Joshua Black has written a brilliant piece for The Conversation on independents and minor parties and their roles in our parliaments:

Major parties used to easily dismiss the rare politician who stood alone in parliament. These MPs could be written off as isolated idealists, and the press could condescend to them as noble, naïve and unlikely to succeed.

In November 1930, when independent country MP Harold Glowrey chose to sit on the crossbench of the Victorian parliament while his few peers joined the new United Country Party, the local newspapers emphasised that he could not “become a cabinet minister” or “have a say” in making policy from the sidelines. (As if he wasn’t aware.) Australia was a place where, according to the scribes at The Ouyen Mail, “very few constituencies were prepared to elect independent men”.

Things are rather different now. Lifelong loyalty to a single party has become a rarer thing among voters, with the Australian Election Study showing fewer than four in ten voters give their first preference vote to the same party at each election. It was more than seven in ten back in 1967.

Voters have gravitated towards alternatives to the two major parties. A new interactive data tool from the ABC shows just how much more competitive federal elections have become. Australians are now world leaders in sending independents to represent them in state and federal parliaments.

And who could call the independents of the recent past naïve? Independent MPs held the balance of power in New South Wales in the early 1990s, and in Victoria later that decade. Both parliaments saw substantive reforms and improved parliamentary processes.

Noam Chomsky wrote about always reading the business papers because it is where power speaks to itself and tells the truth.

It also means that power is a little less wary of those reporting on it. Joe Aston used that to his advantage in Rear Window and Mark Di Stefano is carrying on that legacy – revealing things you won’t see anywhere else, because he uses his access to people with power wisely – but doesn’t get caught up in it.

Given that this is the final week of the campaign, it is costings week – when the parties give a mini budget on how they would pay for their campaign promises.

This website, hosted by Treasury, gives details on the costing proposals submitted so far – there is a couple more than there was last week.

There are rumours Labor will drop their costings today, to better capitalise on the Coalition’s mess of a policy platform, especially since the Coalition isn’t expected to hand down its costings until Wednesday or Thursday (cue more days of ‘we know how we will pay for it, but they can’t say)

We’ll keep you updated.

Skye Predavec

Last election, independent Kylea Tink won the seat of North Sydney on a primary vote of 25%.

This was the lowest for a winning candidate in 2022, closely followed by the winning candidate in Nicholls, National MP Sam Birrell, who won with 26% of the primary vote.

In Groom, independent Suzie Holt received 8% of the vote on first preferences, putting her in fourth. She finished in second place with 43% after leapfrogging One Nation and Labor on preferences.

The only candidate to win from third place in 2022 was the Greens’ Stephen Bates in Brisbane.

It is relatively recent that Independents and minor parties benefited most from Australia’s voting system.

Until the 1980s, it was the Coalition who mainly benefited from preferential voting. From 1949 to 1987 Coalition candidates won 106 races where they were behind on first preferences, with Labor taking only seven.

The lowest ever primary vote for a winning candidate in a federal election was received by the National (then Country) party’s Arthur Hewson in 1972, who won McMillan from third place with just 17%. Preferences from independent, Democratic Labour Party, and Liberal voters allowed him to beat Labor on the final count with 52%.

It took until 1990 for Labor to win more electorates from behind than the Coalition, winning seven to their three. This was due to the high vote share for Democrats and Greens, whose preferences mostly flowed to Labor.

Since then, Labor candidates have won on preferences more often than Coalition ones, but as alternatives develop across the political spectrum it is far from certain that will continue in the future.

The great benefit of preferential voting is that it ensures that Australians cannot “waste” their vote. Under full preferential voting, Australians number every candidate according to their preference.

The full distribution of preferences confirms that between the last two candidates remaining, the majority prefer the ultimate winner. Unlike in first past the post, an elected representative can be confident that they are preferred by the majority over the runner up – even if they started with a lower primary vote.

Given that there is now a focus on domestic and family violence prevention (and a little bit of money with it) where was this focus at the beginning of the campaign?

Today’s mini-campaign announcement is: A re-elected Albanese Labor Government will provide $20 million to establish The Coast Women’s and Children’s Trauma Recovery Centre in East Gosford.
 
The new frontline domestic, family and sexual violence service will help up to 500 women and children to recover from violence and abuse and will provide much needed crisis and transitional accommodation.
 
The community-led initiative will offer a wrap around, trauma-sensitive approach to support recovery from domestic, family and sexual violence trauma – with a focus on working with children to help break the cycle of violence.
 
This election commitment builds on our major investments of over $1.2 billion in crisis and transitional accommodation.

Albanese:

We have been, focused on this for three years. We have announcements in every Budget. Our Housing Australia Future Fund announced probably five years ago – or at least four years ago. We haven’t waited on this, we haven’t waited on this. I announced the 500 community service workers to deal with the issues on violence against women and children. I announced that in Queanbeyan. You can look up your files with Linda Burney. I am sure it was at least in 2021 four years ago.

Q: For all of us in the media when we ask viewers and our readers about the cost of living, some would say have you seen the price of eggs recently? It is the great topic in kitchens and in the shopping aisles of Australia. What does it say about your opponent do you think that he doesn’t know the price of eggs?

(Last night Dutton said they were $4.20. Albanese said $7. The hosts quoted about $8-9 across the majors)

Albanese:

I think importantly he doesn’t know the price of Australian values right across the board. Those sorts of things can happen, that is the truth. They can happen.(Albanese is referring to Dutton getting the price of eggs wrong, but also to his own mistake last campaign in not having the inflation number, so he is giving Dutton a bit of grace)

I am not going to – he had an explanation for that, I guess. (Dutton said he buys a half dozen of eggs) The thing about eggs that I know because I hear it, is people are struggling to find eggs on the supermarket shelves.

We know inflation is a real issue, the cost of living. The difference in this election is that Peter Dutton has spent three years identifying problems and saying somehow that the government is responsible as if global inflation has not occurred, as if we haven’t had the biggest energy crisis since the 1970s. As if the High Court don’t make decisions independent of government. The truth is, this election campaign has exposed that he has no solutions. Dare I say it, that has come through during this campaign.

Albanese is asked about scare campaigns and says:

I am proud of our achievements and part of that is strengthening Medicare, not just what we have done but what we will do. We promised 50 urgent care clinics. We have delivered 87. We will deliver another 50. The 1800 Medicare promised we made yesterday stands in stark contrast. There were two rally yesterday – or three if you count in McKellar. Ours in Parramatta had a key policy component at its heart that will make a difference to peoples’ lives. Enabling people to have 24 hour access to health advice, which would then be connected up potentially with a doctor or, if it’s the case that people should then go to hospital, then that would occur.

Making a difference for families if a young child overnight has a fever, they are not sure how to respond, knowing that there is a phone that they can pick up, ring that number and get advice, or people with an elderly relative who goes “No, I am OK” because that is what a lot of people do who are resilient…

Q: It is insulting to Australians, isn’t it?

Albanese:

No, let’s be clear. There is a choice between our positive agenda, Peter Dutton yesterday – his rally – there were no policy announcements, nothing positive going forward and he went to Channel Seven last night and belled the cat.

He went and said he needed to abolish bulk billing to make primary care sustainable.

He belled the cat last night. He can’t say where his $600 billion for the nuclear plan is coming from. There will be cuts. We know that is what happened last time. He was voted the worst Health Minister in history by doctors. He did try to introduce an abolition of bulk billing. He tried to introduce a payment every time people visited an emergency department. He did freeze the Medicare rebate for six years. He has said repeatedly that people don’t value Medicare if it’s free. Things that are free, that is why they are against free TAFE and against all these measures.

There is a real choice and Australians when they vote, whether it is today, tomorrow or right up to Saturday, know that they put a number 1 next to their Labor candidate, their candidate will defend and strengthen Medicare, not the least of which is the doctor and pharmacist behind me and they know that they also said they oppose the 60-day dispensing to give Emma a crack here as well. They said that would be disastrous and pharmacies would close. Where are the pharmacies that closed as a result of that reform? That has made a difference to peoples’ lives. There is a choice and it is important that not only have I put forward a positive coherent agenda, we have also put forward legitimately a critique of the other side.

Anthony Albanese is referring to the Netflix show Adolescence which is a British psychological drama about a young teenage boy who murders a female classmate. (That’s not a spoiler, it’s the set up)

The question the show asks is why he did it. It has raised a lot of uncomfortable questions and formed a large part of the British political debate (although not all child psychologists are thrilled with it) over the so called ‘red pilled mansosphere’ (which is just toxic masculinity dressed up as Andrew Tate) and the role it has played on young boys and men.

It seems to have had a pretty big impact on Albanese:

It took me quite a while [to watch] I’ve got to say. in bits but I have got to say, for people who – just to give an ad here again, it is captivating and I was looking forward – that is probably the wrong word but I was very keen to see the next episode each time that I saw one. I think it is five or six episodes.

Journalist: You are here to announce funding for a vulnerable cohort. Another vulnerable cohort are those on the JobSeeker payment. Your government has been provided with respect after report that shows the rate is inadequate and leading to poor health outcomes among other things. What will it take for your government, if you are re-elected, to increase the rate to the level that advocates have been calling for…

Albanese: We did increase…

Journalist: To the level they have been calling for?

Albanese: We did increase the rate. One of the things we have done is to provide opportunities for career paths into jobs. Free TAFE is making an enormous difference in opening up those opportunities. We have created over one million jobs in our first term, more than any government in history. We have, in addition to that, had the lowest unemployment rate of any government in 50 years.

Journalists: Is the message to those on JobSeeker just get a job?

Albanese: No. That, frankly, that deserves a bit better than that. I deserve better in treating you with respect without being verballed. Very clearly, I have concern about people but I do want people to get into employment, yes, I do. I don’t want people to have a life time of unemployment but I understand as well that people need to be looked after. My government is a compassionate government, that has provided support. We do so within the fiscal parameters as well of budgetary policy. I reject the characterisation that you put forward. I don’t think that is fair and I don’t think it relates to the answer that I gave.

Amazing how fiscal parameters comes up with relation to Jobseeker in the way it never does for defence and other issues.

Nor do we get told that we can’t afford the $22bn in superannuation tax breaks that go to the richest 10%, or the $11bn on fuel tax credits, or the $7.5bn that goes to the richest 10% through the capital gains tax discount on properties and negative gearing.

By contrast,  raising Jobseeker to 90% of the Age Pension – an increase of $173 a fortnight – would cost $3.6bn.

When political parties talk about “fiscal parameters” in regards to help for those living in poverty, they are not being up front about all the costs to the budget that go to the richest and the most profitable.

Q: On domestic violence and this view not enough has been done. You commissioned a rapid review last year to learn what governments could do quickly and the levers they could pull. Some of the recommendations were that you should restrict access to alcohol and gambling. What is your view on that recommendation and are you committed to doing those two things to take quick action as a government in your next term?

Albanese:

We are committed to making a difference. We do have a $4 billion national plan. We are working through a range of issues with state and territory governments as well. One of the issues that a commitment that we made before the election was for 500 community service workers. Of those, we stepped up, we were unhappy with how slow that was to be implemented. We have to find the staff to do so. 480 of those are in place today.

Q: On gambling and alcohol specifically?

Albanese:

We will work through all of the issues. It is not – there’s not a single issue that you can say if you do this you will solve these problems. In some cases, we need to work through changing attitudes of young Australians as well, the education – the thing we were speaking about before, of changing attitudes.