Political expert weighs in on likely federal election date

Political science professor Dominic O’Sullivan predicts the likely dates for the 2025 federal election.

Transcript

00:00We're looking most realistically at either March or May.

00:09It has to be held by the 17th of May.

00:13The term of the Parliament is prescribed, and while the House of Representatives term

00:19could technically go a little longer, the half-Senate election has to be held and the

00:24votes counted in time for new Senators to be sworn in by the 1st of July when the term

00:32takes effect.

00:33So that effectively creates a deadline.

00:40There's an election in March in Western Australia, and given the importance of Western Australia

00:46to the Government's majority, it holds a couple of seats there that it didn't expect to win

00:52at the last election, and that's what got it over the line to be able to form a majority

00:59Government.

01:00So clashing with the Western Australian campaign would be a political risk for the Federal

01:08Government, and there'd have to be compelling reasons, I think, for it to want to take that

01:15risk.

01:16So most of March is also ruled out.