#preferential voting

This Saturday, 3 May 2025, is federal election day in Australia. If you are unsure who all these parties are on your ballot, I’m here for you. I’ve reviewed all parties registered with the Australian Electoral Commission except for the most widely known ones: Labor, Greens, and the Liberal/National coalition parties. I have also reviewed the teal independents, a couple of unregistered parties who are endorsing independent candidacies, and two independent Senate candidates in Western Australia.

What you will find below: an index to all my reviews, a classification of parties by broad categories of recommendation, recommendations of other sites reviewing the parties, and some voting tips and advice. It should be obvious but these are my personal views and should not be construed as reflecting those of my employer or anyone else. I write from a left-wing perspective sympathetic to democratic socialism and green politics, mixed economies and urbanism. If you have even halfway similar political perspectives to me, I hope this might be useful. Please feel free to share with anybody whom you think will also be interested.

Index to all my reviews for 2025

Read the list below as: party name (ideology / where running). For the locations, a plain state abbreviation means the party is running a Senate ticket in this state; check with the AEC here to see if they also have a candidate in your electorate of the House of Representatives. A state abbreviation with an asterisk (*) indicates that in this state, the party is running only for an electorate or electorates in the House of Representatives; again, check the AEC here to see if it is yours. In some instances, though, I have listed the specific seat.

Animal Justice Party (animal rights / all states + ACT)

Australia First, who are unregistered (neo-Nazi scum / Division of Lindsay)

Australian Christians (Christian fundamentalism / NSW, WA)

Australian Citizens Party (conspiracy theorists / all states + NT)

Australian Democrats (centre-left / NSW*, QLD, VIC, WA)

Australia’s Voice (centre-left / NSW, QLD, SA, VIC, WA)

Centre Alliance (centrism / Division of Mayo)

Dai Le and Frank Carbone W.S.C. (centre-right / Division of Fowler)

David Pocock (green social liberalism / ACT)

Family First (Christian fundamentalism / ACT*, NSW, QLD, SA, VIC)

FUSION | Planet Rescue | Whistleblower Protection | Innovation (centre-left-ish hodgepodge / NSW, QLD, SA, VIC, WA)

Gerard Rennick People First (far-right cult of personality / NSW, QLD, SA, VIC, WA)

Good Party, who are unregistered (centre-left / Divisions of Kingsford-Smith and Page)

Great Australian Party (sovereign citizens / QLD, WA)

Health Environment Accountability Rights Transparency (HEART) (antivax far-right woo / ACT, NSW, QLD, VIC)

Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia (Indigenous rights / NSW, NT*, QLD, VIC, WA*)

Jacqui Lambie Network (centre-right cult of personality / NSW, QLD, SA, TAS)

Katter’s Australian Party (right-wing cult of personality / QLD)

Legalise Cannabis Australia (single issue / all states + NT)

Libertarian Party (far-right libertarianism / all states and territories)

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (xenophobic far-right populism / all states + NT)

Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers (anti-environmentalist gun nuts / NSW*, TAS, VIC)

Socialist Alliance (socialism / NSW, QLD, VIC*, WA)

Socialist Equality Party, who are unregistered (antisocial socialism for cantankerous people / NSW as Group B, VIC as Group G, and indies in seats of Calwell, Newcastle, Oxley)

Sustainable Australia–Universal Basic Income (anti-immigration NIMBYs / all states and territories)

Teal independents (centrism / assortment of lower-house seats in all states and territories)

Trumpet of Patriots (lunar right / all states)

Ungrouped independent candidates for the Senate in WA (right-wing or plain odd personalities who should receive a low preference)

Victorian Socialists (socialism / VIC)

Classification of all parties by broad category of recommendation

At the end of each review is a recommendation of how positively or negatively you should preference each party. Let’s see how all the parties have shaken out. Within each category, I am presenting parties alphabetically rather than suggesting an order for your preferences. I have written a separate entry on how I decide the ranking of unpalatable parties.

Good preference: David Pocock, Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia, Socialist Alliance, Victorian Socialists

The parties above have a positive overall platform that has few or no significant flaws for the left-wing voter.

Decent to good preference: Australian Democrats; Australia’s Voice

The parties above have a positive overall platform, but I have minor reservations.

Decent preference: Animal Justice Party, Good Party, teal independents

The parties (or independents) above have a generally positive overall platform, but I have reservations.

Middling preference: Centre Alliance, Legalise Cannabis

The parties above have a balance of positive and negative qualities, or a decent platform undermined by a notably terrible policy or characteristic.

Note on Legalise Cannabis: middling is a generalisation as candidate quality varies. In Victoria, for instance, give Fiona Patten (lead Senate candidate) a decent to good preference; in Queensland, give Belinda Jones (lead Senate candidate) a weak preference.

Weak to middling preference: Dai Le & Frank Carbone W.S.C., Fusion Party, Jacqui Lambie Network, Socialist Equality Party, Sustainable Australia

The parties above are problematic, but better than what comes below.

Weak or no preference: Australia First, Australian Christians, Australian Citizens Party, Family First, Gerard Rennick People First, Great Australian Party, HEART, Katter’s Australian Party, Libertarian Party, One Nation, Shooters, Trumpet of Patriots

The parties above have more negatives than positives (usually many more!). In the House of Representatives, where you must give full preferences, put these parties as low as possible. In the Senate, I recommend you do likewise to maximise the potential power of your vote; but I recognise that some of you prefer not to express preferences between varying gradations of undesirability or prefer not to rank the most odious parties.

Other good reviewers

For further opinions, b_auspol has reviewed parties and independents contesting NSW, Kevin Bonham has summarised those contesting Tasmania, Notionoriety has concise left-wing overviews for QLD, NSW, and VIC, Anthony Zougras has overviews of all registered parties (more concise than me, less than Notionoriety), and Something for Cate is very comprehensive, with a Victorian emphasis, continuing the tradition of much-missed Cate Speaks.

Voting tips and advice

When you go to vote, you will receive two ballots. The smaller green one is for the House of Representatives, the lower house; whichever party/ies command a majority on the floor of the House forms government. You must number EVERY SQUARE on the small green ballot for the House. Many seats have independent candidates; make sure you look into them as they vary substantially in their platforms and competence.

The larger white ballot is for the Senate, the upper house. This is the house of review. We are voting for roughly half the Senate, as state senators serve six-year terms. This means each state elects six senators, requiring 14.3% of the vote to be elected; each territory elects just two (who serve terms aligned with the House), requiring 33.3% of the vote to be elected. On the Senate ballot you can vote above the line for PARTIES or below the line for INDIVIDUALS. Above the line you must give at least six preferences; below the line you must give at least twelve; beyond this point, you can do what you like. You can stop preferencing entirely or you give as many more preferences as you want. I strongly recommend you preference as far as possible because this increases the potential power of your vote.

If you want something more visual (and humorous), Patrick Alexander has two handy cartoon explainers: you can’t waste your vote for the House of Representatives and what’s the go with voting for the Senate?

If you want to vote below the line in the Senate, you can make your own custom how-to-vote card using Cluey Voter. It is the only site of which I am aware that allows you to construct a below-the-line vote (Donkey Votie and Build a Ballot can only make above-the-line cards). Print it off and take it into the booth with you! And do you need to find your nearest democracy sausage or cake stall? This website has you covered.

Hey guys. If you’re a UK citizen and you’re sick of having to vote “strategically” rather than the way you actually want to because you know you’re throwing your vote away if you give it to anyone but Labour or the Tories, you should probably consider signing this petition. 

Preferential voting means that you can make any party you like your first choice, but if you don’t think they’ll get in, you can always make the big party that you hate the least one of your other choices. You can read more about preferential voting here. It’s been working out pretty well for Australia for a long time already! There’s no reason it can’t work here in the UK, too! 

If you’re a UK resident, please sign this petition and pass it along! If you’re not a UK resident, you can’t sign, but your signal boost is hugely appreciated. 

(Seriously. Don’t sign this if you aren’t a UK resident. They check IPs on shit like this and people pretending to be from the UK when they aren’t in order to sign is considered “cheating”, which will suck the legitimacy right out of the petition. You might think you’re helping, but you aren’t.)

If this petition gets 10,000 signatures, the UK government must respond. If it gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in parliament. Even if it’s unlikely to fuel any change, my main hope is that it’ll get people talking about preferential voting, and help them see that there’s an alternative to the broken system we’ve got in place at the moment. 

Thanks, everyone!

I have been asked by multiple readers how to approach the task of preferencing distasteful parties, of whom there are many on the ballot. I worked through my ballot yesterday evening, so I thought I might as well set out my approach.

First, though, I want to emphasise some important aspects of voting for the House of Representatives and the Senate, which use different electoral systems.

For the House: you must rank all candidates. Do so in the order of your preference. There are occasionally strategic considerations, especially for a left-wing voter where a left-leaning party cannot win the seat and you would prefer a centrist indie to beat a right-wing Lib/Nat (see recommendation section of my teals review). But as a general principle, you can safely rank candidates from most liked to most disliked.

For the Senate, you have two options:

Vote above the line: you vote for parties. You must indicate at least six preferences, and then you can give as many additional preferences as you wish. This is the option that suits most voters. The further you preference, the more powerful your vote potentially will be.

Vote below the line: you vote for individual candidates. You must indicate at least twelve preferences, and then you can give as many additional preferences as you wish. If you want to express a preference (good or bad) for ungrouped independents, or if you want to adjust the order of candidates within a party's ticket, or if you want to mix and match candidates across party tickets, you must vote this way. The further you preference, the more powerful your vote potentially will be.

(for the electoral-act-knowers: yes, there are savings provisions for both the House and the Senate so that some ballots marked contrary to the instructions are counted where the voter's intention is clear, but I see little value in dwelling on these; mark your ballot per the instructions!)

Whether you vote above or below the line in the Senate, you need to decide if you will express a preference for all parties/candidates, or stop somewhere after 6 ATL/12 BTL. As a basic principle: you should keep preferencing on your Senate ballot as far as you feel able. To play a role in the outcome, you should include at least one of the majors or a more prominent minor party with a chance of getting to 14.3% after preferences (i.e. the quota for a Senate seat). For the left-wing voter, that means that if you don't distribute full preferences, you should at least include the Greens and/or Labor.

I am a completist. I will be voting below the line. And I will preference the lot. I took the time to mark my 2019 NSW Legislative Council ballot all the way to number 346 to put Mark Banasiak, lead candidate of the Shooters Party, in last place a fortnight after the Christchurch mosque terrorist attack by an NSW-born-and-raised gunman (I must wearily note yet again that Australia has never properly grappled with the fact it produced this ghoul and many Australians do not know the Christchurch terrorist was Australian even if they remember something terrible happened across the ditch—which some do not, to this nation's deep discredit).

But how to decide who to put last? And where to rank parties more broadly? I use three parties as dividing lines: Greens, Labor, Liberal. As the last paragraph should suggest to you, I also recognise the Loathing Principle: who do you despise so much that you are itching to put them last?

I ask two questions when I contemplate what side of the dividing line a minor party sits (with thanks to b_auspol for conceptualising the second in a recent chat). They are: is this party to the political left of the dividing line? And what is the Failure Condition of voting for this party in case they win a seat in the Senate? By Failure Condition, that is: if the candidate performs poorly or does things I do not like, how bad are the outcomes likely to be relative to other parties?

Let's use an example. I eat meat and see no ethical issue with this, but an Animal Justice Senator might put up a bill mandating veganism. This hypothetical bill, however, would never pass parliament, while the the AJP Senator's contributions to other legislation, based on years of experience of AJP reps in the NSW and Victorian upper houses, is that they will aim to pull Labor left on big issues of the day. So, the AJP Senator is better than a generic Labor backbencher; the core values of the AJP might not appeal much to me but their broader principles are left of Labor. Hence, AJP falls left of the dividing line and I will give them a better preference than Labor.

But, by contrast, Legalise Cannabis has poor quality control on their candidates. They might elect someone whom it is welcome to have in the Senate (hi Fiona Patten!). But also a Legalise Cannabis Senator could be an anti-vax or anti-wind-turbine freak (hi Sophia Moermond!) who in a tight Senate sinks important legislation. So, absent any other knowledge, a generic Legalise Cannabis candidate risks worse Failure Conditions than a generic Labor candidate, and I will thus preference Legalise Cannabis below Labor. And even worse is, say, a HEART candidate who wins a seat: if you're lucky they are just some leftover hippie but the Failure Condition is kids die because they stymie vaccination legislation in a finely-balanced parliament.

In terms of placing parties to the left of my dividing lines, it is a pretty small field these days between Labor and Liberal. I populate it with random independents, Fusion—whose failures this election have been disappointing, as I had in the past usually placed them and constituent parties left of Labor—and maybe Sustainable Australia. I think it is also important to know the alignment of your Labor and Liberal(/National/whatever Coalition party) candidates. I elevate Labor Left above Labor Right, and moderate Libs/Nats above hard-liners.

The even tougher decision is what to do about the parties to the right of the Liberals and their Coalition partners. There are many such parties this election. At this point, you need to make difficult calls about who is relatively worse. This is where the Loathing Principle comes into play: which party offends you on a visceral, personal level this year? Which bigoted candidate will you feel especially gleeful pencilling in last? I have at various elections made a point of putting last the Shooters as described above, Libertarians as the most hate-filled on the ballot, Citizens Electoral Council as dangerous conspiracy theorists, and Rise Up Australia for having a leader who claimed the Black Saturday bushfires were divine punishment for giving women bodily autonomy. If there is a party you truly hate—if you, for instance, really want Lyle Shelton to eat even more shit by putting Family First last—then do it. It'll feel good. Voting all the way below the line can be deeply satisfying even within the privacy of the polling booth.

More generally, trying to rank the parties is tough but here is how I view the relative evil. Parties that are racist want to exclude some of the community (or potential community in the form of prospective migrants). They can make gestures towards religion and purported Christian traditions but it's not often the core of their agenda. Parties that espouse fundamentalist Christianity (or another religion, but we have only so far had fundie Christian parties of various denominations) want to legislate their faith for the whole community. And they have a fringe interpretation of said faith that many fellow believers would repudiate. Plus, they are usually also racists. Ergo, I generally rate Christian fundamentalist parties worse than racist parties.

But then there are dangerous conspiracy theorists whose ideas have no basis in reality. They come in various forms, such as sovereign citizens and LaRouchean fantasists, and these people having any influence or power in society would be most destructive. They cannot listen to reason and will do things that harm even the members of their own racial and/or religious community as well as target out-groups in the most venomous ways. For me, they have the worst Failure Conditions; if I must, I would take a Pauline Hanson over a Lyle Shelton, and both over a Ralph Babet or Rod Culleton. So, I put conspiracy cranks below fundies or racists. And there are a lot of them today; hi, Trumpet of Patriots!

Tomorrow, 21 May, is election day. If you are unsure who all these parties are on your ballot, I’m here for you. I’ve reviewed all parties registered with the Australian Electoral Commission except for the most widely known ones: Labor, Greens, One Nation, and the Liberal/National coalition parties. I have also reviewed all independent candidates in Western Australia and a selection of others from around the country, including a number who represent unregistered parties.

You will get two ballots. The smaller green one is for the House of Representatives, the lower house; whichever party/ies command a majority on the floor of the House forms government. You must number EVERY SQUARE on the small green ballot for the House. Ignore the “no preference” in the recommendations below; that applies only to the Senate.Many seats have independent candidates; make sure you look into them as they vary substantially in their platforms and competence. View your candidates here.

The larger white ballot is for the Senate, the upper house. This is the house of review. We are voting for roughly half the Senate, as state senators serve six-year terms. This means each state elects six senators, requiring 14.3% of the vote to be elected; each territory elects just two (who serve terms aligned with the House), requiring 33.3% of the vote to be elected. On the Senate ballot you can vote above the line for PARTIES or below the line for INDIVIDUALS. Above the line you must give at least six preferences; below the line you must give at least twelve; beyond this point, you can do what you like. You can stop preferencing entirely or you give as many more preferences as you want. I recommend you preference as far as possible because this increases the power of your vote.

I posted a cheat sheet with my recommended preference categories earlier. If you want to vote below the line in the Senate, you can make your own custom How to Vote card by using this site. Print it off and take it into the booth with you! And do you need to find your nearest democracy sausage? This website has you covered.

If you want my pithy takes rather than full reviews, see this Twitter thread. If you want NSW-focused reviews, see b_auspol; if you want Victorian-focused reviews, see Something for Cate; if you want a Tasmanian overview, see this blog entry by Kevin Bonham.

The index below is alphabetised and ignores “the” at the start of a name (the AEC’s party register alphabetises parties without ignoring “the”). If a party has a Senate candidate in a state, I have named that state—i.e. wherever you live in the state, you can preference this party on your Senate ballot. It might or might not have lower-house candidates in that state too. I have only named a lower-house electorate if a party is standing a candidate there but has no Senate candidates in that state. If the party name is in the form of “party name—state Group XYZ”, this means it is an unregistered party that you will find in column XYZ of that state’s Senate ballot.

Key: party name (ideology / where running)

Animal Justice Party (animal rights / all states + ACT)

Australian Christians (Christian fundamentalism / WA)

Australian Citizens Party (conspiracy theorists / NSW, NT, QLD, SA, WA, VIC)

Australian Democrats (centre-left / NSW, QLD, SA, WA, VIC)

Australian Family Party—SA Group E (Christian fundamentalism / SA)

Australian Federation Party (antivax lunar right / all states)

Australia One (antivax lunar right / see entry for seats in NSW, QLD, SA, VIC)

Australian Progressives (centre-left / ACT, VIC, Ryan [QLD], Sturt [SA])

Australian Values Party (right-wing veterans’ rights / NSW, QLD, VIC, WA)

Centre Alliance (centrism / Mayo [SA])

David Pocock (green social liberalism / ACT)

Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party (tough-on-crime cult of personality / VIC)

Drew Pavlou Democratic Alliance (Sinophobic centre-left stupol / QLD, SA, Bennelong [NSW])

Federal ICAC Now (single issue / NSW, QLD, WA)

FUSION: Science, Pirate, Secular, Climate Emergency (centre-left / NSW, QLD, SA, VIC, WA)

The Great Australian Party (sovereign citizens / NSW, NT, QLD, SA, VIC, WA)

Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia (Indigenous rights / NSW, QLD)

Informed Medical Options Party (antivax / all states + ACT)

James Bond (left-leaning joke candidate / VIC)

Jacqui Lambie Network (centre-right populism / TAS)

Katter’s Australian Party (cult of personality / QLD)

Kim for Canberra (left-leaning social progressivism / ACT)

Legalise Cannabis Australia (single issue / all states and territories)

Liberal Democratic Party (right-libertarian / all states and territories)

The Liberty Party of Australia—ungrouped independent Glenn Floyd (fringe antivax even by antivaxxer standards / VIC)

The Local Party (centrism / SA and TAS)

Max Dicks (left-wing / VIC)

Nick Xenophon—SA Group O (centrism / SA)

No Mandatory Vaccination Party—WA Group P (antivax / WA)

Reason Australia (centre-left civil libertarian / NSW, QLD, VIC)

Reignite Democracy Australia—VIC Group R (antivax far-right / VIC and see entry for sympathetic indies in all states)

Rex Patrick Team (centrism / SA)

Seniors United Party of Australia (right-wing seniors’ rights / NSW, WA)

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (anti-environmentalist gun nuts / NSW, TAS, VIC, Maranoa [QLD])

The Silent Majority—QLD Group A (really niche right-wing / QLD)

Social Justice Independents—WA Group K (left-wing / WA)

Socialist Alliance (socialism / NSW, QLD, VIC, WA)

Socialist Equality Party—NSW Group F, QLD Group I, VIC Group Y (cantankerous socialists / NSW, QLD, VIC)

Sustainable Australia Party–Stop Overdevelopment/Corruption (anti-immigration NIMBYism / all states and territories)

Teal Independents (mostly centre but variation / NSW, SA, VIC, TAS, WA)

TNL aka The New Liberals (social liberalism and Modern Monetary Theory / NSW, QLD, Sturt [SA], Aston and Hawke [VIC])

United Australia Party (antivax far-right populism / all states and territories)

Victorian Socialists (socialism / VIC)

Ungrouped independent candidates for the Senate in Western Australia (too little info or antivax or otherwise problematic)

Australia’s preferential voting system explained... IN FULL COLOUR

Australia is saturated in media from the USA and the UK. Through entertainment, current affairs, and social media, we hear things like:

“There’s no point voting for [Independent Candidate] because they’ll never get in — it’s a wasted vote!”

“Sure, [Good Minor Party] has good policies, but all they do is take votes away from [Bad Major Party]. We must vote for [Bad Major Party] to keep [Worse Major Party] out!”

Many Australians absorb these messages and assume they apply to our elections too — and our two major parties benefit from the misconception.

But whereas both the USA and the UK use ‘first-past-the-post’ voting systems for their national elections, Australia’s system is more elegant than that. In elections for the House of Representatives, we use preferential voting — also known as instant-runoff voting, ranked choice voting, or ‘the alternative vote’ in the UK.

So here’s Dennis the Election Koala to give Ken the Voting Dingo an important lesson in civics!

All are encouraged to share this comic online and in print. Please visit the official webpage for resources, plus bonus cute drawings!

🐨 You Can't 'Waste' Your Vote! 🐕 Preferential voting / House of Reps ballot explained

✨ Sharing fresh for May ✨

Grab it yourself to share on social media or your blog, AND grab the black-and-white PDF for printing & letterboxing:

https://chickennation.com/voting 🐨 Senate ballot comic? SOON. 🐨 Posters? YES. (Portrait, Horizontal) 🐨 Support? Thanks! (Ko-fi)

✨ PLEASE make sure the indies & minors you support know about this resource. Call them, email them, tell them in person! Seriously! It’s totally normal. They love to meet people; it’s kind of their thing.

✨ REMEMBER that the world (indeed, the internet) is bigger than social media. Effective ways to share this comic include:

Posting it on your blog or website (This is 100% OK)

Doing a live reading on your stream (Why not!)

Letterboxing (Call it ‘zine-bombing’, that sounds cool)

Handing it out at polling places (Do this while volunteering for the indie/minor candidate you support... or do it with a friend, non-partisan style)

Print it out BIG and put it up on the wall of your living room, student lounge, office, business, etc. etc. (Grab the colour PDF from the website)