Independent and minor party voting in Australia: findings from the Australian Cooperative Election Survey (ACES) 2025

Federal elections in Australia in the 2020s have produced declines in primary votes for Labor and Coalition. One third of voters support minor parties or Independents, raising questions for Australian political science. This article contributes to the literature on four voter cohorts central to non-major party voting: the Greens; Independents; Populist Right parties – notably, One Nation – and Others. Analysing a sample of 4,012 voters responding to the Australian Cooperative Election Survey 2025, this article tests hypotheses for and explores associations with non-party voting through multinomial logistic regression models. Beyond demographics and leader evaluations, the findings point to associations between minor party and Independent voting and low political trust as well as policy attitudes. They also point to differences in minor party and Independent voter cohorts. While low trust is associated with minor party voting, evidence of an association between economic exclusion and voting is weaker and more mixed.