Australia Senate election 2016 — Results

Setting the scene

The 2016 Australian Senate election was held on 2 July 2016 alongside the House of Representatives. Because Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had secured a double dissolution of Parliament, all 76 Senate seats were contested at once — rather than the usual half — making it the largest Senate election since the chamber's expansion. The count took more than four weeks to finalise and produced a record crossbench of 20 senators, leaving the re-elected Coalition government further than ever from a majority in the upper house.

How the vote works

The Senate is elected by single transferable vote (STV), a proportional system, with each state electing senators as a single multi-member constituency and the two territories electing two senators each. In an ordinary election six senators are returned per state for six-year terms; in a double dissolution all twelve state seats are filled at once. New Senate voting rules introduced in 2016 abolished group voting tickets and gave voters control of their own preferences above or below the line, a reform intended to curb the election of micro-party candidates on tiny vote shares. The map and bars above show first-preference vote share by party, with the number of senators each won at this election.

The outcome

The Coalition won 30 of the 76 seats and Labor 26, while the crossbench swelled to a record 20. The Australian Greens took nine seats, Pauline Hanson's One Nation staged a dramatic return with four, and the Nick Xenophon Team won three in South Australia. Single seats went to the Jacqui Lambie Network, the Liberal Democrats, Family First and broadcaster Derryn Hinch's Justice Party. On first preferences the Coalition led with 35.18% to Labor's 29.79% and the Greens' 8.65%. Because the lower full-quota threshold of a double dissolution made it easier for minor parties and independents to win seats, the 2016 contest returned one of the most diverse Senates in Australian history.

The map

The Coalition led the first-preference Senate vote in the five mainland states, while Labor led in Tasmania and both territories. One Nation's revival was concentrated in Queensland, where Pauline Hanson topped the minor-party vote, and the Nick Xenophon Team's strength was overwhelmingly in its South Australian home base. The map above colours each state and territory by its first-preference leader; click any region for the full party breakdown and the senators it elected.

What happened next

The 20-member crossbench meant the Turnbull government needed at least nine additional votes to pass legislation opposed by Labor and the Greens, forcing constant negotiation with One Nation, the Xenophon bloc and a shifting cast of independents. After the double dissolution, the senators elected in each state were split into long (six-year) and short (three-year) terms, so roughly half of them faced the voters again at the next half-Senate election in 2019. The unwieldy upper house defined much of the 45th Parliament.

Where the data comes from

Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) — official tally room results at results.aec.gov.au.

Compiled and reviewed from official results by ElectioMap. See our data methodology.