Tione Zylstra
Reporting from Brisbane

Image source, Tione Zylstra

Despite the Queensland electorate of Griffith’s position as a relatively “safe” Greens seat, the party isn’t planning on slowing down their campaign today.

This is because, according to Greens Councillor for Gabba Ward, Trina Massey, a “safe” seat is a myth.

“The green vote is quite high in this area, but I think the really important thing to note is that there is no safe seat. It’s really important, any time a seat is treated safe by any party, they’ve lost touch with their values,” Massey explains.

“I think, overall, no matter what happens here in Griffith, we are in an exciting part of the Australian electoral system. There are shifts in demographics that are happening in real time."

Massey also believes that this election is going to show different voter strengths coming into play.

"To me, this is such an important election, and I am excited to see Australia make the right choices, because I trust them.”

We can now bring you footage of the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, voting in Marrickville in Sydney and of the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, in Brisbane.

Shortly after voting, both leaders made the last public appearances of their respective campaigns.

Now it's a waiting game until counting begins at 18:00 and we start getting an indication of who Australians have favoured to be the next PM.

Kelly Ng
Reporting from Queensland

Queensland is Australia's second-largest state by size, and more than half of its population live outside the capital city of Brisbane - a larger proportion than the rest of Australia's mainland states and territories.

For a long time this decentralised state has been seen as a "conservative" bloc dominated by populist premiers, and was a National Party stronghold until Labor's rise in the 1990s and early 2000s.

It was also the state that delivered former conservative PM Scott Morrison his "miracle victory" in 2019, as much of the electorate seeking job security turned against Labor and back toward the Coalition.

"Queensland is different," Griffith University expert Paul Williams said at the time, noting that pre-election opinion polls in the state were the most inaccurate in Australia.

The Greens have also increased in popularity in Queensland. In 2022 they won three lower house seats - up from none.

In the last election this was where the divide between urban and rural voters showed up the starkest, so it will be interesting to see where things end up this time.

Image source, Getty Images

Despite being on the other side of the globe, the impacts of Donald Trump's second-term policies - including global tariffs and a trade war with China - have affected Australia's domestic issues this election cycle.

The US-Australia relationship has been front and centre in both Labor and the Liberal-National Coalition's campaigns. For many voters, it will also be front of mind.

Peter Dutton has often presented himself as the politician best suited to strengthening Australia's relationship with the US president.

Anthony Albanese, meanwhile, has tried to be more measured in his criticisms of Trump's policies affecting Australia, while reassuring the nation that he intends to maintain the US-Australia alliance.

Whoever wins this election will have to grapple with the critical question: how will Australia deal with the US under Trump's increasingly unpredictable leadership?

Read our in-depth analysis for more.

Image source, Getty Images

We're also getting photos of opposition leader Peter Dutton casting his vote.

He went with his wife Kirilly and sons Harry and Tom to the Albany Creek state school in Brisbane, in his seat of Dickson.

Image source, Getty Images

It's official: Anthony Albanese has voted in this year's federal election.

The Prime Minister attended Marrickville West Public School alongside his fiancée, Jodie Haydon, and his son, Nathan.

There are only a few hours now until voting closes.

Finbar O'Mallon
Reporting from Melbourne

Roaming outside Balwyn Primary School in Melbourne is Oscar, who declined to give his last name.

He's sporting a sandwich board protesting against Australia’s compulsory voting.

The message reads “forced 2 choose, I refuse” on the front and “mandatory voting isnt democracy… its coersion” on the back.

“It's not nice, [forcing] people to vote when there's no good options,” Oscar said. “They [politicians] all act like they're part of the Australian ether, like everyone else, but they're not really.”

Oscar added that “it's my God-given right to choose my own actions, and forcing people to vote is against that liberty.”

Australians can illegibly file their ballots, called a “donkey vote”, but they do have to appear at a polling booth to be marked off as having voted if they want to avoid a fine.

Oscar is a local of Kooyong, one of the election’s most closely watched seats. It's a tight race there between independent incumbent Dr Monique Ryan and Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer, with many doubting a result will be clear-cut by the end of Saturday night.

Australia uses a preferential voting system, where candidates are ranked in order of preference.

It is unlike the first-past-the-post system - used in the UK and most US states - which elects candidates based on who has received the greatest number of votes in a single count, regardless of whether they've secured an absolute majority.

In Australia, if no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote in the first tally, the votes from the least popular candidates are redistributed, and that process is repeated until someone secures a majority.

In races for the House of Representatives, voters are required to mark a preference down for every single candidate listed on the ballot. However, in Senate races, voters only need to mark down a designated number of preferences.

In this election, all 150 seats in the House of Representatives will be up for grabs, as well as 40 of the 76 seats in the Senate.

One party needs to win at least 76 seats in the House to form a majority government. If it cannot do that, it must try to win support from minor parties or independent MPs.

Kelly Ng
Reporting from Dickson

Image source, Getty Images

For the first time in its history, the Coalition has struck a preference deal with controversial far-right party One Nation.

This means Liberal how-to-vote cards will suggest their supporters rank One Nation candidates ahead of other parties like Labor and the Greens in many seats.

One Nation has done the same for Coalition candidates in dozens of electorates, including Dickson, which Dutton is holding onto with a slim 1.7% margin.

Preference deals only matter if people vote according to the order on these cards. About four in 10 voters backing the major parties do, according to ABC election analyst Antony Green.

In any case, though, this is significant. It marks a turn around for One Nation, once considered a political pariah. As recently as 2019, the Coalition was urging voters to rank the fringe party below their main rivals, Labor.

This election, the Coalition hopes preferences from One Nation voters might help them in key marginal seats like Dickson. But some strategists believe this arrangement damages their reputation, and could yet work against them.

Image source, The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

It's not just in Australia that Aussies are voting.

There's a record 111 overseas voting locations across 83 countries this year, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The largest hubs of Australians abroad are in Berlin, Hong Kong, London and New York.

Some of the far-flung locations where people can cast their ballot include Bali, the Japanese city of Osaka, Port Vila in Vanuatu and the capital of French Polynesia, Pape’ete.

Image source, Creative Commons via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Image source, The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Image source, The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Tiffanie Turnbull
BBC News, Sydney

There has historically been little need for public general practitioner (GP) clinics in Australia, with most GPs choosing to accept government rebates as full payment.

That is increasingly uncommon though, with doctors saying those allowances haven't kept up with the true cost of delivering care.

At the same time, staff shortages, which persist despite efforts to recruit from overseas, create a scarcity that only drives up prices further.

Healthcare research start-up Cleanbill called almost all of the nation's estimated 7,000 GP clinics, and found only a fifth of them would give a free appointment to a new adult patient. In the entire state of Tasmania they couldn't find a single one.

Image source, BBC News

Tiffanie Turnbull
BBC News, Sydney

When Australia's modern health system was born four decades ago – underpinned by a public insurance scheme called Medicare – it was supposed to guarantee affordable and accessible high-quality care as "a basic right".

Medicare became a national treasure almost instantly. But fast forward 40 years and more and more Australians, regardless of where they live, are delaying or going without the care they need, as the country’s once-revered universal healthcare system is crumbles at every level.

Inadequate government funding is exacerbating a shortage of critical healthcare workers like general practitioners; wait times are ballooning; doctors are beginning to write their own rules on fees and costs to patients are skyrocketing.

Australians tell the BBC the country is at a crossroads, and needs to decide if universal healthcare is worth saving.

Read more here.

Finbar O'Mallon
Reporting from Melbourne

I'm here at Balwyn Primary School inside the Victorian federal electorate, Kooyong.

It will be one of tonight's most closely watched seats, with the "teal" incumbent and independent MP Dr Monique Ryan looking to keep hold of the once-Liberal safe seat.

Amelia Hamer, running for the Liberals as part of the Liberal-National Coalition, is hoping to return the seat to her party.

Kooyong has been the site of some of the election’s strangest and ugliest scenes, including neo-Nazis hijacking a community town hall meeting.

Hamer was positive as she lined up to vote.

“The mood's been great out there on the polling booth today,” she said, adding that her “focus has been very much on speaking to people”.

As Hamer went to get her democracy sausage, a volunteer greeted her with, "Hi, Monique!" before suddenly realising her mistake.

Hamer, unfazed, took her food to go after being served by two students.

Labor, the Liberals, the Nationals and the Greens may get talked about the most, but there are actually 12 different parties represented in the Australian Senate, and eight in the House of Representatives.

Here are a few of the minor parties hoping to be re-elected.

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party

This right-wing party was set-up by Queensland Senator Pauline Hanson in 1997. Hanson has frequently been a figure of controversy, including an infamous stunt where she wore a burka in the Australian senate while arguing for them to be banned. Her party’s policies include protecting free speech and deporting “illegal immigrants".

Bob Katter’s Australian Party

Once a member of the Nationals, Katter has been an MP for 50 years and is known for his loquacious style of speaking. During 2017’s referendum on same-sex marriage, Katter provided a stand-out moment of the campaign when he linked the matter to preventing deadly crocodile attacks in north Queensland.

Clive Palmer's Trumpet of Patriots

Billionaire Clive Palmer’s party was called the United Australia Party (UAP) last election - but despite spending about A$123m (£59.3, $78.9) on their campaign, won only a single senate seat. The UAP was voluntarily deregistered, but Palmer is now back with the Trumpet of Patriots Party.

Centre Alliance

Centre Alliance has one MP, Rebekha Sharkie. She has already said that, in the event of a hung parliament, she would liaise with Coalition leader Peter Dutton first.

All of the seats in Australia's House of Representatives - that's 150 in this election - will be up for grabs, as will 40 of the 76 seats in the Senate.

Australia has two major parties: the left-leaning Australian Labor Party and the conservative Liberal-National coalition.

One party needs to win at least 76 seats in the House to form a majority government.

If it cannot do that, it must try to win support from minor parties or independent MPs.

In both state and federal elections, the vote share for minor parties and independents has been steadily increasing in Australia for decades.

That reached record levels in the 2022 federal election, with one in three Australians casting votes for candidates outside the two major parties, external.

Image source, Getty Images

Voters aged under 45 make up nearly half of the 18 million people enrolled under Australia’s compulsory voting system, outnumbering the traditionally dominant Baby Boomber bloc.

Housing affordability, employment, climate change and inequality are among the key issues for young voters - largely similar to the broader electorate.

Research shows that first-time voters in particular have grown increasingly disillusioned with a two-party system amid a cost-of-living crisis.

This demographic accounts for the largest share of voters “giving their first preferences to minor parties and independents”, political consultancy Redbridge Group says in an op-ed on Australia’s Financial Review newspaper.

Youth policy professor Lucas Walsh notes, though, that their votes “might not only be about voting for a particular candidate or party”.

“It might be democracy itself that is questioned,” he says.

Katy Watson
Reporting from Western Australia

Image source, BBC/Katy Watson

At a voting centre in the electorate of Curtin in Western Australia, 19-year-old Samara Ainge and her friend Evie are casting their vote with a few things on their mind.

“I’m a queer person and the world is getting pretty scary for people like us at the moment, so I am very interested in which parties are going to support me and support action on my rights,” she says.

Sustainability is also on her mind.

“Climate change is one of the biggest problems in the world at the moment, and Australia is doing a good job, but I don’t think we are doing enough,” she says.

“I am looking to vote for parties that will be able to do something that will support my future, and help me go into a world that I am happy to live in and I know that I have a future in.”

Her friend Evie, who is 20, agrees.

“I want a world where everyone can be their own person, and I think people care way too much what other people do with their lives.”

Image source, Getty Images

The democracy sausage is such a significant part of Australian culture it was named word of the year in 2016.

It’s defined as “a barbecued sausage served on a slice of bread, bought at a polling booth sausage sizzle on election day”.

To help Aussies ensure they can get their fix, there are mapping websites, external which show more than 2,600 stalls across the country.

And for those who may not be able to turn up in person, you can now pay for either a 'classic' or 'vego' version to be delivered directly to you.

With a third of its population born abroad, Australia has long prided itself as a “migration nation” - a place that promises immigrants a fair go and a fresh start.

But frustration is building over growing migration numbers, with concerns around housing affordability and infrastructure strain.

Peter Dutton has seized on record migration numbers to accuse Labor of exacerbating the housing crisis.

He’s also claimed Labor is fast-tracking citizenship so that migrants can vote.

The Coalition has pledged to slash migrant numbers by 100,000 if elected, which Labor has denounced as a “savage” move, noting it will adversely affect crucial industries like aged care and construction.

Last year, Albanese’s government had sought to limit the number of international students here but the proposal was not passed.

Kelly Ng
Reporting from Queensland

Image source, BBC/Kelly Ng

I am here in Dickson, the most marginal electorate in Queensland - and one that Peter Dutton has held for the last 25 years.

It's bright and sunny today in this area north-west of Brisbane. Polling is underway outside Pine Rivers High School, among a dozen other stations in the electorate.

There are suggestions the opposition leader, who is clinging to the seat with a slim 1.7% margin, is in danger of losing his home base to Labor's Ali France. Dutton on Friday dismissed these polls as "notoriously inaccurate".

"I'm confident of our position but I'd never take it for granted," Sky News reporting him saying.

The vast electorate covers 724 square kilometres (280 square miles), including large parts of the Moreton Bay region and several rural districts. It is home to nearly 120,000 voters.