Our resident Stats Guy looks at the rise of voters picking independents over the two major parties at past federal elections.
For decades now, the Australian Election Study (AES) has interviewed voters after each federal election.
Some survey questions have been asked since 1967 while others were added later. A look through the longitudinal data reveals a political paradigm shift in Australia.
The 2022 AES shows clearly that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to follow the federal election in any type of media. We also know that Australians have become more educated over recent decades. Does this mean our collective interest in politics is going up? No, our (dis)interest in politics has been remarkably stable over the past three decades.
Our collective perception of political parties has seen a slow but steady decline. Fewer voters think that parties are necessary to make the political system work. They technically aren’t, since theoretically every single MP could be an independent.
Only a minority of Australians think there is a real difference between the parties. If you think the parties care about your opinion you are part of a small minority of 20 per cent of voters.
This disillusionment explains why party loyalty is way down. In the 1960s over 70 per cent of Australians said they always voted for the same party; that’s down to 37 per cent now. It’s easier than ever for minor parties and independents to win over voters from the major parties.
This is also an environment conducive for the emergence of new parties – I expect new parties to emerge in the coming years.
In my head I always refer to the two major parties, the LNP and the ALP, as Lib-Lab. Let’s use this term from here on. There are significantly fewer lifetime Lib-Lab voters now. Only 12 per cent are stable........