All change in the Australian federal election of 2022

The Australian federal election of 2022 marked significant electoral sea change in Australia, and not just because of the convincing defeat of Scott Morrison's Liberal/National government.

With Labor, the Greens, and "Teal" Independents all uniting against them, the Liberal/National Government dropped to just 58 seats out of 151, worse even than John Howard's defeat in 2007 (and Mr Howard actually lost his own seat, Bennelong, in that election), representing a loss of 18 seats. They also lost 4 of their Senate seats. Not only was Mr Morrison's personal unpopularity a dominating factor in the campaign, but more importantly so were environmental issues and Mr Morrison's inability to tackle them effectively, even after forest fires in Australia made international headlines as a warning about the consequences of global warming. Several Liberal seats that had withstood even Mr Howard's drubbing in 2007, such as Grey and Tangney, fell. Their most notable defeats included Liberal Deputy Leader Josh Frydenberg's loss of Kooyong to Independent Monique Ryan, the loss of the two wealthiest divisions in New South Wales, both to Independents (North Sydney and Wentworth), and losing both Brisbane and Ryan (also in the City of Brisbane) in Queensland to the Greens; Queensland has been suffering from major flash floods recently so climate change was a more significant factor in voting patterns than in any other state or either of the two territories, and thus a miniature Green surge occurred there. Across Australia the Greens' first preference vote rose by 1.5%, but in Queensland it rose by 3% (twice the national Green average increase) on average. The most significant Green increases in Queensland came in urban areas, however, even though rural areas and small cities are more vulnerable to the effects of man-made climate change especially if near or on the coast.

Labor won a slim overall majority, doing particularly well in Western Australia due to their legacy of coronavirus restrictions not being as severe as those in other states (especially Victoria) where a majority of divisions recorded a swing of 10% or more to Labor. In total they won 77 seats, giving them an overall majority of 3, and won 1 extra Senate seat. The election was not all rosy for Anthony Albanese and Labor, though. In Griffith, the division once held by Kevin Rudd when he was Prime Minister of Australia, the Labor incumbent, Terri Butler, finished third on 1st preferences whilst the Greens gained the seat, the first time in Australian history that an incumbent MP has finished third in a seat they were defending despite being re-endorsed by the party they were elected for at the preceding election. Furthermore, they also lost Fowler to a popular local independent, Dai Le. Incidentally, Ms Le once contested elections on the Liberals' behalf.

The Greens achieved their best ever result in an Australian election, finally winning multiple seats in the House of Representatives and an extra 3 seats in the Senate. They increased their seat total to 4 by winning three Queensland divisions, Brisbane, Griffith, and Ryan, and easily holding Melbourne; however they did not win any additional seats in Victoria, their strongest state in Australia, despite high hopes in Macnamara in particular, which has a stronger base Liberal vote than Cooper and Wills, the other two federal visions in Victoria with strong Green votes. Interestingly the New South Wales division of Grayndler, held by the aforementioned Anthony Albanese (who is now set to become Australia's next PM), which has one of the strongest Green votes in New South Wales, was one of only a handful of divisions where the Green vote actually decreased.

The record number of Independents elected to Australia's House of Representatives is attributable to Climate 200, a centrist think tank dedicated to tackling climate change, who backed several Independents in safe Liberal divisions, primarily those in the wealthy suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney. Thus they were known as the "Teal Independents", since teal is a greenish shade of blue (the Liberals' colour in Australia), and of the 20 candidates that were considered part of this alliance (including the Centre Alliance's Rebekha Sharkie), half were elected, unseating six Liberal incumbents in the process although all of these gains were in rural seats; only the Independents who were incumbents won any rural divisions of Australia, showing that moderate Liberal voters living in the suburbs were most likely to switch, just as within the UK at the most recent local elections, the Liberal Democrats found it much easier to win affluent suburbs or commuter towns than villages or wards containing multiple villages or hamlets.

Two minor parties on the political right, the racist right One Nation Party and the free-market conservative United Australia Party, failed to win any seats (the UAP's only MP, Craig Kelly, finished 4th in the Hughes division) and One Nation lost one of its two Senate seats, but with 4.93% and 4.18% of the 1st preference vote respectively they both made a significant impact, usually to exacerbate Liberal losses, although One Nation's strongest results came in poor, suburban fringe Labor divisions and the few (semi-) rural divisions in Labor hands in Australia e.g. Hunter and Paterson divisions in New South Wales; Labor only narrowly held on to both of these divisions on the two-candidate preferred counts. Both the sole Katter's Australian Party and Centre Alliance MPs held their seats even though Ms Sharkie was the only Centre Alliance candidate standing at this election. No other parties made a significant impact of any kind, and nor did the disappearance of the Christian Democrats (aka Fred Nile Alliance), which was deregistered earlier this year after failing to meet membership requirements (under new electoral rules, political parties in Australia must have at least 1,500 members to be registered) and in any case it had become insolvent the previous year.

Ambitious climate change targets have been announced in Australia following this momentous election, but they cannot be met unless Australia phases out coal and stops opening any new coal mines; so far Labor has ruled this out even though coal is not only extremely polluting, but also very inefficient as a fuel source. There is no room for coal in a future dependent on carbon neutrality and reliance on clean, renewable energy,

(updated based on final count information on divisions that were in doubt at the time of the original post last week)