Electoral Pendulums

A collection of electoral pendulums

2026 Victorian Election Pendulum

(Update – Three days after this post was published, Jacinta Allan was replaced as Premier by Ben Carroll. The post has been left as originally published.)

Victoria’s state election on 28 November will see voters pass judgment on Premier Jacinta Allen’s unpopular government and 12 years of Labor rule.

Most recent Victorian opinion polls reveal a three-way split of support between Labor, the Coalition and One Nation. Several have reported One Nation with the highest primary vote.

These are extra-ordinary polls in a state where two-party politics has traditionally been strongest and One Nation’s electoral support weakest.

One Nation’s poll ratings are also remarkable given the party has no state leader, no announced state policies, one upper house member and just one lower house candidate.

Were it not for other results this year, I would dismiss One Nation’s ratings as unlikely to hold until November, especially if it doesn’t hurry up and announce a leader.

But polls proved right in predicting One Nation would outpoll the Liberal Party at the South Australian election. The party polled well at the Nepean state by-election in May, and a week later matched expectations by easily winning the Farrer federal by-election.

If current polls prove correct, the result in November will have greater consequences for the course of national politics than any state election in my lifetime.

Australia’s two-sided party system has been around for more than a century. The two major parties have always clustered left and right of the centre. Smaller parties have come and gone, the most significant until now being the Greens who have staked out a significant base to the left of Labor.

Other prominent minor parties, like the DLP and Australian Democrats, lasted two decades and never built a base that could transmit loyalties to another generation. In retrospect, both were parties of transition, pathways for voters to change major party loyalty.

Until now, no new political entrant has threatened the foundations on which Australia’s two-party system is built. But the surge in One Nation support suggests the Coalition is in danger of being supplanted as Labor’s major opponent.

Is the Coalition about to fade away and be replaced by One Nation? Or will the Coalition and One Nation grow closer together and a new type of coalition emerge on the right?

It may sound odd to predict problems for the federal Coalition when it is a deeply unpopular Labor state government facing defeat in Victoria.

But if the Liberal-National Coalition cannot capitalise on Labor’s woes by winning majority government in Victoria, if it is forced into some governing arrangement with One Nation in a state where the party has previously barely rated, then there are consequences across the country.

It raises serious question about the Coalition’s future in states where One Nation has a stronger base. First cab off the rank will be the NSW election next March where optional preferential voting will magnify splits between the Coalition and One Nation.

Under optional preferential voting, parties can’t rely on voters to complete preference sequences. Especially if NSW Labor fills the airwaves with “Just Vote 1” messages. Many Coalition and One Nation voters will exhaust preferences and help deliver a comfortable majority to the Minns Labor government.

One Nation capturing the balance of power in Victoria will force some form of governing arrangement on the Liberal Party and (whatever remains of) the National Party. For the first time One Nation would have a say on who governs a state and how.

To date One Nation has been a powerless crossbench upper house party that chucks metaphorical rocks at government. It will need to learn new ways to behave if the election result draws it closer to the levers of government. Chucking rocks becomes a dangerous pastime from inside the glasshouse of government.

Plus One Nation has a terrible record of keeping its elected members within the party. If instability were to strike while One Nation filled a starring or support role in Victorian government, every failing of the party would be highlighted across the nation by its political opponents.

I’ve seen the pressure of governing splinter third parties before. At the 1996 New Zealand election, a similar populist party to One Nation, Winston Peters’ New Zealand First, won the balance of power. After weeks of negotiation, the party joined with National to form government. Over the next three years New Zealand First splintered, popular slogans mugged by the reality of governing. Its more sensible members were lured away by its coalition partner, the less sensible ostracised.

If the polls prove right, converting a three-way split of primary votes into seats in parliament has a range of possible outcomes. Some could produce a majority Coalition government. If not a majority, the question will be how far short of majority the Coalition finishes and whether a government supported by One Nation is possible.Read More »2026 Victorian Election Pendulum

Electoral Pendulum for 2026 South Australian Election

(Updated 8 December – Schubert Liberal member Ashton Hurn will be elected new Liberal Leader unopposed. Post has been updated with maps colour coded by holding party.)

South Australian Liberal Leader Vincent Tarzia has today resigned citing the pressure of leading the Liberal Party while trying to raise a young family. He still intends to contest his marginal seat of Hartley at the looming state election.

Given Hartley has a margin of only 3.6%, it is hard to see how Tarzia can retain his seat at the state election in March given polls are predicting a double-digit swing to Labor.

Inside this post I have published an electoral pendulum for the state election to be held on 21 March.

The Labor Party easily won the won the 2022 election, ending the one term government of Liberal Premier Steven Marshall.

Labor won 27 of the 47 seats in the House of Assembly. Labor has since gained two more seats at by-elections, winning Steven Marshall’s former seat of Dunstan in March 2023, and Black formerly held by his successor David Spiers in November 2024.

Of the 16 elections since 1970, Labor has won 12 to the Liberal Party’s four. The electoral geography of South Australia has often delivered government to Labor without the party achieving a majority of the two-party preferred vote.

But that wasn’t a problem in 2022 with Labor recording 54.6% of the state-wide two-party preferred vote. It was Labor’s second best result since 1970, bettered only by Mike Rann’s landslide re-election in 2006.

Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas is immensely popular. October’s Demos opinion poll had him leading Tarzia as preferred Premier 58% to 19%. The poll had Labor on 66% of the two-party preferred vote.

If repeated at the state election on 21 March, Malkinauskas will challenge the greatest landslide election record set by former WA Labor Premier Mark McGowan in 2021.

After gaining the seats of two Liberal leaders since 2022, Labor will be keen to add a third in Tarzia’s seat of Hartley. And maybe go for fourth depending on who emerges as the new leader.

On current polling Labor will win every seat on the plain of Adelaide and could even push up into the Adelaide Hills given Labor’s good result in Mayo at the Federal election.

The Liberal Party will do well if it can retain a handful of rural seats. Even in rural areas, the party is facing serious challenges from Independents, and several former Liberal members already sit on the cross bench.

Already Labor seems to be taking the opportunity for generational change, something the party did very well before losing office for a single term in 2018. Five high profile Labor members including several ministers have announced they will retire. Two decade veteran Tony Piccolo will also shift from his safe seat of Light to try and win the Liberal seat of Ngadjuri (formerly Frome).

Three Liberals have announced their retirement, and all hold seats that Labor is strongly placed to win.

Inside the post I have a new electoral pendulum that takes account of the redistribution completed earlier this year. I also include notes on some of the more complex contests where new boundaries, defections and departures complicate the analysis.
Read More »Electoral Pendulum for 2026 South Australian Election

WA2025 – Statistical Analysis of 2025 Western Australian election

For the past three decades I have been preparing electoral publications for the Western Australian Parliamentary Library, covering state election results and redistributions. The latest in the series covering the 2025 WA state election has recently been published.

The publication contains summary tables of the overall results including votes and swings for all lower house districts, various summary tables, as well as details of the Legislative Council election including a walk through of the Legislative Council’s distribution of preferences.

Inside this post I provide a new electoral pendulum and extract the publication’s overall summary.

You can find the publication at this link.

Read More »WA2025 – Statistical Analysis of 2025 Western Australian election

NT2024 – Analysis of the Northern Territory Election

Eight years and two terms after Labor defeated the Giles government and reduced the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party to just two seats, the tables were turned on 24 August this year. The Lawler Labor government suffered a massive defeat, swept from government and expelled from the greater Darwin metropolitan area, Labor retaining just four seats, all in the NT’s pastoral and remote regions.

And in another parallel with eight years ago, the 2024 election saw the government swept from office and the Chief Minister lose their seat. In 2016 it was CLP Chief Minister Adam Giles who lost his previously safe seat of Braitling. In 2024 Eva Lawler lost her marginal seat of Drysdale after a massive swing of 20.4%.

Lawler’s predecessor as Labor Chief Minister, Natasha Fyles, was also defeated. Fyles’ seat of Nightcliff had been Labor’s safest seat before the election, but was lost to the Greens who finished third on the primary vote before leap frogging to victory on preferences.

New Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro took office at her second election as leader, having lifted the CLP from two seats to eight in 2020, and going further to win 17 of the 25 seats in the Legislative Assembly at the 2024 election.

For the first time since self-government, Labor won no seats in greater Darwin. The party retained only four seats, Arafura, Arnhem, Daly and Gwoja. All four are rural and remote seats with a much higher than average percentage of Indigenous residents, and all four re-elected Labor members are themselves Indigenous.

The 2024 result is a reversion to Labor’s dire period between 1977 and 2001 when the party mainly held remote districts and struggled to break the CLP’s hold on Darwin seats.

As I wrote in my election preview, Northern Territory elections are won and lost in greater Darwin, and more particularly in Darwin’s northern suburbs. The 2012 election won by the CLP remains the only Northern Territory election where the party forming government did not electorally dominate Darwin. The three elections since, including 2024, have reverted to the long-term trend of Northern Territory politics.

The CLP’s victories in northern Darwin were not as sweeping as elsewhere in the Territory with two of Labor’s losses going to the crossbench, Independent Justine Davis winning Johnston and the Greens Kat McNamara winning Nightcliff. The CLP’s narrow victory over the Greens in Fannie Bay was an oddity with the alternative two-party preferred vote revealing a Labor majority.

I’ve prepared a summary of the results which you can find at this link. The summary also includes alternative two-party preferred counts made available by the NT Electoral Commission.

There is much detail on the results in the results summary, but I’ll go through some of the main points inside this post.Read More »NT2024 – Analysis of the Northern Territory Election

Electoral Pendulum for the 2023 NSW Election

With just 11 weeks to go until the NSW election on 25 March, I thought it was time to publish the Electoral Pendulum that I am advising the ABC to use for the election.

Since the 2019 election there has been a redistribution of electoral boundaries, five by-elections and a number of members who have left the party for which they were elected.

The pendulum inside this posts tries to account for the numerous changes. I’ve also summarised the 2020/21 redistribution, and provided notes on alternate margins for seats.

Depending on nominations, there may be one or two seats where I change the margin between now and March.

The Coalition won the 2019 election with 48 seats to Labor 36 with nine members on the crossbench, three Greens, three Independents and three Shooters, Fishers and Farmers. (Three SFF in total, not one of each.)

As I explain in the post, accounting for redistributions, by-elections and defections, the starting point for the 2023 election is Coalition 46 seats, Labor 38 and nine on the crossbench, three Greens and six Independents. Majority government requires 47 seats.

With the increasing number of NSW seats that are no longer major party contests, talking about the uniform swing each side needs to win is becoming less meaningful. The Coalition holds five seats on margins under 4% and Labor six. The nine crossbenchers will be trying to retain their seats, and there will be new Independents nominating, especially in safe Liberal seats.

Labor needs nine seats on a daunting swing of 6.2% for majority government, but can hope to form government with support from the crossbench if it can gain five seats to finish with more seats than the Coalition, though the presence of at least three Greens may open the possibility that Labor could form government with fewer seats than the Coalition.

Premier Perrottet and his predecessor Glady Berejiklian have managed to govern for more than two years without a clear majority in the Legislative Assembly. It is one of the rare occasions in recent years where a Coalition government has successfully managed a hung parliament. The size of the crossbench, and the chance it will increase in size on 25 March, mean the result of the election may only be the starting point for the formation of the next NSW government. Read More »Electoral Pendulum for the 2023 NSW Election

2022 Post-Federal Election Pendulum

With 16 members elected to the crossbench in the new House of Representatives, drawing up a new electoral pendulum based on the 2022 Federal election result strains the traditionally used two-sided format.

However, I’ve gone with the traditional format with the non-major party seats separated bottom right on the opposition side of the pendulum. However, the expanded size of the crossbench means this group of seats deserves more attention than its bottom of the table position suggests.

Inside this post I provide a post-election pendulum for the House of Representatives, along with some general comments on the overall result.Read More »2022 Post-Federal Election Pendulum

New Victorian State Electoral Boundaries Finalised

Last week the Victorian Boundaries Commission released its final determination of the state’s new electoral boundaries. The new boundaries will apply for the next Victorian election in November 2022.

The draft boundaries were released at the end of June and I analysed their political impact in a previous post. There were major changes to the boundaries used at the 2018 election.

Of the 88 districts proposed at the draft stage, 56 remain unchanged in the final version.

I’ve prepared a listing showing the composition of all new electorates based on movements between old and new electorate. You can find it at this link.

Maps of all new districts, details of changes, and the Commissioner’s reasoning for the changes can be found on the Electoral Boundaries Commission website.

Political summary in a paragraph – a permanent shift of two seats from Liberal parts of Melbourne to Labor parts as a result of differential population growth rates. But it is not electoral boundaries but the scale of the Liberal Party’s 2018 defeat that is the bigger problem for the Coalition at the 2022 state election.

In this post I’ll analyse the political impact of the final boundaries.
Read More »New Victorian State Electoral Boundaries Finalised

2022 Federal Electoral Pendulum

With redistributions of electoral boundaries now complete for Victoria and Western Australia, it is time to publish an updated electoral pendulum for the 2022 election.

The redistributions have abolished the WA Liberal seat of Stirling and created the new notionally Labor held seat of Hawke in Victoria. (See my previous posts on the redistributions, in Victoria here and Western Australia here.)

Compared to the 2019 election result, the changes reduce the Coalition from 77 to 76 seats and lift Labor from 68 to 69 seats. In the 151 member House of Representatives, 76 seats are needed for majority government.

As well as the web formatted pendulum inside this post, I’ve prepared a well laid out printable ‘pdf’ version with seats listed in double-sided A4 format. You can find it at this link.
Read More »2022 Federal Electoral Pendulum

2020 Northern Territory Election – Analysis of Results

With counting complete for the 2020 Northern Territory election, it’s time for a preliminary analysis of the results and summary of changes to the composition of the Legislative Assembly.

Swings and change in seats below are based on adjusting the 2016 result for the 2019 redistribution. Details of the redistribution can be found in this post, and detail on changes in party composition can be found in my ABC NT Election Preview.
Read More »2020 Northern Territory Election – Analysis of Results

2019 Northern Territory Redistribution

(UPDATE: My guide to the 2020 Northern Territory Election has now been published on the ABC Election website.)

The Northern Territory goes to the polls on 22 August this year with the Gunner Labor government seeking re-election against the backdrop of a stagnant local economy and problems with the Territory’s public finances.

While this will be a tough environment for a first term government, Labor is helped by the weakened state of the opposition Country Liberal Party after its spectacular ejection from office in 2016.

The 2020 election will be fought on new electoral boundaries released last September. On paper the boundaries cost Labor a seat, but also boost the party’s prospects in two marginal seats.

But margins matter little in the Northern Territory given the average enrolment per electorate is only 5,500. This creates geographically huge electorates in the sparsely populated outback, but tiny seats of a few dozen streets in Darwin and Palmerston. Candidate profile is as important as party vote in determining who wins seats in the Northern Territory, especially after redistributions.
Read More »2019 Northern Territory Redistribution