section_path: Abstract
section_name: Abstract
paragraph_text: The 2025 Australian federal election was held on Saturday, 3 May 2025, to elect members of the 48th Parliament of Australia. All 150 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election, along with 40 of the 76 seats in the Senate. The Albanese Labor government was elected for a second term in a landslide victory over the opposition Liberal–National Coalition, led by Peter Dutton. Labor secured its highest-ever seat count in the House of Representatives, with 94 seats — the most in the party's history and the most seats ever won by a political party in an Australian election (tying with the Coalition's win in the 1996 election). The victory was larger than expected from the opinion polling released shortly before the election, which had predicted a substantially narrower Labor victory or minority government.
  
  The election marked the fourth time in Australian history that a government secured at least ninety House of Representatives seats (after 1975, 1996 and 2013), and the first time this feat had been achieved by a single party. The re-elected Labor government also became the first returning government to retain every one of its seats since Harold Holt 's Coalition victory in 1966.
  
  The pertinent issues throughout the campaign were the cost of living, energy policy, housing, healthcare and defence. The Coalition campaigned on building seven nuclear power plants over 20 years and repealing tax cuts from the March budget, while Labor promised to build 1.2 million new homes and a 20% reduction in current tertiary student loan debt. Both parties proposed increases in defence spending.
  
  The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) projected a second term for Labor within two and a half hours of east coast polls closing. Dutton conceded defeat shortly after 9:30 pm AEST on election night, announcing that he had called Albanese to congratulate him on Labor's re-election. Labor increased its parliamentary majority by gaining seats from incumbents on both flanks of the political spectrum, taking seats from the Liberals and the Greens. The Coalition suffered a large swing against them, particularly in urban areas. The Liberal Party, the Coalition's senior party, suffered its worst federal result in terms of vote share and seats since its formation in 1944. Liberal leader Peter Dutton lost his own seat of Dickson to Labor candidate Ali France, the first time an opposition leader had been defeated in their own seat. The Greens primary vote remained steady, though the party lost three of their four seats in the House of Representatives, including that of their leader Adam Bandt, who lost his seat of Melbourne to Labor.
  
  In the Senate, Labor increased its share of seats to 28, while the Coalition fell to 27 seats, making Labor the largest bloc in the upper house for the first time since 1984. The Greens returned one senator from each state, leaving the party steady on 11. One Nation doubled its representation in the chamber to 4, winning seats in New South Wales and Western Australia, the first time the party won a seat outside of Queensland in a half-senate election. Jacqui Lambie and David Pocock were re-elected in Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory respectively. The size of the crossbench increased to 21, an increase of 3 since the 2022 election result. As such the Greens occupied sole balance of power for the first time since the 2010 election. Prior to the new Senate's term commencing on 1 July, Greens senator Dorinda Cox defected from the party and joined the Labor Party, increasing Labor's number to 29 and decreasing the Greens figure to 10.
  
  Seventeen days after the election, the Nationals announced they would not renew their coalition agreement with the Liberals, ending the political partnership for the first time in 38 years. This left the Liberal Party as the sole official opposition party with a total of 28 seats with the Nationals taking 15 seats. The crossbench, including the Nationals, grew to 27 seats, the highest in modern Australian political history. The split, however, was short-lived; eight days after the announcement, the two parties reunited and formed a joint shadow ministry following policy agreements on nuclear power, a regional future fund, divestiture powers and regional telecommunications infrastructure.