Electoral Impact of Televised Leaders' Debates on Australian Federal Elections

Since 1984, every Australian federal election campaign except 1987 has featured at least one televised debate between the leaders of the major parties. These debates have been the subject of considerable speculation, particularly in the popular press. However, initial enthusiasm and optimism has been replaced, in part, by skepticism and indifference about their impact. Although viewing audiences for the early debates were large, audiences have steadily declined in more recent campaigns. Although televised debates are ostensibly an established part of federal elections, their influence on individual vote choice and aggregate impact on the vote has received little academic attention. This paper considers each campaign since 1990 and, using data from The Australian Election Study series, it assesses the impact of leaders' debates on individual vote choice. It investigates whether the impact varies for different groups of the electorate, considering the role of partisan identification, as well as whether any influence of the debates extends beyond the actual viewing audience. Finally, it estimates the aggregate impact on the vote attributable to the debates.     

Three Tools for Forecasting Federal Elections: Lessons from 2001

What is the best way to predict Australian federal election results? This article analyses three forecasting tools: opinion polls, economic models, and betting odds. Historically, we find that opinion polls taken close to the election are quite accurate, while economic models provide better medium-run forecasts. The November 2001 federal election largely follows this pattern, although the economic models provided more accurate projections than recorded through the 1990s. Against these, we compare betting odds, analysing a rich data source from one of Australia's largest bookmakers, Centrebet. The betting market not only correctly forecast the election outcome, but also provided very precise estimates of outcomes in a host of individual electorates. Betting fluctuations present an intriguing quantitative record of the shifting fortunes of the campaign. Particularly in marginal seats, the press may have better served its readers by reporting betting odds than by conducting polls. We conclude that the results of these three models can help determine how important the events of August and September 2001 were in deciding the outcome of the election.     

Elections Without Cues: The 1999 Australian Republic Referendum

In the November 1999 referendum on the republic, the Australian electorate was asked to make a complex, technical choice about the system of government, in the absence of clear partisan cues. How did voters resolve this dilemma? Although those in favour of replacing the Queen as head of state made up three-quarters of the electorate, they were divided on the method of election for the head of state, effectively resulting in three separate groups of voters. Four hypotheses are tested to explain voting in the referendum. The most important influence on voting was views about whether or not to sever the link with Britain, followed by the positive and negative aspects of the proposed change, and the cues presented by the leaders of the respective 'yes' and 'no' campaigns. Voters' knowledge of politics was also important. Overall, the interaction between compulsory voting and lack of political knowledge among large sections of the electorate served to divide republicans, and caused the proposition to fail. Pairing the republic with an unpopular change to the preamble of the Constitution also depressed the 'yes' vote.     

Rationality and Decision-making in Australian Federal Government

The predominant view is that decision-making in Australian government is based on politics rather than rationality. This paper argues that while decisionmaking continues to exemplify incremental analysis, it does not for the most part exemplify incremental politics, that is, acts of negotiation, compromise and bargaining or 'partisan mutual adjustment'. This is the case for three reasons: decision-making conforms to models of rationality; the technical nature of most policy issues is amendable to rationality; and relationships between departments have grown more consensual since the 1970s.     

Elections,Policy and the Media: Tasmania's Forests and the 2004 Federal Election

Much of the academic literature holds the media responsible for the proliferation of the game frame as a way of reporting on elections. This paper challenges that view through an examination of media coverage of forest policy in the 2004 federal election. The study of articles published in three major broadsheets finds that the majority of stories were set within the game frame, which depicts elections as sporting contests, and that far fewer articles focused on the issue. The lack of interest in policy is characteristic of election reporting but, in this case, can be attributed to the way in which the major parties managed their campaigns. Not only did they drive the game frame but, as policy makers, they also determined the frame within which the limited media consideration of policy substance was set. The article concludes that political actors must take at least some responsibility for the domination of the game frame in election reporting.     

Australian Federal Government Road Funding 1972–1986

Increasing Commonwealth Government desire to establish national priorities for road expenditure was successfully thwarted by constitutionally powerful State Governments until the early 1980s Political considerations interfered with the consistently efficiency-orientated national priorities suggested by the Commonwealth Government's advisory organisation. The paper evaluates efficiency, equality and equity as potential bases for road funding, before analysing what happened over the period 1972-86. The 1982 ABRD program allowed the Commonwealth to impose its priorities in an area of State constitutional authority.     

Tasmanian Forests,the Environment and Voting in the 2004 Australian Federal Election

The 2004 Australian federal election appeared to depart from the historical tendency for the Australian Labor Party to benefit electorally from adopting policies more sympathetic to environmental movement demands than those of the Liberal–National Coalition, when environmental issues have been prominent in election campaigns. This article assesses contending claims about the actual impact of environmental issues on the outcome of the 2004 election, and possible explanations for Labor's failure to gain a significant net electoral advantage from its environmental policies, in particular its commitment to preserve 240,000 hectares of native forest in Tasmania.     

Global Restructuring,the Welfare State and Urban Programmes: Federal Policies and Inequality within Australian Cities

This paper is a prelude to a theme issue in 2003 on Australasian city and regional problems and policies. It considers the impact of economic restructuring on the level of inequality and disadvantage within Australian cities. Evidence is presented that Australian cities have become more unequal over the past two decades and this greater level of inequality has found concrete expression within the built environment. These patterns of inequality are distinct to Australia. It is argued that the Australian Government's reliance on tightly targeted income support policies and market-based solutions to economic disadvantage has contributed greatly to the concentration of low income and vulnerable households within certain sections of Australian cities.     

1993 Elections Highlight Tibetan Rights

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The Influence of the Ethnic Composition of Australian Federal Electorates on the Parliamentary Responsiveness of MPs to their Ethnic Sub-constituencies

This paper examines the parliamentary responsiveness of Australian MPs with respect to their ethnic constituents in the official arena of representation, the federal parliament. It first reviews the notion of representation and discusses the twofold influence that ethnicity may exert on the representational behaviour of elected representatives: the ethnicity of the electorate and the ethnicity of the elected representative. It then presents and discusses the results of a content analysis of the parliamentary interventions of MPs from 12 ethnic electorates and 10 non-ethnic electorates between 1983 and 1996. On the basis of this analysis, two indexes were constructed, the ethnic reference ratio and the ethnic distance ratio in order to compare the responsiveness of MPs to their ethnic constituents. The findings suggest that the ethnicity of the electorate does have an influence on ethnic responsiveness in absolute terms but less so in relative terms. In other words, MPs from ethnic electorates generally make more ethnic-related interventions than MPs from non-ethnic electorates, but not as much as the proportion of ethnic constituents in these electorates would suggest they should make. The ethnicity of the electorate also influences the types of ethnic issues MPs make, with those from ethnic seats more likely to make constituency-related issues. The marginality of the seat, especially in ethnic electorates, rather than the political party to which the representative belongs, would appear to have a bigger influence on the degree and type of responsiveness. Finally, the ethnicity of the MP does have an influence in both the degree and type of ethnic responsiveness.