'Bucking the trend': Some of the 2025 election's surprises

SBS Australia

06-05-2025

Two seats currently held by teals remain too close to call this election
While the Greens' primary vote was steady, the party has lost support in Metropolitan areas
One seat in Victoria yet to be called could go to the Nationals It might be weeks until some of the closest seats in the 2025 election could be called, with some races down to only a few hundred votes. Despite the uncertainty, there are several patterns emerging in the still-undecided seats. Election analysts Simon Welsh from Redbridge Group and John Ratcliff from Accent Research spoke to SBS News on Monday afternoon about the seats to watch out for.
"They've done well in Sydney, they've held the seats they have in Sydney — Bradfield looks likely but it's close," he said. The Sydney seats of Mackellar, Wentworth and Warringah have also all been retained by independents. However, things are looking a bit tighter in Victoria's teal-held seats.
"The two community independents in Melbourne are struggling," Ratcliff said. Kooyong — where independent MP Monique Ryan is fending off Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer — is still too close to call. "It will take some days — possibly some weeks — for the outcome to be confirmed," Ryan wrote on Facebook on Monday morning. The seat of Goldstein — where incumbent teal Zoe Daniels is up against the Liberals' Tim Wilson — is also down to the wire. Welsh said Goldstein is demographically different to other teal seats. "It doesn't have that typical teal mix of progressive urban, older middle class and younger people coming in," he said.
"The Greens' primary votes have been going backwards in most of the inner cities of most of Australia's big metros for about a year," he said. "So this isn't just an election campaign thing." Ratcliff said the primary vote for the Greens went backwards in Melbourne, Macnamara, Griffith, Ryan, and Brisbane.
"The Greens are blaming Liberal preferences, but their own primary vote dropped in most of their seats," he said. However, the party's vote across the nation as a whole has not dropped. Ratcliff and Welsh said the Greens had picked up more votes in outer suburban areas, which could become a future battleground for political hopefuls running on a Greens ticket. The party is yet to pick up any new seats, although Labor MP Peter Khalil is facing a tight contest against former Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam in the Melbourne seat of Wills, which at the time of publication is still undecided.
Welsh said the seat of Bendigo in Central Victoria is seeing "really interesting" results. "It's a bucking of the trend — this is a Labor seat going potentially National," he said. "In fact, my gut feel is that it will be going to the Nationals."
The seat is held by Labor MP Lisa Chesters, who is facing a strong contest from the Nationals' Andrew Lethlean. Welsh said a Nationals win in the seat could have long-lasting implications. "The implications of that for the Victorian state election next year are that Bendigo is the region where the premier has her seat," he said. Ratcliff added the electorate "could go either way at this point". Visit the to access articles, podcasts and videos from SBS News, NITV and our teams covering more than 60 languages.