Elections take place periodically to elect the legislature of the Commonwealth of Australia, as well as for each Australian state and territory and for local government councils. Elections in all jurisdictions follow similar principles, although there are minor variations between them. The elections for the Australian Parliament are held under the federal electoral system, which is uniform throughout the country, and the elections for state and territory Parliaments are held under the electoral system of each state and territory. An election day is always a Saturday, but early voting is allowed in the lead-up to it.
Part IV of Chapter 1 of the Australian Constitution briefly deals with eligibility for voting and election to the federal Australian Parliament. It does not prescribe how elections should be conducted. Election campaigns and associated political advertisements are subject to some regulation. Public funding of political parties and party registration was introduced in 1983.
Voting for the federal and each state and territory parliament is compulsory for Australian citizens over the age of 18. Voting is almost entirely conducted using paper ballots. The informal vote is not usually significant, but a donkey vote is more common, and may have a deciding impact in marginal seats.
Parliaments Voting for the federal and each state and territory parliament is compulsory for Australian citizens over the age of 18.
Federal Parliament
The Australian Parliament consists of two chambers (known as a bicameral Parliament), the House of Representatives (commonly also referred to as the lower house) and the Senate (also referred to as the upper house). The House of Representatives has 150 members, elected for a maximum term of three years in single-member constituencies (each approximately equal in voters). Elections are conducted by a system of preferential voting (also called alternative voting or instant-runoff voting).
The Senate has 76 senators, elected through a preferential system of proportional representation with a system of single transferable vote, with each state constituting a single constituency normally returning 6 senators every three years and each territory constituting a single constituency returning two senators. Electors in the two territories elect senators for non-fixed terms that are defined by the term of the House of Representatives. State senators normally serve fixed six-year terms, with half of the seats in each State expiring every three years. In the event of a double dissolution, the terms of all the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives seats end immediately.
State Parliaments and Territory Legislative Assemblies
South Australia The Parliament of South Australia is a bicameral legislature. The House of Assembly (lower house) comprises 47 members elected by full preferential voting every 4 years from single member electorates. The Legislative Council (upper house) comprises 22 members elected by proportional representation of single transferable vote every 8 years.
Queensland The Parliament of Queensland is unicameral, consisting of the Legislative Assembly of 93 members elected for a 4 year term from single member electorates using full preferential voting.
Western Australia The Parliament of Western Australia consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. The Legislative Assembly has 57 members elected for a four-year term, unless dissolved earlier, from single member electorates using fully preferential voting. The Legislative Council has 37 members elected for a fixed term of 4 years, in a 'whole of state' electorate using preferential proportional representation.
Electoral commissions
Elections in Australia are organised by their respective electoral commissions, as follows:
Electoral commissions Jurisdiction Electoral commission (year established) Periodic oversight of legislative seat contests in any given electionDate of most recent major electionNext major election scheduled for / required by Commonwealth Australian Electoral Commission (1984) Lower house: All 150 seats in the Australian House of Representatives (every 3 years) 3 May 2025 2028Upper house: 40 (of the 76) seats in the Australian Senate (every 3 years) New South Wales Electoral Commission (2006)Lower house: All 93 seats in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly (every 4 years)25 March 202313 March 2027Upper house: 21 (of the 42) seats in the New South Wales Legislative Council (every 4 years) Victorian Electoral Commission (2002)Lower house: All 88 seats in the Victorian Legislative Assembly (every 4 years)26 November 202228 November 2026Upper house: All 40 seats in the Victorian Legislative Council (every 4 years) Electoral Commission of Queensland (1992)Unicameral: All 93 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland (every 4 years)26 October 202428 October 2028 Western Australian Electoral Commission (1987)Lower house: All 59 seats in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly (every 4 years)8 March 202510 March 2029Upper house: All 36 members in the Western Australian Legislative Council (every 4 years) Electoral Commission of South Australia (2009) Lower house: All 47 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly (every 4 years)21 March 202616 March 2030Upper house: 11 (of the 22) seats in the South Australian Legislative Council (every 4 years) Tasmanian Electoral Commission (2005) Lower house: All 25 seats in the Tasmanian House of Assembly (every 4 years)19 July 2025Mid 2029Upper house: 2 or 3 (of the 15 seats) in the Tasmanian Legislative Council (every year) 24 May 20253 May 2026 Australian Capital Territory Electoral Commission (1992)Unicameral: All 25 seats of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly (every 4 years)19 October 202421 October 2028 Northern Territory Electoral Commission (2004) Unicameral: All 25 seats in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly (every 4 years)24 August 202426 August 2028
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is the federal government agency responsible for organising, conducting and supervising federal elections, by-elections and referendums. The AEC is also responsible for setting electoral boundaries and redistributions, and maintains the Commonwealth electoral roll. State and territory electoral commissions perform an equivalent role for state and territory elections. The Australian electoral roll is also used by the state and territory electoral commissions to conduct state, territory and local government elections, except for Western Australia which maintains its own electoral roll.
Voter enrolment Enrolment on the electoral roll, known in some other countries as registration, is compulsory for all Australian citizens aged 18 years and over. Residents in Australia who had been enrolled as British subjects on 25 January 1984 continue to be enrolled and vote. (Almost 163,000 voters were recorded as British subjects on the electoral roll in 2009.)
As of 2024, the deadline to enrol or update enrolment information such as address is 7 days after the writ of election is issued.
Election day Each jurisdiction has its own laws and customs as to when elections in the jurisdiction will take place. However, state and territory elections cannot, by federal law, take place within a week before or after a federal election.
According to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, federal elections must be held on a Saturday.
Although elections for the House of Representatives have usually corresponded to half-elections of the Senate, the rules which determine when the elections occur differ. Under the Constitution, the House of Representatives lasts no more than three years after it first meets, but may be dissolved earlier. After the House is dissolved or expires, writs for election must be issued within 10 days and the election must be held on a Saturday between 33 and 58 days after the writs have been issued. The next House must meet within 30 days of the writs being returned.
The terms of senators representing the states are of fixed duration (unless Parliament is dissolved in a double dissolution), and elections must occur within a year before the term expires. The terms of senators representing the territories are not fixed, and are tied to the dates of elections for the House of Representatives. Where a House is dissolved early, House and Senate elections may be asynchronous until either the House is again dissolved sufficiently early or a double dissolution occurs.
The Australian Constitution requires that in half-Senate elections the election of State senators must take place within one year before the places become vacant. As the terms of half the senators end on 30 June, the writs for a half-Senate election cannot be issued earlier than the previous 1 July. There is no constitutional requirement for simultaneous elections for the Senate and the House of Representatives, and elections for half the Senate only have taken place in the past. There is a government and electorate preference for Senate elections to take place simultaneously with those of the House of Representatives. Except in the case of a double dissolution, the Senate is not dissolved when elections for the Senate are called and can continue to sit until the term expires. However, it is now a practice for the Senate to be prorogued when the House is dissolved, so that it does not sit during the election period.
By Westminster convention, the decision as to the type of election and date on which an election is to take place is that of the Prime Minister, who advises the Governor-General to set the process in motion by dissolving the House of Representatives (if it has not expired) and then issuing writs for election.
Writs for the election of House of Representatives and territory senators are issued by the Governor-General, while writs for the election of state senators are issued by the respective state governors. , Australia has never held a federal election in January, February or June. Month Election January None February None March (5) 1901, 1983, 1990, 1993, 1996 April (2) 1910, 1951 May (7) 1913, 1917, 1954, 1974, 2019, 2022, 2025 June None July (2) 1987, 2016 August (2) 1943, 2010 September (5) 1914, 1934, 1940, 1946, 2013 October (6) 1929, 1937, 1969, 1980, 1998, 2004 November (7) 1925, 1928, 1958, 1963, 1966, 2001, 2007 December (12) 1903, 1906, 1919, 1922, 1931, 1949, 1955, 1961, 1972, 1975, 1977, 1984
Voting
Informal votes atfederal elections (%) Year Senate House 1983 9.9 2.5 1984 4.3 6.3 1987 4.1 4.9 1990 3.4 3.2 1993 2.6 3.0 1996 3.5 3.2 1998 3.24 3.78 2001 3.9 4.8 2004 3.8 5.2 2007 2.55 3.95 2010 3.75 5.55 2013 2.96 5.91 2016 3.94 5.05 2019 3.8 5.5 2022 3.4 5.120250.43.4Source: AustralianElectoral Commission Voter turnout atfederal elections (%) Year Senate House 1983 94.64 94.64 1984 94.55 94.19 1987 94.34 93.84 1990 95.81 95.31 1993 96.22 95.75 1996 96.20 95.77 1998 95.34 94.99 2001 95.20 94.85 2004 94.82 94.32 2007 95.17 94.76 2010 93.83 93.22 2013 93.88 93.23 2016 91.93 91.01 2019 92.48 91.89 2022 90.47 89.82202590.7090.83Source: AustralianElectoral Commission
Voting in federal, state and territory elections is compulsory for all persons on the electoral roll. Voting can take place by a person attending in person at any polling place in their State on the election day or in early voting locations, or by applying for and mailing in a postal vote. Voters may apply for postal votes in perpetuity. Absentee voting is also available, but not proxy voting.
At the 2007 federal election there were 7,723 polling places open for voting. In remote areas, hospitals and retirement villages, mobile polling places have been used since the 1980s. The visually impaired can use electronic voting machines.