Brian Costar

Not Going Green: The Higgins By-Election of 2009

In identifying the demographic and ideological characteristics of Australian voters, Charnock and Ellis (2004) have proposed a two-axis schema on which parties and their supporters are situated according to their attitudes regarding both economic and postmaterialist values and issues. The economic axis represents the traditional left–right spectrum of political competition, covering statist to individualist approaches to economic matters. This is the spectrum on which the long-established parties, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Liberal/Nationals (Coalition), are most differentiated. The postmaterialist spectrum covers a number of more recent trends, reflecting the shift in focus from ‘maximising economic gains to maximising subjective well-being’ (Inglehart 1997, 86) through a focus on civil rights, the environment, and liberal attitudes towards sexuality and religion. It is on the second axis that younger, smaller parties such as the Greens, the Democrats and even One Nation have differentiated themselves from the major parties. But, it should be noted that ‘Green voters are both the most postmaterialist and also the most Left-wing’ and the Australian Greens ‘are better described as a Left-libertarian party . . . ’ (Charnock and Ellis 2003, 430). The position of the parties on the axes suggests that in the absence of an ALP candidate, ALP voters may either move to the right economically and vote for the Coalition, move to a more postmaterialist position and vote Greens, vote for independents or micro-parties, or withdraw from effective participation by abstaining or spoiling their ballot paper. Labor voters abandoned by the party of their primary loyalty are pulled in many directions by realistic alternatives, whereas for Greens’ voters the ALP represents the clearest ‘next best’ ideological option on both axes (Charnock and Ellis 2003, 430–31; Miragliotta 2006, 587). The purpose of this article, by drawing on aggregate voting data at the 2009 by-election for the federal division of Higgins, in which there was no Labor

The 2006 Victorian State Election: Maintaining Labor

The 2006 Victorian State election was notable for a number of firsts including: a new proportional representation voting system for the Legislative Council, which had been reduced in size from 44 members to 40; an ‘above the line’ voting method in the Council together with ‘optional preferential’ voting ‘below the line’; a fixed election day of 25 November 2006; a new contestant in the form of the Family First Party, which had a Senator elected from Victoria at the 2004 federal election; the real prospect of a party other than Labor, Liberal and National gaining parliamentary representation for the first time since 1955; and Premier Steve Bracks had the task of defending the Labor Party’s only genuine landslide victory, achieved in 2002. The Bracks government went to the polls holding 62 of the Legislative Assembly’s 88 seats—seven of which were held by margins of 2.8% or less. Few commentators doubted that the government would be returned since the Liberal Party and the Nationals needed a swing of nearly 8% to win a majority of seats; none of the published polls in 2006 indicated that a swing of that magnitude was likely. Incumbent State governments across Australia have proved to be notoriously difficult to dislodge. Usually, some or all of the following conditions must exist to trigger a change in government: a severe economic recession, gross financial mismanagement or widespread corruption. None of these factors was evident in Victoria in late 2006, thereby making the Liberals’ task of convincing a majority of voters that a change of government was warranted a very difficult one. Additionally, Liberal leader Ted Baillieu had a relatively short time to present himself to the electorate, having replaced Robert Doyle in May 2006, just over 6 months prior to the election. The second Bracks government (2002–2006) was relatively trauma free (Hayward 2006, 382–403). Over the period the economy continued to grow, and with budget surpluses each year, the government was viewed as fiscally responsible. Although no major political scandal beset the government, the Opposition did call during the term for the establishment of a permanent anticorruption commission and, later, a Royal Commission, into alleged police Australian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 42, No. 4, December, pp. 683–691