2022 Australian federal election
A federal election was held on 21 May 2022 to elect members of the 47th Parliament of Australia. The incumbent Liberal–National Coalition government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, sought to win a fourth consecutive term in office but was defeated by the Labor Party, led by Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese. Up for election were all 151 seats in the lower house, the House of Representatives, as well as 40 of the 76 seats in the upper house, the Senate. The voter turnout of 89.82% in this election was the lowest in modern history, falling below 90% for the first time since 1922, prior to the introduction of compulsory voting in Australia.
The Labor Party achieved a majority government for the first time since 2007, winning 77 seats in the House of Representatives. Albanese was sworn in as Prime Minister on 23 May 2022, becoming the fourth Labor leader to win government from opposition since World War II, after Gough Whitlam in 1972, Bob Hawke in 1983, and Kevin Rudd in 2007. Every state and territory except Tasmania swung to Labor on a two-party-preferred basis. The largest two-party preferred swing was in Western Australia, where Labor won a majority of seats for the first time since 1990. The Coalition suffered severe losses, winning 58 seats, its lowest share in the House of Representatives since 1946, the first federal election contested by the Liberal Party. On election night, Morrison conceded defeat and announced he would resign as Liberal leader, and was subsequently replaced by Peter Dutton.
While the Coalition was soundly defeated, Labor did not achieve a landslide victory, as a result of electoral successes by independent candidates and the Greens, with the crossbench swelling to 16 seats. Six formerly safe Liberal seats in urban and suburban areas, most held by the party and its predecessors for decades, were won by teal independents, unseating Liberal incumbents including Treasurer and Deputy Liberal Leader Josh Frydenberg. The Liberals also suffered large swings in a number of suburban seats that had long been reckoned as Liberal heartland. The Greens increased their vote share and won four seats, gaining three seats in inner-city Brisbane, the first time in the party's history it won more than one seat in the lower house. The combined major party vote for Labor and the Coalition was the lowest on record at 68.3%, while the minor party and independent vote was at its highest at 31.7%. Compared to 2019, Labor's primary vote dropped much less than the Coalition's, although Labor nevertheless recorded its lowest primary vote since either 1903 or 1934, depending on whether the Lang Labor vote is included.
In the Senate, Labor won 15 seats and retained its 26 seats overall in the chamber, while the Coalition fell to 32 seats, a four-seat drop from the previous parliament. The Greens won a seat in every state, an increase of 3 for a total of 12 seats overall, the party's largest ever representation in the Senate. One Nation returned its leader Pauline Hanson in Queensland to retain 2 seats overall, while the Jacqui Lambie Network won an additional seat in Tasmania to have 2 seats. In the Australian Capital Territory, independent candidate David Pocock won the second of two seats, the first time an ACT senator was not a Labor or Liberal party member. Lastly, Ralph Babet of the United Australia Party won the sixth seat in Victoria. Labor required 13 votes from a crossbench of 18 to ensure passage of legislation not supported by the Coalition.
Background
Previous election
At the previous election in May 2019, the Liberal–National Coalition, led by Scott Morrison, formed a government after winning 77 seats in the House of Representatives, enough for a three-seat majority, whilst Labor claimed 68 seats and remained in opposition. A further six seats were won by other parties and independents, one each to the Greens, Centre Alliance, and Katter's Australian Party, and the remaining three by independents forming the crossbench. In the Senate, the Coalition made modest gains in most states and increased their share of seats to 35 overall, whilst Labor remained steady on 26, the Greens likewise on 9, One Nation and Centre Alliance down to 2 each, and Jacqui Lambie and Cory Bernardi's minor parties with 1 seat each. This meant the Coalition required four additional votes to pass legislation.Composition of parliament
The 46th Parliament was inaugurated on 2 July 2019. By this time, the Labor Party had elected a new leader, replacing the outgoing Bill Shorten with Anthony Albanese. In the Senate, Cory Bernardi's resignation in January 2020 allowed the Coalition to replace him with a Liberal member, increasing their share of seats in the Senate to 36. They retained this figure until Northern Territory senator Sam McMahon resigned from the Country Liberal Party in January 2022, four months before the election. She joined the Liberal Democratic Party on 8 April 2022.In the House of Representatives, two Coalition MPs departed their respective party-room caucuses, though retained their membership of the Morrison government. The government's share of seats in the House dropped when Craig Kelly, the member for Hughes, left the Liberal Party in August 2021 to become an independent and sit on the crossbench. This left the government with a one-seat majority, though considering the position of the Speaker, who is obliged not to vote to create a majority where none is present, the government functioned from this point to the election in technical-minority status. On 7 April 2022, three days prior to the election being called, Liberal National Party MP George Christensen announced his resignation from the party and became an independent, dropping the government to 75 seats at the end of the parliamentary term.
There were two by-elections in the 46th parliament, both in 2020 in the seats of Eden-Monaro and Groom; in both instances, the by-elections were won by the incumbent party. Nick Champion resigned from the House of Representatives in February 2022 to contest the South Australian state election. A by-election was not held for his seat of Spence as it would be too close to the federal election.
Events of the 46th Parliament
Throughout the duration of the 46th Parliament, Scott Morrison remained Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party, and in so doing he became the first prime minister to serve a full term without facing a leadership spill since John Howard. Deputy Prime Minister and National Party leader Michael McCormack was challenged twice by his predecessor Barnaby Joyce, unsuccessfully in February 2020 and successfully in June 2021.Key events during the second term and first full term of the Morrison government included the Black Summer bushfires, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Parliament House sexual misconduct allegations, and the formation of the AUKUS security pact. Morrison won praise for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, including launching the National Cabinet and JobKeeper programs, but he struggled to manage the vaccination roll out and testing regime as new variants of SARS-CoV-2 emerged. He faced further criticism for holidaying in Hawaii during the Black Summer bush fires, being accused of lying by French President Emmanuel Macron in the aftermath of the AUKUS agreement, and lacking ambition on climate change during COP26.
The opposition Labor Party elected Anthony Albanese as party leader unopposed, 12 days after Bill Shorten lost the May 2019 election. The Albanese-led Opposition struggled to make an impact in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. His "most significant policy announcement" before 2022 was a commitment to reduce emissions by 43% by 2030 under a Labor government.
Australian Greens leader Richard Di Natale resigned in February 2020, replaced by the party's only lower house MP Adam Bandt, who was elected unopposed. Among minor parties, controversial figure Craig Kelly resigned from the Liberal Party and became the leader of Clive Palmer's United Australia Party in 2021.
Change in party registration rules
In September 2021, legislation was passed to amend the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and tighten rules surrounding the registration of political parties. Changes to party registration rules were reportedly the effect of an increase of parties on the Senate ballot, which resulted in the requirement of magnifying sheets for some voters to read the ballot, and a perception that voters would be misled by names of some minor parties.The first change was the increase of membership requirements for a party from 500 to 1,500. This resulted in the federal deregistration of non-parliamentary minor parties who could not prove they had at least 1,500 members, including the Christian Democratic Party and Democratic Labour Party in March 2022.
The second change was that parties cannot have names that were too similar to political parties registered before them. This meant that new parties are prevented from registering a party name or logo "too similar to an existing party's". As for existing registered parties, a party may also object to a similar name or logo used by another party, if the latter party was registered later than the former party. If the Australian Electoral Commission is satisfied with the objection, it can uphold the objection, and the later-registered party will be registered within a month of the upholding, if an application to change the name or logo is not made or has been denied.
This "similar name" rule was used by the Liberal Party against the Liberal Democratic Party and The New Liberals, with both objections upheld by the AEC. This forced The New Liberals to change its name to TNL to be registered and forced the LDP to apply to change its name to the Liberty and Democracy Party. The LDP then withdrew its name change application on 22 March 2022. As a result, on 1 April 2022, the AEC gave notice to the party that it would consider deregistering the party, giving one month for the party to appeal the notice. However, as the writs for the election were issued the following week on 11 April, the party register then would be "frozen" and this meant the party was allowed to contest the election with its current name.
The Labor Party also used the "similar name" rule against the Democratic Labour Party and the objection was upheld by the AEC, but the latter party was eventually deregistered for not meeting the membership number requirement.