Early on the morning of March 28 Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid a visit to the governor-general, asking her to dissolve Parliament so that a federal election can be held. This was no surprise, given that legally an election needed to be held before May 17. Albanese has chosen a date two weeks earlier, and Australians will head to the polls on May 3.
The current Labor Party government has a slim majority of just two seats in the House of Representatives. This makes the election a perilous one for the party trying to hold onto its majority, but doesn’t necessarily make it advantageous for the Liberal and National parties’ Coalition, which need to win at least 18 more seats than in the 2022 election to form a majority themselves.
The reason the gap is so large is because Australians have taken a sharp turn away from the traditional parties in recent years. At the 2007 election the combined percentage of primary votes won by the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Coalition was over 85 percent. At the last election in 2022 this had declined to around 68 percent. There is little sign of this trend reversing.
In Australia’s preferential – or ranked choice – voting, the “primary vote” is the number of people who have given a party their first preference (ranked them first on the ballot). Due to this voting system, votes have tended to find their way back to the major parties as people rank their ballot, which produces results where a party’s percentage of primary votes is far lower than their percentage of seats.
This voting system has allowed the state to maintain stability while the public has consistently chipped away at the power of the traditional major parties. Over this period Greens have consistently captured around 10-12 percent of the vote, but have failed to move beyond this. Recent state and council elections indicate that this might be their ceiling.
While an array of narrow or single-issue parties have flooded the country’s ballots and been able to attract small percentages of the vote, the real political shift in the country is the public’s increasing attraction to independent candidates.
The public have internalized a belief that the game of relentless party advantage does not work in either local or national interests. Many believe that the parties have become far too obsessed with contesting their main opponents and less focused on the job of governing. There is a lack of trust in political parties to do their job political parties were designed to do. Australians also look to the United States and see that a strict two-party system creates the opposite of stability; it leads to political, social and even familial division.
Into this environment has stepped a movement called the Community Independents Project, which created a template for grassroots organization and tactics for winning elections. So far the movement has been able to win eight seats in the House of Representatives, and 36 candidates will be utilizing its model this election.
While in the last election the model was able to gain the most traction in urban elections – with the country’s wealthy elite launching a revolt against their traditional home in the Liberal Party – the model’s roots are rural, where it won its first seat, and this is where the the Community Independents Project will most likely gain further traction in this election.
Rural electorates in Australia have unique sets of interests that require MPs who demonstrate both commitment and care. Often these electorates are massive, with the largest – Durack in Western Australia – being twice the size of Texas. As a result they house communities that can be isolated and lacking in the services that urban Australia takes for granted. Political bickering, culture war theatrics, or intra-party horse-trading do them no service.
This makes independent candidates incredibly attractive to rural voters. It creates a bond of trust and connection to local interests that can otherwise be subsumed to party interests. Until recently, independents in the Parliament tended to be from rural electorates.
The most likely scenario from this election is a minority government – with either Labor or the Liberal-National Coalition having to negotiate with the crossbench to form a government. Labor will be loath to negotiate with the Greens due to the party’s absolutist politics and aggressive tactics, and this would be a political non-starter for the Liberals and Nationals. It is also unlikely that the Green will secure enough seats to be the kingmakers.
This will place power into the hands of an array of independent candidates. It will give them the responsibility to do what the public want them to do – negotiate in good faith, balance their local community interests with national ones, and be calm, rational decision makers. This type of politics may be a dream, but Australians are hoping it could be reality.