Australian politics today is very different to what it was even ten years ago, but the shift in the partisan make-up of the country has been a story decades in the making. For today’s post I’m going to recount and update statistics about how Australia has shifted from a strong two-party system into the fragmented multi-party system we have today.
The story of the declining major party vote begins a long time ago, even though for much of this history the House of Representatives remained almost exclusively a contest between Labor and the Coalition parties (Liberal and Country/Nationals).
From the foundation of the Liberal Party in the 1940s until the mid 1950s, almost 100% of the vote was cast for these three parties. The splitting off of the Democratic Labor Party from Labor in 1954-55 began the process of decline, with the primary vote for the majors around 90% until the early 1980s.
The next big development was the rise of the Democrats in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well as other parties like the Nuclear Disarmament Party in 1984.
The next big dip was in 1990, when there was a big vote for the Democrats and other minor parties, with green candidates having an impact for the first time.
The major party vote recovered somewhat, then reached a new low of just under 80% in 1998. This was the first election for One Nation.
The major party vote then recovered somewhat to a new peak in 2007. This was the point where the Democrats were finally wiped out, and the Greens had taken some of that vote but not quite reached the same heights. Since 2007, the decline has been steady and fast, from 85% in 2007 to 68% in 2022. The drop was particularly large between 2019 and 2022.
It is worth also looking at the red and blue lines. The share of the vote needed to win an election has been getting smaller and smaller, since both parties now have quite low primary votes and rely on a lot more preferences to win seats.
There was a silly argument before the last election where some commentators would say a majority Labor government wasn’t possible on a given primary vote because they had never done it before. But past elections had taken place in a context where far fewer pro-Labor preferences were available. Labor polled slightly worse on the primary vote in 2022 than they did in 2013, but one produced a landslide defeat while the other produced a narrow majority. What changes was the make-up of the remainder of the electorate. Labor’s defeat in 1975 saw them poll about 42% of the primary vote. At any time in my adult life such a primary vote would’ve given Labor a clear majority, and in more recent years would’ve likely been enough for a landslide.
The make-up of the minor party vote over time has shifted, but one big change in 2022 was the rise in the vote for independents.
This chart shows the primary vote share for independents since 1984, and the darker line is the primary vote for those who actually won their seat.
The primary vote peaked at just over 3% in 1993, but in 2022 reached 5.3%. Most independents have traditionally polled very little votes, and those who do well and win their seat barely register in the national figures. Even now, the ten independents elected in 2022 make up just over 2% of the national primary vote.
The House of Representatives electoral system means that votes for minor parties and independents only have an impact on the result when they are heavily concentrated in one seat. When they are spread around thinly, the race remains between Labor and the Coalition, with those minor party voters making their “real choice” when they decide how to rank the major parties.
Until relatively recently, there were very few seats where the minor parties or independents broke through. The AEC has a category they call “non-classic seats” where the 2CP is not between Labor and Coalition. Historically this includes cases where the two Coalition parties faced off against each other, but more recently it has usually been when a non-major candidate made it to the top two.
The number of non-classic seats began to take off in 2010, peaking at 17 in 2016 and again surging to 27 seats in 2022.
The trend looks even more dramatic when you look at the number of crossbenchers actually elected over time.
From 1949 until 1987, only one independent was elected to the House of Representatives, once.
Since 1990, there has always been at least one. There was a spike to five in 1996, and then it was steady at 5-6 from 2010 to 2019. But 2022 is off the charts at 16.
It’s hard to say how many non-classic seats we would expect in 2025. The recent MRPs have predicted either 22 or 26 non-classic seats, but surprises could come.
There are currently 15 crossbenchers running for re-election, with the abolition of North Sydney. There are also another 3 ex-Coalition members running as independents. It is likely that a majority of these members will be re-elected, but plenty of them are running in competitive seats. There are also other races that could potentially flip as crossbench seats too. It is entirely possible we could break records again in 2025.
But what about the overall minor party and independent vote? What do the polls say?
There is a lot of difficulty in using national polls to predict the vote for particular small parties, since pollsters don’t usually have the ability to list every possible minor party. Before nominations close, there can also be issues with asking about “independent” in seats with no prominent independent running, and other parties may not run everywhere.
So I’m just looking at the total “non-major party” vote in each poll as a share of the non-undecided vote. I have looked at the latest poll, the final 2022 poll, and the equivalent poll at this point in the 2022 campaign for three pollsters who were regularly conducting polls in both 2022 and 2025.
All three pollsters showed an increase in the minor vote between mid-April and the final polls in mid May. This may reflect differences in methodology between the polls before and after nominations close and it becomes possible to definitively include everyone in that seat.
Resolve slightly overstated the total minor vote in 2022, while Newspoll slightly understated it. Essential significantly understated the minor vote, thanks to both major parties having a higher vote than the actual result.
Comparing 2022 to 2025, Newspoll and Essential both have the minor vote higher than in 2022, while Resolve has it at the same level as the final 2022 poll, but slightly up on the polls at this point last cycle.
The most recent Newspoll had primary vote figures remarkably similar to the actual result in 2022, but that is slightly higher than the figures in the final Newspoll before that election.
Overall I think this is pointing to a slightly higher minor vote, but I don’t think it will keep growing at the speed we saw in 2022. At the local level, there may be more or less crossbench members elected – it won’t have that much to do with the cumulative national vote, but will be more about each individual race.
The informal vote trend in the senate seems to have stabilised with above the line voting (I guess) but the volatility in HoR especially in NSW sees many seats being determined by smaller margins than the informal vote %.
Take the seat of Banks in NSW at 6.6%. The Lib lost 5.7 and ALP 1.1 and despite ‘others’ getting about 11% (3% or less per candidate) that was also down by 4.7%
So are former swingers just giving up in disgust (no one gets their vote money) or is the non-English demographic a problem?
I’ll be addressing the informal vote in another post.
Great analysis, thanks Ben! I also think it’s time to recognise the difference between community independents and classic independents. I suggest community independents are becoming a far stronger force which is generally not yet recognised. The way in which commentators and the MSM continues to call them ‘teals’ also misses the story that they have very individual personalities in their various electorates and candidates themselves. But they’re certainly stirring things up and clearly a strong source of hope for voters of a better politics and restoring democracy.
I think I have only voted 1 for a major party once in the last 20 years of so (2019 for Shorten just for the comprehensive range of policy options and vision he put forward at that time).
But this election has really been the straw that broke this little black duck’s back as far as even being inclined to vote for a major party. I will be willing to put a nut case party like One Nation before either of the majors, such is the lack of what I perceive to be real leadership by Labor or Liberals.
To me what we have is two mid-level public service managers pretending to be leaders, but at best just tinkering around at the edges. None of the two have presented a vision for the future, especially given the increasing number of critical issue we and the world are facing in the next 20 years or so. A pox on both them.
But if you ask them how well they are doing and responding to the major issues I am sure they will give themselves 5 out of 5. I am not saying the solutions are simple or easy, but all we get is staged media opportunity and sound bites, while us poor plebs are looking for a leader with clear and comprehensive vision and a concrete plan to lead us onto a better path. More pollies like Pocock and less Dutto and Albo.
This analysis would be improved greatly by a micro analysis of where the PVs have been lost recently.
In the last election Labor lost a further 0.8% of its PV.
The biggest drag on Labor’s PV was a huge loss of votes mainly to One Nation and United Australia in its blue collar traditional safe seats.
Another significant element is the huge tactical Labor vote for Teals that is attested by sustained senate PV in those seats.
Outside of those two phenomena, Labor actually increased its PV substantially.
The Teals are of course a rejection of the coalition. Even to the extent that Labor is continued to lose a smaller PV to the Greens (and other leftist parties), the voting behaviour of these voters, where up to half will put Labor no.2 against the direction of the Green HTV, suggests a different consideration of this phenomena.
While Labor is hardly blameless in the decay of its vote in its traditional blue collar base, there has clearly been a step change in misinformation and conspiratorial manipulation in lower educated communities that is a global phenomenon. But this is the meaningful component of the falling Labor PV over the last few elections.
Understanding this should be cause for reflection among non Labor progressives (which may be why this blog will avoid doing so). The Greens have made no material inroads – and have shown no inclination or capability to do so – into these areas.
So it is not just that a Labor majority of a PV of 32% is perfectly understandable in a preferential voting system (as you have established above). It is also that, rather than smugness, there should be a bit more gratitude that Labor is hanging on to these seats where in other parts of the world these seats are falling to an ascendant populist right.
Bit of a weird comment. There’s no smugness here, I’m just describing the phenomena. You can try and explain it as you wish but I think that’s a bit simplistic.
Yes Labor’s primary dropped by 0.8% but that is in the context of a 3.7% 2PP swing. So their share of the Labor 2PP dropped quite substantially. I don’t think the small size of their primary vote swing compared to an election they lost is impressive. When Labor last won power in 2007 they had a slightly higher 2PP, but a primary vote over 10% higher. The vote for the teals doesn’t explain that – at most it explains a point or two. And I don’t think the UAP or ON come close to explaining that.
Surely it depends what you mean by “major party” – Are not the Greens now a “major party”? A permanent ‘far left’ part of the electoral spectrum, winning lower house seats, who will inevitably support an ALP government.
No they are not a major party.
Agree Ben, whilst the Greens do dominate politics now (nationwide vote above 5% and in line with the Nationals), they do not form a full ‘partnership’ with Labor and only reluctantly support them when required.
It is probably like the early days of the Nationals and Country Party, with some members being hostile to the main Liberal party and its views. If the Greens and Labor agree to form a full partnership in the future, then the Greens could be seen as a major party like the Nationals.
@MB, a couple of points.
The ALP losing Blue Collar workers is easy to understand. There are a lot less of them, and fewer of those are unionised. Those that are tend to work in sectors which are funded by the Government or have strict regulations, couple this with the number of white collar unionists in the Public Service and you can already see the link between blue collar workers and Labor is fundamentally broken. This is not due to any ‘misinformation’ but due to structural issues within the economy and Government.
If we are going to talk misinformation, then there is at least as much if not more flowing through the establishment/leftish media. To take the most obvious example, the journalist who did a 3 part report on the now completely debunked Trump/Russia hoax not only wasn’t fired but got promoted to the most high profile presenting position within the ABC. Those most concerned about mis/dis information are the most likely to be peddling it I find.
Lastly, while plenty of erstwhile Labor voters switched to the Teals, I would argue a lot of those were not rusted on Laborites and were just waiting for the right movement to come along to switch.
This trend seems to be an inline with the UK and New Zealand too. Recent polling in the UK has actually found that Reform could win the most seats in the next UK general election, which would likely see the idea of a Prime Minister Nigel Farage actually become a reality.
However, here in Australia it’s extremely unlikely for a minor party to ever gain power in an entire jurisdiction (so not even a state or territory let alone the federal government) simply because the major parties are too strong and our voting system is different to those in Europe.
For those who are unaware Reform UK is basically the British version of One Nation.
@BR I am not calling you smug personally. I am suggesting there is a lot of misplaced smugness amongst Greens supporters at the declining Labor PV that I am suggesting a “less shallow” analysis would make very difficult to maintain.
Your response to my comment sure does suggest you would rather not drill down further into the said phenomena (and a bit hypocritical calling my analysis simplistic).
I also clearly didn’t say that Labor’s 2022 PV is “impressive”. There is clearly a decay there and the small target strategy (that they won government with) did not see an increase in PV. The 2019 “big target” approach conversely may have insulated Labor from a loss in PV but exposed them to successful scare campaigns.
And if we are going to use 2007 as the baseline, take Kooyong re the Teals tactical vote (admittedly an extreme example). Labor’s house PV in 2007 was 24.6K against Petro G, their Senate PV was almost 6K votes less than that. In 2022 Labor’s Senate vote was 20K higher than its house PV.
This is replicated to a lesser degree across ALL traditionally conservative seats with strong independents. Even if you just take the senate vote and assume all Labor House PV voters are also voting Labor in the senate, there are 200K odd Labor PV senate voters presumably for the most part voting for Teals / independents in conservative seats. So baseline of 1.3ish% and likely closer to 2% when you consider traditional lower senate PV votes.
It would be quite straight forward to provide a plausible decomposition of the 10% lower PV Labor has “lost” since the Kevin07 landside (where the PV was 3% higher than every election since 1993) by conducting analysis of booth level vote changes with reference to census data.
Off the back of the envelope, quite possible the biggest chunk of it went to the right wing minors that grew from 2% in 2007 (family first) to 11/12% of the vote in 2022 (mainly PHON, UAP, LD where perhaps 35% preference Labor against the HTVs).
Perhaps a similar chunk went to the Greens, though most of that in 2010.
Which brings me to the crux of the point. The Greens have grown their primary vote by 0.5 between 2010 and 2022. They may even drop back below their 2010 result at this election. Almost half its voters put Labor second when the HTV puts it further down the card. This is by design given the Greens are consciously calibrated in their policy platform and campaigning, two steps to the left of Labor across their policy platform. It is basically 1) what progressive Labor’s platform would be if it wasn’t constrained by the political realities of first needing to win government and then enacting and implementing reform 2. married to a political campaigning that essentially is undermining of Labor in the task of winning government and implementing progressive reform.
So despite 15 years of cohorts of new voters that perhaps a third initially vote Green, the Greens haven’t made any material improvement to their PV and have a precarious set of 3 brisbane seats to hang their hat on. Meanwhile the Teals in a couple of elections have dwarfed their representation where surely, in hindsight, a less Labor replacement fixated strategy may have seen Green’s sweeping those seats.
So if we look at the decline of the major party 2PP since 2010 we are looking at:
-a Teal phenomena that is solely at the electoral cost of the coalition, despite clearly having a non-trivial reduction in the Labor PV that is tactical
-a blue collar trust decay that is global but has so far not resulted in a massive loss in tradition blue collar seats outside on Queensland.
The Teals have taken several traditionally safe seats off the Coalition. Labor has thus far maintained most of its blue collar seats against enormous investment in misinforming and triaging these voters to the right.
Regardless of whether the combined major party 2PP continues to decline, a Dutton failure at this election to make any inroads to either the the Teal seats or the outer suburban red seats will be a monumental win for progressive forces in this country.
Labor could plausibly suffer a fractional decline in its PV due to an increasing number of high profile Teals and further loss of blue collar voters but maintain majority government. And it’s not just that it is plausible that Labor could retain majority government with a PV in the low 30s, it is actually highly likely that it will continue to do so if the Coalition’s PV falls to similar levels.
So the shallow analysis of the “declining 2 party system” that avoids this decomposition analysis, sustains a misplaced smugness of particularly Green supporters towards Labor which is really misplaced.
If major parties primary vote continues to decline, I’d expect them to become much more amenable to some form of MMP.
And I still maintain that it is in the major parties interests to require their candidates to meet the same requirements as independents for nomination. It would force the major parties to actually focus on local membership.
You will find other places where I have written more generally about fragmentation. The Greens used to be pretty much the only left-wing minor party and now the field is crowded. But I think there is something particular about the vote for Labor and Liberal/National, because they remain very dominant in the media environment and electoral system despite their falling vote share.
Did you forget the australian democrats held the balance of power 45 years ago? It’s not new.
Sometimes the two options are so shit a viable third is suddenly thrust into the light.
Just a pity the options on the table are so bad, so it’s great to see the Australian Democrats back again.
I mention the Democrats three times! But the first graph makes it clear that things are very different now to when they were first around.
From the information I can find online, One Nation, Trumpet of Patriots don’t seem to be running candidates in every seat like they did last time. Is this right? Animal Justice Party also seem to be running fewer candidates. If there are fewer camdidates per seat I expect the combined vote of the major parties (including the Greens) to go up.
We won’t know until the nominations are declared tomorrow. ON and TOP are likely to run a bunch of candidates at the last minute. Other minor parties also end up nominating a bunch at the last minute with no prior notice. The ballot might get smaller but not by a lot.
I wonder if there is any chance of Climate 200/Voices of extending to senate candidates.
David Pocock was a ‘Climate 200’ senate candidate.
Independent Senate campaigns only seem to work in small jurisdictions like the ACT or Tasmania.
Agree Alan, as an independent candidate it can be hard to win votes statewide. Even smaller minor parties will struggle to win Senate seats unless their lead candidate is of a high profile (eg One Nation with Pauline Hanson).
Well when they don’t listen to us, what do they expect? Things that virtually everyone agrees on, like restricting big data & AI, reducing data sharing between government departments, or things like improving Australia Post standards, you don’t get much disagreement on those things, but both major parties are more interested in representing their party donors than the Australian people. And given the growing number of renters and the major parties’ very clear messaging to them that they have zero interest in helping them, of course their vote share will drop.
ToP has 72 candidates whilst PHON has 69 according to Kevin Bonham who has looked up their websites. I remember both parties fielding ghost candidates or candidates who didn’t even live near the electorate in 2022. Let’s say neither party gets candidates for 150 seats. It would limit their ability to get senators elected.
I don’t see JLN having lower house candidates in Tasmania interestingly.