Prospects for the 2025 Senate Election

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Donations welcome!

If you find my coverage useful please consider donating to support the large amount of time I spend working on this site.  The sidebar (scroll down and click on "view web version" if viewing via mobile) has Paypal or PayID instructions or email me via the address in my profile for my account details.  Please only donate if you are sure you can afford to do so.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a general (and maths-heavy) piece giving assessments of the 2025 half-Senate election in each state and territory and overall. A detailed Senate guide for Tasmania will be released soon after the announcement of nominations for the state.  Firstly, a look at which Senate seats are up for grabs at this election and which are continuing until 2028 (barring a double dissolution):

At present Labor holds 25 of the 76 seats.  Labor can pass legislation supported by the Greens (11 seats) and any three of a crossbench of 11.  The crossbench consists of David Pocock, ex-Greens defector Lidia Thorpe, ex-Labor defector Fatima Payman, Jacqui Lambie, ex-Lambie defector Tammy Tyrrell, two One Nation Senators, Ralph Babet (UAP, which still exists for parliamentary purposes), and two ex-Coalition defectors. The ability to block enquiries, motions and disallowances in the Senate is also very important and hereLabor and the Greens combined need two votes.

As I start this article polling is pointing to a substantial two-party swing in the House of Reps to the Coalition but either side could form government, probably in minority and perhaps deeply so.

If Labor wins narrowly then it could be little changes.  On the optimistic side they might improve by one by winning two in Queensland at the expense of the LNP, but that is no sure thing (see Queensland below).  

If the Coalition wins narrowly - or at least not by more than in 2019 - then upstairs could be a problem for them.  The left won a 19-16 majority in the 2022 election state slate (I have counted Tyrrell as neither, though a reader informs me that since splitting from JLN she has voted with the Governnent a lot).  It seems very difficult for the right to win more than 18 state seats even assuming that it wins four in Queensland.  Even if the Liberals recover their ACT seat, that then only gets the right to 36 and needing at least three votes (or two and an absence) out of Lambie, Tyrrell, Thorpe and Payman.  They can need Pocock as well if he gets re-elected at their expense, and if they also don't get a four-seat set anywhere they can need all five.  There's potential here for a double dissolution to get rid of the 2022 slate and get things moving well before the end of a first Coalition term, but that's very likely to throw a few Coalition seats to the minor right, so that's not ideal either.  

Resources

For this article, I mostly treat the 2022 election as the default result, and look at how much needs to change for something else to happen.  I'll add in mentions of Senate polling if I see any later, but Senate polling at recent elections has been pretty useless, outside the 2022 ACT contest where it did correctly point to a likely Pocock win.  The problem with Senate polling is it's very difficult to replicate the experience of a voter choosing between 20-25 different parties.  Minor parties that are named in Senate polling readouts tend to get higher vote shares than they actually poll.  Senate polling also tends to be conducted by low-quality outfits.  

For the purposes of this article I assume the current Reps polling is broadly correct - if there is a big shift in the leadup to the election or a polling error then some results will be different.   In current House of Representatives polling there is about a 3% two-party swing from Labor to the Coalition, assuming a modest degree of preference-shifting since the 2022 election.   By purely last-election preferences the swing is about 2.3%, but by purely pollster-released 2PPs it's approaching 4%.  The Coalition's primary vote is clearly up and Labor's down, but polls vary wildly in estimates of the Labor primary.  The Greens seem to be roughly holding steady.  One Nation appears to be polling very strongly (running at around 7.5, up 2.5 points on 2022, and in some recent cases hitting 9%) but its vote is probably being inflated by the use of "generic ballot" polling where it is one of the options listed but other minor right parties are not.  Another source of confusion regarding where the minor parties overall are sitting is the inflated Independent vote in some polls.  Independent-style campaigns aren't significant in the Senate, Pocock excepted, so it's hard to get a read on where the other minor parties might be travelling.

The minor party polling mix has also been unsettled by the disppearance of the UAP which polled 3.5% in the 2022 Senate election.  However, following its failure to get reregistered under its name, the UAP operation has transplanted itself to Trumpet of Patriots (a pre-existing rebadge of the Australian Federation Party which polled abysmally in 2022, but likely to behave more like the UAP in spending terms and garish yellow ads).  Other Senate lineup changes include the registration of the new Family First, which has polled 1.3% in NSW, 2% in Victoria and 3% in South Australia in state upper house elections, and the registration of Fatima Payman's Australia's Voice, an unknown quantity.  Eleven parties that ran in 2022 have been deregistered without being replaced, but in general these did not poll much.

A general rule in the Senate is that seats are mainly determined by primary votes.  Preferences are important around the edges but only change who gets elected about once in each half-Senate cycle.  The Coalition, Labor, Greens and One Nation tend to be the best performers on preferences (not necessarily in that order) and tend to outperform or overtake all other parties, except that David Pocock gets very strong preference flows in the ACT.   2022 saw an increase in preference flows between One Nation, the then UAP (now Trumpet of Patriots) and the then Liberal Democrats (now Libertarians) off the back of COVID-based discontents with the major parties and campaigns to increase preference flows between the mostly spuriously so-called "freedom friendly minor parties" (FFMPs).  How to vote cards have little influence, outside of those for major parties in the rare cases where a major party candidate with a substantial remainder gets excluded.   If you see a Senate model that uses how to vote cards as a major input, ignore it.  

At the moment I'm assuming Australia's Voice won't be competitive and that Trumpet of Patriots at least will not do better than the UAP did in 2022 - should evidence emerge otherwise, I will adjust accordingly.   

Below I mainly give seat totals in terms of quotas (Q).  A quota is effectively one-seventh of the total vote in each state (c. 14.29%) and one-third in the territories.  Through the article I talk a lot about possible swings between two parties, but this need not be an even gain and loss from one party to another.  For instance, a 3% swing from Labor to Coalition does not necessarily mean Labor primary down 3% and Coalition up 3% - it could be Labor down 2 and Coalition up 4, for example.  And it does not necessarily mean voters are moving between those two parties, just that those are changes in the totals.  

New South Wales

SEATS VACATED: 3 COALITION 2 LABOR 1 GREEN

2022 RESULT: 3 COALITION 2 LABOR 1 GREEN

 The 2022 NSW leaders were as follows:

Coalition (L-NP) 2.571 Q

ALP 2.131

Greens 0.802

One Nation 0.289

UAP 0.237

Legalise Cannabis (LCP) 0.182

Animal Justice (AJP) 0.151

LDP 0.148

Early in the count it had looked like One Nation might be a threat to the Coalition but as the Coalition's position strengthened I called the seat a week after election day.  

In the preference distribution, surpluses and exclusions from the bottom occurred until this position was reached in the race for the final two seats (after the first two for the minors):

Greens 0.983 Q

L-NP 0.691

ON 0.391

LCP 0.307

UAP 0.302

ALP 0.245

The Labor preferences here put the Greens over quota.  Surpluses and exclusions continued with the Coalition eventually beating One Nation .861 Q to .694 Q, or a margin of about 2.4%.  

NSW is the most populous state, generally falls close to the national average and tends to hug close to the national swing.  The Coalition vs One Nation contest for the final seat in 2022 was the only thing that was even remotely close and here it is notable that One Nation closed the gap by .115 Q (1.6%) on preferences.  It's plausible One Nation will make gains here considering their polling, but the Coalition is making gains in polling too, so the most likely result appears to be the status quo.

One Nation might also not do so well here because of internal tensions - in 2022 the party had Mark Latham as a high-profile state MLC but since then all the state One Nation MLCs have quit.  The Libertarians will be led by the former MP for Hughes and Azerbaijan Craig Kelly who is at least prominent (even if he has now been a member of four parties in four years).  However the party tends to do poorly on preferences and would need a very good primary vote to reach and stay at the head of the minor right pack.

Outlook: Most likely 3 Coalition 2 Labor 1 Green

Victoria

SEATS VACATED: 2 COALITION 2 LABOR 1 GREEN 1 IND (ELECTED AS LIB)

2022 RESULT: 2 COALITION 2 LABOR 1 GREEN 1 UAP (GREEN SINCE DEFECTED TO IND)

The 2022 Victorian Senate count was the only one where a scenario that had looked plausible in a few mainland states happened: neither major party got much in the race for the last seat, and a minor right party snuck through the middle.  Sadly it was the UAP, whose Ralph Babet was elected fair and square  and was the primary vote leader for the last seat despite all the rubbish people spout about his below the line vote, preferences or whatever.  That link gives the key points of the count; for this one I thought I'd do it in a table.

The table is a simplified version of the count and doesn't show the two quotas for which the Coalition and Labor secured seats at the start of the cutup, nor the Greens who polled a primary vote of 0.97Q and crossed on minor exclusions.  The key points are on the right, where:

* Labor outlasts Legalise Cannabis by 0.046 Q to be the remaining left party seeking a fourth left seat (I treat Legalise Cannabis as left though this is not straightforward - they also have rural appeal to One Nation voter types and some members will have more right-compatible views on vaccines or climate change.)  

* The UAP is ahead of One Nation by just 0.034 Q (about half a percent) in the race to be the remaining minor right party seeking to beat the Coalition.  (If the UAP is excluded at this point, One Nation wins but less convincingly as they are not on the Coalition how to vote card)

* The UAP outlasts the Coalition by 0.136 Q (just under 2%) and then beats Labor by .149 Q (2.15%)

Victoria appears to be Labor's worst state in swing terms, with the Bludger Track aggregate putting it down 4% there, which may even be conservative.  The federal party seems to be being dragged by the state party, which is polling terribly, though it did manage to barely hang on in the difficult Werribee by-election.  It's likely Labor will fall below two quotas here, or even if they don't that they at least will crash out early.  This will most likely leave Legalise Cannabis as the left contender for a fourth left seat that has been rendered unlikely by Labor's poor performance.  (Legalise Cannabis are running former Sex/Reason state MLC Fiona Patten as their candidate - Patten is very media-savvy and will play well in much of the Melbourne metro, perhaps less well rurally).

What appears quite likely in Victoria is that a swing between the major parties lifts the Coalition ticket so far ahead of UAP, ON, Libertarians etc that none of those can catch them.  The Coalition does on the above figures need about a 1.6% gain relative to whichever of those parties is on top of the pile this time around but that at present that shouldn't be difficult.  If there is a minor right seat, One Nation seem the best chance but Libertarians, Family First and Trumpet of Patriots will also be vying for it should they disappoint.

Because neither major party had much left over, the 2022 figures suggest Legalise Cannabis could be competitive for a seat if it could roughly double its vote to about 6%, which isn't unthinkable with the party having gained a foothold in the Legislative Council.  But with Labor likely to be short of two quotas, Legalise Cannabis could be starved of enough preference sources.  

The view that voters are giving both majors the thumbs down in Victoria gained strength following the Werribee by-election, but this was in fact a misreading of what had occurred.  Although primary votes splattered in a large field there, there was not a strong thorough anti-majors sentiment and both major parties drew away from the Independent Paul Hopper in the preference throw.  For this reason I would not take Werribee as evidence against a swing to Coalition in the Senate.

Outlook: Probably 3 Coalition 2 Labor 1 Green though a minor right seat is possible

Queensland

SEATS VACATED: 2 LNP 1 ALP 1 GREEN 1 ON 1 GRPF (ELECTED AS L-NP)

2022 RESULT: 2 LNP 2 ALP 1 GREEN 1 ON

In 2019 Labor had a terrible result in the Queensland Senate race, winning only one seat as the Coalition elected three with One Nation winning as well.  In 2022 they won two again, but it was closer than the early media suggested.

Election-night returns suggested Legalise Cannabis were in the mix for a seat and that Pauline Hanson was likely to lose, but these were based on an unrepresentative vote count and also a lack of appreciation of the strength of One Nation's preference flows. By the time the primary count was finished, One Nation were obviously ahead.  

Leading primaries were:

LNP 2.467 Q

Labor 1.729

Greens 0.867

ON 0.518

LCP 0.376

UAP 0.293

LDP 0.175

After the exclusions of everybody below Legalise Cannabis, the Greens finally crossed quota and the quotas in the race for the final two seats were as follows:

ON 0.876

ALP 0.853

LNP 0.646

LCP 0.536

One Nation did almost as well off the leafy preferences as Labor did and the count finished with One Nation (Hanson) 0.996 Q Anthony Chisholm (Labor) 0.974 and Amanda Stoker (LNP) missing out on .720.  This means that Stoker lost by 3.6%.   The interesting thing here is that One Nation did so well on minor right preferences (othat they gained a whopping 3.3% on Labor during the count and overtook them.  

Projections of the Queensland Senate race that I have seen have normally been along the lines that nothing is happening in Queensland federal polling therefore nothing will change and the result can be locked away at another 2-2-1-1. However people seem to have forgotten that Queensland federal polling is often unreliable, most notably in 2019 when a swing to Labor was expected then an hour or two into election night we were all going "Blair?  Is that actually a seat?"  So there is room for something else to happen, which would most likely be Labor having another shocker and again missing out on a second seat.  This only needs a 1.8% swing but with voters having taken out their frustrations on the former Palaszcuk/Miles government it may be this is less likely now.

The 5.4% vote for Legalise Cannabis in 2022 was impressive but they would need to grow that to at least 9% and perhaps more likely 10% to win. 

Gerard Rennick is running at the head of an eponymous party Gerard Rennick People First after being disendorsed.  Rennick has a degree of minor right following online but is fishing in the same pool as One Nation and TOP and is probably not well enough known to attract a competitive vote in this mix.  

Outlook: Probably 2 LNP 2 Labor 1 Green 1 ON but second Labor seat could be at risk to LNP

Western Australia

SEATS VACATED: 3 LIB 2 ALP 1 GREEN

2022 RESULT: 3 ALP 2 LIB 1 GREEN (1 ALP SINCE DEFECTED TO AUS VOICE)

Labor's strength in Western Australia in 2022 resulted in a 4-2 left-right result though their third Senator Fatima Payman has since quit the party and formed her own.  These were the leaders in 2022:

ALP 2.419 Q

Lib 2.217

Green 0.998

ON 0.244

LCP 0.237

Aus Christians 0.152

UAP 0.149

LDP 0.135

WA Party 0.122

This quickly elected 2 Labor, 2 Liberal and 1 Green leaving the question of whether anyone could catch Labor for the final seat.  With four left quotas were:

ALP 0.595

ON 0.526

Lib 0.404

LCP 0.379

After excluding Legalise Cannabis:

ALP 0.712

ON 0.611

Lib 0.456

After excluding Liberal, Labor (Payman) won 0.853 to One Nation 0.745, a margin of about 1.5%, meaning that a 2PP swing of less than 1% woild overturn it.  The One Nation to Liberal margin was 2.2%.

Although Labor had a remarkable 10.55% two-party swing to them in the Reps in 2022, generally Labor seems to be travelling OK in WA federal polling with the swing back looking like being only 2-3% (which is quite impressive if true).  That is, all else being equal, still enough to drop the seat to either One Nation or the Liberal ticket, but at the moment it is not clear who, and if Labor do slightly better than the current WA polls they could even win three again (seems rather improbable though as the WA polling is already at the better end of what seems credible).  The surge in the Liberal primary is enough at the moment to put them past One Nation - except that One Nation are also surging, although how much of that is real and how much is generic ballot polling inflating their vote isn't clear.

We should get a much better idea of how the One Nation brand is travelling in WA on the weekend and I'll amend this assessment if necessary then.  The other possibility here is Legalise Cannabis who might now have a more realistic path in WA than Victoria.  A plausible two-party swing of just over 1.5% puts Legalise Cannabis over Labor - this can be achieved with a LCP vote around 5%.  In 2022 the Liberals would have received more Labor preferences than Legalise Cannabis but that is because Legalise Cannabis were not on Labor's how to vote card.  Being listed on Labor's card for WA could in the very best case scenario be worth up to 0.85% for the party on preferences and could mean that 5% actually wins.  The dream scenario for LCP here is to just get over Labor then have One Nation excluded in a case where One Nation does not list the Coalition on their card.  A lot has to go right here and again we will also get a better idea of how LCP are travelling in WA on the weekend.

Outlook: 2 Labor 2 Liberal 1 Green with final seat probably either One Nation or Liberal, but possibly Legalise Cannabis

South Australia

SEATS VACATED: 3 LIB 2 ALP 1 GREEN

2022 RESULT: 3 LIB 2 ALP 1 GREEN

In SA in 2022 the Liberals had a small primary vote lead:

Lib 2.375 Q

ALP 2.259

Green 0.837

ON 0.281

UAP 0.212

Nick Xenophon 0.209

LCP 0.163

LDP 0.154

Rex Patrick Team 0.145

AJP 0.123

Former Senator Nick Xenophon had a blank above the line box, which results in miserable preference flows.  After his exclusion things stood at

Lib 0.628

Labor 0.518

ON 0.426

UAP 0.311

Now the UAP preferences put One Nation over Labor

Lib 0.668

ON 0.606

Labor 0.557

And the Labor preferences saw Liddle (Liberal) beat One Nation 0.868 Q to 0.668, a margin of 2.87%.

One would think from national polling that nothing is changing here; the Liberals would at worst hold station and again win three.  But at state level the Liberal brand is in terrible condition; the state party is being smashed in polling and has dropped two seats in by-elections to the government (the only previous real case of this happening coming in World War 2).  It is not just that it has lost these seats but also that it was slaughtered in the by-election for Black with a 12.6% swing.  Conversely One Nation have been polling fantastically in federal breakdowns in the state and their lone South Australian MLC Sarah Game, elected as a total unknown, has impressed.  Game's mother, Jennifer Game, is the lead SA candidate.  

The Liberal Senate preselection has also attracted criticism with Alex Antic, a Trumpy hard-righter who often votes with One Nation, Rennick and Babet, topping the ticket ahead of Anne Ruston.  While the Liberals could still get three (federal politics is not state politics after all) a straight read of the Bludgertrack Reps swings gives the seat to One Nation.  It's also not unthinkable that there could be a swing to Labor in South Australia so I wouldn't completely rule out the left bagging a four against the run of play (which would be a huge problem for the Coalition if it happened).  The swing wouldn't need to be large, around the 2% margin flowing through to Senate will do it.

Also of interest here is the performance of Family First.  The previous incarnation of this party often did well in South Australia and the new one wasn't too far behind One Nation so if One Nation implodes (as it does somewhere around the country on a regular basis) this party should also be considered in the minor right mix in the event that a seat is available.

Outlook: 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green, last seat One Nation seems a good chance, or possibly Liberal or Labor.

Tasmania

SEATS VACATED: 2 LIB 2 ALP 1 GRN 1 JLN

2022 RESULT: 2 LIB 2 ALP 1 GRN 1 JLN (JLN Senator defected to form own party)

It's a struggle to get excited about my home state.  The 2022 primaries were:

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 minor parties have basically no campaign presence in the state at present (Legalise Cannabis has named a candidate, that's about all).  

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 JLN outfit is looking and sounding battle-scarred.  In the past few years Lambie has seen Tyrrell defect, then three MPs have won election under her name to the state parliament, only for two of those to also defect.  However, support for JLN in state polling is still strong; JLN voters are often low-information types who probably don't care that the concept is a mess.  JLN billboards are prominent around Hobart though I've heard the candidate this time (Lambie herself) is not working the electorate as hard as in previous elections.  She did, interestingly, come out on the side of the Greens over Macquarie Harbour salmon management (a touchy point in parts of her best seat of Braddon), albeit in an amusingly sweary fashion.

Outlook: Probably 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN

ACT

SEATS VACATED AND 2022 RESULT: 1 LABOR 1 POCOCK

The ACT was the only Senate contest in 2022 where a candidate who was trailing on primary quotas won.  The leaders in the primary count were (note: a quota is a third of the total in the ACT)

Labor 1.001 Q

Liberal 0.744

Pocock 0.635

Greens 0.309

Kim 4 Canberra 0.133

UAP 0.064

LCP 0.048

The Liberals had a lead of 3.6% but with the ACT having a very low exhaust rate, with 20.6% available in preferences and with Labor helpfully getting elected by themselves they were obviously going to get smashed here.  Pocock ended up winning with 1.090 quotas to Seselja (Liberal)'s 0.857 quotas, a margin of 7.77%.  

Pocock has had a successful first term and the Liberals have some issues going into the campaign.  Their intention to cut public service jobs looks like an obvious millstone and their candidate Jacob Vadakkedathu has faced branch stacking accusations that resulted in 40% of preselectors voting for a failed attempt to reopen preselections.  

Nonetheless early in the term there was speculation that Pocock might be such a runaway success that he might take enough votes from Labor for the seats to split Pocock-Liberal instead of Labor-Pocock.  Is this a real risk?

The best way to get a handle on this is via a Senate 3CP.  This is where the 2022 Senate preferences go between Labor, Liberal and Pocock:  

Labor 40.97%

Pocock 31.71%

Liberal 27.33%

This doesn't function the same way as a Reps 3CP.  In a Reps 3CP if you are third you lose, but in a Senate 3CP if the leader has more than 33.33%, then those votes are available to the other two.  In this case votes that didn't need to go to Labor because they had already won boosted Pocock by 3.39% out of 7.64%.  

If the Liberals get to 33.33% they win, but that requires them to take 6% from the other two.  They can also win by being ahead of Pocock by enough that he cannot beat them on the remainder, but if the Labor vote stays where it is that requires a 3.89% swing from Pocock to Liberal.

The scenario of Labor losing by fallinng below the Liberals requires at minimum a 6.82% swing from Labor to Liberal at the 3CP stage.  That could in theory be more a swing against Labor than to Liberal (eg Labor drops 11 points and the Liberals gain 3) but in that case votes are going to Pocock that can put him over quota and save Labor on preferences.  That suggests the swing required is even higher.  And in an election that has more of the inner city/outer city vibe that will benefit the broad left in most of the ACT that swing seems unlikely.  I'd probably not mind seeing the conclusion that Pocock will retain blessed by a reliable poll (the ACT being one of the few places where Senate polling even might work) but overall it's hard to see either path for the Liberals working.

Outlook: Probably 1 Labor and Pocock - in some order

Northern Territory

SEATS VACATED AND 2022 RESULT: 1 CLP 1 LABOR

The NT Senate would have been much more interesting this time around had it been expanded to four seats; that didn't happen.  The 2022 leaders were

Labor 0.989 Q

Country Liberals (CLP) 0.951

Greens 0.368

Liberal Democrats 0.278

LCP 0.187

Great Australians 0.132

Great Australians got a lot of the minor right vote in the absence of One Nation and UAP.  The high Liberal Democrat vote was because dumped CLP Senator Sam McMahon ran with them.  

There shouldn't be anything to see here.  The CLP should get quota, maybe easily.  Labor probably won't but will be way ahead of the Greens as the major competition.  Just in case something goes really pearshape for Labor (like it did in the NT election), the 2022 3CP was

Liberal 42.3%

Labor 38.4%

Greens 19.3%

So this needs a 9.6% swing from Labor to Green just to put the Greens into second on the 3CP, but even then the Greens still lose as the CLP preferences give Labor another circa 3.8% vs the Greens.  Not happening.

Outlook: 1 CLP 1 Labor