Spatial Variations,Contextual and Social Structural Influences on Voting for the ALP at the 1996 Federal Election: Conclusions from Multilevel Analyses

Multilevel modelling of individual survey data from the 1996 Australian Election Study and aggregate contextual Census data is used to investigate the extent of spatial variations in voting at the 1996 election, and to examine potential explanations for the variations. The size of the variations was about the same as at the 1993 election, and was again mainly at the divisional rather than the state level. However, unlike in 1993, only a small amount of the variations could be explained by differences in the individual sociodemographic compositions of the areas, suggesting that local influences were more important in 1996 than 1993. The most significant change in the effect of the individual-level variables between the two elections was that the influence of being personally unemployed completely changed direction (working against the ALP in 1996, whereas it had favoured it in 1993), although the estimated strengths of several others also changed. I suggest that the concentration of the 1993 election on the 'Fightback' package might be the main cause of many of these differences. The nature of the main contextual influences is similar to those at the 1993 election, involving an urban-rural effect, a local economic effect and an ethnic effect, confirming that these are more than short-term factors. However, there also remain somewhat larger unexplained local influences than in 1993. Detailed investigation of the ethnic contextual effect suggests the presence of a specifically anti-Asian influence.