Shock troops: The emerging role of Senators in House of representatives campaigns

Since the 1949 introduction of proportional representation for the Senate there have only been two elections (1983 and 84) at which the ALP has gained more Senators in the chamber than the Coalition. The Coalition has held more seats than the ALP since 1987. The decline in Senate fortunes for the Labor Party has occurred despite (or, perhaps, because of) consecutive ALP Governments from 1972–75 and, more conspicuously, 1983–96. The professionalisation of politics through the 1980s and 1990s has dramatically changed the role major parties expect of their Senate teams. The Coalition and Labor Parties each use their Senators and Senatorial office resources as ‘shock troops’ in marginal seats, as well as points of constituency contact for electors in marginal seats or seats held by the opposition. Given that major party Senators are increasingly being used by the party machines as campaign tools, and are increasingly locating their offices and staffers in marginal seats, the numerical advantage the Coalition enjoys in the Senate is worthy of consideration. The additional campaign resources that Senators provide translates potentially into an electoral advantage in the House of Representatives for the Coalition. The Coalition's majority in the Senate may therefore be of as much interest outside the chamber as it is within it.     

Re-examining Leader Effects: Have Leader Effects Grown in Australian Federal Elections 1990–2004?

It is well established that the popularity of party leaders exerts an important influence on vote choice in modern federal elections. Significant partisan and class de-alignment have been key drivers of this trend. Although Australia's development in this respect has been slower than in some other liberal democracies, it has nonetheless been significant, and has weakened voters' attachments to the major parties. This article examines six federal elections (1990–2004) and investigates whether the electoral impact of party leader popularity is continuing to grow, or whether the impact, although important, has been relatively stable or declining. We also investigate the impact of different methods of calculating leader effects on their implied size and, drawing on new data available in the most recent Australian Election Study surveys, present an alternative model of leadership effects that has not been assessable previously in the Australian context.     

Electoral databases: big brother or democracy unbound?

Modern political campaigning is becoming increasingly professionalised to the extent that in Australia today the major parties use electoral databases to assist with their campaigns. The electoral databases of the Coalition (Feedback) and the Australian Labor Party (Electrac) store information on the constituents of each House of Representatives seat. The information gathered in the databases, such as the policy preferences and party identification of individual voters, are used by candidates for House seats to tailor correspondence to swinging voters, and to identify potential party supporters. Party organisations aggregate the information in the databases and use it to conduct polls and focus groups of swinging voters, and to tailor policy development and campaign strategies. Electoral databases have the potential to improve the level of communication between elected representatives and their constituents. There are, however, a number of ethical problems associated with their use. While the usefulness of the databases to the major political parties is undeniable, their use underlines the trend in modern campaigning towards targeting swinging voters at the expense of the majority of the electorate. Considerable public resources are devoted to the smooth operation of the databases. They would be much less effective were political parties not exempted from the Privacy Act. The use of personal information collected by members of parliament by political parties should be more closely regulated. Despite the wishes of the major political parties to keep their operation a secret, the advantages and disadvantages of the use of electoral databases should be more widely debated.