Australia’s recent federal election produced a commanding win for the Labor Party. However, just looking at the seat count disguises some important trends that are taking place in Australian politics.
Under Australia’s preferential voting system, the key figure to look for to gauge committed support for a political party is their “primary vote” – that is, the percentage of people who ranked a candidate from that party first on the ballot. While Labor increased its primary vote in this election, the overall combined percentage for the party, and the (now former) coalition of the Liberal and National parties, continues to fall.
In the 2007 election Australia’s major parties commanded just over 85 percent of the primary votes. However, since then there has been a steady collapse. In the 2022 election, the major parties collectively received 68.3 percent of first preferences. This has now fallen further to 66.9 percent in 2025.
Although the National Party has now pulled out of its coalition agreement with the Liberal Party, at the recent election there were effectively three blocs: the Labor Party, the Liberals and Nationals, and then everyone else. Majorities in the House of Representatives are able to be achieved because preferences tend to find their way back to the major parties, allowing them to win seats. However, in a number of seats more locally focused candidates are able to gain enough support to defeat these parties.
A significant chunk of the “everyone else” vote is held by the Greens. In the recent election, the Greens vote declined slightly by 0.05 percentage points; however, most significantly, it declined much more in three of the four seats it won in 2022 – leading to the party losing these seats. This included the central Melbourne seat of party leader, Adam Bandt. The party looks to have found a ceiling of around 12 percent of the overall vote, with the issues it deems important – or, more likely the way it prosecutes them – unable to gain greater traction with the general public.
Aside from this week’s coalition split of the Liberal and National parties, the most consequential phenomenon in Australian politics recently has been the move away from parties themselves, with the rise of independent members of Parliament. This has mostly – although not entirely – centered around the Community Independents Project – a model of political organization that has proved highly effective in capitalizing on both voters seeking new options within Australia’s party system, and more specifically, wealthy, highly educated voters becoming disillusioned with the Liberal Party.
However, the movement started with one less seat this election. The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) did a redistribution of seats in the House of Representatives, giving Western Australia one more, and removing a single seat each from Victoria and New South Wales – bringing the chamber down to 150 seats. The seat in NSW to be removed was North Sydney, won in the last election by independent Kylea Tink. This process is without political interference, with the AEC simply trying to squeeze Australia’s growing population fairly into a constitutionally limited number of seats.
In terms of seats this election, the movement held steady, narrowly losing one seat in Melbourne, but narrowly gaining another in Sydney (pending a recount due to the margin being less than 100 votes). This total of seven seats was fewer than expected. However, in terms of overall votes for the 37 candidates that were endorsed by the movement, it experienced serious gains – with candidates finishing second in a further eight seats, and a number of other strong performances. This included running the Labor Party close in two seats – one in Canberra and another in Perth – demonstrating that the movement is able to gain traction outside of what were previously safe Liberal Party seats.
Outside of the Community Independents Project a number of other independents (and de facto independents) also won seats. Rebakah Sharkie runs under the banner of the Center Alliance, but as the alliance fielded no other candidates at this election she is effectively an independent. Although she is not associated with the Community Independents Project, she is ideologically aligned with those urban seats won by the movement – which can be understood as a liberal split from the Liberal Party.
Alongside her, Andrew Gee left the National Party over its opposition to the 2023 referendum on an constitutionally enshrined consultative body for Indigenous Australians. He recontested his seat as an independent and won. Dai Le won a traditionally safe Labor seat in western Sydney 2022, and increased her vote by an additional 5 points this election. Andrew Wilkie has had a lock on a central Hobart seat for a decade and a half now, and, of course, Bob Katter, as the current longest serving member of Parliament, is an immovable object in Far-North Queensland.
A vast array of smaller and single issue parties were also able to attract a significant share of the vote.
Australians are searching for something new within their political system. At present they are finding this in local candidates. There has emerged a semi-national movement in the Community Independents Project, but this falls well short of being a party. But with now a third of primary votes unreachable to the major parties – and the Liberal Party in serious decline – there is significant opportunity in the country for political entrepreneurs.