Turnout: 91.89%
About this election
The 2019 Australian Senate election was held on 18 May 2019 alongside the House of Representatives. As an ordinary half-Senate election, 40 of the 76 seats were contested — six in each of the six states and two in each territory. The re-elected Coalition government under Scott Morrison improved its Senate position slightly but still fell short of a majority, leaving it dependent on a smaller but pivotal crossbench to pass its legislation.
Senators are elected by proportional single transferable vote, with each state voting as one multi-member electorate; in a half-Senate election six senators are returned per state for six-year terms, alongside the two territory senators whose terms align with the House. A party or group needs roughly one-seventh of the vote (a quota of about 14.3%) to win a seat in a state, which is why the Senate consistently returns a wider range of parties than the House. The bars and map above show first-preference vote share by party, with the senators each won at this election.
The Coalition won 19 of the 40 contested seats and Labor 13, with the Greens taking six, One Nation one (in Queensland) and the Jacqui Lambie Network one (in Tasmania, returning Lambie herself to the chamber). On first preferences the Coalition led with 37.99% to Labor's 28.79% and the Greens' 10.19%. Clive Palmer's United Australia Party, despite an enormous advertising spend, won no Senate seats. The result trimmed the crossbench from the record set in 2016 but still left the balance of power outside the major parties.
The Coalition led the first-preference Senate vote in every mainland state and in Tasmania, while Labor led only in the two territories. One Nation's continuing strength was concentrated in Queensland, and Jacqui Lambie's personal vote was decisive in Tasmania. The map above colours each state and territory by its first-preference leader; click any region for the full breakdown and the senators it returned.
The new Senate, which sat from July 2019, gave the Morrison government a clearer but still conditional path to passing legislation: it needed the votes of a handful of crossbenchers — One Nation, Jacqui Lambie and Centre Alliance among them — whenever Labor and the Greens were opposed. That arithmetic shaped the politics of the 46th Parliament, including the government's pandemic-era spending measures and its industrial-relations and energy agenda.
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.