For the final blog post of 2025, I wanted to look at a question that has come up regularly in the comments, and on psephological websites: how meaningful is the two-party-preferred vote, particularly in “teal” seats where Labor isn’t locally competitive, yet is either winning or coming close to winning the two-party-preferred vote.
There has been a lot of conversation recently about implementing fixed four-year terms for the federal Parliament, with Anthony Albanese indicating support and some reporting that Don Farrell, the special minister of state, is considering whether to move on the issue.
Recent reporting, and my own experience, indicates that the federal Labor government is seriously considering an expansion in the size of the Australian federal parliament, echoing the previous expansions in 1948-49 and 1983-84. But they are yet to commit to the issue.
A lot of people would love to know how the electoral map would change if the parliament was expanded.
We’ve already been able to get some idea of what might happen by looking back at the historical experience from the 1948-49 and 1983-84 expansions. But the political system has changed since 1984, as has the map.
Ben was joined this week by Osmond Chiu, Per Capita research fellow and contributor editor for the Labor Left magazine Challenge, to discuss the factions of the Australian Labor Party.
Read Osmond’s 2020 piece in Jacobin on the history of Labor’s factions.
There has been a clear trend in recent federal polling – One Nation has been gaining ground, seemingly at the expense of the Coalition. We’ve now reached a point where One Nation are regularly polling in the mid-teens. If they were to achieve such an election result, it would be the highest vote share polled by a minor party in a federal election under the modern party system, in excess of the best results for the Greens or the Democrats.
The Electoral Matters Committee of the Victorian Parliament yesterday brought down the final report for their inquiry into Victoria’s upper house electoral system.
Ben was joined by Sarah Cameron from Griffith University, to discuss the results of the 2025 Australian Election Study, including Peter Dutton’s unpopularity, foreign policy, voter dealignment, and how the vote splits by gender, generation and whether people own their own home.
6:00 – Polls have just closed for the by-election for the state seat of Hinchinbrook in the north of Queensland.
I will be doing a few updates through the night and may decide to do a video for Instagram and Tiktok later tonight, but I don’t expect it to be the most intense election night.
If you’re looking for something to read while you wait for results to come in, you can check out my guide.
Ben was joined by Michael Evangelidis from GovConnex to discuss the factions of the Liberal Party of Australia – how fluid they are, how they work from the branch level to federal and state party rooms, and how the factions have changed in recent years.