Australian federal election, 1980

1977 ←

18 October 1980

→ 1983

All 125 seats in the Australian House of Representatives 63 seats were needed for a majority in the House 34 (of the 64) seats in the Australian Senate

	First party	Second party

Leader	Malcolm Fraser	Bill Hayden
Party	Liberal/National coalition	Labor
Leader since	21 March 1975	22 December 1977
Leader's seat	Wannon	Oxley
Last election	86 seats	38 seats
Seats won	74 seats	51 seats
Seat change	12	13
Percentage	50.40%	49.60%
Swing	4.20	4.20

Prime Minister before election

Malcolm Fraser
Liberal/National coalition

Subsequent Prime Minister

Malcolm Fraser
Liberal/National coalition

Federal elections were held in Australia on 18 October 1980. All 125 seats in the House of Representatives, and 34 of the 64 seats in the Senate, were up for election. The incumbent Liberal Party of Australia led by Malcolm Fraser with coalition partner the National Country Party led by Doug Anthony was elected to a third term in government, defeating the Australian Labor Party led by Bill Hayden.

Independent: Brian Harradine

The Fraser Government had lost a degree of popularity within the electorate by 1980. The economy had been performing poorly since the 1973 oil shock. However, Hayden was not seen as having great electoral prospects. Perhaps as evidence of this, then ACTU President Bob Hawke (elected to Parliament in the election as the Member for Wills) and then Premier of New South Wales Neville Wran featured heavily in the campaign, almost as heavily as Hayden.

In the election, Labor finished only 0.8 percent behind the Coalition on the two-party vote—a four-percent swing from 1977. However, due to the uneven nature of the swing, Labor came up 12 seats short of a majority, giving the Coalition a third term in government. Hayden, however, did manage to regain much of what Labor had lost in the previous two elections. Notably, he managed to more than halve Fraser's majority, from 48 seats at dissolution to 23.

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