While shifting prepoll patterns may mitigate some of the more local/lower sample size results we're looking at now, and where a handful of key seats remain in doubt, the Australian electoral picture is pretty stark.
Labor has won a landslide victory from a 2.1% swing to it on primaries - and apparently all of that has come from coalition voters, who have also apparently leaked votes to the right via One Nation, who appear to have further benefited by picking up the dwindling Trumpeteers vote.
The 2.1% swing to the ALP on primaries becomes a 3.3% swing in two party preferred terms, so the ALP has also picked up a significantly higher % of the growing minor/independent/other preference vote since 2022.
The party has picked up between 6-8 seats in Queensland (4-6 from the LNP), finally breaking through the Liberals' seemingly impregnable northern fortress.
Labor is set to even pick up Deakin and Casey from the Liberals in Victoria, where a supposedly all-engulfing tidal-wave of disaffection against the Allan giovernment was going to to propel Dutton into government. Labor actually achieved a 1% swing in Victoria, almost all of it directly from Liberal voters.
ALBANESE SHIFTS THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
The scale of what Albanese has achieved cannot be understated.
It was really only 5 years ago that it seemed like federal politics in this country had a permanent structural bias to the center right, but Albanese has peeled that apart by sectorally targeting key demographics to hive off from the Liberals, aided by the party's inherent woefulness and dogmatic adherance to values that are out of touch with those of ordinary Australians.
The Liberals' housing pitch was always hopelessly inadequate to address the problem. The perception that the Liberals have become the "party of Boomers" - which is actually now a data-based reality, is both evidence and cause to the fact that their utterly inconsequential (or worse, probably even ineffective) housing policy has undooubtedly cost them the votes of the very large number of Australians for whom the housing issue was front and center at this election.
And how can you consequently claim to be the "party of economic management", when your policy is to deliberately refuse to manage the greatest economic challenge in a generation?
It will be interesting to see whether Labor's evident success in paring Chinese-Australians away from their historic LNP voting patterns will be permanent once the opposition is not headed by Peter Dutton, but it's soothing for the soul to be able to state that his native reversion to race-baiting as a political tactic, which was once going to propel his party into government on a khaki election over China has wound up with the man himself ignominiously exiting Parliament and the loss of basically everything in metropolitan Melbourne.
The coalition's campaign in Victoria has been utterly inexplicable and amounted to little more than "here's a picture of Jacinta Allan, you know what to do ..." on rinse and repeat.
To have wound up at the finishing line of a Federal election right at the end of the Parliamentary cycle with no headline policy other than culture wars dressed up as a poorly thought-through and poorly explained nuclear policy.
Kos Samaras summed up the party's predicament well on the ABC last night in saying that there is uteloads of disaffection with the current direction the country is perceived to be taking in outer suburban electorates, but even after 3 years of saying this election was to be all about a pitch to these people, the pitch fell flat and these areas actually wound up swinging TO the ALP.
And why? Because the Liberal party does not have any native empathy with these people - they were constantly tripping over themselves back and forth trying to make a pitch to them in culture wars terms, but the dimensions that fundamentally matter to most of these people are economic.
And the coalition has in its DNA, a pro-business approach to the sorts of economic issues that actually matter to people - qv their flip flopping on working from home, on tax cuts pitched to this sector, etc.
In short the problem is less the awful campaign they ran, and more who they actually are (I think that's Kos' point again I'm channeling there).
The real damage that the Teals have done to the Liberal party can be measured not merely in the loss of seats and their near representative expulsion from almost every capital city in the country, the damage comes as much from the loss of mostly centrist, urban, non-slavering ideologue, actually-presentable-to-normal-people candidates - the sorts of politicians who actually develop POLICY during opposition periods rather than try and light culture wars.
The party has very quickly transformed into a weird, misshapen, emptied out husk populated by deeply odd individuals whose worldviews simply do not align with the small-l liberal centrist posture that's held by the elctorate.
The Nationals have held all their seats, and are even a chance of picking up Bendigo, while the Liberals have lost probably 12 seats, so the Nats will wind up being about 1/3 of the caucus, up from their already historically high 20% in 2022.
So the coalition are giong to be even more beholden than ever to the very different set of agendas pushed by the Nationals on climate and evironment, and you really wonder how they are ever going to pull off an electoral act walking both sides of the street to their urban vs their rural constituencies.
And now will come the calls once more from the think-tankies and the after-darkers for the party to double down on a hard right economic and social agenda, once again in complete defiance of the actual election results, and if those calls are heeded, rolled gold Albanese will have laid the ground for over a decade of Labor in power, and what we're looking at today will be looked back on as a historic fulcrum.
Who wants to bet the Liberals now proceed to willingly choose that outcome?
VOTERS DECLARE LABOR THE WINNER OF HOUSING WARS
Relatedly, it does seem that younger voters may have actually declared a winner in the housing battle between the Greens and the ALP.
The Greens obstinacy on this issue was always a stupid play that reeked of "old party" politics, as did some of their more ham-fisted grandstanding on Palestine - an issue which their Parliamentarians have prosecuted poorly.
If you're going to wade into the Middle East conflict without a deep understanding of the situation or its nuances, you're not going to speak with the sort of authority that will enable you to carry people with you.
Jenny Leong's "tentacles" comment was an indication of just how such unreadiness will always find you out.
Greens parliamentarians mostly sounded either naif or shrill when they went anywhere near the topic.
As in every respect, the Palestinians could frankly do with some more capable supporters.
The Greens lost suport in some critical target seats, and gained it in places with a strong Muslim population like Bruce and Fraser, but where they are never going to have a chance of actually winning.
After all those millions in dollars spent on anti-Greens advertising (much of it was mysteriously pitched at me in terms that expressed how awesome all their policies were), their vote is apparently down by 0.3%, but it has experienced significant churn.
MUSLIM VOTES DO MATTER
(BUT TO LABOR?)
The Muslim Votes Matter and related campaigns have hurt Labor, where Wills now sits on a knife edge, with a 4% swing against Labor in 2pp terms.
Even if the Greens miss out here this time, it will be so marginal that it will remain highly in play as long as this dynamic holds.
In Bruce, the Greens saw a 2.6% swing, and a 1.9% swing in Sturt, where they're now only 1.7% away from relegating the Libs to 3rd place, but they're zero chance of ever winning Bruce, and Sturt only if the Libs ever start preferencing them again.
In Blaxland, Labor copped a 5.1% swing against with Independent Ahmed Ouf sitting on a 21% primary.
In Watson, Tony Burke saw a 4.6% swing against, with Independent Ziad Bsyouny on a 15% primary.
Both are still safe Labor, but it would have been a very closely run story had the Liberals preferenced the independent candidates ahead of the ALP, so these results should not be taken for granted.
The hope is that this might prompt the party to be more proactive in standing up for Mulim communities in the face of the constant racist gaslighting in the media and more broadly which has gone largely uncountered by anyone in the government, and in many cases has been actively enabled.
The expectation is something more muted.
The unfortunate thing for the Palestinians is that while they will always be to the Liberals a totemic wedge issue, in what is still an overwhelmingly 2 party system there are very few lower house seats in which they are liable to get an advocate elected.
Because unfortunately almost all the seats where their advocate communities have the highest representation have long been held by Labor on whopping margins, and Julian Hill has just turned his "marginal" into a fortress to boot.
There will be an internal push to have the party recognise a Palestinian state within the course of this term, and unfotunately Albo has already given that short shrift.
That stance needs to change. For moral as much as electoral reasons.
MIXED GREENS
The Greens are currently sitting 0.1% down - so basically a par, but the profile of where there votes are coming from has changed significantly.
They've lost ground in some core constiuencies, and gained it mostly in places where they were never a realistic chance at the seat.
At the time of writing, they appear likely to retain Melbourne and Ryan after serious scares, and remain a real chance to pick up Wills, but have lost both Brisbane and Griffith to the ALP, however only in the latter did the party suffer an appreciable swing against.
What has hurt the greens' representation most has been the strong swing to the ALP from the LNP, which enabled Labor to push ahead of the Greens in the critical 3 way seats of Bribane and Griffith.
But there is clearly a large degree of churn factor in where the Greens votes are coning from vs 2022.
They appear to have swung a large number of Mulsim voters in line with the preferencing of the Muslim Votes Matter campaign, but the only place this has helped them is in Wills.
And their stance on housing issues appears to have hurt them in many target seats with their core audience of younger voters, while their vote appears to have held up better in wealthier/boomer-ier seats.
Unless the Liberals change their mind on preferences in future, the Greens can only win a 3 way contest where Labor either runs 3rd or they have a massive primary vote.
On the likely future pendulum, that means a swing against the ALP along the Greens axis has up to 5 potential lower house seats in play for minor party.
Namely Melbourne, Ryan, Wills, Brisbane and Griffith.
But that's the high watermark for the forseeable future, so they were already near that watermark when they held four of them.
One concern will surely become whether they simply have the resources to target so many seats effectively.
They were clearly caught napping on the extent to which they were under threat in Melbourne while their focus was evidently elsewhere, and their overall media spend as reported elsewhere already seemed on the lightweight side.
It would seem prudent to at least leave Richmond and Macnamara off the list of target seats for 2028.
They'd also be well advised to consider the ALP's post-Lindsay Tanner experience in Melbourne and have skilled up quality local candidates ready to go for whenever Albanese and Plibersek decide to call stumps, as there must surely be a dam wall waiting to break in both of those seats without the local member factor.
SUMMARY OF GREENS VOTE PERFORMANCE IN KEY SEATS
2025 FEDERAL ELECTION
Brisbane (QLD)
A 4.5% swing from the coalition to Labor pushed Labor above the Greens in to 2nd spot on Primaries in Brisbane. The Greens vote is down 0.3% which has apparently gone to Labor.
Because the Greens only beat Labor into second by a handful of votes in 2022, this was always going to be impossible fot the Greens to hold if any swing to the ALP from any source was on.
A future 6% swing away from the ALP on primaries to any source would put this seat back in play for the Greens, and that number would be lower depending on how much of that primary were bled to the Greens.
Cooper (VIC)
The Greens have devoted significant resources here in the past but haven't made it a target seat this time around, while the Victorian Socialists gave it a real crack - achieving a swing of 5.9% while the Greens went backwards by 2.5%, it's a 1.3% swing away from the Greens in 2pp terms and the seat remains safe Labor for the forseeable future.
Fraser (VIC)
The Greens turned in a massive 7% swing on primaries in Fraser, which has a large Muslim constituency, but where evidently most of that vote has come from the LIBERAL party, relegating them to a shock third place so the result here would bear some more serious examination of what exactly happened booth by booth.
Regardless the seat remains safe ALP, and the Greens still risk being relegated to 3rd by any future swing back to the Liberal party from Labor.
But Huong Truong must have run a cracking ground game - she is a very capable politican, and the Greens could do a lot worse than serving her up as a future Senator because we're unlikely to ever see her as the Member for Fraser.
Grayndler (NSW)
4.1% swing to Greens.
Maybe the denizens of Grayndler would like to hear some more pro-active advocacy for the Palestinians?
I wonder who the sitting member is, I must look that up ...
Griffith (QLD)
Here again a strong swing from Liberal to Labor propelled the ALP into an easy first place, but here the Greens clearly also suffered a significant swing, down 1.3% - which I think is some testament to how poorly MCM's posturing and blocking over Labor's housing reforms in particular has played out.
You don't need to listen too hard to hear young Australians screaming "do SOMETHING, do ANYTHING, do EVERYTHING" over housing issues, and I really do think the Greens have completely arsed their pitch on this issue by once again being puritanical and over-playing their hand.
"We'll get Labor to Act" isn't much of a pitch after you've spent much of an entire parliamentary term preventing specifically that on such a critical issue.
MacNamara (VIC)
It's a 1.5% swing away from the Greens in Macnamara, which given the sizable Jewish constituency is unsurprising. Labor is now a long way from 3rd place in this seat, and barring any future decision by the Libs to preference the Greens, looks like it is safe Labor for the forseeable future.
The Greens would be well advised to sit this one out as a target seat for the time being, and maybe reading the entrails earlier here would have allowed them to pivot to the focus that Melbourne obviously warranted.
It is some indication that Josh Burns' vote has held up more than adequately amongst Jewish voters, so it seems the anger in that community was coming mostly from the right wing that already voted Liberal anyway.
All of which makes you wonder how much Labor's biased calibration of its responses to issues raised by the middle east cnflict towards pro-Zionist perspectives is a smart long term play - shore up Macnmara to make Wills marginal.
Before you even get to your reciprocal obligations to stand up for communities that have always been rock solid for you in the past.
Melbourne (VIC)
It will be interesting to see how these swings are broken down booth by booth. It seems likely the Greens have fared worse than expected in the new booths south of the river that were inherited from Macnamara in the redistribution.
Bandt plays a very solid local member game, so if he gets over the line again, he'll want to spend a lot of time on his newer constituents, you expect.
He's sitting on a 2.4% swing against currently on primaries above what would normally have been expected from the redistribution, and all of that appears to have gone directly to the ALP.
That swing gows to 5% on preferences, so it's also possible the lack of feeder candidates has also hurt the party. Neither Animal Justice nor the Vic Socialists ran here this time.
But Labor will be solidly bouyed that after the redistribution it is now a genuine contender in its one time bulwark seat again, and housing issues are again very much front of mind for voters in this electorate.
Some indication again that young voters have taken a big stick to incumbent Greens members over housing.
Newcastle (NSW)
A 2.6% swing to Greens and collapsing Liberal vote in this perhaps unlikely location has seen them easily push the Liberals into 3rd place, but they're a long way off being a contender for this safe Labor seat.
Perth (WA)
A 2.3% swing to the Greens but again unless the Liberals change their preference arrangements, the seat remains out of reach for them.
Richmond (NSW)
A small 0..4% swing to the Greens, but again, unless there's a future strong swing away from the ALP towards in this case the National party pushing Labor in to 3rd or a change in Liberal preferences, this seat won't be winnable for the Greens.
Ryan (QLD)
The Greens need to stay ahead of the ALP in second place to win this seat, which current predictions have them doing, but they've suffered a 0.3% swing against, while the ALP picked up 6%.
So depending on the extent to which the ALP is at a high watermark with its 2025 result, this seat will remain permanently in play as an ALP-Greens contest, even though the final contest will always be Liberal vs one of the two.
Sydney (NSW)
In Sydney, the Greens suffered a 1.3% swing against, but most of that was to a new socialist alliance candidate.
Wills (VIC)
We need to wait for the full preference flows, but it seems likely that the ALP's preference deal with Legalise Cannabis may wind up being the key factor preventing Sam Ratnam from taking Wills from Wolverine. We're talking about 2,190 votes in a contest that will likely be decided by a matter of 100s.
Khalil has suffered a 1.2% swing against him on primaries, and the Greens gained 3.6% on primaries and 4% on 2pp.
Wills also saw a 5.8% swing to the Socialist Alliance candidate, and a huge informal vote of over 4%.
Any future swing against Labor federally risks the loss of Wills whilst anger in Muslim comminities against the ALP remains strong.
