Nominations declared – the statistical wrap-up

Nominations were declared at midday yesterday across Australia, but it took all afternoon to slowly get a sense of the candidate figures. I hope everyone found my live blog helpful, as I attempted to summarise as many seats as we could find data for. I ended up collating about 60 seats just before the AEC published their full dataset.

I expect it will take most of the weekend to collate websites for candidates and then add that up-to-date information to each seat guide, so please be patient. In the meantime, this post will summarise the key statistics – how many candidates are running, for what parties, and how do the sizes of the ballot papers compare to recent history?

First up, the House of Representatives. The total number of candidates was 1126, which is the third highest number ever. This is down from the record number of 1203 in 2022. However it’s worth noting that there is one fewer electorate than there was in 2022. The average number of candidates per electorate has dropped slightly from 7.97 to 7.51. While the number has dropped slightly, overall I have to assess the size of ballot papers in the House of Representatives as being mostly stable dating back to 1998. Since 1998, only one election stands out as having fewer candidates, which was the 2010 election.

Labor and the Greens are the only parties to run in all 150 seats. The Coalition is running in 157 seats, which means there are 7 Liberal vs Nationals races. Six of these seats are in South Australia and Western Australia, where the Nationals are not really part of the federal Coalition: Bullwinkel, Durack, Forrest, O’Connor, Barker and Grey. The only seat with a Liberal vs Nationals contest on the east coast is in Bendigo. This compares to just four three-cornered contests in 2022. That year saw the WA and SA Nationals each run in only one seat, while the Liberals and Nationals faced off against each other in two Victorian seats.

One Nation is running in 147 seats, seemingly making a conscious decision to not bother with the three ACT electorates. Trumpet of Patriots is next, with 100 candidates. This is down on the 151 for the United Australia Party in 2022, but also the 61 candidates for the Federation Party, which eventually was renamed to TOP.

The Libertarians are also running fewer candidates, down from 100 to 46. Legalise Cannabis only ran in one seat in 2022, but are now running in 42. They have now eclipsed the AJP as the next most significant left-leaning minor party after the Greens. The AJP ran in 47 seats in 2022, but are only running in 18 now.

There has been a surge in independent candidates after the remarkable result of 2022. That year, 98 independents contested House seats, pretty much stable with the 97 candidates of 2019. But this year the number is up to 132.

As always I have tried to break down the gender of candidates and I have identified 717 men, 403 women, three non-binary candidates and three unknown. There may be others who identify as non-binary. Please let me know if I’ve missed someone. The unknown candidates are Bin Liu for the AJP and Leslie Ralph and Lindsay Bell for One Nation.

This means the proportion of women running in the House has gone down from a high of 38.1% in 2022 to just 35.9% in 2025.

I don’t think this dip in numbers should necessarily be seen as a sign that the number of women in parliament will go backwards – there are a lot more right-wing minor party candidates and those parties tend to run less women. But pretty much none of those people will win. It would be interesting at some point to look at the actual winnable candidates to get a more accurate sense of who might win.

The Greens again are running almost 50/50, but Labor this time is actually running 54% women, up from 2022. TOP, One Nation and the Libertarians are very male-dominated, with 19-25% of their candidates women. Family First has a lot more women, running 41.3% women. 30.6% of Coalition candidates are women.

While Animal Justice has traditionally run a lot of women, only 24% of Legalise Cannabis candidates are women.

The proportion of independents who are women has also gone down, to 35.6% from 45% in 2022. But the ones who are more likely to win are still overwhelmingly female.

So which seats had the biggest ballot papers? Five seats have more than ten candidates. Not a single one is a classic marginal seat, although Cowper and Calwell are a bit interesting this time.

13 candidates are running in Calwell and Riverina, 12 in McPherson, and eleven in Cowper and Page.

On the other hand, there are only four candidates in Bean, Fenner, Perth and Maribyrnong. There were no four-candidate races in 2022.

The most common ballot sizes are in the 6-8 range, which was also true at most recent elections.

So how about ballot papers in the Senate? There we’ve seen a big decline, seemingly an ongoing consequence of the change in electoral system in 2016. We’ve seen a number of tiny minor parties deregister or merge, and we’ve also seen some right-wing minor parties running in coalition in the same group. There is no longer the same incentive to set up a front party and run everywhere.

There was a significant reduction in ballot sizes between 2019 and 2022, but that hasn’t stopped a further cut in 2025. New South Wales now has the smallest ballots it has had since 1996, with Victoria and Queensland not much bigger. The only jurisdiction to not experience a shrinking of the ballot is the NT, where ballots are already relatively small.

What about the parties running for the Senate?

Labor, the Greens and Sustainable Australia are running everywhere. The Coalition is running a single unified ticket in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and the NT, and the Liberals are the sole Coalition outlet in Tasmania and the ACT. In Western Australia and South Australia, the more independent-minded Nationals are running their own ticket.

If you just look at the six state races, six other parties are running a full slate: Legalise Cannabis, Libertarian, Citizens Party, One Nation, Trumpet of Patriots, and Animal Justice.

Australia’s Voice is running in the five mainland states, and Fusion is also running in five states. Family First, Gerard Rennick’s People First and the Jacqui Lambie Network are each running in four states. Interestingly the JLN isn’t running a single House candidate.

There is also a new development that is interesting on the right wing. A number of minor right parties have formed joint tickets, using a feature of electoral law usually only used by the Liberals and Nationals. The Libertarians are running a joint ticket with HEART (formerly Informed Medical Options) in the ACT and NSW. HEART is also running in a support rule with People First in Victoria and the Great Australian Party in QLD, while Katter’s Australian Party is supporting Gerard Rennick as a #2 candidate in Queensland. KAP are not heading up any ticket across the country.

I should note that for the purposes of my election guides I will only post the names of candidates ranked below #1 for Labor and the Coalition. For everyone else, I’ll only bother with the lead candidates.

So the final question is, how many parties are running overall? While House ballot papers have not shrunk much, the number of parties using up those candidate slots has shrunk significantly.

In 2022, 34 parties contested the House and 37 contested the Senate. Those numbers have dropped to 25 and 28.

This is not a bad thing. The number of parties in Australia proliferated in the era of group ticket voting, and some consolidation is good news. I don’t know how much further these numbers will drop. I would say that it may well be a better thing to have more parties running fewer candidates in the House, but Senate races with a smaller number of clear choices is likely to make voting easier and make the choices clearer.

That’s it for now. As I’ve previously explained, it will take some time to collate all of the information before I do one last update of candidates on my election guide. Once that’s done, I won’t be making any more changes. So if you want your website included, get in touch now.

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