We’re less than two weeks away from nominations closing for the federal election – nominations will close on Thursday 10 April, and will be announced the next day.
Yesterday I made a bunch of updates to my list of House of Representatives candidates, and have now finished updating each of my election guides with the new lists.
At the moment my list contains 731 candidates. 133 House members are running for re-election, 17 are retiring and one is running for the Senate. One senator (who is not up for re-election this year) is running for the House.
It turns out I did a similar update at about the same point in the last federal election cycle, and at the time 878 candidates were on my list.
The 2022 election went on to have the biggest ever field of candidates in the House of Representatives, with 1203 candidates. One interesting factor in 2022 is that the number of parties nominating candidates dropped from 38 to 34, but the ballot papers still got bigger thanks to a small number of minor parties running very large numbers of candidates.
It seems likely that there will be another significant drop in the number of parties nominating candidates in 2025 – so far I have identified House candidates from 20 parties, and only 32 parties are now registered.
Labor has so far announced 139 candidates, and the Greens have announced 132. There are 145 Coalition candidates running in 140 seats. The Liberals and Nationals are running against each other in five seats, but only one in a state where the Nationals regularly win federal seats. That seat is Whitlam in NSW. The Nationals and Liberals are also both running in Barker, Bendigo, Bullwinkel and Grey. It appears that every seat missing a Coalition candidate is a Liberal seat.
The lists of seats where the big parties have not yet run candidates are perfect examples of those parties’ weakest areas, although I am confident they will end up running full tickets:
- Labor – Barker, Goldstein, Grey, Kooyong, Maranoa, Mitchell, Nicholls, O’Connor, Page, Parkes, Wide Bay.
- Liberal – Chifley, Fowler, Fraser, Gellibrand, Griffith, Oxley, Rankin, Scullin, Sydney, Watson
- Greens – Barker, Bennelong, Cook, Farrer, Flynn, Fowler, Grey, Herbert, Hughes, La Trobe, Lalor, Lindsay, Lingiari, Maranoa, Mayo, Nicholls, Solomon, Werriwa
As far as other minor parties, I have found 71 Family First candidates, 56 One Nation candidates, 37 Trumpet of Patriots candidates and 26 Libertarian candidates. Based on recent history, I expect a few of these parties to make a last-minute push to run in most or all seats. One Nation had 57 candidates revealed at this point in 2022, yet ended up running in all but one seat.
I have noticed a number of One Nation candidates churning and then emerging as independents. Cody Scholes was a One Nation candidate in the SA seat of Barker but is now running as independents. Leigh Burns and Robert Stuckey were running for Chifley and Greenway, yet have now re-emerged as independents, and have swapped seats. Their Facebook page indicates they are running as a team.
49 candidates that were on my list eight days before nominations closed ended up not making the ballot, so I expect a number of these candidates to likewise fail to nominate, for whatever reason.
So far I have identified 67 independent candidates, which is slightly more than at this point in 2022. About half of these candidates appear to be some flavour of “teal”, but I won’t try and rigidly define them.
The average number of candidates per seat is 4.87. Mitchell and O’Connor only have two candidates announced. Both seats only have Liberal and Greens candidates.
The seats of Fadden and Riverina each have nine candidates announced. That is already more than the number of candidates who stood in those seats in 2022.
Just over 42% of announced candidates are women. This would be a substantial increase on the 38% of candidates who were women in 2022, but that number was also higher the week before nominations closed. Quite a few men nominated at the last minute, driving the number down from 42% to 38%. I suspect the same may happen this year.
Which senator is running on the lower house?
@David Anne Urqhart is running for the seat of Braddon.
What do think about what’s happening with the McMahon candidates? Should Bowen be worried?
wats happening?
I think Bowen should be worried. Ex ALP councilor means she could take ALP swingers. Being assyrian could help as well. It is also a progressive area and might prefer a female member.
Being on council will show she at least knows the local issues.
while he may some skin i cant see this flipping to the libs. the only hope they really have is carbone running.
Anyone confused about Dutton wanting the airport link for Melbourne as a priority but wont improve Sunbury station which is essential to the link?
That’s a state responsibility.
Clive Palmer said that there’ll be Trumpet of Patriots candidates in all seats.
I’m surprised that there aren’t any JLN candidates for lower house seats in Tasmania. They’re vital for senator JL if she wants to get re-elected.
I read that ToP wants to cap home loan interest rates at 3%. This is economic voodoo more absurd than anything I’ve heard from The Greens.
What else are they running on? Their website doesn’t even have a policy or platform section.
Will there be a Liberal Candidate for Tony Burkes seat of Watson?. Have the Liberal party forgotten to put in nominations to run a candidate just like the local council elections or is it that they just don’t care about the voters of Watson and would prefer to give the seat away to labor and the Greens without contesting it. It appears The LNP will lose this election by their own making.
Yes of course there will be one. These parties will all run in every seat.
And if they lose the election it won’t have anything to do with Watson.
Agree Ben, Watson is a safe seat that the Liberals are highly unlikely to win (even in a landslide election). It has been Labor held for its entire existence and was not even marginal (below 5%) during the strong Coalition victories of 1996 and 2013.
An erosion of the margin to below 10% is likely to occur this time, possibly making it marginal (below 5%) if an independent makes the 2CP count.
Nicholas, the clue is in the name: Trumpet of Patriots echoes Donald Trump and Elon Musk. They have issued multiple press releases that ended with:
‘Mr Palmer confirmed Trumpet of Patriots would adopt many of the policies of US President Donald Trump and drain the Swamp in Canberra by running candidates in the House of Representatives and the Senate at the next election.
“Australia needs Trump-like policies which only Trumpet of Patriots can deliver,” Mr Palmer said.’
On the policy you heard about, the Trumpet of Patriots website doesn’t specify capping just home loan interest rates at 3%, but in two places states their policy is to cap the interest rate in order for homes to become more affordable. In one of this places, it says: “Australia’s balance sheet and financial rating could be leveraged to cap interest rates at 3%, preventing thousands of Australians from losing their homes.”
So the official press releases doesn’t make it clear if they are targeting home loan interest rates and banks or seeking to lower the interest rate more broadly.
More details can be provided about their policy platform if specifics are desired, but ‘wanting to be the Australian Trump’ seems to sum it up.