The Rise and Fall of the Australian Greens: The 2002 Cunningham By-election and its Implications

This article examines the 2002 by-election in the Australian federal seat of Cunningham, in which the Australian Greens secured their first and only member of the House of Representatives. This case study of Greens voting suggests that the electoral support base of the Greens in Cunningham was consistent with what is known about the support base of the Greens elsewhere in Australia. At the same time, it makes the case that local factors were at least as important as national issues in explaining the high Greens vote in Cunningham. A suburb-by-suburb analysis of Greens voting in the 2002 by-election suggests that traditional markers of Greens voting, such as higher than average incomes and educational qualifications, were a necessary, but not a sufficient, explanation of Greens voting in the case of Cunningham.