Forget the lower house, the Senate could be about to lurch left

As Labor celebrates a crushing landslide achieved from barely more than a third of the vote, it pays to keep in mind a feature of Australian democracy all too readily forgotten on election night: the existence of a powerful upper house elected by proportional representation.

Party discipline being what it is, it matters little whether Labor carries votes in the House of Representatives by the small majorities that sustained it through its first term or the unexpectedly large ones it stands to enjoy in its second.

So far as legislative outcomes are concerned, the greater significance is a shift in the balance of Senate power to the left, as senators elected to six-year terms at Scott Morrison’s win in 2019 make way for a new cohort elected amid a historic slump in Coalition support.

Only about half as many votes were counted last night for the Senate as for the House of Representatives, but party vote shares for the latter allow for the result to be discerned in general terms.

Despite looking down the barrel of the loss of two of their four lower house seats, the Greens’ status quo result in terms of national vote share suggests it will carry Senate seats in each state for the third successive election.

The party will thus maintain what would have been a bloc of 12 Senators if not for the defection in 2023 of Lidia Thorpe, who was not up for reelection.

Progressive independent David Pocock also recorded a resounding triumph in the Australian Capital Territory, almost doubling his share of the vote to 42.0% on current figures — a result which raises the prospect of the Liberals being permanently frozen out of the territory’s two Senate seats.

Labor is set to gain a seat from the Coalition in Queensland, restoring left-right balance to that state after a 2019 result of three seats for the Coalition and one each for Labor, the Greens and One Nation.

Each of the other states could also tilt the balance of the chamber a seat further to the left by returning three Labor senators in addition to one for the Greens, though only in New South Wales and South Australia can it be rated as likely.

Such a scenario in Tasmania would reduce the Liberals to a single seat, with Jacqui Lambie appearing likely of reelection despite her party failing to match its support from 2019 and 2022.

The Coalition could also end up being squeezed from the right by One Nation, despite its performance falling short of the expectations raised by late polling.

Pauline Hanson is set for reelection in Queensland, adding to the seat carried over from the last term by Malcolm Roberts, and the party stands a strong chance of winning a seat in Western Australia if Labor fails to make it to three.

It also has some hope of winning the third seat on the right in Victoria that went to Ralph Babet of the United Australia Party in 2022 — Clive Palmer’s increasingly futile vanity project evidently having lost ground to One Nation’s much cheaper campaign.

Taken together, these results suggest a strong chance that Labor and the Greens between them will account for a majority of 39 seats out of 76, from which they fell one seat short after the 2022 election, despite having respectively lost the services of Fatima Payman and Lidia Thorpe since.

If these members are to be considered part of a broad left along with David Pocock, the progressive bloc in the Senate looks set to amount to at least 42 seats out of 76.

The Coalition, on the other hand, looks set to be reduced to 27 — two fewer than at any time since the Senate assumed its current size in 1984.

What do you think of this potential Senate make-up?

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