The Australian electoral system comprises the laws and processes used for the election of members of the Australian Parliament and is governed primarily by the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. The system presently has a number of distinctive features including compulsory enrolment, compulsory voting, majority-preferential instant-runoff voting in single-member seats to elect the lower house, the House of Representatives, and the use of the single transferable vote proportional representation system to elect the upper house, the Senate.
The 1998 Australian federal election was held to determine the members of the 39th Parliament of Australia. It was held on 3 October 1998. All 148 seats of the House of Representatives and 40 seats of the 76-seat Senate were up for election. The incumbent centre-right Liberal/National Coalition government led by Prime Minister John Howard of the Liberal Party and coalition partner Tim Fischer of the National Party defeated the centre-left Australian Labor Party opposition led by Opposition Leader Kim Beazley despite losing the two party preferred popular vote.
The 1990 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 24 March 1990. All 148 seats in the House of Representatives and 40 seats in the 76-member Senate were up for election. The incumbent Australian Labor Party led by Bob Hawke defeated the opposition Liberal Party of Australia led by Andrew Peacock with coalition partner the National Party of Australia led by Charles Blunt despite losing the two-party-preferred vote. The election saw the reelection of a Hawke government, the fourth successive term.
The Non-Custodial Parents Party was a minor political party in Australia from 2001 to 2020. It supported less government control of many aspects of daily family life, focusing on reform of family law and child support.
Pauline's United Australia Party was an Australian political party launched by One Nation founder Pauline Hanson on 24 May 2007 after disputes within her former party led to her separation from it. It was registered by the Australian Electoral Commission on 20 September 2007.
The Communist Alliance was registered on 16 March 2009 with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) as an Australian political party. It was an alliance of a number of Communist groups, individuals and ethnic-based communist parties. The Alliance was formed to allow communists to run in elections under the Communist banner, while allowing the Communist Party of Australia, a member of the Alliance, to retain a separate, independent membership.
Pirate Party Australia was a political party in Australia that had traditionally represented civil liberty issues, but had also expanded into more traditional areas of policy. It was a Pirate Party which was based on the Pirate Party of Sweden, and continued to develop a comprehensive policy platform since its formation based on the Pirate ethos.
The 2013 Australianfederal election to elect the members of the 44th Parliament of Australia took place on 7 September 2013. The centre-right Liberal/National Coalition opposition led by Opposition leader Tony Abbott of the Liberal Party of Australia and Coalition partner the National Party of Australia, led by Warren Truss, defeated the incumbent centre-left Labor Party government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd by an 18-seat 3.6 percentage point two-party swing resulting in a landslide win for the Coalition. Labor had been in government for six years since first being elected in the 2007 election. This election marked the end of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor government and the start of the current Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Liberal-National Coalition government. Abbott was sworn in by the Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, as Australia's new Prime Minister on 18 September 2013, along with the Abbott Ministry and the members of the House of Representatives. The 44th Parliament of Australia opened on 12 November 2013, which is taken to be the commencement of the term of members of the House of Representatives. The new senators were sworn in by the next Governor-General Peter Cosgrove on 7 July 2014, with their six-year terms commencing on 1 July.
The Sustainable Australia Party, formerly the Sustainable Population Party, is an Australian political party. Formed in 2010, it describes itself as being "from the political centre".
Katter's Australian Party (KAP) is a conservative political party in Australia. It was founded by Bob Katter, an independent and former Nationals MP for the seat of Kennedy, with a registration application lodged to the Australian Electoral Commission in 2011.
The Australian Independents was a political party in Australia, founded by serial election candidate Patricia Petersen in 2012. The party was registered with the Australian Electoral Commission on 16 July 2013.
The Mutual Party is a de-registered minor political party in Australia.
Centre Alliance, formerly known as the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT), is a centrist political party in Australia based in the state of South Australia. It currently has two representatives in the Parliament, one each in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Yellow Vest Australia (YVA), until 9 April 2019 known as the Australian Liberty Alliance (ALA), was a minor right-wing to far-right political party in Australia. The party was founded by members of the Q Society and has been described as the political wing of Q Society. The leader was Debbie Robinson (President), who was also national president of the Q Society. On 4 September 2020, the Australian Electoral Commission removed the Yellow Vest Australia from the registered political party list.
Stirling Griff is an Australian politician who has been a Senator for South Australia since 2016, representing the Nick Xenophon Team and Centre Alliance. His party changed its name from Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) led by Senator Nick Xenophon to Centre Alliance in April 2018 after Xenophon ceased to be connected with the party. He served as deputy leader of the party in the Senate until April 2018, when it adopted its current name. He was also the NXT spokesperson for health, immigration and communications.
Skye Louise Kakoschke-Moore is an Australian politician who was a Senator for South Australia in the Parliament of Australia from July 2016 until she resigned in November 2017 during the parliamentary eligibility crisis, following her realisation that she was a dual citizen. Kakoschke-Moore had served as Nick Xenophon Team whip and spokesperson for mental health, disability, indigenous affairs, veteran's affairs, women, arts and sports. She was also the social services spokeswoman for the party in the Senate.
Rex Lyall Patrick is an Australian politician who has been a Senator for South Australia since November 2017. He was appointed to the Senate to fill a casual vacancy caused by the resignation of Nick Xenophon. He joined the Senate as member of the Centre Alliance party, though in August 2020 he left the party and became an independent. He created the Rex Patrick Team party in January 2021 and sits in parliament as its only member. Before entering politics, Patrick was a businessman and senior business executive officer, as well as a submariner in the Royal Australian Navy.
William Fraser Anning is an Australian former politician who was a senator for Queensland from November 2017 to June 2019. Anning is known for holding far-right, nativist, and anti-Muslim views, and has been criticised for his use of the Nazi euphemism for the Holocaust, when he proposed a plebiscite to be the "Final Solution" to "the immigration problem" in his maiden speech. Anning also generated controversy for his statements shortly after the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand, in which he blamed the attacks on "the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate".
Timothy Raphael Storer is a former Australian politician who served as a Senator for South Australia from February 2018 to June 2019. Following the disqualification of Skye Kakoschke-Moore during the parliamentary eligibility crisis, the Court of Disputed Returns declared Storer elected on a countback. He had been ranked below Kakoschke-Moore on the Nick Xenophon Team's ticket at the 2016 federal election. However, by the time he was declared elected he had left the party. He sat in the Senate as an independent and did not recontest his seat at the 2019 election.
This is a list of members of the Australian Senate following the 2019 Australian federal election held on 18 May 2019. Terms for newly elected senators representing the Australian states began on 1 July 2019. Terms for senators in the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory began on the day of the election, 18 May 2019.
