INDEPENDENTS DIG IN FOR THE LONG HAUL

Independents’ push a major factor in 2022 election

Most of Australia’s post-War Federal Elections have been two-sided affairs, at least in the House of Representatives.

Either the Liberal-National Coalition or the Labor Party has had the numbers to form government after a federal poll.

That changed dramatically in 2010, when the Gillard Labor Government was forced to secure a majority through the support of Independent NSW MPs, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, and Andrew Wilkie from Tasmania.

Twelve years later, Independent MPs are becoming a fixture in the Federal political landscape.

No longer representing just a one-off protest vote against the major parties, Independent MPs are serving multiple terms and wielding a greater influence in government policy.

Wilkie, for example, will soon complete a fourth term in his formerly safe Tasmanian Labor seat. In 2019, Helen Haines won a third term for Independents in the formerly safe Victorian regional Liberal seat of Indi.

And at the same election in 2019, Zali Steggall defeated former Prime Minister Tony Abbott in the Sydney northern beaches seat of Warringah, again once an erstwhile safe Liberal electorate.

The trio’s successes have encouraged a raft of Independent candidates to declare their intentions for the next Federal election expected in May 2022.

Independent candidates are lining up to challenge sitting Liberal MPs in formerly blue-ribbon urban Liberal seats, such as Kooyong (held by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg) and Goldstein In Melbourne, as well as Wentworth, Mackellar and North Sydney in NSW.

The Independent surge represents a major shift for the Australian political system, which has generally operated under the certainty of a two-party system.

And it’s also a fundamental change in the background of individual Independent MPs and how they are elected to federal office.

Prior to the 1990s, Independent MPs sat in the Federal Parliament from time to time, but usually after they resigned from the party under whose banner they were originally elected.

That changed in the 1990s, with the election of Independents Ted Mack in North Sydney, Phil Cleary in Bob Hawke’s old Melbourne seat of Wills and Peter Andren in the regional NSW seat of Calare. None of these MPs, however, had the numerical strength to exercise their influence on the government of the day.

That changed in 2010.

And it looms again as a factor in 2022.

In most recent cases, Independent MPs have won their seats when they challenge Liberal MPs, particularly those with a high profile.

For example, Steggall defeated Tony Abbott in the Sydney seat of Warringah and Haines’ Independent predecessor Cathy McGowan triumphed over a former Liberal frontbencher in the seat of Indi in north-east Victoria. (Though not elected as an Independent, Rebekha Sharkie seized the former South Australian Liberal stronghold of Mayo in 2016, as a Nick Xenophon team candidate.)

Apart from Andrew Wilkie’s victory in Denison (now Clark) in 2010, Labor tends to be more vulnerable in its safer seats to Greens campaigns, not those of Independents.

Unlike previous Independents, many of the announced candidates for the 2022 election have more settled policy positions, such as on climate change and integrity in government.

If the Independent candidates present a similar stance on policy, they are likely to represent a potential alliance if they are involved in post-election negotiations.

Under the Australian electoral system, Independents used to base their hopes on finishing second in their contest, and then hope to sweep up the preferences of either Labor, Liberal or Greens candidates.

But in 2019, election returns show that Steggall won Warringah with 43 per cent of the primary vote, ahead of Abbott on 39 per cent, while Wilkie won his seat of Clark with 50 per cent of the primary vote in a formerly safe Labor seat, without the need for preference flows.

Meanwhile Haines polled just 32 per cent of the primary vote in Indi, behind her Liberal rival (on 35 per cent), but finishing with enough Labor and Green preferences to secure victory.

Free of political and policy constraints and able to focus on their individual constituency, Independents are being re-elected and peeling off votes from the major parties.

For the 2022 election, the rise of the Independents has major implications.

The Morrison Government presently has a bare 76-75 majority in the House of Representatives, while Labor needs to win eight seats to regain office in its own right.

Many of the sitting Independent MPs and candidates have expressed loudly their particular policy differences with the Coalition, which would make for tense post-election negotiations if the Coalition were forced into minority government.

But that does not necessarily mean the Independents would commit their total support to the Labor Party, if it failed to secure a majority.

As a minister in the Gillard and Rudd Cabinets from 2010 to 2013, Labor Leader Anthony Albanese will know the perils of minority government, in which legislation can be held hostage to the demands of Independents or minor parties.

Accommodating a handful of disparate Independent MPs in post-election negotiations, and in securing the passage of legislation, would be a delicate exercise for a Labor minority government.

It could also mean a period of policy and budget uncertainty and for Labor, an unwelcome compromise on its pre-election policies.