The 2025 Australian Federal Election is in theory the hardest to predict the result for, since the 1906 Federal Election. The reason for this is the same though. Before 1910 when the two big massive flocks of political groups starting flying in the same kinds of directions, the Westminster System which is both apathetic and agnostic to the results that it throws up, produced a series of parliaments where the wedge between the two flocks was so big that government was hard to form.
Australia since about the time of Howard, has had an increasing amount of displeasure and distrust in the two big flocks, such that the spread and scope of the wedge has grown. In 2010 when Ms Gillard took Labor to victory, the wedge was smallish but because the two big groups were perfectly poised, it was a crossbench of 4 of 5, which returned the Labor Party to government.
In 1906, the wedge between the Labor Party led by Chris Watson and George Reid's Anti-Socialist Party, was mostly made of former Prime Minister Alfread Deakin's Protectionist Party and former Premier of Western Australia John Forrest who led a party of two. In 2025, the wedge consists of 16 seats.
I have a spreadsheet which by taking the results of the previous election and the results of the NewsPoll, YouGov, and Morgan polls, assumes a uniform swing across the country to determine what the outcome is. The problem with this kind of methodology in 2025 is that it has as it's base assumption that a Two-Party Preferred (2PP) basis is good enough to calculate uniform swing, and then populate the results downwards across the board. The wedge is now so large, and the expected primary vote for both of the two big flocks, that my spreadsheet is now spitting out #DIV/0 errors in 22 seats. That's larger than the wedge, and larger than any possible sensible set of calculations for the result can handle.
So in producing my prediction, I have had to override many of the equations which go into the various cells; then use the 2PP basis to calculate the result, even though I know full well that the result is going to be idiotic. This is a "Garbage In, Garbage Out" set of calculations because the the quality of any output is directly determined by the quality of the input. In this case, even though the equations used to generate a uniform swing calculator are perfect because the data is in essence flawed, the results are also flawed. You can not make a silken purse from a sow's ear.
Be that as it may, this is my prediction for the 2025 Australian Federal Election. I have an 80% success rate for picking Australian Federal Election results in broad terms (definitely not numbers); which I put down to the fact that it becomes really obvious late in the piece as to whom is unelectable.
Labor 79 (+2)
L-NP 64 (+6)
Green 1 (-3)
Other 6 (-5)
I think that the Liberal Party in particular will claw back seats from the Greens and the Teals, but I doubt that even a single Labor held seat will flip from red to blue. 27 seats did not even come close to finishing as winnable contests in 2022 and ironically, given that the wedge of votes is getting wider, I think that that hard core unswingable base will only grow on both sides. I think that Bennelong is the seat that will flip back to red and that Eden-Monaro will retain its status as bellwether. Kennedy will remain Bob Katter's seat. Warringah will remain Zali Steggal's seat. Dr Helen Haines will remain as Member for Indi.
If there is going to be any surprise on the night, it will be if Peter Dutton is so on the nose that he loses his seat of Dickson. Nominally it would take a swing of 1.5% to displace him which is less than 1700 votes. He might survive because of name recognition or fall precisely because of that same thing.
What would be really weird is if the wedge proves to be massive and blue at the same time. If the wedge is bigger than 9% across the country, then as many as 43 seats could be in play; which means that government might swing on the basis of 3rd and 4th preferences. There is a remote possibility that Ali France wins the seat of Dickson for Labor but the Labor Party loses. If that happens, then there is a chance that Peter Dutton would be given the commission as Prime Minister but with no seat, and then either win a seat in a by-election or take up a seat in the Senate upon the resignation of a Liberal Party sacrifice.
Always the ticking time bomb in the background is Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2025-2026; which currently has a status of "Not Proceeding" and "Lapsed at dissolution" upon 28th Mar 2025. As it was introduced on 25th Mar 2025, then the six months given for the Senate to reject or fail to pass it, ends on 26th Sep 2025.
This means that the weirdest possible timeline of all is a Labor Government, with Peter Dutton as Leader of the Opposition from the Senate, blocking the budget, to send us back to the polls in October or November.
I think that the most likely scenario is either the Labor Party winning majority with a margin of 3 or less, or having to negotiate with the big wedge, hoping to scrobble about for the 2 or 3 seats necessary for a majority on the floor to secure supply and confidence.
Ho and Hum.
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