Australian Federal election 2025 recap: Anthony Albanese wins landslide, hails ‘profound opportunity’

After more than a decade of despair in the Apple Isle, the early numbers from Tasmania have swung to Labor, including in Braddon, where sititng Senator Anne Urquhart is in a strong position against the Liberals.

In Lyons, former State Labor leader Rebecca White has a swing of 8 per cent towards her and would see the Government hold the seat.

Labor has eked out an early lead in the marginal seat of Gilmore, with Fiona Phillips leading former Transport Minister Andrew Constance.

The Government is also leading in Fowler, with Tu Le ahead of Independent MP Dai Le.

Nationals leader David Littleproud has told Sky News there is “hope for us in Bendigo”.

He added regional Australians had felt the effects of the Labor party the most.

“I am proud of the Nationals campaign I think it’s been flawless,” he said.

Labor MP David Smith is facing a threat from an independent in his Canberra seat of Bean.

With early counting underway, Jessie Price is polling in first, with Smith trailing behind. In an ominous sign for the Labor MP, the Liberal and Green candidates have preferenced Price ahead of him.

Greens leader Adam Bandt told Sky News the major parties’ campaigns have been a “battle of the band-aid”.

“People were after a party that’s tackling the big issues,” he said.

“There is a growing sense that we can’t keep voting for the same parties and expecting a different result.”

LNP Senator for Queensland James McGrath doesn’t think Australia will be finding out who the next Prime Minister is by tonight.

Speaking to ABC, Mr McGrath said there are too many seats that will be “too close to call”, including the tight race in WA’s Curtin electorate.

“There’s a number of really unique and different contests across the country,” he said.

“A number of seats are gig to be a knifefight . . . seats like Pearce and Curtin in WA.”

In the seat count on the top of the website, you can see we have made some initial calls in the safest seats across Australia.

For Labor, using 7NEWS analysis of AEC data, we have called 18 seats, including Anthony Albanese’s seat of Grayndler, Deputy Prime Minister RIchard Marles’ seat of Corio while on the Liberal side, the Queensland seats of Wide Bay, Maranoa and Moncrieff are set to stay blue.

After criss-crossing the country for five weeks, both Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton stated election day in Melbourne - as part of both parties’ bids to win over the battleground state.

The Prime Minister then flew to Sydney, where he is due to speak to supporters later tonight, while the Opposition Leader has gone home to Brisbane.

Voters will likely next hear from both of them when the result becomes clear.

As polls close across the east coast, counting will start immediately, with the first results rolling in from smaller, regional booths first between 6.30pm and 7pm.

These will likely favour the Coalition, before the results from metropolitan booths even out the race. By 8pm, when the last polls will close in WA, Australia should have a clearer picture where the count is going.

The Coalition needs a swing of 5 per cent, and needs to make early gains in Victoria if it is to hold Government.

Labor needs to show it is hanging onto everything it has, and picking up seats in Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania.

The biggest booths to be counted, prepoll centres from across the country will flow from around 8.30pm, with the biggest, such as Coorparoo in Queensland which took 25,000 pre-election votes, will fall later in the night.

Voting remains open for another half an hour in South Australia and the Northern Territory, and for another two hours in WA.

By the time results trickle in from WA, the trend should be clear as to whether we’re looking at a potential Coalition victory, or a second term for Labor.

Expectations that Australians would flock to prepoll booths proved correct, with 46 per cent of voters either voting before Saturday in person or by mail.

More than 6.7 million Aussies voted in person over the nine days booths were open, including more than 1.09 million on Friday, while a further 1.6 million filled out a postal vote.

Two Queensland electorates - Hinkler and Fisher - recorded the most early votes, with 64 and 62 per cent of enrolled voters choosing the have their say before Saturday.

In 43 electorates, more than half of voters voted early.