Albanese Labor holds more safe seats than Coalition holds in total

Although the Albanese government’s post-election seat count is almost identical to those of the newly elected Howard and Abbott governments, it has a very different structure.

Two-term PM Anthony Albanese delivers his victory speech on election night. Picture: AP

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Labor holds more seats on double-digit margins after the May 3 ­election than the Coalition parties hold altogether, highlighting how the second-term Albanese government not only occupies greater breadth of electoral territory but does so with increased strength as well.

Although the Albanese government’s post-election seat count is almost identical to those of the newly elected Howard and Abbott governments, its haul of electorates on two-party-preferred margins of 10 per cent or more is greater than either of those predecessors.

After the Australian Electoral Commission finalised results in all 150 House of Representative seats this month, the new federal electoral margin tower has a very different structure than the four before it.

Labor’s 94-seat tally – one more than Tony Abbott’s 2013 haul and level with John Howard’s 1996 total in a 148-seat parliament – has already sparked discussions about the strength of the Albanese government’s mandate. But the final vote counts reveal how safe so many of those seats are.

John Howard claims victory at the 1996 election

The Albanese government holds 48 seats – just over half ­of the ALP total ­– on two-party-preferred margins of 10 per cent or more.

By comparison, the Liberals and Nationals won only 43 seats overall and just 13 (nine Nationals and four Liberal) on double-digit margins.

Even before the 2025 election rout, the Coalition notionally held only 55 seats, having won 58 at the 2022 election.

Despite Labor’s 2025 win being secured on a historically low ­victorious primary vote of 34.6 per cent – above only its 2022 result (32.8 per cent) – its seats ­security after receiving the bulk of preferences is greater than Howard and ­Abbott enjoyed when they swept to power.

After the 1996 election, the ­Coalition parties held 45 of their 94 seats on double-digit margins, while Abbott’s 2013 victory left 43 Coalition seats on margins of 10 per cent or more.

Tony Abbott on election night, 2013, with his wife Margie and daughters Frances, Louise and Bridget.

The previous Labor government to hold a comfortable ­majority – Kevin Rudd’s in 2007 – had just 37 of its 83 seats on double-digit margins.

The final election results also highlight how bad the Coalition’s internal polling was, encouraging it to target seats where it would emerge the Coalition parties had no hope. Labor’s “safe seats” set includes several the Liberals believed they could win.

Unsuccessful Liberal candidate Nicolle Flint campaigning in Boothby before the 2025 election. Picture: Brett Hartwig

Boothby in Adelaide’s east, where the Liberals ran high-profile former MP Nicolle Flint in a top-priority campaign, is now a Labor seat on a margin of 11.1 per cent. The rural Tasmanian seat of Lyons, which the Liberals thought they could snatch on the retirement of Brian Mitchell, has jumped from a margin of less than 1 per cent to 11.6 per cent for new MP and former Tasmanian ALP leader Rebecca White. And inner-Brisbane Lilley, a Liberal target held by frontbencher Anika Wells where Labor’s hold had been steadily weakening, has exploded out to a 14.5 per cent margin.

Anika Wells with her family Celeste, 8, husband Finn, and twins Ossian and Dashiel 4 at Nundah state school on election day. Picture: John Gass

Along with Boothby, several Labor seats that were held by Liberal MPs just three years ago are now in the government’s “safe seats” set.

Hasluck in outer eastern Perth, which was held by former Liberal cabinet minister Ken Wyatt heading into the 2022 election, switched allegiances three years ago and has now handed second-term MP Tania Lawrence a super-sized margin of 16 per cent.

Swan, closer to the centre of the West Australian capital, was also a Liberal seat two terms of government ago and had been in Labor’s hands since 2007. Now it is safe territory for another of Albanese’s second-term MPs, Zaneta Mascarenhas, on 14 per cent.

Reid in Sydney’s inner west was Liberal for the three terms of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government but two elections down the track is securely in Labor’s possession, with Sally Sitou securing a margin of 12 per cent on May 3.

Perhaps most tellingly, the NSW central coast seat of Robertson – the nation’s bellwether seat having elected an MP of the winning party overall at every election back to 1983 – is anything but a close contest now. Labor’s Gordon Reid has extended his margin to 9.4 per cent, the biggest in Robertson since 1931.

Labor MP Gordon Reid who won the bellwether NSW central coast seat of Robertson for the third time on May 3. Picture: Rohan Kelly

The demise of the Liberal Party in inner-city seats, aside from those it surrendered to teal independents across the past three elections, is also evident in Adelaide. Labor MP Steve Georganas now holds a seat that has often been marginal and at times held by the Liberals, including from 1993 to 2004, on a margin of 19.1 per cent, Adelaide’s largest at a federal election.

As revealed by The Australian in May, the Liberal Party has been pushed so far out of its inner-urban heartlands that its safest seat is now Townsville-based Herbert. For much of the party’s existence, that mantle was held by Bradfield in Sydney’s north, which was added to the “teal captures” list when a recount gave Nicolette Boele a 26-vote win.

Five of the Liberals’ next six safest are in rural areas: O’Connor and Durack in Western Australia, Barker in southeastern South Australia, Hume in the NSW southern tablelands and Wright in southern Queensland.