Australian legislative election, 2001

Legislative elections were held in Australia on 10 November 2001. All 150 seats in the House of Representatives and 40 seats in the 76-member Senate were up for election. The conservative coalition of the Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister John Howard and the National Party of Australia led by John Anderson was elected to a third three-year term, defeating the Australian Labor Party led by Kim Beazley. Beazley resigned after the elections, his second defeat as Labor leader.

1 Issues
2 National summary of votes and seats
- 2.1 House of Representatives
- 2.2 Senate
  - 2.2.1 Notes for the Senate results
3 Source
4 Categories

Issues

The September 11 terrorist attacks and the MS Tampa were strong influences in the minds of voters at this election, focusing debate around the issues of asylum seekers and national security. The Howard Government also alleged during the campaign that asylum seekers had thrown persons overboard from one of their vessels; a Senate inquiry subsequently found that these alleged events did not occur and that the government knew this to be the case before the election (see the children overboard affair).

National summary of votes and seats

House of Representatives

Results by party and seats for the House of Representatives from the Australian legislative election, 2001
Party	Votes	%	(Change)	Seats
Coalition	4,934,957	43.0	(+0.9)	82	(+2)
Liberal Party	4,291,033	37.1	(+0.9)	69	(+5)
National Party of Australia	643,924	5.6	(+0.3)	13	(−3)
Australian Labor Party	4,341,419	37.8	(−2.3)	65	(−4)
Australian Democrats	620,248	5.4	(+0.3)	–
Australian Greens	569,075	4.3	(+2.4)	–
Pauline Hanson's One Nation	498,028	5.0	(−4.1)	–
Others	510,366	4.4		3	(+2)
Total	11,474,093	100		150

Senate

Results by party and seats for the Senate from the Australian legislative election, 2001
Party	Votes	%	(Change)	Seats		Holdovers	Total
Liberal/National Party coalition	4,863,227	41.8	(+4.5)	20		17	35
Australian Labor Party	3,990,997	34.2	(−3.7)	14		17	29
Australian Democrats	843,130	7.2	(−1.4)	4	(−1)	4	8
Australian Greens	570,509	4.9	(+2.2)	2	(+1)	–	2
Pauline Hanson's One Nation	644,364	5.5	(−3.5)	–		1	1
Others	715,488	6.1		–		1	1
Total	11,627,715	100		40		40	76

Notes for the Senate results

Holdovers are those seats won at the previous half-senate election in 1998.
In Senate elections the Liberal and National parties run joint tickets in some states.
The total number of senators is 76, but (as per the constitution of Australia) all four territory senators face re-election at each election. As such, each federal election puts 36 state senators and 4 territory senators into parliament.
The discrepancy between votes for the House of Representatives and the Senate is mostly due to a larger informal vote in the former. In the House, it is not possible to vote for a party per se; rather, preferences must be distributed between individuals (who are usually running under a party ticket). In the Senate, however, it is possible to make a single vote for a party.