The 2025 Australian federal election delivered a devastating blow to the Liberal-National Coalition, with Peter Dutton’s party suffering what pollsters describe as their worst defeat in modern history. The Coalition’s collapse was so complete that Dutton himself lost his seat of Dickson, which he had held for 24 years. Labor’s landslide victory saw them secure 94 seats out of 150 in the House of Representatives—their highest seat count ever and the most seats won by any single party in Australian electoral history.
The defeat was particularly stinging because it represented a fundamental rejection of Dutton’s leadership across multiple demographic groups, with pollsters noting that the gender divide and generational shift against the Coalition was “far worse than Morrison”.
The Demographics of Defeat
The Coalition’s electoral catastrophe stemmed from a perfect storm of demographic abandonment that cut across traditional voter bases. Women voters delivered one of the most decisive rejections of the Coalition in recent memory, with Labor securing a 55% to 45% two-party preferred advantage among female voters in outer suburban and regional electorates. This gender gap represented the largest split pollsters had observed, surpassing even the divisions seen during Scott Morrison’s tenure as Prime Minister.
Young Australians also turned decisively against the Coalition, with Generation Z and Millennial voters—those born between 1981 and 2010—supporting Labor by an overwhelming 60% to 40% margin on a two-party preferred basis. This generational shift was particularly significant because these younger cohorts now outnumber the traditionally conservative baby boomers, fundamentally altering Australia’s electoral world.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the Coalition lost significant ground among its target demographic of mortgage-stressed middle-aged Australians. Despite attempts to court these voters with fuel cuts and tax offsets, people in their 40s and 50s who rent or still have mortgages abandoned the party in droves. This represented a critical failure of the Coalition’s core electoral strategy.
Metropolitan Meltdown
The Coalition’s urban collapse was nothing short of spectacular, with the party reduced to just eight urban seats nationwide. In Adelaide, the Liberals won no seats for the first time since 1946, with their last representative, James Stevens in Sturt, defeated by Labor’s Claire Clutterham. The party managed only three seats each in Sydney and Melbourne, two in Brisbane, and one in Perth—a catastrophic decline from their traditional metropolitan strongholds.
This urban devastation was compounded by the party’s failure to connect with culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Voters who spoke a language other than English at home supported Labor by a 60% margin, with Indian and Chinese diaspora communities particularly backing the government. This demographic shift proved decisive in seats like Deakin and Menzies in Victoria, which fell to Labor despite being traditional Liberal strongholds.
Strategic Miscalculations
The Coalition’s campaign was marked by several critical strategic errors that accelerated their decline. Their nuclear energy policy proved particularly damaging, with political experts noting it “turbo-charged” their losses by alienating voters concerned about climate change and environmental issues. The policy was widely seen as a backward step in Australia’s renewable energy transition.
Peter Dutton’s leadership style and policy positions also contributed significantly to the defeat. His work-from-home policy sparked a dramatic fall in support, taking the party from being “in the box seat” to win the election in February to struggling to hold onto seats they won in 2022. The Coalition’s primary vote plummeted to just 31% in some polls, representing their lowest-ever recorded support.
A Historic Realignment
The 2025 election marked a historic realignment in Australian politics, with Labor achieving its best result since 1943 while the Coalition recorded its worst performance since the two-party system began in 1910. For the first time in Australian electoral history, minor parties and independents collectively received more votes than the Liberal-National Coalition, capturing 34% of the primary vote compared to the Coalition’s 32%.
This fragmentation of the traditional two-party system, combined with Labor’s ability to increase its primary vote across the country, suggests a fundamental shift in Australian political preferences. The Coalition now faces an existential crisis, with their next leader likely to hold a regional seat rather than an urban constituency—a dramatic reversal of traditional political power structures.