The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, gets quite candid, admitting on the ABC that his party was “in all sorts of trouble” last year.
He says there are “three things” that turned around Labor’s fortunes from January:
I don’t think I’ve seen a prime minister campaign as well as prime minister Albanese has … Secondly, I think the way that we got back in the game on the cost of living, I think by most measures, public and private polling, we were at parity on the cost of living or better in some polls.
The third one I think is really in the way that the sense of the influence of American politics, I think that was important as well.
Updated at 04.51 EDT
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\n It is unclear how this will translate into seats given the increase in the number of electorates that are three-way contests, rather than coming down to a fight between Labor and the Coalition. Pollster Shaun Ratcliff told Guardian Australia that the latest polls show the Coalition “going backwards” in a selection of key seats he has been tracking, after initial polls in February had the Coalition ahead.
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You can find more granular breakdowns of the polls, including by demography, on our tracking page.
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Somewhat further afield, Australians have already voted, Emily Wind reports:
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In the leadup to election day, Australians have cast their ballots in a number of remote locations and even from overseas – but none as far south as the 100-odd expeditioners currently working in Antarctica.
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Expeditioners working at Australia’s Antarctic and sub-Antarctic stations were able to cast their vote by telephone – a process typically reserved for voters who are blind or have low vision – with no physical ballot booth setup this year.
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Voting opened on 22 April, with expeditioners able to vote early or on election day. But, unlike others, they won’t be fined if they do not vote, according to the Australian Electoral Commission.
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The AEC says Australians travelling to work in Antarctica need to register as an Antarctic elector before leaving the country – with “Antarctic” including the Australian Antarctic Territory, the Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Macquarie Island, and a ship at sea in transit to or from Antarctica.
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Arrangements were put in place for expeditioners on the RSV Nuyina in case it arrived back later than scheduled (on 2 May, the day before the election).
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It is just past 8am here in Sydney, and the polling booths are officially open!
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Voters can lodge their ballots between 8am to 6pm today.
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For a refresher on when, where and how to vote, here is our 2025 voting guide with everything you need to know.
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queue to vote in Australia’s general election at a polling station in the suburb of Marrickville in Sydney on 3 May, 2025.”,”caption”:”People queue to vote in Australia’s general election at a polling station in the suburb of Marrickville in Sydney on 3 May, 2025. “,”credit”:”Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images”}}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1746223875000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”18.11 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1746225975000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”18.46 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1746224127000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”18.15 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”18.15″,”title”:”Polls open in eastern states”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Sat 3 May 2025 05.18 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Fri 2 May 2025 18.09 EDT”}],”filterKeyEvents”:false,”id”:”key-events-carousel-mobile”,”absoluteServerTimes”:false,”renderingTarget”:”Web”}”>
Key events
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Kevin Bonham
Very early days yet with only about 2% of the vote counted but enough is building up to start noticing some interesting things overall.
What is up so far is mostly primary votes and it is also possible that swings in on-the-day booths will be unrepresentative – this has been increasingly an issue in election-watching as more and more voters vote by pre-poll.
In the seats with numbers so far the Coalition primary is overall down.
This is particularly striking in Bass and Braddon where there are large swings against the Liberals in small mostly rural booths, and in the few booths where there is a two-party count they seem to be flowing through.
No first-term government has ever won a seat on a margin as large as Braddon from the opposition. There are also large swings in some small booths in Bonner, another Labor target seat, and a generally good start for Labor in Queensland LNP marginals – Leichhardt, Forde, Petrie.
Labor doesn’t seem to be in early trouble against the Coalition in any of its own seats but there are a few where non-Coalition rivals are making things interesting including Bean (Jessie Price) and Franklin (where Peter George is ahead though the booths counted so far are likely to be favourable for him).
The ABC has called the Queensland seat of Maranoa for the LNP.
Absolutely no surprises there, Maranoa is the safest seat in the country, held by Nationals leader David Littleproud.
He has it on a margin of 22.12%.
Luca Ittimani
Tanya Plibersek has said the results in the first hour are “putting a smile on my face”. Labor’s environment minister was talking to Channel Seven’s election night panel, joined by former colleague Bill Shorten, where she said:
We take nothing for granted. … I’m looking at very early results from tiny, tiny booths in Queensland and the ACT and I’m seeing some good numbers. They’re very small booths and they’re very early numbers but they’re putting a smile on my face.
Her former colleague, Bill Shorten, backed her up:
I’m quietly confident … The Libs didn’t have a black hole in their campaign. They had about three million quarries.
That claim drew the ire of shadow finance spokesperson Jane Hume, also appearing on Seven’s panel:
That’s not true. The first Labor lie of the night.
Henry Belot
There was a huge cheer from the crowd at the Greens party in Melbourne a few moments ago. Briefly, people thought a seat had been called on the ABC coverage. Instead, it appears someone just arrived with a round of drinks.
Mood picking up here.
The crowd at the Greens party in Melbourne. Australia Photograph: Henry Belot/The GuardianShare
Early Labor swings in Tasmina, ABC’s Antony Green says
The ABC’s longtime election analyst Antony Green says he’s seeing an early swing towards Labor in Tasmania.
One of the seats to watch is Braddon, currently held by the Liberals. Gavin Pearce has retired at this election, and Labor senator Anne Urquhart made the switch from the upper to the lower house to contest the seat. While Pearce had an 8% margin in 2022, early results show Urquhart could bridge a lot of that gap.
But Green says it’s not just there but all over the state where we’re seeing a swing towards Labor.
All of the electorates are showing a significant swing so it’s not just one or two polling places, there is something else going on there …
Jim Chalmers says Peter Dutton’s popularity in Tasmania has been low, and is something Labor has tried to exploit:
If you take Bass, which has a well-known local member Bridget Archer, the maverick Liberal member of parliament, our campaign in Bass was to say you can like Bridget Archer but if you vote for her, you get Peter Dutton and it has been a very effective campaign there.
Updated at 05.18 EDT
Patrick Keneally
Marles ‘very nervous’ but happy with Labor’s campaign
The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, says he is feeling “very nervous” despite approaching the night with a sense of optimism. He tells Channel Ten:
We have gone about this campaign seeking to achieve majority government, and we feel really happy with the way in which we executed the campaign. The way our messages resonated across the electorate, the state, the country, has gone really well.
Marles, who is also the defence minister, is asked about the Coalition’s late defence spending announcement. He says the lack of detail was evidence “they had firstly not done the work”.
What kind of capabilities do you want to have? What defence force do you need to build? None of that was on the table, when the Coalition announced their policy. They literally announced $21bn worth of expenditure and couldn’t identify a single thing that they were going to spend that on. That doesn’t pass any sense of the credibility test.
Updated at 05.10 EDT
Elias Visontay
Littleproud admits Coalition made errors but Nats’ campaign was ‘flawless’
Over on Sky News, the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, has acknowledged the Coalition’s campaign made errors, but that Peter Dutton owned up to them and handled them well.
However, Littleproud appeared to say that all the mistakes came from the Liberal side of the Coalition.
I’m proud of the Nationals campaign, I think it’s been flawless.
On the Coalition campaign as a whole, he said:
Where there’s been mistakes, we’ve had the courage to own up to them.
Littleproud also said he is confident the Nationals will retain all their seats and are confident they will pick up Calare, and hopeful for Bendigo and Lingiari.
He said people in regional Australia have suffered under the Albanese government.
Updated at 05.09 EDT
Ben Smee
Coalition’s election night function in Brisbane almost empty
The Coalition’s election night function in Brisbane is in the same room where David Crisafulli delivered his victory speech in the Queensland election less than seven months ago.
Currently, about 50 journalists – and quite literally no one else – are in the function room at the W Hotel.
With not much of interest happening, some of the media veterans in the room are reminiscing about the open bar on offer last October.
The Coalition’s election function at the W Hotel Brisbane. Photograph: Ben Smee/The GuardianShare
Updated at 05.17 EDT
Steggall: ‘Traditionally the major parties are less politically courageous’
Independent MP Zali Steggall says parliament won’t look “too differently” for her if we end up with a minority government.
But even if there is a majority government, Steggall tells the ABC she’ll still have influence.
I don’t think it will look too differently than what it has already for my first two terms in the parliament. I have worked with the Coalition government and I have worked with a Labor government. I have passed over 20 amendments to legislation …
What we have been able to do is build the social licence for the areas of policy where change is needed … Traditionally the major parties are less politically courageous, they feel more hamstrung, but I think we on the crossbench, myself and others, create the space and give a voice to communities around change.
Steggall is going for her third term as an independent in Warringah on the Sydney’s northern beaches.
She’s asked whether she has a feel for which party might form government, but she won’t say.
Updated at 05.11 EDT
What impact will One Nation have?
Liberal senator James McGrath downplays the impact One Nation preferences for the Liberal party will have in some electorates, saying some of their voters will put Labor ahead.
One Nation gets that support from traditional conservative right and the working-class right, so that is when you look at their preferences, sometimes they will go back to the Labor party because that is where they have come from.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, believes the One Nation vote will be up, but says the preference flow to the Coalition will be “especially strong”.
But he adds that the Donald Trump and US factor hasn’t worked for Peter Dutton.
They [the Coalition] are being cannibalised a little bit to their right – and this is where the American influence comes in, I think, is the further and further, the more enthusiastically Peter Dutton has courted those rightwing voters, the less mainstream the party becomes and that has been an opportunity for us.
Updated at 05.12 EDT