Battleground: the seats where the 2025 Australian federal election will be won and lost​on March 27, 2025 at 10:56 pm

New South Wales

There are 46 lower house seats in NSW, after the abolition of the North Sydney electorate, the largest number of any state.

There are 15 marginal seats – defined by the AEC as those where the winning candidate takes 56% or less of the two-candidate-preferred vote. Labor holds seven, the Liberals four, the Nationals one and independents three. The Coalition will hope to pick up Labor seats in the outer and middle-ring Sydney suburbs and on the coast to the north and south. The performance of independents who are either incumbents or challengers will be crucial in half a dozen or more urban and regional seats.

The electorates most starkly in focus include:

Bennelong: Held by the former prime minister John Howard for three decades, it was won by Labor’s Jerome Laxale in 2022 but a redistribution has made it a notional Liberal seat on a razor-thin margin of 0.04%. It is one of the opposition’s top target seats in Sydney.

Bradfield: Another blue-ribbon seat, held by the retiring moderate Liberal Paul Fletcher. The teal independent Nicolette Boele is taking another stab at it after boundary changes reduced the notional margin to just 3.4%.

Calare: The NSW central tablelands seat held by the National turned independent Andrew Gee will become a three-way contest with the independent Kate Hook and the Nationals candidate Sam Farraway both taking on Gee.

Cowper: Long held by the Nationals, the NSW north coast seat is being targeted by the Climate 200-backed independent Caz Heise. The independent candidate was able to whittle down the margin to 2.4% at the last election.

Hunter and Paterson in the NSW Hunter region are both held by Labor but face an assault from the opposition focusing on the energy transition. In Hunter, the Labor MP, Dan Repacholi (4.78% margin), is being challenged by Sue Gilroy of the Nationals, while the Liberal party’s Laurence Antcliff takes on the Paterson MP, Meryl Swanson (2.6%). The opposition’s proposed nuclear reactor for the region and its promise to cancel an offshore windfarm are expected to dominate debate.

Gilmore: The coastal seat south of Wollongong is also held by Labor on a knife’s edge. The former NSW state politician Andrew Constance again takes on Fiona Phillips, who clung to victory in 2022 with a 0.17% margin.

Other NSW seats to watch:

• Banks (Liberal-held on 2.64% margin)

• Fowler (independent-held on 1.8% margin over Labor)

• Hughes (Liberal-held on 3.46% margin)

• Mackellar (independent-held on 1.77% margin over Liberals)

• Parramatta (Labor-held on 3.72% margin)

• Reid (Labor-held on 5.19% margin)

• Robertson (Labor-held on 2.23% margin)

• Sydney (Labor-held on 16.22% margin over Greens)

• Warringah (independent-held on 10.53% over Liberals)

• Wentworth (independent-held on 0.58% over Liberals, but estimated at 6.8% by Antony Green)

• Werriwa (Labor-held on 5.34% margin)

Queensland

In the sunshine state there are 30 federal seats, with just nine considered marginal. The Coalition holds 21, so opportunities to gain more are limited, but attention will focus on whether the Greens can hold on to the three Brisbane seats they surprisingly won in 2022.

Brisbane, Griffith and Ryan in inner and western Brisbane are held by the Greens MPs Stephen Bates, Max Chandler-Mather and Elizabeth Watson-Brown. All three will be in a fight to retain their place in the lower house. Bates and Watson-Brown hold 3.73% and 2.65% margins respectively over Labor; Chandler-Mather has a 10.46% margin over the LNP but his seat of Griffith was previously Labor and the picture there could change dramatically depending on which two of the three parties are in the final count.

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Dickson: The outer Brisbane seat is held by the opposition leader, Peter Dutton. No one expects him to lose but it is the most marginal in the state, on 1.7%.

Leichhardt: Based around Cairns, this is a seat Labor has hopes of gaining. The long-serving member, Warren Entsch, is retiring and the LNP holds a 3.44% margin.

Other seats to watch:

• Blair (Labor-held on 5.23% margin)

• Bonner (LNP-held on 3.41% margin)

• Bowman (LNP-held on 5.51% margin)

• Groom (LNP-held on 6.89% margin over independent)

• Flynn (LNP-held on 3.82% margin)

• Forde (LNP-held on 4.23% margin)

• Longman (LNP-held on 3.08% margin)

• Petrie (LNP-held on 4.44% margin)

Victoria

Victoria will be a key battleground for the major parties, with the Liberals hoping to profit from the unpopularity of the state Labor government. They need to win back a number of seats – as well as holding on to some slim margins – to have a chance at governing nationally.

Chisholm: Clinched by Labor at the last election with a 6.4% margin, but reduced to 3.3% after the redistribution. As a typical swing seat, the Liberals are hoping to pick this one up again, with the former Liberal MP Katie Allen challenging the sitting member, Carina Garland.

Goldstein: The former ABC journalist Zoe Daniel will again take on Tim Wilson in one of six Liberal seats won by teal independents at the last election. Daniel has a slim 1.8% margin.

Kooyong: Josh Frydenberg’s former seat, now held by the teal MP Monique Ryan, is also a hotspot. The Liberals will contest the former blue-ribbon electorate with a new candidate, Amelia Hamer. Ryan holds the seat with a 2.52% margin, but the redistribution makes it a hard one to estimate with confidence.

Macnamara: Don’t be misled by the Labor MP Josh Burns’s 12.17% two-candidate-preferred margin. There was less than 3% between the primary vote of Labor, the Greens and the Liberals in 2022 – the Greens came second on primaries, but preferences pushed the Liberal candidate into the final count with Burns. If the Labor primary vote declines significantly, the Greens’ Sonya Semmens will be a strong chance.

Wannon: The regional seat in the south-west of the state has been held by the Liberals since the 1950s but the Climate 200-backed independent and former Triple J host Alex Dyson again has the Liberal Dan Tehan in his sights. The margin is now down to 3.5% after the redistribution.

Wills: The seat in Melbourne’s inner-north is another targeted by the Greens, who have selected the former Victorian state leader Samantha Ratnam to challenge Labor’s Peter Khalil. With a minor redistribution to include parts of Fitzroy North and Carlton, Labor’s margin over the minor party has dropped to 4.6% from 8.6%, according to Green’s analysis, but the AEC puts it at 9.03%.

Other seats to watch:

• Aston (Labor-held on 2.61% margin)

• Bruce (Labor-held on 5.31% margin)

• Casey (Liberal-held on 1.43% margin)

• Cooper (Labor-held on 8.92% margin over Greens)

• Deakin (Liberal-held on 0.02% margin)

• Dunkley (Labor-held on 6.77% margin)

• Indi (Independent-held on 8.94% margin over Liberals)

• Melbourne (Greens-held on 5.58% over Labor)

• McEwen (Labor-held on 3.82%)

• Menzies (notionally Labor on 0.42%)

• Monash (Liberal-held on 2.9% margin)

• Nicholls (Nationals-held on 2.32% over independent)

Western Australia

The Western Australian state election delivered a promising result for Labor but it is under pressure in a number of federal seats.

Bullwinkel: The new regional and rural seat that stretches into Perth’s outer east is a three-way contest between Labor, the Liberals and the Nationals (the two Coalition parties have no agreement not to run against each other in the west). Labor has a notional 3.35% margin.

Curtin: The Perth seat is the second-most marginal teal electorate in the country behind Wentworth, according to the AEC, held by Kate Chaney on a margin of 1.32%. The Liberals are looking to claim back the seat that was once safe for them.

Pearce: The seat in Perth’s outer northern suburbs is high on the Liberals’ wishlist, and they were encouraged by the swing in overlapping state seats, even with an 8.84% margin to overcome.

Moore: The former Liberal MP Ian Goodenough is standing as an independent after being disendorsed for the northern Perth seat. With the Liberals holding a tiny 0.91% margin, his preferences could settle the outcome.

Swan and Tangney in Perth’s inner south suburbs are held by Labor and both are on the Liberals’ target list. Zaneta Mascarenhas holds Swan on a 9.43% margin while Sam Lim will have a tougher job on paper in former Liberal heartland with a 2.85% margin.

Other seats to watch:

• Canning (Liberal-held on 1.20% margin)

• Durack (Liberal-held on 4.66% margin)

• Forrest (Liberal-held on 4.19% margin)

• Moore (Liberal-held on 0.91% margin)

South Australia

Boothby: The seat in Adelaide’s south was a Liberal stronghold until the last federal election, when Labor’s Louise Miller-Frost claimed victory with a 3.28% margin. The former MP Nicolle Flint stepped down a few months before polling day in 2022 but has since announced she will recontest the seat.

Sturt: The former seat of Christopher Pyne in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs is held by the Liberals on a 0.45% margin.

Tasmania

Tasmania has only five seats but two are highly marginal and a third has an intriguing contest.

Franklin: The seat covers the region south-west of Hobart and is comfortably held by Labor’s agriculture minister, Julie Collins, on a 13.7% margin. On paper it looks safe but the independent challenger and anti-salmon farming advocate Peter George is hoping to claim disaffected major party voters – and the salmon issue has unexpectedly blown up into a national debate.

Lyons: Labor’s retiring MP Brian Mitchell had a slim margin of 0.92% in 2022, making the large central and eastern seat a key target for the Liberals. The former state leader Rebecca White is the new ALP candidate.

Other seats to watch:

• Bass (Liberal-held on 1.43% margin)

• Braddon (Liberal-held on 8.03% margin)

Northern Territory

There are only two lower house seats in the Northern Territory but Lingiari, held by Labor’s Marion Scrymgour on a 1.6% margin, is the one more likely to change hands.

Other seat to watch:

• Solomon (Labor-held on 8.4% margin)

Australian Capital Territory

Lower house seats in the nation’s capital have always been considered safe Labor territory but the battle in the Senate will be more interesting.

Unlike the states, territory senators serve three-year terms, meaning their spots are challenged every federal election. The Liberals lost their only federal footing in the ACT in 2022 when the independent David Pocock overcame the former junior minister Zed Seselja.

Pocock and Labor’s Katy Gallagher will again challenge for the ACT’s two upper house spots. Gallagher has previously claimed underdog status, suggesting Pocock would be elected first and she would battle it out with the Liberal candidate, Jacob Vadakkedathu.