2025 Senate Notes Part One

This is the latest in a string of articles that I write after each Senate election tracking certain themes in the Senate races.  Previous volumes in the series were called Senate Reform Performance Review, referring to the 2016 Senate changes that got rid of Group Ticket Voting.  I think now we've reached the point after four elections where it's very clear that the new system works very well indeed and needs no longer to be considered on probation, hence the shorter title.  For previous instalments see 2016 part one, 2016 part two, 2019 (single article) and 2022 (single article).  On the agenda for this issue are:  proportionality, winning vote shares (with a focus on the One Nation wins from behind), preferencing impacts, and the curse of Inclusive Gregory.  Part two covers Senate 2PP, How to Vote cards, just-voting-1, exhaust, informals, below the lines,  and the fun bit about people who we wonder why they bother.   And yes that includes the ACT Liberals! 

I've decided again to split the article into two because the volume of material this time is a bit much for one go.  At least for my own feeling that I'm spending a lot of time on a single article that I haven't released anything from yet.  

In this article I treat Labor, Greens and Pocock as comprising the left of the Senate (in relative terms, this should not be taken as me declaring Labor to be an outright left-wing party) and Coalition, One Nation and UAP as the right (with Jacqui Lambie treated as neither though these days there is a case for treating her as left if anything).  

Goldstein Count History And Partial Recount

GOLDSTEIN (Vic, IND vs Lib est 3.9%)
Tim Wilson (Lib) has provisionally won by 260 votes
AEC has authorised a partial recount

Wilson will win unless large errors are found during partial recount

RESULT: Wilson won by 175 votes.   

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Updates

Updates will be posted here scrolling to the top.

Saturday 1:55: It's finally over, Wilson has won by 175 votes and the seat will be declared.  

Saturday 31st 11:35 am: The end cannot be far away as corrections are now showing to absents, dec prepolls and all booths except Hampton PPVC where only minor changes are expected though I do not know how many postals are to be checked.  Wilson leads by 164 following the expected Brighton corrections which actually cut his lead by 65.

2025 Senate Button Press Thread

Welcome to my 2025 thread to cover the so-called "button presses" (in fact the execution of a computer routine) that distribute preferences for the Senate and determines the Senate results.  

I have not had nearly as much time to work on projecting the Senate counts this election as in the past because it's been impossible to get away from the complexity and number of the in-doubt House of Reps counts for long and because of other work commitments.  In particular I probably would have been able to call Tasmania if I had had the time to do a few days scrutineering (and had been able to find anyone willing to appoint me) but such things were not to be.  

On this thread states/territories will appear once there are no unapportioned votes shown as awaiting data entry.  Normally based on past practice the button press follows a few days after that with the declaration shortly after (in the absence of any recount request that might be caused by a micro-close margin).  Until I have seen a state reach zero unapportioned votes, commentary about it continues on the previous National Senate postcount thread.  

Legislative Council 2025: Montgomery, Nelson and Pembroke Live And Post-Count

Montgomery: Casey Hiscutt (IND) won after preferences as expected
Nelson: CALLED (7:09 pm) Meg Webb (IND) re-elected
Pembroke: CALLED (7:33 pm) Luke Edmunds (ALP) re-elected

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Live comments (scrolls to top)

All updates are unofficial, check the TEC site for official figures

Thursday 29th:  Unsurprisingly Hiscutt has done better than the Liberals on preferences; in fact he has won massively, 61.7-38.3 getting 76.9% of preferences that flowed to the two leaders (these figures are still subject to very minor change).   In Pembroke Ritchie snuck into second late in the primary count and moved 6.9% clear of Allan after preferences but still lost to Edmunds 58.2-41.8.  In all Ritchie got 59.2% of preferences.  In Nelson there will be no preferences; Meg Webb has 51.7%.  

EMRS: Government Trails Placebo Opposition

EMRS LIB 29 (-5) ALP 31 (+1) GRN 14 (+1) JLN 6 (-2) IND 17 (+5) Others 3
Independent is generic option - likely overstates support at actual election
Election "held now" would result in a very hung parliament

When Brad Stansfield tweeted the above spoiler yesterday it was easy to imagine what might have been coming.  At the recent federal election the Liberals were sent packing in northern Tasmania, losing Braddon and Bass with enormous swings and being thrashed in previously ultra-marginal Lyons.  There was a federal primary vote swing across the state of 9.3% to Labor and 8.4% against the Liberal Party.  Perhaps the federal election was a sign that the Liberal brand was more on the nose at state level than might have been expected and that Labor would be surging towards an election-winning position?  Or perhaps just the timing of the latest EMRS poll could see a degree of federal contamination such that state Labor picked up an afterglow from the federal triumph?  Well, no.  The poll is "wow!", unlike Peter van Onselen's infamous "Newspoll wow"s which were habitually followed by meaningless changes in the Newspoll.  But it is not the sort of "wow" that narrative would have expected.  

Instead, it's a tale that's been running for years - the ageing and stumbling Liberal government shedding and shedding more vote share and Labor still picking up little or nothing in this poll series.  Currently the government trails 29-31.  In August 2022 it led 41-31.   Tasmanians separate state and federal politics - strongly - and Labor is still not breaking out of the very low 30s.  The overall picture is that Labor is content to avoid rocking the boat, being as bipartisan as possible on wedge issues like the stadium and salmon farming, and wait for the government to fall over.  Presumably some point is eventually reached where the government is so on the nose that Labor support has to grow at least enough to make Labor the biggest party.  That said if we continue this trend indefinitely the crossbench will govern before they will.

2025 Late Postcount: Calwell

CALWELL (ALP 12.4%)
Basem Abdo (ALP) vs Carly Moore (IND) 
Abdo leading on primary votes during preference distribution

ALP retain 

I should have given Calwell its own page from the start but the unique nature of the count was not so obvious from the early primary figures which I covered on the seats where indies may make the final two page.  On the day after the election it was obvious that the very low major party primaries in a huge field in Calwell created an in-theory chance that independent ex-Labor mayor Carly Moore could get into the top two.  However soon after that, another independent, Joseph Youhana, surged, creating a unique situation where even a three-candidate preferred count was of no use as it could not be known for sure which independent (if either though very likely one of them will) would make the final three.  The AEC now has a distribution of preferences page up.   This is a familiar process to Tasmanian audiences as the TEC routinely does this for Legislative Council elections where stuff like this happens (OK that was an extreme case, only four candidates have won from third in LegCo history), but a new thing for federal elections.

The primaries in Calwell are:

Abdo (ALP) 30.51
Ghani (Lib) 15.7
Moore (IND) 11.94
Youhana (IND) 10.73
Garcha (GRN) 8.29

Moslih (IND) 6.86

Toma (ON) 3.76

Del Rosario-Makridis (LCP) 3.16

Hawu (Aus Citizens) 2.92

Bengtsson (FF) 2.57

Issa (TOP) 2.46

Ragupathy (IND) 0.56

Peach (unendorsed - unregistered Socialist Equality Party) 0.54

2025 Late Postcount And Expected Recount: Bradfield

And it has come to this ..

BRADFIELD (Lib vs IND est 2.5%) 

Gisele Kapterian (Lib) vs Nicolette Boele (IND) 
Boele led by 40 votes at end of indicative 2CP count.

Kapterian led by 8 votes at the end of distribution of preferences

Automatic recount started Monday 26 May

Boele has won by 26 votes after full recount

Boele will be seated, result can be challenged but will be an MP pending any case

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Not-A-Poll Reset 1 of 2025: Dutton Loses Seat

This morning Sussan Ley became the first female federal leader of the Liberal Party, elected 29-25 over Angus Taylor.  Taylor was running on a ticket that included the insane proposition that Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, a member of the Liberal partyroom for five earth minutes, should become deputy leader.  This was especially crazy because Price was such a totemic candidate for the toxic idea that the Coalition should be more Trumpy (making her a shadow minister for government efficiency when they already had one was one of the Coalition's many mistakes).  

All this is not to say I would have been remotely keen to vote for Ley if I was a Liberal party room member either, in fact, given this choice, I could not have possibly voted for either.  While Taylor generally seemed to be making very little effort in the previous term, Ley on the other side struck me as trying too hard and serially out of her depth.  Most notably so when she criticised the AEC over voting interpretation rules for the Voice Referendum during the ticks and crosses beatup, when the Coalition had not made any attempt to change the legislation, but there were many other examples.  

The good news for the Liberals is it probably doesn't matter.  If Ley is a success well and good, and if she fails they can tick and flick the box of having had a female leader and use it as an excuse to not do that again in a hurry.  Their two-term strategy for winning in 2028 is a crash scene (in part because they tried to turn it into a one-term strategy and wasted seats like Menzies in the process) and realistically this term is about rebuilding, trying to finish off the teals with help from the new donations regime (if it survives the High Court) and seeing how they go thereafter.  

2025 Senate Postcounts: National Thread

Discussion of counts that have finished or reached zero unapportioned votes now appears on the button press thread.  

FINAL WINS ALP 16 L-NP 13 GREEN 6 ON 3 POCOCK 1 JLN 1

CARRIED OVER ALP 12 L-NP 14 GRN 5 ON 1 UAP 1 defectors 3

IF PROJECTED LEADS HOLD ALP 28 L-NP 27 Grn 11 ON 4 Pocock 1 UAP 1 Lambie 1 defectors 3 (Payman, Tyrrell, Thorpe)

ALP/GRN will have combined outright majority.

ALP + non-Green others will have a blocking majority (38).