Turnout: 89.82%
About this election
The 2022 Australian federal election was held on Saturday 21 May 2022 to elect all 151 members of the House of Representatives and 40 of the 76 senators. It ended nine years of Liberal–National government and delivered power to the Australian Labor Party under Anthony Albanese, who became the 31st prime minister of Australia. Beyond the change of government, the election was historic for the collapse of the major-party vote: the combined Labor-and-Coalition first-preference vote fell to a record low of 68.3%, while a wave of Greens and "teal" independents swelled the crossbench to 16 — the largest in the nation's history.
The House is elected by compulsory, full-preference instant-runoff voting in 151 single-member electorates; 76 seats are needed for a majority. The election was the first held under Scott Morrison's full term and came after a turbulent period dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2019–20 bushfires and rising cost-of-living pressures. The simultaneous half-Senate election is covered on the companion Senate page.
Albanese's Labor ran a deliberately disciplined "small target" campaign, avoiding the sprawling policy agenda that had sunk the party in 2019 and instead emphasising cost of living, wages, aged care, integrity and climate change. The Coalition's campaign was hampered by Morrison's low personal popularity, internal divisions and a series of controversies. A distinctive feature was the rise of the "teal" independents — professional, climate-focused, socially moderate candidates, many backed by the Climate 200 funding network, who targeted affluent, traditionally safe Liberal seats in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and beyond.
Labor won 77 seats and a narrow majority, while the Coalition slumped to 58 — its lowest seat tally since 1946. The Greens surged to four seats, winning three inner-Brisbane electorates, and ten independents were elected, including six "teals" who unseated prominent Liberals such as Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. On first preferences the Coalition actually led Labor, 35.69% to 32.58%, with the Greens on 12.25% and independents collectively on 5.30% — but Labor won the two-party-preferred vote 52.13% to 47.87% and, crucially, the seats. Every state and territory except Tasmania swung to Labor, the largest swing coming in Western Australia (about 10 points), where Labor won a majority of seats for the first time since 1990.
The result reshaped the political map. Western Australia, once Coalition heartland, turned decisively to Labor; Labor also dominated Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. The Coalition's only state plurality was Queensland (21 of 30 seats), even as it lost ground there too. The map above shows the party that won the most seats in each state and territory — a Labor sea broken only by Queensland.
Albanese was sworn in on 23 May 2022 and quickly moved on climate legislation, an integrity commission and the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum (which failed in October 2023). The Liberals, having lost their urban moderate base to the teals, turned to Peter Dutton as leader and faced a long debate about how to win those seats back. The fragmentation of the major-party vote — and the durability of the teal independents — became the defining question of the new Parliament.
Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) — official tally room results at results.aec.gov.au.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.