The electoral maths on Saturday is simple — win 76 seats and you win government.
But that simplicity also obscures a whole lot of complexity, made even harder to understand because standard electoral maps have been lying to us all for years.
Let's cut through the bluff and the bluster and take a look at the true shape of our electoral landscape — and what that might mean for the results on Saturday night.
Australia is divided up into 150 electorates, each with approximately 114,000 voters.
The seat of Durack in Western Australia is the country's biggest.
Compare that to the size of Grayndler — can you even spot that black dot over in inner-city Sydney?
Well, here's the thing: both of them count the same in the election, as they each elect a single MP to the House of Representatives.
Australia's population is concentrated in the cities, which is why more than half of our electorates are located in inner-city and outer metro areas.
And yet, they're barely visible on the national map.
That's why we created this hexagon map — to better show what elections look like on a national basis.
Yeah, we get it: the states are all a bit of a weird shape…
But the advantage is every electorate is now the same size and shape.
Now that we've got a convenient way of looking at the electoral system, let's explore what a hung parliament is and why it's becoming more of a possibility than it was in the past.
After all, early this year, some polling put the chances of a hung parliament as high as 80 per cent. (Worth noting: the polls have shifted; it's nowhere near that high now.)
To win an election outright, and therefore be able to govern in its own right, one party grouping needs to win a majority of these 150 seats.
A hung parliament just means no-one has a majority of seats on their own. It's still possible for a party or coalition to form a minority government by securing the support of enough independents and minor party members.
In a contest between only Labor and the Coalition, there would have to be a dead heat (75 vs 75) to avoid one of them winning outright.
That's pretty unlikely.
Let's add a few independents and minor parties into the mix.
These people are often referred to as the "crossbench" because, in parliament, they don't sit in government nor in opposition.
As the crossbench expands, the equation becomes more complicated for the major parties.
Despite neither gaining ground on the other, in this hypothetical scenario Labor and the Coalition are both further from the magic number of 76 needed to form a majority government.
If the number of independent candidates winning seats grows larger still, the majors fall even further away from their goal.
That's why the size of the crossbench is a key determining factor in the chances of a hung parliament.
Every seat taken by a minor party or independent is one less in play for the majors.
A historic crossbench
There are now 16 crossbenchers in parliament, after Australians in 2022 elected the most independent and minor party MPs since 1934.
It was the culmination of 50 years of voters drifting away from the major parties, but it didn't result in a hung parliament.
That's largely because most of the new crossbenchers took their inner-city seats from the Coalition.
As a result, Labor was still able to eke its way into majority.
Now, these 16 crossbenchers are all up for re-election.
Although some face tough challenges, if history (and current polling) is any guide, most are likely to retain their seats.
There are also at least a handful of other independents who are seen as highly competitive — in seats such as Bradfield, Cowper and Wannon.
So the number of crossbenchers could yet swell further.
Regardless of whether Australia ends up with a hung parliament this year, over time the growing size of this crossbench means Labor or the Coalition will need to win a higher share of the remaining seats to form a majority.
So, what are Labor and the Coalition's paths to victory?
Good question. The easiest place to start is to look at who holds all the seats at the moment.
Let's colour in every electorate based on its current status.
This is based on who nominally holds each seat now:
- Red for Labor
- Blue for the Coalition parties (Liberals and Nationals)
- Green for the Greens
- Grey for independent and Centre Alliance
- Brown for Katter's Australian Party.
Let's take a closer look at the state of play in some different types of seats.
These are all the seats the Australian Electoral Commission categorises as "inner metropolitan" — basically the inner suburbs of our capital cities.
Labor holds a huge advantage here.
Especially since Scott Morrison's Coalition lost a swag of inner-city seats to 'teal' independents in 2022.
In fact, collectively the Greens and independents currently hold more of these seats than the Coalition does.
Shortly after losing power in 2022, the Liberal Party switched leaders to Peter Dutton.
And on his first day as opposition leader, Mr Dutton promised his policies would "be squarely aimed at the forgotten Australians in the suburbs [and] across regional Australia".
That thinking appears to have driven his electoral strategy too, mostly targeting Labor-held seats in the outer suburbs and regions, rather than trying to win these inner-city seats back.
While Mr Dutton says the Coalition needs to win all kinds of seats to claim victory, political analysts see his policies and his campaign as largely ceding this inner-city ground.
So let's look more closely at somewhere the Coalition campaign has been targeting — these are all the "outer metropolitan" seats.
Mr Dutton has been visiting these types of seats regularly during the campaign, appearing at petrol stations to sell voters on policies like his cut to the petrol excise.
If the Coalition is to find a path to victory, it's going to have to make some serious inroads on Labor's lead here.
Another target area has been regional seats — those that sit outside our capital cities, but have a majority of voters in major provincial cities.
Again, Labor holds a majority here, so it's an area where the Coalition will need to make up ground.
Lastly, these are the rural electorates — those that are outside our capital cities and with the majority of voters living outside city areas.
This is Coalition heartland.
But that doesn't mean it's all roses here either.
To win, the Coalition will need to retain its advantage in these seats, which will mean holding off challenges from both independents and in some cases strong Labor candidates.
If we jump back now to the national picture, we can see that to seize majority government, the Coalition needs to flip 20 seats from its current position.
It's a mammoth task, and current polling is making that look out of reach.
As recently as February, pollsters named Mr Dutton the favourite to become prime minister.
But times have changed.
Those same pollsters have tracked a sudden and sustained shift towards Labor, coinciding with Donald Trump's wild first 100 days back in the White House and a campaign period that has shone a sustained spotlight on the Coalition's policies and Mr Dutton's leadership.
Now, PM Anthony Albanese is considered to be in the box seat, with some pollsters suggesting he could be returned to power with an increased majority — a historic feat for a first-term government.
Of course, the polls have been wrong before, and as our leaders constantly remind us…
There's. Only. One. Poll. That. Counts.
But if the polls are proved right, Labor's most likely path to victory essentially looks a lot like the status quo.
Given its small majority, Labor needs to hold pretty much all the electoral ground it already occupies.
In particular, it faces challenges to shore up seats that have looked to be under threat in Victoria, where the state government's unpopularity is seen as a drag on Mr Albanese's campaign.
Similarly, it is working hard to retain its current seats in Sydney's outer-ring suburbs and key NSW regions.
At the same time, Mr Albanese is eyeing off a range of seats where he could make potential gains — either to extend his majority or to offset any losses.
In Queensland, Labor currently only holds five seats.
Some of the three Brisbane seats held by the Greens could be in play for Labor, although the Coalition will also be in the running there — these are shaping up as potentially fascinating three-way battles.
If some of the more favourable polls for Labor are right, it may even be competitive in seats such as Bonner and Leichhardt.
And if the swing is really on for Labor, some more ambitious polls have even suggested SA's Sturt, WA's Moore and NSW's Banks could be up for grabs.
Early signs to watch
The key areas to watch as counting begins on Saturday night will be the outer suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne.
To climb this electoral mountain, the Coalition will want to see large swings going its way in seats such as Werriwa and Gilmore in NSW, and McEwen and Aston in Victoria.
If they don't get swings in those kinds of seats, Mr Dutton's hopes of knocking over Mr Albanese after just one term will start to look very shaky.
"That will tell us whether we're in for a long or a short night," says ABC News data journalist and election analyst Casey Briggs.
- Reporting, production and editing: Matt Liddy, Julian Fell and Cristen Tilley
- Designer and illustrator: Georgina Piper
- Developer: Ashley Kyd
