The politics of Australia has a mild two-party system, with two dominant political groupings in the Australian political system, the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party of Australia. Federally, 13 of the 150 members of the lower house (Members of Parliament, or MPs) are not members of major parties, as well as 20 of the 76 members of the upper house (senators).
Other parties tend to perform better in the upper houses of the various federal and state parliaments since these typically use a form of proportional representation, except for in Tasmania where the lower house is proportionally elected and the upper house is made up of single member districts.
The National Party represents rural and agricultural interests.[6] The Nationals contest a limited number of seats and do not generally directly compete with the Liberal Party. Its ideology is generally more socially conservative than that of the Liberal Party. In 1987, the National Party made an abortive run for the office of prime minister in its own right, in the Joh for Canberra campaign.[7] However, it has generally not aspired to become the majority party in the coalition, and it is generally understood that the prime minister of Australia will be a member of either the Labor or Liberal parties. On two occasions (involving Earle Page in 1939, and John McEwen from December 1967 to January 1968), the deputy prime minister, the leader of the National Party (then known as the Country Party), became the prime minister temporarily, upon the death of the incumbent prime minister. Arthur Fadden was the only other Country Party prime minister. He assumed office in August 1941 after the resignation of Robert Menzies and served as prime minister until October of that year.[8]
The Liberal and National parties have merged in Queensland and the Northern Territory. The Liberal National Party of Queensland, formed in 2008, is a branch of the Liberal Party, but it is affiliated with the Nationals and members elected to federal parliament may sit as either Liberals or Nationals.[9] The Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory is likewise affiliated with both the Liberals and Nationals and its members may join either federal parliamentary party room.[10]
Historically, support for either the Coalition or the Labor Party was often viewed as being based on social class, with the upper and middle classes supporting the Coalition and the working class supporting Labor. This has been a less important factor since the 1970s and 1980s when the Labor Party gained a significant bloc of middle-class support and the Coalition gained a significant bloc of working-class support.[11]
The two-party duopoly has been relatively stable, with the two groupings (Labor and Coalition) gaining at least 70% of the primary vote in every election between 1910 and 2019 (including the votes of autonomous state parties). Third parties have only rarely received more than 10% of the vote for the Australian House of Representatives in a federal election, such as the Australian Democrats in the 1990 election and the Australian Greens in 2010, 2016, 2019, 2022 and 2025. In some Parliaments, support for smaller parties and Independents has resulted in major parties having to come to Confidence and supply agreements to form government, such as after the 2010 Australian federal election.
Membership requirement
To maintain registration, parties must demonstrate that they have a certain number of members.
Federally, since 2022, unless a party has current parliamentary representation, they must demonstrate they have 1,500 members.[12][13] For the state and territory elections, parties require 100 members in Tasmania and the ACT, 200 in South Australia and Northern Territory, 500 in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, and 750 in New South Wales.[13]
↑ David Pocock was elected as a member of a political party also named "David Pocock," formed to allow him to appear as an above-the-line group on the Senate ballot.[14] He is listed as an independent by the parliamentary website;[15] however, the party remains registered, and the AEC lists David Pocock as a parliamentary party.
↑ The United Australia Party was voluntarily deregistered on 8 September 2022.[17] However, Ralph Babet, the party's sole parliamentary representative, stated that the change was made for "administrative reasons," and he continues to represent the deregistered UAP in the Senate.[18]
Federal non-parliamentary parties
Parties listed in alphabetical order as of March 2025:[19]
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