A record number of voters are set to participate in Australia’s 2025 federal election after 740,000 people added to the electoral roll in just three years.
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) revealed last week there were 710,000 new voters added between the 2022 election and the end of 2024, and on Monday a spokesperson told Noticer News the number of first-time voters was expected to be at least 740,000.
“The majority are due to age (18 and 19 year olds but also a proportion of people aged 20 as well). Other first time voters are people who’ve attained Australian citizenship since the 2022 federal election,” the spokesperson said.
The AEC said more information on the composition of the new voter group may be made available after the rolls close on April 7.
Australian Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope said the AEC was looking to recruit an army of paid election workers to deal with the country’s largest-ever election, and urged citizens to check their enrolment to make sure they were registered to vote.
“There are more voters on the electoral roll than ever before, there’ll be more voting venues than ever – both within Australia and overseas, there’ll be greater accessibility options than we’ve ever had, and we again need around 100,000 staff to deliver it,” Mr Pope said.
Last month Immigration Minister Tony Burke was accused of “vote buying” and “seat stacking” by his political opponents for hosting a series of large-scale citizenship ceremonies in multicultural electorates around Australia.
Almost 13,000 immigrants – about 20% of them Indian – were given citizenship within a period of weeks, including 6,000 in just three days during an event at Sydney’s Olympic Park.
An attendee said officials from the AEC were “working the crowd” to inform people of their voting rights and responsibilities, and photos showed a large screen encouraging the new citizens to enrol to vote.
Header image: New citizens at a ceremony in Blacktown on Wednesday attended by Mr Burke (Facebook).
