election dates

Will Australia have its first February Election? And what about the WA Election Date?

Australia is the land of the long summer holiday and woe betide any Prime Minister announcing the start of an election campaign before Australia Day.

Australia has never held a Federal election in January or February.

In 2015 Campbell Newman unexpectedly announced an election date in the first week of the new year with polling day for 31 January. The unexpected announcement was followed by an unexpected defeat for the Newman government with the Premier losing his own seat.

Before that, Tasmania's Field minority Labor government announced an election date in early January 1992 with polling for 1 February. After a difficult three years in office, the Field government was defeated and replaced by a majority Liberal government.

February elections with campaigning through January used to be common in Western Australia with 9 of the 10 election dates between 1977 and 2005 being in February. This includes two on the first Saturday in February. After the 2008 election was called six months early for September, fixed terms were adopted with elections now held on the second Saturday in March every four years.

The next Western Australian election is set for Saturday 8 March. It is a date around which the Albanese government must navigate as options for changing the WA date are complex and require agreement from the Leader of the state Opposition.

And neither state nor federal leaders want to annoy voters by forcing them to the polls twice within a month. Given how reliant the Albanese government was on Western Australia to achieve majority government in 2022, the Prime Minister will be unusually attuned to the political mood of the west.

In 1983 Malcolm Fraser called a snap double dissolution election for 5 March. Western Australia was already in the middle of a state election campaign and polling days for the two elections were held a fortnight apart.

On 19 February 1983, Labor under Brian Burke swept to office. Two weeks later, Labor under Bob Hawke won the Federal election and recorded 55% of the two-party preferred in Western Australia. Labor didn't match that figure again until Anthony Albanese's victory in 2022.

In 1993, Labor under Premier Carmen Lawrence lost office at an election on 6 February. The result indicated that Labor's vote was holding up in the west. The next day Prime Minister Paul Keating called a Federal election for 13 March. An 'unlosable' election that Keating was to win against Dr John Hewson.

If WA Labor were to have a good state election result on 8 March, the fact that Easter is late in 2025 means the Prime Minister would have time to visit the Governor-General on 9 March and request an election for Saturday 12 April. It would mean abandoning the federal Budget currently scheduled for 25 March.

Or what if the Prime Minister were to call the election before Western Australia goes to the polls?

As I explain inside the post, that's where options to vary Western Australia's fixed term election date come into play.Read More »Will Australia have its first February Election? And what about the WA Election Date?

Why the 2022 House and Senate Elections will be held on the same day

Last year I wrote a post on possible elections dates. In the post I wrote “There is a highly improbable option for a half-Senate election by 21 May 2022 and a separate House election as late as 3 September 2022.”

This improbable option keeps being re-cycled as a real possibility.

It isn’t.

If the government doesn’t call a May election for the House in conjunction with the required half-Senate election, it would be an admission by the government that it is too frit to face the electorate. There is no constitutional or public administration reason to hold separate elections for the House and half-Senate in 2022. Separating the elections would be because the government saw some electoral benefit.

In my view there is no benefit for the government in splitting the elections. In fact, splitting the election would be a terrible re-election strategy. Forcing the electorate to vote twice at most only 15 weeks apart would be deeply deeply unpopular and almost guarantee the government’s defeat.

No Australian Prime Minister has ever called a separate half-Senate election at a time when a House election was due. No Prime Minister has ever delayed a House election beyond its normal term by creating two elections 15 weeks apart. Prime Minister Morrison is not going to the first Prime Minister to engage in the folly of splitting the two elections in this way. He didn’t do it in 2019 and he is not going to do it in 2022.

The only people peddling this split election nonsense are people on twitter who hate the government. Splitting the elections would guarantee defeat. The government is not going to select the option that is its worst possible option for winning re-election.

So having vented my irritation that this nonsense is still being peddled, let me explain why the elections can be split.Read More »Why the 2022 House and Senate Elections will be held on the same day

When can the Next Federal Election be Held?

On Twitter recently, the most frequent question I am asked is when “can” the next federal election be held. Second place goes to when “will” the election be held.

This post attempts to answer both questions.

The three-part answer on “when can” the election be held is –

  • The first date for a normal house and half-Senate election is 7 August 2021, if announced this weekend and writs are issued by Monday 5 July.
  • The last date for a normal house and half-Senate election is 21 May 2022. This date gives six weeks to complete the complex Senate count and allows Senators to be declared elected and start their terms on 1 July. A mid-May election would be announced in early April 2022.
  • There is a highly improbable option for a half-Senate election by 21 May 2022 and a separate House election as late as 3 September 2022.

The short answer on “when will” the election be held is –

  • when the Prime Minister thinks his government has the best chance of winning, or
  • if prospects look grim, the last possible date.

Read More »When can the Next Federal Election be Held?