This article's lead section may be too long.(January 2026) |
The Australian Labor Party won the 2025 federal election in a landslide, securing 94 of 150 seats in the House of Representatives, while the Coalition won 43 seats. In the aftermath of the election, the National Party of Australia twice withdrew from its coalition agreement with the Liberal Party, most notably in January 2026 when all Nationals frontbenchers resigned following a dispute over the government's hate speech laws, describing the relationship as “untenable.” [1] [2]
The Australian Electoral Commission classifies seats as marginal, fairly safe or safe based on the winning party's two-candidate-preferred vote: less than 56% is classified as marginal, 56–60% as fairly safe, and more than 60% as safe. [3]
The Mackerras pendulum, devised by Australian psephologist Malcolm Mackerras, is a method for analysing elections in two-party, Westminster-style lower house systems such as the Australian House of Representatives. Seats held by the government, the opposition and the crossbenches are ordered by their two-candidate-preferred (2CP) margin, representing the uniform swing required for each seat to change hands. Under the assumption of a uniform swing, the pendulum can be used to estimate the number of seats likely to change hands between elections.