Federal election 2025: Major party leaders warn against hung parliament nightmare

Anthony Albanese has made many promises about what he will and won’t do should he stay Prime Minister after May 3, but it could all be meaningless if voters hand him a minority government.

Labor dropping below the 76 seats needed for a majority would be a blow to Mr Albanese and his party, even if it can negotiate with the crossbenchers for support to stay in power, given he holds 78 seats now.

The Greens are positioning themselves as the powerbrokers with key demands including scrapping tax breaks for property investors and stopping coal and gas projects such as Woodside’s North West Shelf extension.

Mr Albanese has repeatedly insisted he will not do either of those things and that he’s campaigning for an outright majority.

But as the core voter bases of each major party stagnate around a third each, the probability of a minority government after Saturday is high.

He puts five key issues at the core of where he wants to start negotiations: free universal childcare, adding dental to Medicare, scrapping property investor tax breaks, ending native logging, and no new coal and gas.

“We’re headed towards a likely minority Parliament, and that gives us a really exciting opportunity to keep Peter Dutton out and to get Labor to act on the housing, cost of living and climate crisis,” he said.

“These are things that will make a real difference to people and that we could achieve before the end of the year.”

Dai Le, the independent member for Fowler, has previously said she’ll back whoever puts the best offering for her electorate on the table.

Other crossbenchers have said they’ll approach matters on an issue-by-issue basis, although they have key concerns such as climate and political integrity.

Australia has had two minority governments federally over recent years: the Gillard government after the 2010 election and the Coalition government between Scott Morrison becoming prime minister in 2018 and going to an election in 2019.

The former looms large in political memory because Tony Abbott frequently wreaked havoc during question time, but University of Sydney politics professor Rodney Smith said in terms of passing legislation, it was highly effective.

He says a good pointer to what could happen is to look at how Labor managed to get bills through a fractious Senate over the past three years.

Whoever was prime minister would look to build “small-c coalitions” to pass their agenda through both houses of Parliament.

“As to the policy outcomes, that will really depend on the skill of whoever becomes prime minister in terms of negotiating what those are going to be, and by the same token, the skills of the independents and minor party MPs in their negotiations,” Professor Smith said.

Investment bank Morgan Stanley noted this week there was a sharp slowing in public spending during the 2010-13 minority government.

“In our view, given the reliance on government spending in recent economic outcomes, a minority government would pose more near-term risk for growth,” it said in its weekly market update.

Professor Smith said Labor would find an easier position to form Government than the Coalition, and said the Greens shouldn’t be too cocky because with a much bigger crossbench than in 2010, Labor would have other options.

“I think Bandt will do a lot of huffing and puffing about ‘these are the demands’. But … my prediction will be, he’s not going to get sign off,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s in the interest of the independents to create a perception of instability.

“They have a strong interest in showing that a parliament in which independents have the balance of power can still work.”

The shift in the voter base away from major parties was more of a challenge for the conservatives, former Liberal deputy leader Josh Frydenberg warned.

Speaking at The West Australian’s Leadership Matters forum, he pointed out that just 15 seats out of the 150 in the House of Representatives were decided solely on first preferences at the last election – a massive drop over several cycles.

“It’s going to create a real challenge for us (the Liberals) going forward,” he said. “I think that’s inherently challenging.”

That’s why Mr Dutton and Mr Albanese have been hammering home their message this week that voters should put one of their candidates first.

“I wouldn’t be mucking around with independents and third-parties at this election, I really wouldn’t,” Mr Dutton said on Wednesday.

“We don’t want to see a European situation where you’ve got a handful of Greens and left-leaning teal candidates who are holding the government to ransom. That is not going to be good for us.”

Mr Albanese, who has repeatedly insisted he won’t do any formal deal with the Greens, said the minor party had “more and more become a fringe party”.

“We’ve got 78 seats. We’re aiming to hold every single one of them. And we’re out there campaigning hard in Coalition-held seats and in Greens Party-held seats as well,” he told the National Press Club.

“Will there be the sort of agreements that we saw previously? No.

“We are campaigning each and every day to secure a majority government. I think that is in Australia’s interests.”