The 33 seats to watch at the 2025 federal election
These are the seats that will decide the result; Labor can afford a net loss of just two to hold on to majority government; the Coalition needs a net gain of 22.
Now that Anthony Albanese has called the federal election for May 3, here are 33 seats to watch in the lead-up to polling day.
Labor can afford a net loss of just two seats to hold on to majority government in the next 150-electorate House of Representatives.
The Coalition needs a net gain of 22 seats to seize majority government.
LABOR SEATS TO WATCH
NSW
Seat: Gilmore
MP: Fiona Phillips (ALP)
Margin: 0.17%
The NSW South Coast seat is notionally Labor’s most marginal in the country after second-term MP Fiona Phillips narrowly retained it in 2022. Gilmore was a Liberal seat from 1996 to 2019. The Liberals have again preselected Andrew Constance – a former NSW transport minister and veteran state MP – as the party’s candidate, after Phillips beat him by just 373 votes at the last election.
Seat: Bennelong
MP: Jerome Laxale (ALP)
Margin: 0.04% notionally Liberal
John Howard’s former Sydney seat had a transformation in last year’s redistribution, shedding suburbs in its northwestern end and regaining wealthier suburbs at its eastern end, returning it to a location closer to when the former prime minister held it. Jerome Laxale, the former mayor of the City of Ryde, won the seat in 2022 after former Liberal MP John Alexander, the ex-tennis player, retired. His Liberal opponent is Scott Yung.
Seat: Robertson
MP: Gordon Reid (ALP)
Margin: 2.2%
This is a bellwether seat on the NSW Central Coast, and has gone with the government of the day since Bob Hawke won the 1983 election. Held by first-term Labor MP Gordon Reid, an emergency department doctor before entering politics. Reid faces stiff competition from Liberal challenger Lucy Wicks, who held the seat from 2013-22.
Seat: Paterson
MP: Meryl Swanson (ALP)
Margin: 2.6%
A Liberal seat from 2001 to 2016, a redistribution carved out much of its rural area and, home to many Hunter Valley mine workers, it has been Labor ever since, held by former local radio broadcaster Meryl Swanson. Swanson’s Liberal opponent is Laurence Antcliff, the Housing Industry Association operations manager for apprentices.
Seat: Hunter
MP: Dan Repacholi (ALP)
Margin: 4.8%
Once a Labor stronghold, the NSW seat has been in the party’s hands since 1910. But its margin has gradually shrunk as Labor’s pro-climate policies – aimed at saving inner-city seats – have bitten in this coalmining electorate. Dan Repacholi, a five-time Olympic sports shooter and former coalminer, won the seat after Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon retired before the 2022 election, after a 26-year career as the local MP. The Nationals are fielding former Singleton Business Chamber president Sue Gilroy as their candidate.
Seats: McMahon/Blaxland/Watson
MPs: Chris Bowen/Jason Clare/Tony Burke (ALP)
Margins: 10.5%/13%/15.2%
Western Sydney, normally safe as houses for Labor, could become a disaster zone for this trio of cabinet ministers under threat from the pro-Palestinian Muslim Vote. The growing movement is seeking to replicate the success of its sister organisation in Britain, which won four seats at the 2024 election. With the stated aim to force the current government into minority, The Muslim Vote has already endorsed independent candidates in Burke’s electorate of Watson and Clare’s Blaxland, Dr Ziad Basyouny and Ahmed Ouf respectively.
VICTORIA
Seat: Chisholm
MP: Carina Garland (ALP)
Margin: 3.3%
The southeast Melbourne seat was a Labor gain in 2022, but has become more marginal since last year’s redistribution deleted the neighbouring seat of Higgins. Home to a strong Chinese community that turned against the Morrison government amid its disputes with China. Carina Garland, an academic and trade unionist before her election, will face a tough fight from Liberal candidate Katie Allen, a pediatrics doctor at the Royal Children’s Hospital.
Seat: Aston
MP: Mary Doyle (ALP)
Margin: 3.6%
Labor won the outer-eastern Melbourne seat in a by-election in 2023, the first win by a federal government in a by-election in 102 years. The poll was triggered by the resignation of former Morrison government minister Alan Tudge; until then, the seat had been in Liberal hands since 2001. Aston is one the Liberals will be desperate to win back with preselected candidate and former Knox mayor Manny Cicchiello taking on sitting MP Mary Doyle, a unionist and union super fund worker before her election.
Seat: Wills
MP: Peter Khalil (ALP)
Margin: 4.6% v Greens
Bob Hawke’s former Melbourne seat is the Greens’ best chance of adding a second Victorian electorate to the minor party’s collection. The 2024 redistribution has slashed sitting MP Peter Khalil’s margin in half. Khalil, elected in 2016, is opposed by the Greens’ Samantha Ratnam, former leader of the Victorian Greens in state parliament from 2017-24.
QUEENSLAND
Seat: Blair
MP: Shayne Neumann (ALP)
Margin: 5.23%
The LNP is hopeful of reducing Labor’s already slim representation of five lower house Sunshine State MPs even further by snatching the Ipswich-based seat. Shayne Neumann was heading for (forced) retirement in line with the party’s affirmative action policy but Anthony Albanese swooped in to save him. The MP’s supporters say he’s the only Labor candidate capable of winning the seat, which takes in rural areas around the southeast Queensland city. The LNP is running business manager Carl Mutzelburg against Neumann, who’s held Blair since Kevin Rudd’s Ruddslide in 2007.
WA
Seat: Tangney
MP: Sam Lim (ALP)
Margin: 2.8%
Tangney is the Liberals’ top target in the state that swung heavily to Labor in 2022, handing Anthony Albanese four formerly Liberal seats and the power to govern in his own right. Before the last election, Labor had held the inner-southern Perth seat for only four years since its establishment in 1974. First-term Malaysia-born MP Sam Lim – a former police officer in Malaysia and WA, and a one-time dolphin trainer – is up against Singapore-raised IT entrepreneur Howard Ong, the Liberal candidate.
Seat: Pearce
MP: Tracey Roberts (ALP)
Margin: 8.8%
Became a Labor seat in 2022 for the first time since its establishment in 1989 amid the backlash against the Morrison government and trouble-plagued former member Christian Porter. Not strictly marginal; but a rebound is likely. The Liberals have picked Jan Norberger to take on first-term MP Tracey Roberts, the former mayor of the City of Wanneroo. Norberger held the state seat of Joondalup for the Liberals from 2013-17, but left the party in 2023 and joined the Australian Christians.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Seat: Boothby
MP: Louise Miller-Frost (ALP)
Margin: 3.28%
Labor won the eastern Adelaide seat in 2022 for the first time since 1949. A prime candidate for the Liberals to flip back, especially as former Liberal MP for the seat, Nicolle Flint, is recontesting. Flint quit politics ahead of the 2022 election, citing sexism, harassment and bullying.
TASMANIA
Seat: Lyons
MP: Brian Mitchell (ALP) – retiring
Margin: 0.92%
Labor’s margin in the central Tasmanian seat has dropped to almost nothing since Brian Mitchell claimed Lyons in 2016. Now, third-term MP Mitchell will be replaced by Labor’s former state leader, Rebecca White. Mitchell had wanted to contest the next election, but said he respected Anthony Albanese’s right to pick the candidate of his choosing. The Liberals will be hoping to add Lyons to the two northern Tasmanian seats they already hold, with returning candidate Susie Bower. Bower lost to Mitchell by just 1300 votes in 2022. The salmon industry will be a big issue.
NORTHERN TERRITORY
Seat: Lingiari
MP: Marion Scrymgour (ALP)
Margin: 1.7%
The seat that covers all of the Northern Territory outside Darwin and its surrounds – and its predecessor, called Northern Territory – have been in Labor hands since 1998. But the boilover Territory election last year that saw Labor ousted after nearly a decade means the Country Liberals now have the NT’s federal seats in their sights. Labor’s Marion Scrymgour – a former NT deputy chief minister – is up against CLP candidate Lisa Siebert, a federal police officer.
Seat: Solomon
MP: Luke Gosling (ALP)
Margin: 8.4%
The Country Liberal Party will hope the massive shift in the Territory election last August that ousted the Labor government will be repeated at the federal poll and be big enough to turn the Darwin-based electorate blue. Former military officer Luke Gosling has held the seat for Labor since 2016 and is being challenged by Lisa Bayliss, a veteran police officer, who will target the Territory’s pervasive crime problem during her campaign.
COALITION SEATS TO WATCH
NSW
Seat: Bradfield
MP: Paul Fletcher (LIB) – retiring
Margin: 2.5%
Could have been the seventh Liberal heartland seat to fall to the teals in 2022 but cabinet minister Paul Fletcher held on. Teal candidate Nicolette Boele is back for another crack but Fletcher is not, retiring from parliament. New candidate Gisele Kapterian will have a battle to keep the northern Sydney seat in Liberal hands, despite it being held by the conservatives since its creation in 1949.
VICTORIA
Seat: Menzies
MP: Keith Wolahan (LIB)
Margin: 0.04% notionally Labor
The eastern Melbourne seat – held by the Liberals since its creation in 1984 – has flipped to notionally Labor, albeit on a wafer-thin margin, following a redistribution. The Liberal Party needs to bring it back into the blue column if it has any hope of returning to power. Former army officer and first-term MP Keith Wolahan is up against Labor candidate Gabriel Ng, a lawyer for Labor law firm Slater & Gordon and a former public servant.
QUEENSLAND
Seat: Dickson
MP: Peter Dutton (LIB)
Margin: 1.7%
The Opposition Leader holds the Coalition’s most marginal Queensland seat and always attracts high-profile opponents. Labor is again fielding former journalist and para-athlete Ali France, who is taking on Peter Dutton for a third time in the outer-suburban Brisbane electorate. At the 2022 election, France reduced Dutton’s margin from 4.64 per cent to just 1.7 per cent. There’s also a teal-tinged independent candidate, environmental consultant Ellie Smith, who is backed by Climate 200.
Seat: Leichhardt
MP: Warren Entsch (LIB) – retiring
Margin: 3.44%
The popular and colourful local member is retiring having held the sprawling far north Queensland seat (which takes in Cairns, Port Douglas, Cape York and the Torres Strait) for all but three of the past 29 years. Labor has had trouble prising Leichhardt away from the Coalition but with Warren Entsch’s departure, it’s one of Labor’s best chances of increasing its Queensland lower house tally from a paltry five seats. Labor’s candidate is unionist and former professional basketballer Matt Smith, who will take on Entsch’s replacement, paramedic Jeremy Neal.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Seat: Sturt
MP: James Stevens (LIB)
Margin: 0.45%
At the last federal election, the Liberals came within 1016 votes of surrendering a seat they have held since 1972. Christopher Pyne’s former electorate in Adelaide’s east has been a top target for Labor at the past two elections. Third time lucky? Labor has preselected lawyer and local councillor Claire Clutterham to take on second-term MP James Stevens.
TASMANIA
Seat: Bass
MP: Bridget Archer (LIB)
Margin: 1.43%
Arguably the most volatile seat in the country, having changed hands at eight of the past 11 elections, regardless of who won overall. Bridget Archer, a maverick moderate MP who is not afraid of speaking out against her own party, bucked the trend by retaining the northeastern Tasmanian seat in 2022 – just. Labor candidate and local teacher Jess Teesdale faces a tougher task in unseating Archer than the slim margin suggests. No MP or party has held Bass for three consecutive terms since 1993.
CROSSBENCH SEATS TO WATCH
TEAL INDEPENDENTS
Seat: Curtin, WA
MP: Kate Chaney (IND)
Margin: 1.3%
Seat: Kooyong, Vic
MP: Monique Ryan (IND)
Margin: 2.2%
Seat: Goldstein, Vic
MP: Zoe Daniel (IND)
Margin: 3.3%
Seat: Mackellar, NSW
MP: Sophie Scamps (IND)
Margin: 3.3%
Seat: Wentworth, NSW
MP: Allegra Spender (IND)
Margin: 6.8%
The five seats in blue-ribbon heartland that were snatched from the Liberals’ grasp in 2022, amid a wave of anti-Morrison government sentiment, by Climate 200-backed independents. The question is: Was it a one-off protest vote or a more permanent shift away from major parties that often entrenches independents and makes them hard to blast out of incumbency? Without most (or even all) of these seats coming back into the Liberal fold, it’s hard to see Peter Dutton becoming prime minister this year.
GREENS IN BRISBANE
Seat: Ryan
MP: Elizabeth Watson-Brown (GRN)
Margin: 2.6% v Liberal
Seat: Brisbane
MP: Stephen Bates (GRN)
Margin: 3.73% v Liberal
Seat: Griffith
MP: Max Chandler-Mather (GRN)
Margin: 10.46% v Liberal
The Greens completed a stunning hat-trick in winning a trio of inner-Brisbane seats in 2022: Ryan and Brisbane from the Liberals, and Griffith from Labor. Both major parties will be desperate to claw back the lost ground, particularly Labor, which finished third on primary vote in Griffith, Kevin Rudd’s old electorate. The Greens lost one of their two Brisbane seats at October’s state election (South Brisbane – which covers much of the same ground as Griffith – fell back to Labor after just one term) in a sign the shine may be wearing off in “Greensland”. In the seat of Brisbane, former Liberal MP Trevor Evans is back in an attempt to win back his seat from Stephen Bates. Labor has preselected Renee Coffey, head of a national youth mental health charity, and is throwing significant resources behind her campaign to unseat high-profile Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather. Liberal candidate Maggie Forrest, a barrister, has been doing the leg-work on the ground in the leafy inner-west seat of Ryan held by architect Elizabeth Watson-Brown.
OTHER INDEPENDENTS
Seat: Fowler
MP: Dai Le (IND)
Margin: 1.1% v Labor
The stunning failure of parachuted candidate and former NSW premier and senator Kristina Keneally in Labor heartland of southwestern Sydney was also a stunning victory for a community candidate in Vietnamese refugee Dai Le. Winning this seat back will be a high priority for the government; Fowler had only ever been held by Labor before 2022. The ALP appears to have learnt a painful lesson after the Keneally debacle, and in October preselected local community lawyer Tu Le as candidate.
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout