Australian federal election, 1998

1996 ←

3 October 1998 (1998-10-03)

→ 2001

All 148 seats in the Australian House of Representatives 75 seats were needed for a majority in the House 40 (of the 76) seats in the Australian Senate

	First party	Second party

Leader	John Howard	Kim Beazley
Party	Liberal/National coalition	Labor
Leader since	30 January 1995 (1995-01-30)	19 March 1996 (1996-03-19)
Leader's seat	Bennelong	Brand
Last election	94 seats	49 seats
Seats won	80 seats	67 seats
Seat change	14	18
Popular vote	5,413,431	5,630,409
Percentage	49.02%	50.98%
Swing	4.61	4.61

Prime Minister before election

John Howard
Liberal/National coalition

Subsequent Prime Minister

John Howard
Liberal/National coalition

Federal elections were held in Australia on 3 October 1998. All 148 seats in the House of Representatives and 40 seats in the 76-member Senate were up for election. The incumbent Liberal Party of Australia led by Prime Minister of Australia John Howard and coalition partner the National Party of Australia led by Tim Fischer defeated the opposition Australian Labor Party led by Kim Beazley, despite Beazley's Labor Party, polling more votes overall than Howard's Liberal-National Coalition.

Independents: Peter Andren

The election returned the Member of the House of Representatives for its 1998–2001 term and half of Australia's senators, who then served in the 1999–2002 Senate.

Despite winning almost 51 percent of the two-party-preferred vote and regaining much of what it had lost in its severe defeat of two years earlier, Labor fell short of forming government. The government was re-elected with 49.02% of the two-party-preferred vote, compared to 50.98% for the Australian Labor Party, the largest difference of six election results where the winner did not gain a two-party preferred majority, since 2PP results first estimated from 1937.

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