Squiz Shortcuts - The Aussie federal election: Setting the scene

Your Shortcut to… The Aussie federal election: Setting the scene

An election has been called and it's game on for the political parties and independent candidates across Australia. And it's game on for you - the voter - as you seek to make sense of things and decide who's best to take the reins of our federal government for the next 3 years. Over the coming weeks, we're going to prod and probe the big issues and policies, and we're keen to get your questions too... To start with, we're going to help you to:

• understand what the Albanese Labor Government needs to do to hang onto power

• and what it will take to get the Coalition over the line

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Let’s start at the beginning. How does it all work?
So this is a standard general election. All 150 seats in the lower house, the House of Representatives, are up for grabs with the winners scoring a 3 year term. Whoever wins a majority in the House of Reps - or cobbles together enough support from others - wins the election and can form a government. Then there’s the Senate…

What happens with the Senate?
Forty of the 76 seats in the upper house, the Senate, are also up for election. Those who are successful there will get a 6 year term. But it's in the House of Representatives that the government is decided. 

Why is that?
It's considered to be the people's house with each of the 150 seats representing an electorate of about 110-125,000 voters. That formula is applied across each state or territory so each MP represents about the same number of Australians. When it comes to deciding who should lead the country, the party with the most members gets to form the government - and that's seen as representative of what most voters across the nation want.

Got it. How are Senators elected?
That works very differently. All states are equally represented in the Senate regardless of population. Each state elects 12 senators, and the ACT and NT elect 2 each. But there are some who believe that's not fair because Tassie, with around 400,000 voters, gets the same number of Senators as NSW, and it has more than 5.5 million voters... 

What’s your main mission as a Senator?
Your primary task is to represent your state. Of course, that's not necessarily top of mind for most of our senators, because they’re representing their political parties... But there are some who take a more traditional interpretation of the role, and they're usually independents or from smaller parties.

Got it. So what will it take for each party to win this coming election?
To state the obvious, the Labor Party is in government - that happened when Anthony Albanese and his team beat Scott Morrison in 2022. Here’s a fun fact for you: if he wins, PM Albanese will be the first Prime Minister to win a second election on the trot since John Howard. 

That’s going back a while…
It was a turbulent 15 years in Aussie politics during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd-Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison period... But Albanese can certainly claim that he's broken that pattern. He's the longest standing leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party in some time, having been in the job for nearly 6 years. And now he and deputy leader Richard Marles are hoping to secure a second term in government.

Now that you mention it, how did the 2022 election pan out?
So Labor beat the Coalition, but it wasn't by a landslide. Labor squeaked across the line - you need 76 seats for a majority, and Albanese won 77 seats in 2022. That's important to clock because Labor doesn't have much of a buffer coming into this election.

Clocked. Why does it need a buffer? 
The past 3 years have been tough, particularly for the economy. A swing against the incumbents is possible - in fact, it's likely, as it is for all incumbents. But that doesn't mean the Coalition is home and hosed.

Where does the Coalition stand?
Last election, Team Morrison lost 19 seats, but only 9 of those went to Labor. The rest went to the Greens, which picked up 3, while 7 were taken by independent candidates. And not only that, the Coalition has more than 20 seats that they hold with a margin of less than 5%, which means they're considered marginal.

So where does that leave the state of play?
It means the Coalition will have to work hard to keep hold of those seats at this election. So with all those independents and Greens and the slim Labor majority, Liberal leader Peter Dutton and the Coalition will need to win an additional 22 seats…

Is that a big ask?
It’s a huge ask. So to give you a comparison, when Tony Abbott and the Coalition won from opposition in 2013, they had a gain of 19 seats and a swing towards them of 3.6%. So as we mentioned, Dutton needs 22 seats and a swing of 5.6% to win a majority in the House of Reps.

What about Labor?
For Labor, a swing against it of less than 1% puts them in a minority government position. That’s being talked about a lot as a real possibility this election…

What will that mean?
It means we’ll be in hung parliament territory - that’s when neither of the major parties make it to the 76 seat or more position. And then it's up to the parties to negotiate with the cross bench to form a government. And just to hammer home the point, we currently have the largest lower house crossbench in Australia’s post-war history.

What's the convention there - if there's no majority for either major party is it all up for grabs?
It depends on the result. If Labor loses a small handful of votes, they'll be able to get enough support to continue in government pretty easily. The Greens will support them - even though PM Anthony Albanese says he doesn't want their support... And there are other independents who are more aligned with Labor than the Coalition who will guarantee them support. 

Why doesn’t Albanese want the support of the Greens?
Essentially they’re after the same voters - those whose political values fall left of centre. So they’re competitors, and in this campaign, Albanese is doing all he can to tell voters not to vote Green because it puts seats his party holds at risk.

So will Labor work with the Greens?
Well, there's a difference between doing deals - which Albanese says he absolutely won't do - and getting support... The fact is, the Greens aren't going to support the Coalition in the federal parliament, so while deals might not be on the table, when it comes down to it, Labor has the Greens’ support on most things. It's one of those weird dances that we do each election, and here we are again - but this time it's consequential because of that huge number of crossbench MPs. 

Ok, what if the Coalition and Labor win about the same number of seats?
In that case, strap yourself in… In 2010, that was the situation with Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott. It took 2 weeks to negotiate, and in the end there were 3 independents who guaranteed Gillard and Labor their support for that term of government. This time around, given the last election result where there was a lot of support for independents, there's heaps of scenarios that could pan out. And for politics nerds like us, that makes it extra interesting.

Ok, where to next?
For the next 4 weeks we'll dive into the issues and the policies... And we want to reopen Ask The Squiz… So the idea is you email us with your questions about the election and we'll have a go at answering them the following week. We did it last election, and we really enjoyed it, so let's go…

What’s the email address?
It’s [email protected] - send us your questions about the election, politics, how the government works - whatever’s on your mind, and we'll pick the top few to answer next week.

Bring on 3 May…
We’re here for it - and for you.

Onto our Recommendations

Ask the Squiz: Send us your questions about the election to [email protected]. You can ask us anything about politics, how the government works, whatever’s on your mind, and we'll pick the top few to answer next week.

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