⚡⚡⚡⚡🇦🇺🐨🦘 2025 AUSTRALIAN ELECTION THUNDERDOME 🦘🐨🇦🇺⚡⚡⚡⚡

GET IN HERE, IT'S ELECTION TIME! 😤

Down under in the land of drop bears we do things a little differently! Democracy sausages, compulsory voting, hungry crocodiles and walking from the beach to the polls wearing only budgy smugglers are all part of our cultural identity here 😎

Today, the incumbent centre-left Labor Government under Anthony Albanese is seeking re-election for an additional 3 year term. While there are two major parties in Australia, there's also a huge number of third party and independent voters in recent years making up a third of the vote in 2022.

Every 3 years, Australia holds a federal election where half of the Senate and all seats in the House of Representatives are up for election. Australia's constitution follows a proud tradition of Westminster style democracy (with all its banter and antics) combined with American characteristics such as federalism. Additionally we have preferential and compulsory voting, making for an interesting electoral dynamic where the spoiler effect from third parties is non-existent and everybody, and I mean everybody votes.

The major parties:

– The Australian Labor Party (ALP): centre-left. Social-democratic, social-liberal

Leader: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (also known as Albo)

– The Coalition (Liberal Party and the Nationals): centre-right. Conservative, agrarianism, liberal conservatism

Leader: Peter Dutton

The minor parties:

– 'Teal' independents (not a party, but including them here): Centrist, socially liberal, fiscal conservative, pro climate-action and anti-corruption.

– The Greens: Left-wing, progressive, anti-neoliberal, populist, progressive environmentalist

– Pauline Hanson's One Nation: Far-right, populist nationalism, anti-immigration

– Trumpet of Patriots (TOP): Far-right, populist nationalism, Trumpism

For Americans out of the loop, TOP is a party led by billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer and is only polling around 2% and Pauline Hanson is polling around 8%. The Greens usually get around 12% of the vote.

Here is a guide by /u/SucculentMoisture on the Senate and how that may play out over the coming days.

Background:

In the three years since winning office, the Labor Party under Anthony Albanese has implemented a new anti-corruption agency watchdog, tax cuts for low-middle income earners, pushed through a significant boost in renewable energy funding with the aim of 82% of renewable energy by 2030, led a failed referendum for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, banned kids under 16 from using social media, expanded paid parental leave and strengthened industrial relations laws for workers and unions. Thanks in part to a boost in iron ore prices, his first two years of his government enjoyed the first budget surpluses in over a decade. Additionally, Albanese has strengthened Australian support for Ukraine and eased tensions with China over trade relations.

The 2022 federal election saw a stunning rebuke of the governing centre-right Coalition under Scott Morrison which saw the Liberal Party lose a dozen affluent inner city 'Blue Ribbon' heartland seats to 'Teal' independents and the Greens; and a Labor majority government was elected. This result was largely seen as a repudiation of the Liberal Party's gradual drift towards right wing political views. So with their PM disgraced and much of the party's best frontbenchers wiped out, the Coalition in opposition has turned to former Queensland Police officer and hard-right conservative Peter Dutton for electoral salvation, aiming for the outer suburban seats of major cities as a pathway back to power. It is worth mentioning that Dutton was a key orchestrator in the downfall of moderate Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, so this choice for leader was made both out of a lack of credible alternatives and a signal of the party's further rightward shift.

The key issue for voters this election is inflation. If you did a drinking game for every time somebody said "Cost of living crisis" you will have probably died of alcoholic poisoning many months ago. As a result, this election has been rather disappointing for policy wonks, with both parties promising somewhat populist policies and limited ambition, with the notable exceptions being Labor's home battery rebates and Peter Dutton's highly contentious nuclear energy policy. Labor has been promising further funding boosts to Medicare and education while the Coalition is promising to gut the fuel excise tax.

Peter Dutton has been haunted by many things in his messy election campaign, with many gaffes and spectacular major policy backflips which has resulted in the polls increasingly favouring the Labor Party. This has been made even worse by an underwhelming Coalition frontbench which keeps undermining him from behind, with Jacinta Price going full MAGA and another frontbencher saying Russia and China prefer Albanese.

First Canada, now Australia within a week. God save the King?! 🫢

– Watch ABC News Live

The ABC is Australia's foremost public broadcaster. Additionally, this will be the last ever election night coverage by Antony Green, who for the past 34 years has been the ABC's chief election analyst and one of Australia's best political treasures.

– Live ABC News update feed

– Full results here

– Detailed analysis preview of the election

– Preview for the key seats up for election.

Polls close at 6pm AEDT on the eastern states.