the value of your vote will be passed on (though often not very much).

The 2025 election raises fewer obvious tactical voting arguments than 2022.  In 2025 there was a need for voters to understand tactical voting in the ACT and for Green voters to defect to David Pocock to make sure he got over them and could win, but he got over them easily and will now do so again barring a mass return to the Greens among his voters 

The Greens are potentially easy victims of tactical voting arguments.  They seem likely to win one seat in all states (especially their strong states of Vic, WA, Tas) but are no real chance of winning two anywhere.  Therefore it may be better for a strategic voter who is undecided between the Greens and any other party to put that other party (if it's a minor party) or that other party's third candidate (if it's a major party) ahead of the Greens in the hope of best defeating whoever else is fighting for the final seat.  

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Federal 2025: Classifying The Independents

In the list of declared candidates for the 2025 federal election, there was an unsurprising upswing in the number of independents.  There are a number of points of relevance arising from this and I'm putting up an article with a rough classification that I will edit as the campaign proceeds.  

I am interested in the nature of independents running at the election for a few reasons.  One of these is that polls that offer "independent" as a generic option everywhere often get the independent vote as high as 10-12%, but independents polled "just" 5.29% in 2022.  The reason for this is that voters who pick the independent option in these polls could find that there is no actual independent in their seat, or only one they've never heard of or don't like.  For this reason, some of the polls that use this "generic ballot" method stop doing so once they have the names of candidates, and doing so makes the polled estimate of the independent vote much more accurate.  

However for 2025 it's possible the dropoff from the generic-ballot vote to the real independent vote could be lower, because independents are running in more seats than before, and a lot of them are either incumbents or well-resourced.  The 9.6% independents are averaging on generic ballot polls since the start of March might realistically be worth 7.5-8%.

The second reason I'm interested in independents is because of the concept of the "teal vote", and talking about how large it is as a subset of the independent vote.   At the last three federal elections there has been a recognisable cohort of independents who are variously referred to as community independents or teals ("climate independents" was also used more in 2019, and "Voices independents" is another term not much used anymore).  Some observers maintain different meanings for different terms in which "teals" is a subset of "community independents".  Both these terms are problematic - "teal" implies a mix of blue and green but although some teals will espouse economic freedom values, in practice their votes on the floor are more like the Greens than they are like either major party.  "Community independent" embodies a conceit that the candidate represents or belongs to the whole community, although it does reflect that some kind of alternative preselection process through a non-party group tends to take place for these candidates.  

The term "teal" is often restricted to independents who challenge the Liberal Party in wealthy inner-suburban seats that Labor has little hope of winning (starting with Zali Steggall with a further six elected in 2022) and generally not applied to Andrew Wilkie or Helen Haines.  But it is quite often applied to candidates in regional seats taking on the Coalition with similar campaign styles and who are likely to display similar voting patterns if elected.  Indeed there is less voting pattern difference between Haines and some of the generally accepted seven teals than there is between some of the latter and each other.   Similar independents run in seats (mostly Coalition) that run the gamut from inner-city affluent seats to rural seats and I don't think it's useful drawing lines by seat type when these people will all vote in similar ways if elected anyway.  Wilkie is somewhat different in that his voting pattern is closer to the Greens, and he was indeed a former Green, elected as a lone candidate rather than through "Voices Of" groups and so on.

(From my days in philosophy I'm a fan of Wittgenstein's "family resemblance" concept, which maintains that many words that are actually useful (eg "art") define things only by their resemblance to other things considered to be the same thing, and not by intrinsic properties.  Any attempt at defining a concept like "teals" will always struggle - we all know some candidates are teals, are others enough like the agreed teals to be teals themselves?)

Four of the 132 "independents" are actually running as unendorsed candidates, meaning the word "independent" does not show on the ballot paper.  Three of these (Robert Creech in Newcastle, Mike Head in Oxley and Morgan Peach in Calwell) are candidates for the unregistered Socialist Equality Party and do not count as independents.  The fourth is Moore MP Ian Goodenough, who was disendorsed by the Liberal Party but is running a campaign in Liberal colours without using the word "independent".  Given that Goodenough stated on Feb 8 "After 30 years with the Liberal Party, I moved to the cross-bench and will be contesting the next federal election as an independent" I am classing him as one though his votes will not appear in the official Independent tally.  Goodenough has indicated an intention to sit with the Nationals if elected but is not currently a member.  

That leaves a total of 129 independents running in 88 divisions (this compares with 100 in 73 divisions in 2022, including one unendorsed).  Calwell and Riverina each have five.

Below is an attempt (as I start this article a rough one) to sort these independents into groups, some more defined than others.  Independents will be moved in and out of these groups if I find out more about them or decide their classification or even the whole framework should be changed.  There may be errors in the initial release, this is a first attempt.  

1. Teal/Community/Climate 200 Independents

An independent is generally listed in this group only if they are openly supported by Climate 200 or were preselected by a "Voices Of" style group, and if elected are a member of the narrower teal cluster based on the voting patterns in Pat Leslie's paper (Wilkie doesn't tick the latter box despite being Climate 200 supported, as is Rebekha Sharkie who is the now one and only Centre Alliance candidate).  Candidates not shown on the Climate 200 candidate list are indicated with an N.  Incumbents are shown in bold. Candidates who previously reached the final two are shown in grey bold.

Some of these may in practice vote more like Greens than teals if elected.  Especially I am not sure whether Peter George really fits this group or should be grouped outside it a la Wilkie, as George's candidacy did not arise through a Voices Of style process and is most prominently driven by an environmental issue other than climate (salmon farming).

As a benchmark in 2022 there were 23 candidates in 22 electorates who I would have put in this group (this includes the edge case of Rob Priestley who wasn't C 200 funded and whose local Voices group didn't endorse candidates but who campaigned on the local Voices group's platform), and these together polled 3.3% of the national primary vote, about 62% of all votes polled by independents.  This election I currently have 37 in this group.  

Jessie PRICE (Bean,ACT)

Tina BROWN (Berowra,NSW)

Nicolette BOELE (Bradfield,NSW)

Kate HOOK (Calare,NSW)

Caz HEISE (Cowper,NSW)

Michelle MILTHORPE (Farrer,NSW)

Kate DEZARNAULDS (Gilmore,NSW)

Jeremy MILLER (Lyne,NSW)

Sophie SCAMPS (Mackellar,NSW)

Jenny ROLFE (Riverina,NSW)

Zali STEGGALL (Warringah,NSW)

Allegra SPENDER (Wentworth,NSW)

Phil SCOTT (Solomon,NT)

Ellie SMITH (Dickson,QLD)

Francine WIIG (Fairfax,QLD)

Keryn JONES (Fisher,QLD)

Suzie HOLT (Groom,QLD)

Erchana MURRAY-BARTLETT (McPherson,QLD)

Nicole ARROWSMITH (Moncrieff,QLD)

Anita KUSS (Grey,SA)

Verity COOPER (Sturt,SA)

Peter GEORGE (Franklin,TAS)

Claire FERRES MILES (Casey,VIC)

Kath DAVIES (Chisholm,VIC)  (N)

Kate LOCKHART (Corangamite,VIC)  (N)

Jess NESS (Deakin,VIC)

Ben SMITH (Flinders,VIC)

Zoe DANIEL (Goldstein,VIC)

Helen HAINES (Indi,VIC)

Chris KEARNEY (Jagajaga,VIC)  (N)

Monique RYAN (Kooyong,VIC)

Deb LEONARD (Monash,VIC)

Alex DYSON (Wannon,VIC)

Kate CHANEY (Curtin,WA)

Sue CHAPMAN (Forrest,WA)

Kate HULETT (Fremantle,WA)

Nathan BARTON (Moore,WA)

2. Coalition Diaspora

This list includes candidates who I believe were a member of a Coalition party (Liberals except Gee) some time in the last five or so years but have left, in many cases with preselections or other internal issues a factor (example exceptions: Gee left over the Coalition's Voice referendum position and Penfold prior to running for Mayor successfully).  Incumbents are shown in bold.  Note that Dai Le (see below) was suspended from the Liberal Party in 2016.  Candidates shown here do not necessarily still support Coalition positions in general.  

Andy YIN (Bradfield,NSW)

Andrew GEE (Calare,NSW)

Philip PENFOLD (Paterson,NSW) 

Mandeep SINGH (Mackellar,NSW)

Matthew CAMENZULI (McMahon,NSW)

Ben BRITTON (Whitlam,NSW)

Jake HALL-EVANS (Hindmarsh,SA) 

Brendan BLOMELEY (Franklin,TAS)

Russell BROADBENT (Monash,VIC)

Ian GOODENOUGH (Moore,WA)

3. Apparently Teal/Green- Adjacent

As well as Andrew Wilkie who does have Climate 200 support but is a bit different from the teals, this list includes independents who do not have Climate 200 support and do not appear to have been preselected by a "Voices Of" group but who based on a quick review of their web presence appeared to stress teal or green issues such as climate, environment, political accountability etc.  I excluded any candidate I might have otherwise put in this list if in a quick review I saw they had: supported nuclear energy, opposed windfarms, criticised vaccines, attacked "wokeness", positioned themselves as tough on crime, called for reduced immigration or espoused "conservative" social values, but it's possible I missed some who should be excluded on these or other grounds.   Incumbent shown in bold.  

Claire MILES (Canberra,ACT)

John COYNE (Banks,NSW)

Natasha LEDGER (New England,NSW)

Steven COMMERFORD (Reid,NSW)

Lisa BELLAMY (Robertson,NSW)

Shaun HOLLOWAY (Bowman,QLD)

Kirstie SMOLENSKI (Groom,QLD)

Michelle FAYE (McPherson,QLD)

Rosa HILLAM (Barker,SA) (ex-Green)

George RAZAY (Bass,TAS)

Andrew WILKIE (Clark,TAS)

Angela OFFORD (Lyons,TAS) (was a Voices Of style candidate in Tas election)

Ashok Kumar TEWATIA (Burt,WA)

Wade McDONALD (Cowan,WA)

4. Muslim Vote Style Independents

These are independents who are running Muslim Vote style campaigns,or have been referenced by them.  Those marked * have been publicly endorsed so far by Muslim Votes Matter, who are also endorsing some Greens House of Reps candidates.  

Ahmed OUF (Blaxland,NSW)  *

Ziad BASYOUNY (Watson,NSW) *

Jamal DAOUD (Werriwa,NSW)

Waddah WELD ALI (Moncrieff,QLD)

Samim MOSLIH (Calwell,VIC) *

5. Other Independents (Information Available)

In these cases information I found about the candidate suggested they didn't fit neatly into the above groups.  Some are obvious right-wingers, some may just lack obvious teal/climate vibes, some may have teal/climate vibes contradicted by other issues.  In several cases I have added comments but I am not seeking to provide detail on the views of all of these independents here, since they are mostly  readily Google-able.  Incumbent shown in bold.

Dai Le registered a federal party under the name "Frank Carbone & Dai Le W. S. C." but has stated she wants to consolidate her position in Fowler before running candidates with it.  

Roger WOODWARD (Berowra,NSW)  (previously Cook by-election)

Leigh BURNS (Chifley,NSW) (Reignite, ex-One Nation)

Zeke DALEY (Cowper,NSW)   

Andrew Evan THALER (Eden-Monaro,NSW) (serial local candidate)

Dai LE (Fowler,NSW)      

David BRADBURY (Grayndler,NSW)   

Robert STUCKEY (Greenway,NSW)  (ex-One Nation)

Elsa PARKER (Kingsford Smith,NSW)  (unregistered "Good Party")

Jim SALEAM (Lindsay,NSW)  (ex Australia First)

Lisa COTTON (Mackellar,NSW)   

Jordan COLLESS (Page,NSW)  (unregistered "Good Party")

Stuart HOWE (Parkes,NSW)   

Tanya-lee QUINN (Parramatta,NSW)   

Maa MALINI (Parramatta,NSW)   

Rod HOLDING (Paterson,NSW)   

Kevin LOUGHREY (Richmond,NSW)   

Barbara BAIKIE (Riverina,NSW)   

Grant HARDWICK (Riverina,NSW)   

James GOODEN (Riverina,NSW)   

Jake DAVIS (Riverina,NSW)   

James PHEILS (Shortland,NSW)   

David Michael SPRATT (Warringah,NSW)   

Zain KHAN (Watson,NSW) (Muslim independent but seems to be campaigning on refugee visa issues)

Michael RICHMOND (Wentworth,NSW)    

Paddy MOYLAN (Whitlam,NSW)   

Glenn BUTTERFIELD (Whitlam,NSW)   

Janey DAVIES (Solomon,NT)   

Stewart BROOKER (Fadden,QLD)   

Paul McKEOWN (Fairfax,QLD)   

John ANDERSON (Flynn,QLD)

Duncan SCOTT (Flynn,QLD)   

Chris GREAVES (Forde,QLD) 

Steven CLARE (Kennedy,QLD)  (ex-One Nation)

Norman MILLER (Leichhardt,QLD) 

Casey IDDON (Wide Bay,QLD)   

Ian PENNO (Barker,SA)   

Cody SCHOLES (Barker,SA) (ex-One Nation)

Kym HANTON (Spence,SA)   

Adam MARTIN (Braddon,TAS)  (see guide)

Mark GRONDMAN (Aston,VIC)   

Andrew WILLIAMS (Aston,VIC)

Luke PARKER (Ballarat,VIC)   

David VINCENT (Bendigo,VIC) (attempted to unseat Matthew Guy via petition)

Carly MOORE (Calwell,VIC) (quit Labor)

Joseph YOUHANA (Calwell,VIC)   

Ravi RAGUPATHY (Calwell,VIC)   

John DE LORENZO (Corio,VIC)  (Vern Hughes "Democracy First" group)

Robert THURLEY (Dunkley,VIC)

Joseph TOSCANO (Flinders,VIC)  (anarchist)

Mark McFARLANE (Indi,VIC)  

Aijaz MOINUDDIN (Lalor,VIC)  (ran in Werribee by-election)

JB MYERS (Macnamara,VIC)  (previous candidate)

Tim SMITH (Melbourne,VIC)   

Anthony KOUTOUFIDES (Melbourne,VIC)  (ex-football celebrity candidate)

Stella YEE (Menzies,VIC) (quit Labor)

Bernadine ATKINSON (Wannon,VIC)   

6. No Information Found

I found no information clearly referring to the candidate at a quick look re the following.  The very small number of these is a good sign of a high proportion of independents having their act together in online presence terms.  

Brian FISHER (Eden-Monaro,NSW)

Peter McLEAN (Hume,NSW)

Richard WELLS (Page,NSW)

April Maree SCOTT (Paterson,NSW)

James Ian McKENZIE (Richmond,NSW)

Michael O'BRIEN (Hinkler,QLD)

Abdi MOHAMED (Jagajaga,VIC)

Tasmania Senate 2025: Prospects and Guide

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SUMMARY: 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN unless something very unusual happens

Tasmania's list of Senate candidates has been released.  Tasmania has 33 candidates in 12 groups with one ungrouped, down from 39 candidates in 14 groups plus two ungrouped in 2022.  Of the groups that ran columns last time, one has disbanded voluntarily (Local Party/Network), one isn't running, and two have in a messy sense merged forces.  One group that didn't run last time is running (Australian Citizens); they ran as Citizens Electoral Council in 2019.  FUSION had declared a candidate but for whatever reason didn't nominate.    

This piece gives some basic information and views about the parties and lead candidates, and some general background to the contest.  The party candidate section includes a lot of opinions about candidates and parties, and it is normal for this article to display more whims, snark and subjectivity than some of my other guides.  Parties that are not what they seem and candidates who don't impress me will be called out as per normal.   More content will be added in as time permits, so it may be worth checking back before voting to see if I've added any more details re candidates.

For advice about how to vote in the Senate see How To Make Best Use Of Your 2025 Senate Vote.  I am listing how-to-vote recommendation cards for the Tasmanian parties as they come out, but I strongly recommend ignoring all Senate how-to-vote cards since following any Senate how-to-vote card that doesn't number all boxes will weaken the potential power of your vote.  

A Section 44 section will be added to the foot of this article if (or should I say when) any candidates appear to be ineligible.

Interstate interlopers

It is common (and irritating to many voters) for minor parties to run non-Tasmanian candidates for Tasmania Senate.  There is no residence test for being able to run in a particular state so it is up to the voters to decide whether to vote for such candidates.  

Background

Tasmania currently has four Liberal, four Labor, and two Green Senators plus Jacqui Lambie and Tammy Tyrrell.  Lambie was first elected as a candidate for the then Palmer United Party in 2013 but left it and formed her own Network.  Tyrrell was elected under the Network banner in 2022 but has since quit it in still murky circumstances and has registered her own front party name which is not contesting this election.  As recently as the 2011-4 term Labor had six Tasmanian Senators, but one seat was lost to Lambie in 2013, and another to the Liberals in 2019 (as a result of a combination of system quirks that saw the Liberals only defending one of their four seats at that election - see 2019 edition).  The Liberals have since lost that seat to Tyrrell.

Not up at this election are Tyrrell, Labor Senator Helen Polley, Liberal Senators Jonathan Duniam and Wendy Askew and Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson.  These will next face the voters in late 2027 or early 2028 should they contest (unless there is a double dissolution sooner).  The sixth member of the slate is Labor Senator Anne Urquhart, but she has quit to run for Braddon, creating a casual vacancy that has not yet been filled.  

Labor preselections attracted controversy affecting their incumbents in 2016 and 2019 with Lisa Singh shoved down the ticket (she still won on below the line votes in 2016) as did the Liberals' in 2016 and 2022 (Richard Colbeck and Eric Abetz demotions).  However there's been none of that this time and significant below the line voting for down-ticket major party candidates won't be a thing for the first time since Senate reform.

The Tasmanian Senate contest could be a bugbear for the Coalition in the currently unlikely case that they form government.   It's a state that tends to return a 3.5-2.5 left-right result (being very generous to the right here by classing Lambie in the middle).  My overall Senate prospects article (written when the Coalition was polling much better and about to be revised) points out that a narrow Coalition Reps win could leave the Coalition so hamstrung by the Lambies of this world that they raced to a DD early in their term.  

Prospects

This section is in large part lifted from my recent Senate Prospects article, which isn't much affected by the Government's improvement in the polls for Tasmania specifically since Tasmania tends to do its own thing.  

As with last election, Tasmania looks like a boring contest if the Lambie Network vote stays high.  It becomes interesting if this is not the case.  The only reason it might not be is the Network has been a shambles in this term, but I doubt most Lambie voters will have noticed that or care.  Lambie's personal brand remains strong although her effort level is not quite as high as it has been.

These were the leading primary totals in quotas (a quota is a seventh of the vote) last time:

Lib 2.241 Q

ALP 1.893

Green 1.084

Jacqui Lambie Network 0.605

ON 0.271

LCP 0.212

LDP 0.136

UAP 0.114

Local Party 0.101

The Liberal vote was slightly inflated by a below the line campaign for then Senator Eric Abetz, who lost his seat after being demoted to third (he has since been elected to state parliament).  13.6% of Abetz's BTLs or 0.04 quotas leaked at 2 so were not really Liberal-ticket votes.

The gap between the top four is so wide here that a very great deal has to change for a different result.  After preferences JLN defeated One Nation 1.045 Q to 0.626 Q with some Liberal votes remaining that also favoured JLN, so they were running away with it.  For JLN to lose to any of the micro-parties they would have to lose at least half their primary vote, probably more.  The non-Green minor parties have generally very little campaign presence so far though  the announcement of Lee Hanson as the One Nation candidate has captured some media attention.  

I suppose it is worth considering the possibility of the Liberals taking Lambie's seat but unless Lambie's vote goes down a lot, this would require a primary vote swing to the Liberals of something like 5%, and even that might not be enough as Lambie will tend to flog them on preferences.

The Greens are as usual hyping the idea that they can win two seats, but while they may do well coming off a pretty good state election result and with the benefit of Labor's pro-salmon-industry overriding of the EPBC Act, they would need a massive swing to be in the mix for that. A near 6% swing would be needed for them to equal Labor on the primary vote (just writing "equal Labor on the primary vote" is enough to see how unrealistic it is).  The only other pathway might be if they were to poll, say, 19-20% (a swing above 4%, aboout matching their all-time best achieved in 2010 in a far less crowded field) and have the Lambie vote crash by a few points, but even then either JLN or One Nation would beat them as mostly right-wing preferences pooled.

Parties and candidates: a subjective guide

Here is my guide to the parties running for this Senate election.  Mostly I include background on the lead candidate or competitive candidates only, but I will also mention any interesting/concerning minor candidates (especially since there's an argument that because of Section 44, even seemingly unelectable candidates are important). Parties are listed in ballot order.  Where opinions are offered, they are obviously purely mine, and if you don't like them feel free to go and write your own somewhere else, or  contest them in comments. I may add more links later, but I will not add or change any material on request except to correct clear factual errors that are not a result of me being obviously silly.  My 2022 guide contains some extra info re some candidates and parties.  

Opening the batting again is Sustainable Australia, and I am very used to running a certain line re this party in my guides.  I'm used to spelling out how in many respects this appears to be an environmental party similar to the Greens, but that its arguments for immigration restrictions and against "over-development" leave it open to claims of mostly covert xenophobia and rich white urban NIMBYism.  

But this time there's a twist because the party has embraced (including in its name) Universal Basic Income. UBI is an idea that one avoids the bureaucracy and existential harm of unemployment welfare by simply paying everyone an income whether they need it or not, separate from whatever they may earn through work.  I am not economist enough to evaluate it but I do wonder whether giving even the most well-off people money they don't need  is just inflationary (unless you raise taxes as well), and I am also so suspicious of this party that I wonder if the UBI bit is a gimmick.  But their policy of implementing UBI puts Sus Aus way ahead of the major parties in terms of welfare policy.  The Liberals and Labor have presided over a Centrelink regime that subjects recipients to punitive and demeaning activity tests, that puts not just recipients but their partners and parents in nefariously misguided income-testing poverty traps, that is incompetently administered (so that recipients have to spend much of their time fighting to get paid rather than looking for work) and that is frequently illegal a la Robodebt.  Both majors deserve to lose all their seats in both houses over this.

Where was I?  Yes, the funny bit.  In a hilarious due diligence failure even by micro-party standards Sustainable Australia were endorsing Fenella Edwards (see whom below) as their candidate until they disendorsed her just a few days out.  Leading their charge now to lose their deposit yet again is Dennis Bilic, a Victorian ring-in (booo!) who previously ran in the Prahran by-election.  The ABC guide to same informs me that "he works as a Senior Operations Manager for a global engineering consultancy" and has a Masters in Strategic Foresight (is that a thing? How is that a thing?)

In column B is the first of the major parties that does not deserve support because of its (large) part in the Centrelink trainwreck, and that's the Liberal Party.  Top of the ticket is first-term Senator Claire Chandler, who has had a generally successful six years and this year joined the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy and also Science and the Arts.  Chandler is however no stranger to the culture wars for her frequent advocacy against transgender athletes in women's sports, and against funding artists deemed to be anti-Israel.  Less likely to be seen in such debates is veteran moderate Richard Colbeck, Senator since 2002 except for a few years out following his 2016 demotion.  Colbeck was a Minister under Malcolm Turnbull but is now a backbencher under Peter Dutton.  In this term, Colbeck notably abstained on and severely criticised the government's social media ban for under-16s.  Third Liberal candidate (a position the party is not remotely likely to win) is Jacki Martin, a Latrobe councillor, former Commonwealth Bank branch manager for 19 years, and now staffer for Senator Askew.

Third up is Trumpet of Patriots, which is a kind of temporary merger of the former Australian Federation Party (itself a merger of too many silly right-wing parties to name) and Clive Palmer's United Australia Party, which failed to reregister under that name after deregistering to avoid filling out forms.  Contrary to myth that Palmer made up this ridiculous name, it was in fact coined by Nick Duffield in the Melbourne anti-mandates/lockdown movement in 2021; one suspects the Trump pun in the name is deliberate but who knows.  The Federation Party had already adopted this name before Palmer decamped to it.  Supposedly it's "patriotic" to mimic a US President who threatens allies with tarriffs while bootlicking the dictator of Russia.  

Lead candidate for TOP is another interstate ring-in in NSW-based Wayne Moore, a long time UAP persona and tyre centre owner who was "appointed Shadow Assistant Treasurer" in 2019 as part of the UAP's fiction that people outside the parliament could hold shadow portfolios.  (However, TOP's second and third candidates Matthew Kelly and Gregory Smith are Tasmanians.)  We all know what we'll get with this latest Palmer political golf buggy - loud yellow ads full of random populist gibberish, but at least they're no longer falsely claiming to be the party of Hughes, Bruce and Menzies.  They are instead claiming to be the party of Trump, which is worse.  I've also noticed that in their clueless attempts to harness the anti-transgender movemement they've unwittingly endosed the pro-trans position that adults can decide their own gender.   

In column D is Legalise Cannabis, again headed by disability support worker and cannabis oil extractor (and fifth-time candidate for the party) Matthew Owen, who still has a big beard and ... that's about all I've got! The party is surging nationally and holds seats in upper houses in NSW, Victoria and WA, and quite often embarrasses the Greens by outpolling them in by-elections.  However like all single-issue parties its candidates have been a mixed bag; in 2021 in WA it elected two candidates who both pushed discredited views on vaccines among other things. 

They're followed by Animal Justice Party, headed by Casey Davies, a zoology graduate studying Protected Area Conservation and with a passion for "insects, tattoos, gaming, and hitting the gym."  I must stop quoting this bio, it is starting to sound cool.  Their past experience includes working as a pet store and studying Complete Invisibility as the party's candidate for Clark in 2022.  I've seen nothing to revise my previous call that AJP are "philosophically radical (in what I find a simplistic way) and oppose practically all killing of animals, humane or not (including when for environmental control reasons) as well as the sale of pets "other than from shelters or rescuers"". The party's approach to Protected Areas is that not killing feral pests trumps ecological values, which when applied to Tasmania's rampant feral deer problem does not sit well with me.  (Speaking of which, the number of confused AJP voters who preference the Shooters second will never not amaze.)

Next up is the Australian Greens, with a line-up of all previous Green candidates (at some level or other) headed by Nick McKim, Senator since 2015 and former Tasmanian state party leader and minister.  Do I have anything new to say about Senator McKim after all this time?  I doubt it.   I have however learned that running mate for the second straight election, lawyer Vanessa Bleyer, wrote a poem about wedge-tailed eagles when she was 10!  It's a long way down from there to speaking for the Australia Institute.  Tarkine crusader Scott Jordan has somehow nabbed the not remotely coveted #3 position despite having a net satisfaction of -94 in most of Braddon (OK I made that up), and Equality Tasmania board member and party organiser Trenton Hoare is number 4.

In Group G is the Jacqui Lambie Network, which has had a bumpy ride the last few years.  Not only did Senator Tyrrell quit the party but so did two of its three state MPs, a situation for which I in substantial part blame Lambie.  This hasn't stopped her making her second attempt to make her party nationally successful, the first in 2016 not breaking 0.5% in any other state.  Lambie is the lead candidate, aiming to be elected for the fourth time (once later disqualified) for what she says will be her final term.  Lambie's shouty and folksy political style and mix of left (education, economics, health) and right (national security, gender, Islam) positions has been mentioned here before but a new one in the mix is her opposition to salmon farms in Macquarie Harbour, a position she shares with the Greens.  At this election Lambie has been running a "Make Australia Make Again" campaign re making things in Australia, but seems that until recently didn't apply to JLN merchandise.  

Next up is the Libertarian Party (the former Liberal Democrats) and yes another mainland ring-in!  Chrysten Abraham is an employee relations specialist with a business degree from RMIT who was the party's candidate in Flinders in 2022.  This party has a lot of form in imposing north islanders on the Tasmanian Senate ballot down the years and it does raise the question of why they run in the state at all if they can't find authentic libertarians who live in it and want to be candidates.  A possible explanation is that the party is struggling to find authentic libertarians who'll run for it and not away from it anywhere.  It seems lately infested with Trumpists, pandemic conspiracists and people who fell off the nasty wing of the Liberal Party, and to be somewhat less principled (however simplistic those principles are) than it once was.

Next to the Libertarians (amusing in terms of failed coalition negotiations between the two) is Pauline Hanson's One Nation, its candidate being Lee Hanson, Pauline's Tasmanian-resident daughter.  Lee Hanson works in human resources and organisational change management (including trying to simplify bureaucratic structures at UTAS, good luck with that, the work of Hercules).  Amusingly she's now a candidate for a party that's so struggled to manage its own organisation that almost everyone ever elected under it at state or federal level has eventually quit or been disqualified or sacked.  Hanson Jnr has marketed herself as a new generation candidate for a party in some need of image renewal.  She's claimed to have "her own convictions" but in explanations of this so far I've seen no real sign of political distance from Hanson snr.  This is an interesting attempt because Hanson jnr lacks the eccentric baggage of Steve Mav yet is high-profile enough already to tee off at Lambie and be noticed.

In Column J is the Australian Citizens Party.  This is formerly the Citizens Electoral Council, a bunch of Lyndon La Rouche (he's dead) affiliated conspiracy theory addicts which is one of the most uncompetitive parties in Australian electoral history.  Lead candidate Darryl Staggard has worked in quite a lot of things and thinks we're "staring into the furnace of a hot war with China".  Second candidate Ray Williams ran for the same party in 2019, then for Shooters, Fishers and Farmers in 2022 when it wasn't on the ballot, and has now returned to run for them again.  

The Australian Labor Party might hope they're so far down this ballot that I've forgotten I won't vote for them for reasons stated above.  Lead candidate is Carol Brown, Senator since 2005, an attempt by unionist Jess Munday to dislodge Brown having been withdrawn.  There's new and notable blood in the second spot with the selection of Richard Dowling, an internationally experienced economist and public policy executive who was a senior advisor to Lara Giddings in the early 2010s.  At around this time Dowling's Twitter profile and some media mentions noted him as the "driest economist in town", though I am not sure which version was the chicken and the egg in that story.  Labor is the only ticket running six candidates (I think for reasons of formality) with plenty of youth down the ticket too.  Filling out their list are Bailey Falls (Young Labor President), Saxon O'Donnell (a young baritone singer), Greg Luckman (a retired ag scientist and pharmacy director) and Amelia Meyers (said to be Australia's youngest candidate).   

The rear gunners on the group list are the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, led by Phil Bigg, an energetic social media presence who has run for the party at state level and has already been seen complaining about beard references.  Bigg is the President of the Tasmanian Shooters Union and is a tradesman and hunter.   The Shooters are perennial triers in Tasmanian state elections but much like the Nationals struggle to make headway here, and probably for much the same reason (communities in Tasmania are more closely connected making it harder to run the narrative that the bush is neglected).  There's more overlap at times between SF+F and the Tasmanian left than one might expect, and while writing this article I came across Bigg on Facebook teeing off at the salmon industry.  Bigg has been particularly active on environmental deer culling (he wants the meat to be available for food) and laws regarding antique firearms.  Although the party makes some interesting contributions in the local space I remain very cautious: of anything that jeopardises the success we've had with gun control since Port Arthur, of "traditional user" activities that can trash reserves and of the party's support for Australia to become a nuclear arms power.  The party also embraces social-conservative culture-warring, and what that intrinsically has to do with shooting, fishing or farming is beyond me.   

The sole ungrouped candidate is mostly left-wing but anti-trans-rights independent Fenella Edwards, who must have done quite the job to get her 100 signatures and deposit up after her late dumping by Sustainable Australia. (Their website still features her UBI Rap despite her then quitting the party and declaring that they "suck lady d***").  Edwards had such a trail of bizarre social media form, which she attributes to now-cured psychosis (my 2022 coverage being a mild selection) that the answer to why did they boot her is probably an "all of the above".   Even during the last few days of her Sus Aus run she was in heated debate over generic TERF talking points in my mentions on Bluesky, which I missed until after I'd heard she had been sidelined.   

How To Vote Cards

Here I will note the how-to-vote cards issued by parties in the Tasmanian race as I become aware of them.  How-to-vote cards are recommendations put out by parties only.  The vast majority of Tasmanian voters don't follow them, and I strongly recommend not following them.  They are noted here for interest only.

Liberal: One Nation, Libertarian, SF+F, Lambie, Labor

One Nation: Libertarians, SF+F, TOP, Aus Citizens, Liberal

Sustainable Australia: Open ticket. 

Section 44 Section

Recently I noticed that the Greens House of Reps candidate for Franklin was ineligible under Section 44, resulting in his withdrawal.  There are some Senate candidates who may be ineligible, or at least their disclosure forms do not make it clear that they are not.  Or they may be in the clear.  Unfortunately the S44 disclosure forms do not require the most useful details for answering all questions.  

* Pierre Richardson (SAP #2): Both parents born in UK.  Refers to them being UK citizens their whole life.  Writes "No, I have always only held an Australian passport" (why the strikethrough?) but that's not the test.  If his parents were married when he was born he is most likely a UK citizen, but I don't know if they were.

* Matthew Owen (LCP #1): I mentioned this one in my 2022 guide.  Father born in England to English parents, mother born in Australia.  If his parents were married when he was born he is most likely a UK citizen, but I don't know if they were.

Tasmania Senate Ballot Draw Live

Today I'm attending the 2025 Tasmania Senate candidate reveal and ballot draw.   This is just an opportunity to find out quickly who is running since it takes some hours for the AEC to have the lists of candidates up.  The ballot order itself has little impact though it can be useful for parties to be adjacent to good sources of preferences, since voters are slightly more likely to give preferences to parties in adjacent columns than far away.  There isn't much "donkey vote" advantage in the Senate.

Once I have the ballot draw up I'll be going home to then work on my 2025 Tasmanian Senate guide with the aim of releasing it by the evening.  (Here's the 2022 guide if you want to see what you can expect!)

The following bave publicly declared they are running tickets for Tasmania Senate: Labor, Liberals, Greens, Jacqui Lambie Network, One Nation, Legalise Cannabis, Trumpet of Patriots, Libertarians, Sustainable Australia, Animal Justice, Australian Citizens, Shooters Fishers + Farmers, FUSION, plus Melissa Wells running for the unregistered "Tasmanians Now" (whether ungrouped or a grouped IND remains to be seen).   That means 13 declared tickets to date (there were 14 in 2022) so probably a similar sized Senate ballot.

Live comments from midday (refresh to see). 

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11:57 All in readiness, there will be two draws, one for groups and one for ungrouped candidates.  Not as many candidates here yet as in 2022.  

12:02 12 groups have nominated.  Liberal (3 candidates), Greens (4), Legalise Cannabis (2), Citizens (2), Trumpet of Patriots (3), ALP (6), JLN (2),One Nation (2), AJP (2), Libertarians (2), SFF (2), Sustainable Australia (2), and one ungrouped (Fenella Edwards, no Melissa Wells).  FUSION had declared a candidate but did not nominate.  33 candidates.

12:09 The double randomisation draw is underway.

12:12 And the order is: Sustainable Australia, Liberal, Trumpet of Patriots, Legalise Cannabis, Animal Justice Party, Greens, JLN, Libertarian, One Nation, Citizens Party, ALP, SFF and Edwards.