Australian Federal Election Research Articles

‘Waiting for the Barbarians’: constructing the visible invisibility of Australia’s ‘boat people’

ABSTRACT The image of the barbarian at the border has long captured the imagination of ‘civilized’ communities. Drawing on C P Cavafy’s 1904 poem, Waiting for the Barbarians, and J M Coetzee’s 1980 novel of the same name, this article explores the Australian polity’s responses to the arrival of ‘boat people’, who embody the ‘barbarian Other’ in the Australian psyche. Examining the response to unauthorised boat arrivals on Australian Federal Election day in 2022, it situates those events as part of Australia’s performance of Waiting for the Barbarians. It then examines how ‘visible invisibility’ of ‘boat people’ is constructed visually, juridically and geographically. It considers how the cultivation of fear, hostility, and forgetting enable the visible invisibility so constructed. Finally, it turns to the possibilities of resistance to the construction and devastating human effects of visible invisibility. To do this, it looks to those who are ‘visibly invisible’ for inspiration, exploring how documentary, literature, art, music, and artificial intelligence can be harnessed as powerful forms of non-violent resistance. As Cavafy and Coetzee do, the article serves as a reminder that the barbarian is within us as it ponders the possibility of ‘boat people’ offering ‘us’ a different kind of solution.

Topic Diversity in Social Media Campaigning: A Study of the 2022 Australian Federal Election

This study explores the diversity of topics in political campaign communication on social media during the 2022 Australian federal election. While political campaigns on social media are often associated with both persuasive and mobilising appeals, this research focuses on understanding the differences in persuasive content by comparing organic (non-targeted) and paid (targeted) political communication. Analysing the Australian context, which follows a Westminster system, with compulsory voting, we utilise data from the federal election 2022 to investigate how political actors employ persuasive communication strategies. Through topic modelling, we examine whether distinct themes vary in content and prevalence between organic and paid social media content disseminated by political parties and candidates. Our analysis revealed that the differences in topic diversity between paid and organic content do not seem to be substantial, despite popular concerns about higher personalisation due to advertising targeting which could lead to information fragmentation of the electorate. Both types of content predominantly focus on core political topics, aligning with party ideologies and include overall campaign information (e.g., on election procedures). However, government critique emerges as a distinct topic in both organic and paid content signalling the usage of negative campaigning to weaken opposing parties. In conclusion, this study suggests that the strategic manipulation of the electorate through social media during the Australian federal election in 2022 was limited. Nonetheless, the prevalence of negative appeals towards the government and opposing parties raises questions about the potential impact on citizens’ trust in democracy and institutions.

Watershed: The 2022 Australian Federal Election. Edited by AnikaGauja, MarianSawer, and JillSheppard. Canberra: ANU Press, 2023. pp. xxv + 432. Open access or $69.95 (pb)

Watershed: The 2022 Australian Federal Election. Edited by AnikaGauja, MarianSawer, and JillSheppard. Canberra: <scp>ANU</scp> Press, 2023. pp. xxv + 432. Open access or $69.95 (pb)

Loving a good fight: personality traits and reactions to conflict in TV debates

AbstractThis article seeks to contribute to our understanding of media influence on political behaviour by investigating the ways in which people with different personality types react to candidates’ conflicting rhetoric in televised debates during election campaigns. It analyses responses along three reaction types: evaluations of candidate character, debate performance, and voting intentions in two debate clips from the 2019 UK general election and 2022 Australian federal election. The study uses semi-structured interviews with respondents in the UK and relies on deductive, flexible thematic analysis. The findings show that respondents’ personality traits are associated with different reactions to conflict in televised debates, which are sometimes mediated by the nature of attack, partisanship and preconceptions about candidates especially in the UK debate.

The rise of TikTok elections: the Australian Labor Party’s use of TikTok in the 2022 federal election campaigning

ABSTRACT TikTok is an influential social media platform. During the 2022 Australian Federal election, the major political parties used TikTok as a campaigning tool. This research analysed the TikTok videos from the Australian Labor Party (ALP). The analysis primarily considered how the posts use visibility labour and other TikTok-based performance tools. It was found that they actively engaged in visibility labour, and employed popular culture to frame political issues. For youth who may not be politically active, cultural references can serve as a shared symbolic resource, aiding them in navigating political expression. This makes such references crucial, as they can help engage young users. Although TikTok utilises a short-form approach, the videos can contain substantial content that has the power to persuade viewers. The ALP used popular culture trends and more traditional techniques such as negative campaigning and humour, to attract supporter attention, denigrate the opposition and, attract the attention of all voters.

Parties vs. partisans: the real contest about what memes mean in election campaigns

ABSTRACT This article examines the different use of internet memes between political party organisations and partisan spaces. We analyse the relationship between organisational logics and memes as a genre characterised by participation. We conduct a mixed-methods analysis of the internet memes posted by five Australian political parties, their youth branches, and partisan meme spaces during the 2022 Australian federal election. We identify three styles of memetic content created by political parties and partisans: professional, generic, and participatory. We argue that these different kinds of meme each relate to particular organisational logics, with the hierarchical structures of professional election campaigns largely hollowing out the participatory potential of internet memes in both production and form.

The politics and impact of party leader visits in Australia

ABSTRACT Local visits by party leaders are an integral part of election campaigning around the world. In the age of media-driven elections, do they matter? How are local contests selected for a visit? Most importantly, what effect do they have on the vote? Using a unique dataset covering local visits by the major party leaders during the 2013 and 2022 Australian federal election campaigns, we address these questions. We find that marginality is the main criterion for selecting a seat for a visit, followed by its geographical location. Leader visits in 2013 mattered more to the vote than in 2022. We explain the differences between the two elections and the four leaders by the relative standing of each of the leaders among voters. Overall, we conclude that the electoral impact of a leader visit is modest and context-dependent.

“Realignment”, “Dealignment”, or “Deviation”? Classifying the 2022 Australian Federal Election

The 2022 Australian federal election saw a record high vote for minor parties and independent candidates and record‐low levels of voter identification with the major parties. Scholars have since described the 2022 election as both a “dealigning” and a “realigning” event. Such descriptions are useful commencement points but not definitive. In determining a more accurate classification, this article offers three arguments: first, that younger and female voters swung heavily against the Coalition indeed suggests a “dealigning” election, albeit merely the most recent in a long process of “dealignment”; second, that the election hinged disproportionately on the short‐term factor of Prime Minister Scott Morrison's unpopular leadership suggests the poll was also a “deviating” event; and, third, it is impossible to classify the 2022 election as genuinely “realigning” until subsequent elections confirm the propensity of former Labor and Liberal Party voters to re‐elect Greens and “Teal” candidates.

Party explanations for the 2022 Australian election result

ABSTRACT Post-election reviews provide an opportunity for political parties to diagnose the reasons for their success or failure. Since 2019, the reviews conducted by the Australian Labor and Liberal parties have been made public, and they provide an ideal opportunity to test their explanations against the evidence. This paper identifies six explanations for the 2022 Australian federal election outcome and tests them using the 2022 Australian Election Study survey. Both reviews correctly identify the importance of leadership and the pandemic in shaping the election result but underplay the importance of independents and of climate change. Both reviews over-estimate changes in voting among women and immigrants. Overall, the reviews are only partially accurate in explaining the election result.

PANDEMIC POLITICS: THE 2021 AND 2022 GERMAN AND AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGNS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

One of the effects of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic has been to further accelerate the incorporation of social media activities into political and electoral campaigning. Especially as a result of lockdowns and other restrictions to offline public life, overall social media use has increased in many countries; health concerns have severely curtailed conventional in-person political campaigning activities, from doorknocking to mass rallies (even if some candidates are openly flouting health measures in order to appeal to fringe, COVID-denialist voters); and concerns about the safety of in-person voting processes have also led to a growth in postal voting well ahead of election day, potentially increasing the importance of political messaging early on in election campaigns. In addition, of course, the pandemic itself, and the health, economic, and social measures taken by different governments to address and manage its implications, have also become a dominant theme in most political contests. Political parties around the world have scrambled to keep up with and engage with these changing circumstances, voter behaviours, and political debates, and it is therefore time to re-examine the current state of affairs. This panel does so by focussing on social media campaigning in two of the most recent major national elections: the German federal election campaign in August and September 2021, and the Australian federal election campaign in March to May 2022. The four papers included in this panel examine political campaigning, public engagement, and journalistic coverage on Facebook and Twitter, as well as political advertising practices on Facebook, and in combination offer a very timely new perspective on electioneering in the final stages of a multi-year global pandemic.

How Weighting by Past Vote Can Improve Estimates of Voting Intentions

Polling error for the 2020 US election was the highest in 40 years and no mode of surveying was unambiguously more accurate. This occurred amid several recent polling failures in other countries. Online panels, as the dominant method now used by pollsters to survey voters, are well-positioned to help reduce the level of bias in pre-election polls. Here, we present a case for those pollsters using online panels for pre-election polling to (re)consider using past vote choice (i.e., whom respondents voted for in the previous election) as a weighting variable capable of reducing bias in their election forecasts under the right circumstances. Our data are from an Australian pre-election poll, conducted on a probability-based online panel one month prior to the 2019 Australian federal election. Three different measures of recalled vote choice for the 2016 election were used in weighting the forecast of the 2019 election outcome. These were (1) a short-term measure of recall for the 2016 vote choice obtained three months after the 2016 election, (2) a long-term measure obtained from the same panelists three years after the 2016 election and (3) a hybrid measure with a random half of panelists allocated their short-term past vote measure for 2016 and the remainder their long-term measure. We then examined the impacts on the bias and variance of the resulting estimates of the 2019 voting intentions. Using the short-term measure of the 2016 recalled vote choice in our weighting significantly reduced the bias of the resulting 2019 voting intentions forecast, with an acceptable impact on variance, and produced less biased estimates than when using either of the other two past vote measures. The short-term recall measure also generally resulted in better estimates than a weighting approach that did not include any past vote adjustment. Implications for panel providers are discussed.

Australian Coal Theatrics

Climate change was the defining issue in the 2022 Australian federal election. As a new administration takes power, all sectors, including the performing arts, need to keep up the pressure. An iconic moment of “coal theatrics” in Parliament House, so labeled by the Australian media, stands in contrast to artistic performances that continue to put pressure on the framers of political and cultural policy.

Organising Australian far-right parties: Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the organisation of two Australian far-right political parties: Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party (FACNP) and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON). Based on semi-structured interviews with election candidates and office bearers and an analysis of official party documents, I examine how these parties manage their internal organisation and cope with problems of collective choice. I argue that their organisational practices are characterised by disorganisation. Namely, a lack of meaningful organisational structures and procedures, a core of socialised activists, andcoherent decision-making processes. By focusing on campaign mobilisation at the expense of party building, I argue that their disorganisation is inseparable from their muted electoral performance at the 2019 Australian federal election.

A Socio-Economic Analysis of Polling Booth Catchments at the 2019 Australian Federal Election

Within the Australian political geography literature, a growing body of work has aimed to understand the distinctive socio-economic and demographic patterns that characterize the Australian federal political landscape. Using results from the last two federal elections (2016 and 2019), this paper analyses polling booth catchments in the context of stability and change in voter support. Polling booths are assigned to four possible types-stable Coalition, stable Labor, change to Coalition and change to Labor-depending on outcomes between 2016 and 2019. The polling booths are then given a unique spatially defined catchment which is then compared across a range of socioeconomic and demographic variables. The results suggest significant differences in polling booth catchments across several key indicators. These differences can be used to understand Australia’s political geography’s distinct and changing nature and add an important component to the existing literature.

Albo crosses the line: the Labor win in the 2022 Australian federal election

ABSTRACT Labor has won a slim majority in the House of Representatives in the 2022 Australian federal election. Labor pursued a ‘small target’ strategy, focusing on economic issues. Labor and the Coalition combined won only about two-thirds of the primary vote. The new government faces a deteriorating economy and significant energy issues. However, Labor will make climate action a higher priority, also giving attention to such matters as a constitutionally enshrined indigenous ‘voice’ to parliament and a federal integrity commission. Internationally, Labor claims to be more effective than the Coalition, with some prospect of improved relations with China.

The Solomons-China 2022 security deal: extraterritoriality and the perils of militarisation in the Pacific Islands

ABSTRACT A security deal struck between the Solomon Islands and China in April 2022 has been depicted as the precursor to the establishment of a Chinese naval base in the Pacific. Fed by the proximity of an Australian federal election, these fears have stimulated lurid images in the Australian press of Beijing's aircraft carriers being stationed off Brisbane's coast creating a Pacific version of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. In this paper, we examine the provisions of the ‘framework agreement’, explore its rationale and consider the likelihood that the predicted naval base eventuates. We also investigate Chinese extraterritoriality on the global stage and Chinese commercial activity in the Solomons since the switch in diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 2019. We argue that Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare signed the deal primarily in response to domestic pressures, in particular the danger of a repeat of major riots that took place in the capital in November 2021. The most pressing risk is not Chinese warships or nuclear missiles stationed in Honiara, but repression to handle urban unrest without the restraint required of Australian, Papua New Guinean, Fijian or New Zealand police officers.

An Ethical Defense of a Mandated Choice Consent Procedure for Deceased Organ Donation

Organ transplant shortages are ubiquitous in healthcare systems around the world. In response, several commentators have argued for the adoption of an opt-out policy for organ transplantation, whereby individuals would by default be registered as organ donors unless they informed authorities of their desire to opt-out. This may potentially lead to an increase in donation rates. An opt-out system, however, presumes consent even when it is evident that a significant minority are resistant to organ donation. In this article, we defend a mandated choice framework for consent to deceased organ donation. A mandated choice framework, coupled with good public education, would likely increase donation rates. More importantly, however, a mandated choice framework would respect the autonomous preferences of people who do not wish to donate. We focus in particular on the Australian healthcare context, and consider how a mandated choice system could function as an ethical means to increase the organ donation rate in Australia. We make the novel proposal that all individuals who vote at an Australian federal election be required to state their organ donation preferences when voting.

Predicting the 2022 Australian Federal Election with Actuarial Methodologies

Election forecasting has, for a long time, been considered a major tool used by voters and politicians alike to understand the electoral mood. In Australia, tools such as opinion polling even drive many policy decisions made by governments. Yet, these same tools have been misleading and/or wrong in recent elections. The consequences of this have meant large fiscal loss for bookmakers, rash policy decisions, inappropriate leadership changes, and, recently, erosion of trust in the democratic process. Hence, we must look at new ways to analyse elections, and use a more appropriate system to mimic the actual voting system in the country where the election is being held. For example, in representative democracies with strong minor party representation like Australia, any forecasting method used must not use two-party preferred on a national basis, and, instead, analyse preference flows, and first preferences, for each seat. This study uses actuarial techniques to analyse probabilities of parties winning each of the 151 seats in the 2022 Election, and then calculates final party totals based on these probabilities.&#x0D; &#x0D; This study aims to accurately predict the 2022 Election using a methodology which will enable a final forecast which is not misleading and is, in fact, appropriate for a representative democracy. Data used includes first preferences and Preference Flow data from the 2019 Election, Demographic data from the 2016 Census, Economic Data across 2019-22, and Opinion Polls from The Australian and Roy Morgan. Further, political insight will be used to discuss these results and the potential variances.

Twitter Campaigning Strategies in Australian Federal Elections 2013–2019

This special issue of Social Media + Society develops a cross-national, longitudinal perspective on the use of social media in election campaigns. Australia, where leading social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter were adopted early and widely by the general population, and where federal election cycles are unusually short (often less than 3 years), provides a particularly suitable environment for observing the evolution of social media campaigning approaches. This article extends our analysis of previous federal election campaigns in Australia by examining Twitter campaigning in the 2019 election; to allow for a direct comparison with previous campaigns, it builds on a methodological and analytical framework that we have used since the 2013 election.

CO2 Interiors

Are there any ulterior narratives that could be mined through a close examination and interpretation of the coal mine interior spaces? CO2 Interiors is a visual essay that addresses this question. And to do so, it unpacks a meticulously curated group of archival images that expose the covert narratives of colonialism and slow violence embedded in coal mining’s (extra)ordinary interiors. This creative exercise entails integrating text into images that include a 19th Century etching of young children pushing coal-filled carriages through steep mine tunnels; and a still from an animated film produced in the 1950s by the National Coal Board Film Unit in Britain. There is an image of human tissue affected by Black Lung Disease; and a photograph of a former Australian Prime Minister enacting the mythology of the alpha male explorer, plunging into the unknown and forbidden depths of the planet. Collectively, these image/text hybrids posit an experimental narrative—an assemblage—that starkly contrasts with contemporary depictions by the mining industry, focused on the technical and quantitative aspects of the activity or greenwashing its multiscalar and devastating effects. This project engages multiple forms of visual representation (historical, spatial, political, and ideological) that have conjured a mythology of coal mining still present today. In doing so, certain refrains echo and multiply, persisting across time frames and political borders to produce a taxonomy of subterranean effects. Integrating text and images, our devices yield a performative reading that seeks to raise awareness and produce affect. As such, CO2 Interiors amplifies our understanding of coal mining beyond its economic and environmental repercussions and well into its social, political, and cultural implications—especially the spatial ones. While the 2019 Australian Federal Election results attest to the embedded mythology of coal mining that is still impossible to restrain, CO2 Interiors dismantles and reassembles it, recasting the false narrative of progress, equity, and solidarity that has been projected from within the coal mine interior space. This curated assemblage of coal stories accumulates as evidence to be critically analysed in order to truly achieve a sustainable post-carbon future.