tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/micro-parties-14676/articlesMicro-parties – The Conversation2022-03-13T19:16:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1790282022-03-13T19:16:43Z2022-03-13T19:16:43ZResearch shows voters favour financial relief after disasters, but we need climate action too<p>Within two months, Australians will vote in a federal election. It comes after a political term marked by major societal challenges, including catastrophic drought, bushfires and floods.</p>
<p>Such natural hazards are expected to become worse under climate change. So how does a person’s experience of disasters affect the way they vote?</p>
<p>This is the question I set out to answer in my <a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1ejrV3Qu6uX-0X">new research</a> into the last federal election. I found when people experienced drought, they tended to place more importance on economic security, not environmental policies, in deciding how to vote.</p>
<p>Crucially, on election day this translated to more votes for micro-parties and fewer votes for the incumbent Coalition. The findings may provide insight into how the current floods in southeastern Australia will influence the next election. </p>
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<img alt="two men talk in dry field" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451506/original/file-20220311-13-1eqg4ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451506/original/file-20220311-13-1eqg4ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451506/original/file-20220311-13-1eqg4ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451506/original/file-20220311-13-1eqg4ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451506/original/file-20220311-13-1eqg4ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451506/original/file-20220311-13-1eqg4ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451506/original/file-20220311-13-1eqg4ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Prime Minister Scott Morrison talking to a drought-affected farmer. Such voters often prioritise economic security.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan PeledAAP</span></span>
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<h2>Cast your mind back</h2>
<p>Heading into the May 2019 election, much of Australia was gripped by heatwaves and drought. </p>
<p>The four months to April had been the <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/drought/archive/20190503.archive.shtml">hottest period</a> on record.
Dams were low and <a href="https://www.awe.gov.au/abares/products/insights/2018-drought-analysis">farmers</a> were barely getting by.</p>
<p>The parched Murray–Darling Basin had experienced mass <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-wrote-the-report-for-the-minister-on-fish-deaths-in-the-lower-darling-heres-why-it-could-happen-again-115063">fish kills</a> and nationally, rainfall in Australia that year would be 40% below average, the <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs70.pdf">lowest</a> on record.</p>
<p>In light of these conditions, political parties and candidates took drastically different drought strategies to the election.</p>
<p>Labor and the Greens promised significant cuts to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, to varying degrees. Labor also <a href="https://www.alp.org.au/about/national-platform">pledged</a> to promote renewable energy and offered farmers climate adaption programs, and the Greens <a href="https://greens.org.au/policies/agriculture">promised</a> to help farmers implement sustainable agricultural systems.</p>
<p>In contrast, the Liberal-National government largely <a href="https://www.liberal.org.au/our-plan-supporting-far%20mers-drought">offered</a> economic relief for rural communities, rather than pledging to mitigate climate change and future drought.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/just-because-both-sides-support-drought-relief-doesnt-mean-its-right-121744">Just because both sides support drought relief, doesn’t mean it's right</a>
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<p>Various micro-parties largely favoured the Coalition’s compensation approach. But importantly, they also tended to advocate strongly for local measures. </p>
<p>For example, Katter’s Australian Party <a href="https://www.kap.org.au/project/financial-assistance-grants">agitated</a> for more money to local councils. One Nation <a href="https://www.onenation.org.au/policies/farming-and-water">said</a> Australia should withdraw from international climate agreements and advocated for greater local ownership of water resources.</p>
<p>Research shows a local experience of abnormal weather tends to <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab466a">increase</a> public belief in climate change, as does <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02900-5">low rainfall</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2020.25">In some cases</a>, extreme weather events lead to support for “green” policies and politicians. And incumbent governments that fail to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0735-2166.2006.00258.x">prepare for or remedy</a> harm from disasters can do worse in elections.</p>
<p>But belief in climate change does not always translate into political support for climate action. For example, previous research has shown how after a natural disaster, voters in the United States <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055409990104">favour politicians</a> who offer disaster relief spending over those who invest in disaster preparedness.</p>
<p>I wanted to discover whether the same dynamic played out in Australia. Specifically, how did voters affected by drought in 2019 change their voting patterns compared with the drought-free 2016 election?</p>
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<img alt="man in hat stands behind counter with two women" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451523/original/file-20220311-17-9comfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451523/original/file-20220311-17-9comfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451523/original/file-20220311-17-9comfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451523/original/file-20220311-17-9comfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451523/original/file-20220311-17-9comfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451523/original/file-20220311-17-9comfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451523/original/file-20220311-17-9comfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">In 2019, micro-party candidates such as Bob Katter promised voters economic relief and strong local advocacy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dave Hunt/AAP</span></span>
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<h2>What I found</h2>
<p>My research drew on the Australian Election Study’s first ever <a href="https://dataverse.ada.edu.au/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.26193/C2QIYA">panel survey</a> of Australian voters. The study surveyed the same 968 participants after both the 2016 and 2019 elections. </p>
<p>By matching the participants’ postcodes with rainfall maps from the Bureau of Meteorology, I separated voters into those who were impacted by drought in 2019, and those who were not.</p>
<p>I found that if voters experienced drought, they placed more importance on the management of the economy and government debt when deciding how to vote. In addition, counter to my expectations, they placed less importance on the environment.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/scott-morrisons-tone-deaf-leadership-is-the-last-thing-traumatised-flood-victims-need-here-are-two-ways-he-can-do-better-178984">Scott Morrison's tone-deaf leadership is the last thing traumatised flood victims need. Here are two ways he can do better</a>
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<p>The Coalition is traditionally seen as better at economic management than other parties. And as the incumbents, the Coalition could credibly promise drought compensation and relief to Australians. </p>
<p>But this apparent advantage did not translate into voting patterns in 2019.</p>
<p>Compared with the 2016 election, the Coalition lost votes in drought-affected areas. I calculated that drought decreased first-preference vote share by 3% in the House of Representatives and 1.6% in the Senate, across 7,443 national polling places. </p>
<p>Support for local micro-parties in drought-exposed areas increased by almost 5%. Drought did not significantly impact the vote share of Labor or the Greens. </p>
<p>I looked for reasons, other than the drought, which might explain the trend.
These included a region’s employment profile and population density, climate scepticism, and rates of political disaffection such as the number of blank ballots cast. </p>
<p>But the voting patterns remained consistent across these variables.</p>
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<img alt="middle aged man and women walk holding hands" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451525/original/file-20220311-21-19k29gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451525/original/file-20220311-21-19k29gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451525/original/file-20220311-21-19k29gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451525/original/file-20220311-21-19k29gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451525/original/file-20220311-21-19k29gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451525/original/file-20220311-21-19k29gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451525/original/file-20220311-21-19k29gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A lot changed for the Liberal-Nationals between 2016 and 2019, including a fall in the party’s vote share in drought-affected areas. Pictured: Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce with then-wife Natalie in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Himbrechts/AAP</span></span>
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<h2>Balancing short and long horizons</h2>
<p>So while drought-hit voters at the 2019 election were worried about economic security, they did not reward the Coalition for its promises of economic relief. Instead, they favoured smaller parties that emphasised both economic security and strong local leadership. </p>
<p>Minor party support may indeed bring local economic benefits. For example, analysis <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/grants-with-ministerial-discretion/">has found</a> since 2013, electorates represented by independents or minor parties received the most per-capita funding from national grant programs with ministerial discretion.</p>
<p>My research suggests in the aftermath of a natural disaster, voters place higher importance on economic security than climate solutions.</p>
<p>Yet, prioritising relief and recovery, without disaster prevention and preparation, is highly detrimental in the long run.</p>
<p>Climate change threatens to supercharge both droughts and heavy rain which leads to floods. And as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-ipcc-report-shows-australia-is-at-real-risk-from-climate-change-with-impacts-worsening-future-risks-high-and-wide-ranging-adaptation-needed-176691">latest report</a> by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows, Australia is on the frontline of these worsening disasters.</p>
<p>So what does all this mean for politicians and parties wanting to tackle climate change?</p>
<p>My research suggests they should pursue policies that not only reduce emissions and protect Australians from the effects of an unstable climate, but bring immediate and tangible economic benefits.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/weather-forecasts-wont-save-us-we-must-pre-empt-monster-floods-years-before-they-hit-178767">Weather forecasts won't save us – we must pre-empt monster floods years before they hit</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah Melville-Rea is affiliated with independent think tank the Australia Institute. </span></em></p>The findings indicates natural disasters such as the current floods in southeastern Australia can influence election results.Hannah Melville-Rea, Research Fellow, Environmental Arts & Humanities, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/620482016-07-11T19:40:31Z2016-07-11T19:40:31ZTime to learn the many lessons from a long campaign<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129982/original/image-20160711-24101-p9ilwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Malcolm Turnbull emerges from the long campaign in a weakened position, having squandered the benefits of incumbency.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Paul Miller</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It may have taken just over a week but the result of the Australian election is now decided, with Malcolm Turnbull’s Coalition to form government. But the lessons and insights from the extraordinary 2016 national poll will be debated for years among political scientists and campaign experts. </p>
<p>Like a grand social experiment, the 2016 federal election provided the chance to verify, refute or validate some of the key hypotheses of Australian politics and the strategies of the campaign playbook. </p>
<p>With 95% of Australia’s 15.7 million enrolled voters having chosen between 57 parties and 1625 candidates to elect 226 members to the federal parliament, here are some of the key things we have learned from the 2016 election.</p>
<h2>The Australian vote is fragmenting</h2>
<p>Arguably the most far-reaching dimension to the 2016 election result is the decline in the vote for Labor and the Coalition parties (the “major parties”). </p>
<p>With some notable exceptions, the vote for minor parties and independents (“other parties”) has been trending upwards since the 1950s, accelerating from the 1990s, and reached a high of 23% in this election. In South Australia, the popularity of Nick Xenophon lifted the primary vote for the non-major parties above Labor’s for the first time.</p>
<p>The rise of minor parties is driven by two factors that are unlikely to reverse. </p>
<p>The first is declining party loyalties – the number of voters who identify as a supporter of a political party is falling and voters are more likely to change their vote from one election to another creating increased volatility in election results.</p>
<p>Second, political divisions have become more complex, straddling economic, social, cultural, geographic and other issues in ways that do not line up neatly with the major parties. In the same way consumer product markets have fragmented so to have voting markets meaning people are more likely to vote for a niche party or candidate rather than one of the broad mainstream parties. </p>
<p>In the 1950s you were either a Ford family or a Holden family. Now there are more than 40 car makers in the market and literally hundreds of models. It is a similar story in the beer market and many others. </p>
<p>In this election, voters could choose from a record number of 57 parties. On one level, it is remarkable that the vote for the major parties in Australia has remained as high as it has. But the experience of other advanced democracies internationally would suggest the trend is set to continue.</p>
<p>This will have a profound impact on Australian politics. To begin with, it means the 45th parliament will have the biggest and most diverse Senate crossbench since Federation. Recent experience suggests this will make the passage of legislation difficult. </p>
<p>In the House of Representatives, minor parties and independents have won five out of 150 seats. The domination of the major parties is preserved by the preferential single-member voting system which translates a 77% share of the vote into 97% of seats in the chamber. But even with the current voting system we can expect minority governments to become more prevalent, possibly even the new normal. </p>
<p>It also means that the preference flows of minor parties and independents are now a critical factor in determining who forms government. It begs the policy question of whether the preference deals that are negotiated between the parties should be the subject of increased public scrutiny, beyond the tabloid treatment they receive at the moment.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129975/original/image-20160711-24063-ozjoe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129975/original/image-20160711-24063-ozjoe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129975/original/image-20160711-24063-ozjoe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129975/original/image-20160711-24063-ozjoe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129975/original/image-20160711-24063-ozjoe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129975/original/image-20160711-24063-ozjoe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129975/original/image-20160711-24063-ozjoe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The popularity of the Nick Xenophon Team in South Australia saw the primary vote for the non-major parties pass Labor’s for the first time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Brenton Edwards</span></span>
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<h2>The media is fragmenting</h2>
<p>The decline in the influence of traditional media in modern elections is well documented, and was more pronounced than ever in the 2016 election. </p>
<p>A fragmenting media market means no single media source or outlet has a dominant influence over the electorate. It also means that the political parties are bypassing traditional media and using social media and direct channels to communicate with voters.</p>
<p>An example of the shift in media influence was the 2016 campaign run by the News Corp press that strongly backed the Coalition. <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/">The Daily Telegraph</a> published a string of highly partisan front pages attacking Bill Shorten with satirical cartoons. </p>
<p>It is hard to discern the influence of this bias given we do not know what the election result would have been without these interventions. But it clearly failed to stop a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/western-sydney-deserts-liberals-in-federal-election-nationals-hold-fort-in-nsw-20160703-gpxe3m.html">very large swing to Labor in western Sydney</a>.</p>
<p>The political parties know the role of traditional media is diminishing and increasingly prioritise direct one-to-one contact with voters through social media, emails, phone calls and door-knocking. The Liberal Party harnessed the power of popular Chinese-language social media platform WeChat to reach voters in the ethnically diverse seat of Chisholm in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne.</p>
<p>The Greens used Grindr, the world’s largest gay social network app, to reach voters in the Victorian seats of Batman and Higgins. </p>
<p>Facebook remains the king of social media in Australia, and this is where the major parties put most of their efforts. Data collated by social media tracking tool CrowdTangle shows that over the eight-week campaign Labor’s Facebook page had 708,152 interactions on its page, while the Liberal Party’s page had 341,520.</p>
<p>In the 2016 campaign, Labor identified 1.6 million voters who were persuadable in marginal seats. These voters were targeted through social media and phone calls with pro-Labor campaign information and structured conversations on issues of interest to the individual voter. </p>
<p>With the mainstream media audience seemingly more interested in My Kitchen Rules than electoral politics, this peer-to-peer communication has rapidly grown in importance to campaign strategists.</p>
<p>This development is further accelerated by a Canberra press gallery that got the forecast of the poll result and the key issues of the election spectacularly wrong. The echo chamber of the gallery concluded that Turnbull was going to win with a comfortable but reduced majority, and this influenced the way the election was covered. </p>
<p>The endless commentary about Turnbull’s personal popularity being decisive, the costings of the party policy commitments and the impact of the UK’s departure from the European Union all missed the mark. Opinion polls and social research show that the campaign staples of “health, education and jobs” were once again at the fore of voters’ minds in 2016. </p>
<p>With the press gallery not talking about these issues the parties now bypass the media to have conversations directly with voters about them. This should be cause for some serious reflection by those reporting on the election.</p>
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<span class="caption">Social media, and Facebook in particular, played a huge role in this election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span>
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<h2>Long election campaigns work against an incumbent government</h2>
<p>The Australian political playbook holds that long election campaigns hurt incumbents. Turnbull set out to test this theory by effectively running a record 12-week election campaign. </p>
<p>Turnbull officially announced the election on May 8, but in reality he announced it at a press conference on April 19 when he outlined his plan to reintroduce the industrial relations bills that would be a double-dissolution trigger.</p>
<p>The conventional wisdom is that a long campaign disadvantages the incumbent by giving up many of the advantages of governing. In an election the government and opposition are on a level playing field, with the opposition given close to equal media coverage. The elevated status of the prime minister is diminished as the government moves into caretaker mode and the prime minister becomes just another politician trawling the shopping centres of Australia for votes.</p>
<p>Bob Hawke was the last prime minister to run a long election campaign in 1984. The then-opposition leader, Andrew Peacock, is considered to have run a good campaign with a surprising 2% swing against the government, costing it nine seats.</p>
<p>Nearly 30 years later, the Liberal Party thought the long campaign would expose the shortcomings of Bill Shorten and the Labor opposition. Instead the Coalition suffered a 3.5% swing and lost between 13 and 15 seats, subject to final counting.</p>
<p>On one level, the published polls did not move significantly over the period of the long campaign. But Turnbull emerges from the process greatly diminished, and an abiding sense that the government squandered the benefits of incumbency with the long campaign. So the rules of the campaign playbook still stand, and we can expect it to be another 30 years before we see another long election campaign.</p>
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<p><em>Next: Great scare campaigns in electoral history</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Reece is a former secretary of the ALP in Victoria and was a senior adviser to Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Victorian premiers Steve Bracks and John Brumby.</span></em></p>There have been three clear lessons from this long election campaign: the vote is fragmenting, the media is fragmenting, and long election campaigns are not a good idea.Nicholas Reece, Principal Fellow - Melbourne School of Government | School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/613732016-07-08T03:28:32Z2016-07-08T03:28:32ZElection 2016 reveals the end of the rusted-on voter and the death of the two-party system<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129770/original/image-20160708-30690-c2bvqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Greens leader Richard Di Natale (2L) celebrates on election night.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Mal Fairclough</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull need rely upon several independent MPs to form government this will be no more than a recognition of electoral realities. Over the past 20 years there has been a steady decline in support for the major parties, neither of which is able to win a majority of support in its own right.</p>
<p>Between them the Coalition parties <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/results/">won</a> just over 42% of primary votes, Labor just over 35%. That Labor seemed to peg level with the government is due to a heavy flow of preferences from the nearly 10% of Greens votes. This is now established as a consistent factor in national elections.</p>
<p>As long as preferences flow to the two major parties the current system can provide majority governments. But the past few elections have shown the capacity of strong locally based independents to defeat the major parties. Interestingly they come from a range of electorates, from inner-city Hobart (<a href="http://andrewwilkie.org/">Andrew Wilkie</a>) to outback Queensland (<a href="http://www.bobkatter.com.au/">Bob Katter</a>).</p>
<p>This year’s results also suggest that the Greens in Victoria and the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) in South Australia might increase their representation by several seats at the next poll. The increased number of independents in the Senate is partly due to Turnbull’s remarkably ill-judged decision to force a double-dissolution election. But even in a half-Senate election, <a href="http://www.onenation.com.au/">Pauline Hanson</a>, <a href="https://nxt.org.au/">Nick Xenophon</a> and <a href="http://www.justiceparty.com.au/">Derryn Hinch</a> would probably have been elected.</p>
<p>Two overlapping factors are at play, neither of which is likely to reverse. The first is declining party loyalties: fewer people are developing lifelong political commitments as they still might do with football teams. This in turn is related to the fact that political divisions have become more complex, straddling both economic and social issues in ways that divide the major parties.</p>
<p>This is currently most apparent within the Liberals, where John Howard’s success in holding together social conservatives and economic liberals appears to be fraying. Of the current leadership only Julie Bishop seems to be able to straddle both camps. It is surprising she is not more often seen as a potential leader.</p>
<p>Thus the Liberals are challenged on the economic right by Liberal Democrats, while losing significant votes to a group of socially conservative Christian parties: Fred Nile’s <a href="http://www.cdp.org.au/">Christian Democrats</a>, and <a href="http://www.familyfirst.org.au/">Family First</a>, who may yet elect a senator. The rise of Hanson and NXT draws votes from all major parties through their ability to articulate the anger and frustration felt by the casualties of rapid social and economic change.</p>
<p>When backbenchers Cory Bernardi and George Christensen speak of a new conservative movement, it is unclear whether they wish to appeal to the disenfranchised on cultural or economic grounds. But they are moving into territory tilled by <a href="https://palmerunited.com/">Clive Palmer in 2013</a> and Hanson this year.</p>
<p>For Labor the decline is greater. In the past 25 years, Labor has only twice polled more than 40% of primary votes, and needs spend considerable resources to fight off the Greens in its once-safe inner city seats. It is heroic of Chris Bowen to proclaim, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-05/qanda-chris-bowen-sarah-hanson-young-discuss-power-sharing/7568992">as he did on Q&A following the election</a>, that Labor will govern alone. It is also somewhat arrogant for a party that can only attract just over one-third of first-preference votes.</p>
<p>Unlike either Hanson or Xenophon, the Greens have become an established party with sufficient strength to elect at least one senator in every state. Their primary vote seemed to stabilise this year at just under 10%, which was not sufficient to win more than Adam Bandt’s seat of Melbourne. However, there are now several seats where they are viable, including at least one Liberal seat (Higgins in Melbourne) and several (<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/guide/bris/">Brisbane</a>, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/guide/mpor/">Melbourne Ports</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/guide/rich/">Richmond</a>) that could become genuine three-way tussles.</p>
<p>In the short run, Labor will not wipe out the Greens, nor will the Greens replace Labor. It is in Labor’s interest to abandon the vitriol <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/paul-keating-launches-withering-attack-on-pathetic-greens-20160625-gprqr1.html">with which it attacked the Greens</a> in the campaign, and acknowledge that any future Labor government will require close collaboration with the Greens, if not the formal arrangement accepted by Julia Gillard. When Labor politicians attack the Greens in the language of the Murdoch press they offend many of their own supporters.</p>
<p>Preferential voting was introduced into Australia to allow what have become the Liberal and National parties to compete for votes without losing seats to Labor. It is a much fairer system than the first-past-the-post used in the UK and the US, but it is becoming less representative as support for the major parties erodes.</p>
<p>As Jim Middleton <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/topic/politics/2016/04/09/malcom-turnbulls-challenge-real-voting-reform/14601240003104">has argued</a> it may be time to look seriously at New Zealand’s model of proportional representation, which has provided a better reflection of the popular will and more stable governments than has become the case in Australia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61373/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis Altman is co-editor of How to Vote Progressive in Australia: Labor or Green? He endorsed several Greens candidates in the 2016 campaign.</span></em></p>With voters turning away from the two major parties and towards the Greens and micro-parties, it may be time to rethink our entire electoral system.Dennis Altman, Professorial Fellow in Human Security, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/616462016-06-28T02:29:05Z2016-06-28T02:29:05ZThe voter paradox: we say we don’t want a minority government, but we’re happy to vote for one<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128422/original/image-20160628-28354-2vxnci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With voters increasingly disillusioned with the two major parties, microparties such as those led by Jacqui Lambie and Nick Xenophon will play a bigger role.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Mick Tsikas</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the last few weeks of this longest of election campaigns the conversation has turned to the question of certainty. </p>
<p>The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has been arguing strongly that the Coalition should be re-elected to provide the country with continuity (albeit with change). His call was given additional impetus following the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/25/upshot/how-brexit-will-affect-the-global-economy-now-and-later.html?_r=0">economic doubt produced by the Brexit vote</a> in the UK. </p>
<p>Warning voters against a hung parliament, Turnbull used the Liberal Party launch to describe the prospect of a minority government <a href="http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/federal-election/malcolm-turnbull-used-partys-election-launch-to-urge-australians-not-to-vote-for-minor-parties/news-story/b2db1e05d8d96cf79678a3aa98dcfb91">as parliamentary “chaos”</a>. It’s a term he has used on a number of occasions. </p>
<p>This is something both sides of politics seem to agree on. Bill Shorten recently evaded a question from <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2016/s4488065.htm">ABC 7.30</a> host Leigh Sales about the prospect of forming a minority government with the Greens’ support. Employing a little magical thinking, Shorten argued:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s a third option: a Labor Party in government, governing for all Australians.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Developing this theme, Labor wheeled out Paul Keating on the weekend to pummel the Greens in the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/paul-keating-launches-withering-attack-on-pathetic-greens-20160625-gprqr1.html">hotly contested seat of Grayndler</a>, one of a number of inner-city seats the Greens have set their sights on winning. Similarly, Shorten has warned South Australians <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/federal-election-2016/federal-election-2016-shorten-lets-fly-at-nxt-ragtag-militia/news-story/c012495f8d805ad9344ab13303cca2c0">against voting for the Nick Xenophon Team</a>, describing the new party that is savaging Labor in that state as a “ragtag militia”. </p>
<p>The driving force behind these shared talking points is two-fold. The first is the growing sense that participation is a privilege enjoyed by only the two established party groupings in Australia, so the only way to get into parliament is through the two-party system.</p>
<p>This “cartel” view of politics is demonstrated by the way in which the major parties have adjusted the electoral system over many decades to suit their own interests. These changes include maintaining the requirement of a minimum vote before candidates can access public election funding, and recent Senate reforms. The later changes to the regulation of parties will not be fully felt for several years, when the higher regulatory bar on microparties comes into play.</p>
<p>The second is the way the Australian public perceives the prospect of minority government. It has been argued that this is a comparatively new phenomenon. Certainly, under the leadership of Tony Abbott, the Coalition worked hard to <a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p309171/pdf/ch011.pdf">frame minority governments</a> as an inherently bad electoral outcome.</p>
<p>But if we look at survey data from the <a href="http://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/research/projects/electoral-surveys/australian-election-study/aes-2013">ANU’s Australian Election Study</a> in the table below, we can see that respondents were significantly less likely to prefer a minority government in the weeks immediately following the 2010 election (when the survey is administered and data collected from the public). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128239/original/image-20160627-28362-mo3idc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128239/original/image-20160627-28362-mo3idc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128239/original/image-20160627-28362-mo3idc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128239/original/image-20160627-28362-mo3idc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128239/original/image-20160627-28362-mo3idc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128239/original/image-20160627-28362-mo3idc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128239/original/image-20160627-28362-mo3idc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Calculated from McAllister and Cameron (2014)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, the argument that experience with the minority Gillard and Rudd governments of 2010-13 period directly <em>produced</em> this aversion to hung parliaments is not strictly correct. In fact it predated our recent experience.</p>
<p>While the 2016 election may just go to the Coalition on the back of preferences and the ground game in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jun/27/national-and-electorate-polling-suggests-coalition-victory-but-not-by-much">small number of marginal seats</a>, minority government and Senate independents will emerge as features of Australian public life.</p>
<p>The problem for the parties is that the public engages in seemingly perverse behaviour: they don’t want a minority government, but they are happy to vote for it. </p>
<p>In many ways this shows how terrible elections are at signally policy preferences from the electorate. A vote for a minor or microparty often represents <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-27/vote-compass-top-20-seats-at-odds/7536438">a lack of consensus on policy</a>, rather than a preference for government by coalition or minority.</p>
<p>For all the attempts to eliminate minor and microparties from the political landscape, the trend over the past 50 years has been of voters preferencing minor parties over the established parties. In 2013, one-third of voters preferred a minor party for the Senate. One in five opted for them in the lower house, with the <a href="http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2013/11/record-vote-for-minor-parties-at-2013-federal-election.html">trend line pointing upwards</a>. </p>
<p>Other Westminster nations manage to deal with elections that generate uncertain outcomes. New Zealand is a good example of a comparable country whose electoral system requires a period of extended negotiation with minor parties to form government after an election. This means accepting the possibility of uncertainty: of electoral outcome, but also of conditions that may require parties to change their policies. </p>
<p>Elections are important in setting the stage for policy negotiations that form government. The outcome is uncertain, but it provides the spectacle of actual policy debates conducted before the public. While the Coalition likes to position the Labor Party as conflicted by the rise of the Greens, the prospect of a centrist party or one to the right of the Coalition in Australia is stronger than ever.</p>
<p>Magical thinking aside, the major parties will face the need to negotiate “confidence and supply” agreements with minor parties to form government in the future. That means they will need to prepare the electorate in advance for a lack of certainty. </p>
<p>While there is clearly a tactical advantage in warning against uncertainty, the electorate will need to be educated that the end of an election campaign can be the start of something greater.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter John Chen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whatever the outcome of this election, hung parliaments and minority governments will increasingly be a feature of the Australian political landscape.Peter John Chen, Senior Lecturer, Department of Government and International Relations, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/367582015-02-22T19:12:33Z2015-02-22T19:12:33ZDon’t blame micro-parties or the Senate – update an archaic system<p>Paul Keating famously labelled the Senate <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;page=0;query=unrepresentative%20swill%20SearchCategory_Phrase%3A%22house%20of%20representatives%22%20Decade%3A%221990s%22%20Year%3A%221992%22;rec=4;resCount=Default">“unrepresentative swill”</a>. Similar sentiments – while not as colourful – are <a href="http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/miss-judgement/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_ludicrous_senate_has_had_its_day/">being voiced</a> by those <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/double-dissolution-should-be-considered-to-break-political-impasse-20150216-13fu1l.html">frustrated with the blocking</a> power of the Senate’s micro-parties. </p>
<p>In a recent Australian Financial Review <a href="http://www.afr.com/p/business/companies/what_our_top_ceos_expect_in_grc2SMAQwIuAtg79nWSGRN">survey</a>, leading corporate CEOs called for major reform to the Senate.</p>
<p>At one level it is not hard to understand why. The Senate in general, and the minor and micro-parties that hold the balance of power in particular, were instrumental in gutting the Abbott government’s budget at a time when <a href="https://theconversation.com/big-no-longer-beautiful-for-australias-reform-agenda-37345">reform is pressing</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/senate-is-a-threat-to-our-future/story-fni0ffxg-1227224649095">Criticism of their power</a> over policy will likely grow as the Senate casts a critical eye this year over the government’s attempts to reshape the budget and fix Australia’s tax system.</p>
<p>But behind the singular criticisms of the Senate is a bigger picture of deeper dysfunction. It’s a picture that suggests the Senate is not a root cause, but part of a long list of symptoms that indicate our political system is increasingly unfit for purpose in the 21st century.</p>
<h2>Excluding micro-parties is not reform</h2>
<p>A clue to understanding these deeper problems lies in the complaints these business figures make. In essence, they lament how micro-parties are an increasingly powerful phenomenon, gaining <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/unrepresentative-swill/story-e6frg6z6-1226716378749">outsized power compared to their meagre vote</a> in elections. </p>
<p>Many of the CEOs surveyed proposed that, in response, the Senate’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-does-the-senate-voting-system-work-17768">proportional voting system</a> should be abolished. Or, at least, the system of preferential voting should be changed to stamp out the micro-party phenomenon.</p>
<p>This would allow major parties to pass legislation with greater certainty and reduce the range of political parties able to hold the balance of power. It would also restore “representativeness” to our democratic system by ridding it of what one CEO described as “a disparate bunch of single-issue politicians”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cG1khlbqI9k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Business leaders today, like Paul Keating in 1992, resent the Senate’s ability to frustrate the government’s agenda.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On a superficial level, these and other proposals aimed at restoring the primacy of major parties seem to have merit. But these complaints overlook what is occurring within our political system, and the political arena more generally.</p>
<p>On the face of it, democratic systems like Australia’s look the same as 20 or 30 years ago. Major parties dominate the day-to-day political process, presenting their policy programs at general elections as they vie to form government and represent the general public. </p>
<p>But beneath the surface the relationship between citizens and these parties has been fundamentally and irreversibly weakened. This is reflected in membership and support for major political parties, which have <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn05125.pdf">fallen</a> across the Western world. </p>
<p>In contrast, support for smaller parties has <a href="http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2013/11/record-vote-for-minor-parties-at-2013-federal-election.html">risen</a> sharply, albeit from low bases.</p>
<p>Why? </p>
<p>Because voter preferences are no longer shaped predominantly by class, ideology, ethnicity and geography. And it is to these catch-all attributes that major political parties traditionally appealed. </p>
<h2>19th-century model is showing its age</h2>
<p>In a 21st-century internet-driven, globalised world, the array of political choices and identities available to voters are increasing and fragmenting.</p>
<p>This reflects broader changes in a society in which choices – political, social or economic – are influenced by a widening collection of complex factors. </p>
<p>Major parties are finding it <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/09/abbotts-legacy-is-a-hairball-in-the-throat-of-the-body-politic-can-turnbull-dislodge-it">increasingly difficult</a> to develop a coherent overarching narrative for what they seek in government and why it benefits the community as well as the individual over the long term. </p>
<p>In contrast, voter fragmentation suits micro and minor parties. With their single or limited issues campaigns they can cut through the political noise with more succinct appeals and arguments. They offer retail politics in a wholesale world. </p>
<p>Informal groupings and alliances of micro-parties likewise can respond more nimbly to the flux of 21st-century voter sentiment. </p>
<p>In addition to the splintering of traditional voter blocs, voter choices are rarely static. Our democratic system is now characterised by larger and unpredictable cohorts of “swinging” voters. Their political preferences and voting intentions constantly change, often heavily influenced by a single issue or narrower policy platform.</p>
<p>The major parties, as a result, become less flexible and responsive. Their feedback mechanisms are often <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/the-parties-democratic-deficit/">stilted</a>. They can be held up by procedural delays, adherence to party rules or structures, and even the “need” for cabinet solidarity. </p>
<p>All this suggests micro-parties may not be some kind of unwelcome or unrepresentative intrusion into our democratic system, as conventional views would have it. Whether <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3844842.htm">by accident</a> or design, they have allied themselves with the way the 21st-century political world is being restructured.</p>
<p>In short, all this should signal that new political configurations like micro-parties need to be accommodated, not curtailed.</p>
<p>However, advocating more collaborative attitudes to politics and policy-making can only get us so far, particularly if major parties won’t work together on long-term reform.</p>
<h2>Our democracy needs new organising principles</h2>
<p>Ultimately the micro-party issue should begin to highlight how our political system is predicated on many organising principles that no longer apply.</p>
<p>The system requires functional majorities – built on major parties achieving stable blocs of voter support – to get anything major done. This is a system where the languid decision-making processes of parliament are increasingly left behind by a <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/comment/how-our-leaders-have-lost-their-way-20150209-139jmz.html">super-speed 21st century</a>.</p>
<p>This is a system that seems unable to acknowledge what many citizens already know: that so much going on in our globalised and interdependent world escapes the control of territorially based parties and parliaments. </p>
<p>Broader, progressive reforms to our democratic institutions are urgently needed to reflect the realities of a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/10/australian-voters-have-learned-to-distrust-further-reform-and-rightly-so?CMP=share_btn_tw">new political and policy world</a>. </p>
<p>We need to have a conversation about managing this world more effectively with more inclusive structures of policy-making and more innovative systems of voter input. The conversation needs to tackle some weighty issues, namely: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>What is the role of political parties, both large and small, in this system and what processes might encourage more effective political and policy collaboration? </p></li>
<li><p>What sort of voting and electoral systems best capture and reflect the kaleidoscopic nature of today’s citizenry?</p></li>
<li><p>What reforms do our democratic institutions require so they can develop the policies Australia needs to thrive over the long term, beyond short-term political cycles that can turn in days?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>It is this path – not attempts to restore a world that no longer exists through piecemeal changes to a single part of the system – that will give our democracy the new lease of life it sorely needs.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Other articles in The Conversation’s ongoing series, “New Politics”, can be read <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/new-politics">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36758/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Travers McLeod is CEO of the Centre for Policy Development, an independent, non-profit and non-partisan policy institute.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Triffitt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Senate is not a root cause, but part of a long list of symptoms that indicate Australia’s political system is increasingly unfit for purpose in the 21st century.Mark Triffitt, Lecturer, Public Policy, The University of MelbourneTravers McLeod, Honorary Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.