There are two houses in the Australian Federal Parliament.

The Lower House is called the House of Representatives and the Upper House is called the Senate. The Senate has historically elected more members to the crossbench, with neither major party rarely achieving a majority. Former Prime Minister Paul Keating once commented on this situation, calling the members of the Senate ‘unrepresentative swill’, more for his frustration at having bills scrutinised more than how the members got elected. This article will focus on the Senate and will cover the topics of who is running in 2025 for the NSW Senate, a little history, and how you cast a vote.

The 2025 NSW Senate Ballot is the smallest it has been in decades, with only 19 Groups running and 3 ungrouped candidates. The last time the ballot had 19 groups was back in 1996 and has fallen dramatically from the 45 groups in 2013 and 42 groups in 2016 respectively. This was mainly due to two changes made after the 2016 and 2019 elections. Group Ticket Voting (GVT) was abolished and party registrations were tightened to have a higher membership threshold. GVT resulted in absurd results occurring, such as the election of Wilson Tucker from the Daylight Savings Party in the Western Australian Upper House, off just 98 votes!

The biggest change noted in the ballot this year across the Senate races is more groups running joint tickets. Traditionally, the blue Coalition of the Liberals and Nationals would do this, but 2025 has seen emergence of the yellow coalition named ‘Australia First Alliance’. The yellow coalition includes the Libertarian (formerly Liberal Democrats), the HEART (formerly Informed Medical Options Party) and new kids on the block, People First Party. The other parties running are as follows: The Australian Labor Party, Australia’s Voice, Fusion, Family First, One Nation, Animal Justice, Australian Christians, Legalise Cannabis, Sustainable Australia, Indigenous-Aboriginal, Lambie Network, Australian Citizens, Socialist Alliance, The Greens and The Trumpet of Patriots (a mixture of the former Clive Palmer United Australia Party and the Federation Party). The unregistered Socialist Equality Party is running as Group B on the ballot. To finish off the ballot at the right-hand side will be the 3 ungrouped candidates.

To ensure you vote counts at this election, you can choose to either number at least 6 boxes above the line or to number at least 12 boxes below the line. The Australian Electoral Commission has section on practise voting in the Senate on their website.

As for the prospects of this election, the 6 Senate Seats in NSW have had a history of splitting 3 to the left-wing and 3 to the right-wing parties. At the last election, this resulted in 3 for Liberal and Nationals, 2 for Labor and 1 for the Greens. The 3rd Liberal/National seat in NSW is at risk from One Nation but this is the only change foreseeable at this election.

Remember, that every vote counts! Happy voting!