The results of the 2025 federal election have come in, and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has recorded an unprecedented number of votes.
At the time of writing, 73.82 per cent of votes have been counted. Labor has won 86 seats, with 76 needed to confirm a victory.
The Coalition have won only 39 seats, none of which had flipped from the previous election.
Notably, Coalition leader Peter Dutton lost his seat of Dickson in Queensland to ALP candidate Ali France, who gained 56.5 per cent of the vote at the time of writing. The seat is one which Dutton had previously held with a margin of 1.7 per cent in the last federal election.
The ABC has estimated that the ALP and Coalition have received 55.1 per cent of the vote and 44.9 per cent, respectively, on a two-party preferred basis.
The beginning of election night saw results from Norfolk Island, which hit 6pm local time. This was one hour earlier than the rest of the country, but from then on, it was clear that Labor had a significant advantage.
Independents, such the Teals’ Sophie Scamps and Zali Steggal, have seen a rise in votes, with nine seats won so far. This includes Warringah (NSW) in Sydney’s North Shore and key seat Wentworth (NSW) in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, as well as Nicolette Boele’s seat in the hotly-contended electorate of Bradfield (NSW), which houses the affluent suburbs of Killara, Gordon and Pymble.
The Greens, however, have held only one seat, despite “securing the biggest national vote in our history,” at 11.95%, Greens leader Adam Bandt said. Only one seat, Ryan (QLD), has been retained by the Greens, secured by a swing of 4.2 per cent against the Liberals at the time of writing.
Bandt has not yet had his own seat of Melbourne called in his favour. He is currently leading ALP rival Sarah Witty by around 8,000 votes, though only 60.13 per cent of the vote has been counted. The result is a colossal disappointment for the party, who had held four seats in the electorates of Griffith (QLD), Ryan (QLD), Brisbane (QLD), and Melbourne (VIC) in the Lower House from the 2022 federal election.
The Trumpet of Patriots, a far-right party who spent an estimated $60 million on advertising, failed to gain a single seat in the House of Representatives or the Senate. The party received 1.85 per cent of the total vote. The Party’s leader, mining magnate Clive Palmer, said he ‘was surprised at the anti-Trump sentiment over the last five weeks,’ which he believed harmed the party’s election results.
Meanwhile, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party gained 6.15 per cent of the vote, an increase from 5 per cent at the last election. The increase in support, particularly for the Senate, came after the Coalition listed One Nation above Labor on its how-to-vote cards in some seats, including some where the party was preferenced second.
Despite efforts by the Coalition to unseat the incumbent Labor MP Anne Stanley in the marginal seat of Werriwa, Labor retained the seat with a 2 per cent swing towards her. In the seat of Fowler, Labor was unable to unseat the incumbent Dai Le, a former Liberal turned independent.
Jacinta Allan, Premier of Victoria, called the result a “historic and emphatic outcome for not just the broader Labor movement, but indeed for the nation as a whole.”
Politicians such as Nationals leader David Littleproud and Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price have attributed the landslide defeat of the Coalition to a “mud-slinging” character assassination on Dutton.
One reason likely to have contributed to the defeat was Dutton’s backflip on preventing public servants in Canberra from working from home.
In his victory speech, PM Anthony Albanese gave the Acknowledgement of Country, stating that he pays his respect to elders, past, present, and emerging, “today and every day.” He was the first Prime Minister to give an Acknowledgement of Country. This was said as an implicit response to Dutton’s racist rhetoric towards the Indigenous community that was seen throughout the Liberal campaign.
Albanese continued: “No matter who you voted for, no matter where you live, no matter how you worship or who you love, whether you belong to a culture that has known and cared for this great continent for 65,000 years or you have chosen our nation as your home and enriched our society with your contribution, we are all Australians.”
The ALP has promised the following policies for their second term of government. Echoing the message of their campaign, they will deliver more bulk billing, open new Urgent Care Clinics, train more doctors and nurses, invest more than $790 million in women’s health, and open more endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics. For education, they have promised to wipe 20 per cent of student debt, raising the HECS repayment threshold to $67,000, and expanding free TAFE.
Coalition Leader Peter Dutton conceded the election to a crowd of dismayed Liberals. He acknowledged that “we didn’t do well enough in this campaign, [and] I accept full responsibility for that.”
Dutton dismally lost his seat in Dickson to ALP candidate Ali France, which he had previously held for 24 years. She received 56.6 per cent of the votes, with an 8.2 per cent swing to the ALP.
France previously worked as a journalist and became a world-champion para-athlete after losing her leg in a car accident in 2011. An unprecedented win; the disability and healthcare advocate said: “I was told that Dickson was not winnable, and it would not be winnable until Peter Dutton retired… he was too popular, too well known, he had too much money… I took all of that in and went yeah… nah.”
In a heartfelt speech, she dedicated her victory to her eldest son, Henry, who passed away from leukaemia last year.
The 2025 federal election has shown that Australians have decisively rejected the Coalition’s conservative rhetoric. However, if Labor wishes to prove themselves as the party of the people, they still have a long road ahead of them. The question still remains whether Albanese and the Labor Party will be able to take decisive action on the crises that face Australia and the world.
