#ausvotes

Preferences

Due to the two-party preferred system of voting in Australia, hung parliaments are very rare in Australia. This system allows for preferences of a candidate who has clearly no chance of winning a seat, being attributed to a particularly party in order to decide the winner. For example the ALP is most often in a contest with the Liberal Party, who in turn has the continual support of the National Party through their preferences. When smaller parties give their preferences to one of the major parties, it is even more unlikely that a hung parliament will occur.

The Greens in this case have given their preferences to the ALP in the Lower House, in return for ALP preferences in the Upper House. This will assist the ALP in the problems they are experiencing now no doubt, but will in turn assist the Greens in getting more seats in the Senate and so control the balance of power over all legislation in Australia.

Indeed the seat of O’Connor is being hotly contested, and both a Liberal Member and a National Member are in the very close result which has not been finalized as yet. Tony Crook the Nationals candidate is a member of the WA Nationals, who have no allegiance with the Liberal Party as Nationals from other states have chosen to enter into. If Mr. Crook wins the seat, he too will be courted for support by the major parties in equal measure to the rest, but is unlikely to consider the ALP as his preferences prioritize the Liberal Party over the ALP.

Preferences again play a part in the seat of Dennison where the Independent Andrew Wilkie is likely to receive only 25% of the vote against 36% by the ALP, but still win the seat on preferences that are presumably from the Liberals. Another seat in the balance is Hasluck. The ALP and the Liberal Party are extremely close with a mere 1% lead to the Liberals and 25% of the vote to be counted. Greens preferences will no doubt assist the ALP in the balance.

The First Hung Parliament 1940 – Who really controls the Lower House?

Intriguingly, the coalition or minority government that may ensue, and indeed any government, will always be vulnerable to Members shifting their support to the Opposition. If this occurs and the majority of control changes hands, the Governor General will seek to endorse that party having control of the Lower House. In 1975, the Prime Minister had much trouble having supply money bills passed through the Senate. As these were needed for the day to day operation of the government, the Governor General sacked the Prime Minister and asked the Opposition Leader to form a caretaker government until an election took place. Again in 1940, the first Australian hung parliament occurred. After forming a government, the Independents giving support to the minority government, shifted their alliance and supported the Opposition. This necessarily brought the Opposition to power.

Clearly, the Independents may well be the real source of control in the Lower House.

If stability and consistency of government is assured in the interim, and of the integrity of the supportive Members from smaller parties or Independents can be assumed, in many ways this is a benefit to the nation as it will keep the major parties at bay, and allow Australia to evolve from a two-party system to one more diverse. This brings a diversity that can only represent the electorate more accurately, and offer more insight and innovative policy making within parliament, and it procedures.

The novel situation presenting itself here is that the 4 Independents being relied upon for support, have obligations to their constituents who have just voted for them. In the event of a re-election, those same constituents will be asked to vote for them again. Even more quizzically, those Independents also have a duty to the nation in ensuring stability to the parliament, in the national interest.