Australian Federal Election Research Articles

Journalism as social networking: The Australian youdecide project and the 2007 federal election

The increasing prevalence of new media technologies and the rise of citizen journalism have coincided with a crisis in industrial journalism — as the figure of the ‘journalist as hero’ is fading, new media forms have facilitated the production of news content ‘from below’ by citizens and ‘pro-am’ journalists. Participation in an action-research project run during the 2007 Australian federal election, youdecide 2007, allowed the authors to gain first-hand insights into the progress of citizen-led news media in Australia, but also allowed us to develop an account of what the work of facilitating citizen journalism involves. These insights are important to understanding the future of professional journalism and journalism education, as more mainstream media organizations move to accommodate and harness user-created content. The article considers the relevance of citizen journalism projects as forms of R&D for understanding news production and distribution in participatory media cultures, and the importance of grounded case studies for moving beyond normative debates about new media and the future of journalism.

New Media, First Time Voters and the 2007 Australian Federal Election

Researchers suggest that the youth of today has disengaged from the political landscape in Australia. However, the online realm provides potential first time voters an avenue in which to engage in politics in an environment that is generally associated with a youthful demographic. New media tactics utilised during the 2007 Australian federal election aimed to not only attract youthful voters, but also to educate and deliver policy on a level generally associated with the 18-24 demographic. This study explored the effectiveness of new media in the political communication context, in particular with relation to first time voters. This research found that first time voters were not as engaged as predicted, and that the third party sites were more popular with undecided voters than the formal political party sites in voter influence.

Paving Pathways: shaping the Public Health workforce through tertiary education.

Public health educational pathways in Australia have traditionally been the province of Universities, with the Master of Public Health (MPH) recognised as the flagship professional entry program. Public health education also occurs within the fellowship training of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine, but within Australia this remains confined to medical graduates. In recent years, however, we have seen a proliferation of undergraduate degrees as well as an increasing public health presence in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector.Following the 2007 Australian Federal election, the new Labour government brought with it a refreshing commitment to a more inclusive and strategic style of government. An important example of this was the 2020 visioning process that identified key issues of public health concern, including an acknowledgment that it was unacceptable to allocate less than 2% of the health budget towards disease prevention. This led to the recommendation for the establishment of a national preventive health agency (Australia: the healthiest country by 2020 National Preventative Health Strategy, Prepared by the Preventative Health Taskforce 2009).The focus on disease prevention places a spotlight on the workforce that will be required to deliver the new investment in health prevention, and also on the role of public health education in developing and upskilling the workforce. It is therefore timely to reflect on trends, challenges and opportunities from a tertiary sector perspective. Is it more desirable to focus education efforts on selected lead issues such as the "obesity epidemic", climate change, Indigenous health and so on, or on the underlying theory and skills that build a flexible workforce capable of responding to a range of health challenges? Or should we aspire to both?This paper presents some of the key discussion points from 2008 - 2009 of the Public Health Educational Pathways workshops and working group of the Australian Network of Public Health Institutions. We highlight some of the competing tensions in public health tertiary education, their impact on public health training programs, and the educational pathways that are needed to grow, shape and prepare the public health workforce for future challenges.

Developing a web‐based e‐research facility for socio‐spatial analysis to investigate relationships between voting patterns and local population characteristics

This paper describes the development of an e‐research facility for socio‐spatial analysis. It is illustrated with the example of a prototype Web‐based GIS and statistical application for the analysis, modelling and visualisation of the relationships between patterns of voting at the 2007 Australian federal election and the demographic and socio‐economic characteristics of local populations using 2006 census data. The facility incorporates a web‐based GIS which can generate maps displaying patterns of voting for political parties across polling booths with overlay data showing the population characteristics living within the surrounding polling booth catchments. Various classification approaches including equal interval, quantile, median‐based natural breaks, and location quotients can be used to generate different map displays. Statistical analysis functionality ‐ such as regression analysis, cluster analysis and discriminant analysis ‐ enables researchers to conduct on‐line statistical modelling and the visualisation of outputs. This prototype facility not only gives researchers and students on‐line access to socio‐spatial datasets through a metadata directory, but also enhances the capacity and capability of researchers and students to undertake spatially integrated social science research.

The Australian election survey: the tale of the rabbit-less hat. Voting behaviour in 2007

This paper examines voter attitudes and behaviour at the 2007 Australian federal election, using data from the Australian Election Study. It considers socio-demographic factors as well as the role of policy issues and voter evaluations of the party leaders. The paper concludes that issues, such as the government's WorkChoices policy, as well as health and leadership contributed to Labor's victory.

Australia and Climate Change Diplomacy: Towards a Post-2012 Regime - Policy Proposals on Australia's Climate Change Diplomacy

A workshop on Australia and Climate Change Diplomacy: Towards a Post-Kyoto Regime (the Workshop) was held at the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales on 22-23 November 2007. The purpose of the Workshop was to evaluate Australia's past and current climate change diplomacy and to make policy recommendations for the future. The interdisciplinary Workshop brought together 19 leading experts in economics, science, international relations, law, and business. The majority were academics, but the group also included private consultants and NGO representatives from Australia with one visitor from China. The Workshop was organised and hosted by Associate Professor Rosemary Rayfuse (Law) and Associate Professor Shirley Scott (Politics and International Studies) and financial support was provided by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and the Faculties of Law and Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW. The Workshop was held, under circumstances of uncertainty, two weeks prior to the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol to be held in Bali, Indonesia, from 3-14 December. This summit will set the stage for a comprehensive agreement that tackles climate change on all fronts following the expiry of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. The Workshop was also held immediately preceding the Australian federal election. Climate change was a significant issue during the election campaign and the incoming Rudd Government has committed itself to ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.

Are Ballot Order Effects Heterogeneous?*

Objective. Past research on ballot order effects has typically focused on the average benefit a candidate receives if placed at the top of the ballot. This study addresses a gap in the literature by examining the possibility that a simple average may mask systematic differences in how the ballot order effect varies across candidates and voters.Methods. Using data from all Australian federal elections between 1984 and 2004, a sample that covers 1,187 separate electoral contests and 7,113 candidate × election observations, this study estimates the effect of ballot order on a candidate's share of the primary vote. To determine whether ballot order effects differ across voters as well as candidates, the study also makes use of electorate‐level demographic data from the 1996 and 2001 Australian censuses.Results. The results of these estimations indicate that being placed first on the ballot increases a candidate's vote share by about 1 percentage point. As a proportion of their total vote, this effect is much larger for independents and minor parties than for major parties. The ballot order effect appears to be similar for male and female candidates, and does not show strong trends upward or downward over the 20‐year period covered by our study. Across electorates, the ballot order effect is higher in places where voters are younger and fluency in English is lower.Conclusions. A statistically significant ballot order effect was a consistent feature of Australian federal elections between 1984 and 2004. Moreover, this study challenges the assumption that ballot order effects are homogenous, and finds that the effect of being placed atop the ballot varies across both candidates and voters.

Analysis on the Australian Federal Elections in 2007 : In Relations with "Middle Class"

Analysis on the Australian Federal Elections in 2007 : In Relations with "Middle Class"

Opportunistic timing and manipulation in Australian Federal Elections

In many parliamentary systems, election timing is an important decision made by governments in order to maximize their expected remaining life in power. Governments can also introduce policy or economic actions to enhance their popular standing and thus their chance of being re-elected. On the other hand, an oppositions’ natural objective is to gain power, and they will also apply controls through their own policies to reduce the governments’ chance of being re-elected. In this paper we employ a dynamic programming approach to determine the optimal timing for governments and oppositions to best utilize their limited resources. At each decision branch, the optimal control is interpreted as a Nash–Cournot equilibrium of a zero-sum political game which, in certain states, admits mixed strategy solutions. We perform a case study on the Australian Federal Election for House of Representatives.

Internet Media and the Public Sphere: The 2007 Australian E-Electioneering Experience

Internet media have come under increasing examination since the early 1990s within a number of theoretical frameworks, including their use and potential influence in the public sphere of political discourse. Increasing use of internet media was identified in the 2000 and 2004 US presidential elections, with the latter being described as ‘a critical turning point’. However, the development of what some call ‘new media’ or ‘social media’ based on Web 2.0 internet technology has overtaken many findings of previous research. Some of the most popular Web 2.0-based media currently in use were developed after 2004. These technological changes, coinciding with declining television viewing and newspaper readership, suggest that new forms of internet media need ongoing critical review. This paper analyses findings from a study of internet media use in the 2007 Australian federal election and explores their implications in relation to the public sphere.

Designing Online Election Surveys: Lessons from the 2004 Australian Election

Online polls have become more widely used in election campaigns, but their reliability in accurately predicting the outcome of an election remains variable. This article reports on the results of an ambitious online polling experiment conducted during the 2004 Australian federal election. In contrast to a more modest online poll conducted at the previous election in 2001, the 2004 poll turned out to be the least accurate of all of the polls conducted during the campaign. A series of hypotheses are tested to explain the inaccuracy of the poll. The main conclusion is that the sampling methodology used required the steady recruitment of new respondents, but that became much reduced as the campaign progressed due to lack of publicity from the online poll’s main media partner. The 2004 Australian experience has important lessons for other online polls which use a similar methodology.

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.

Playing possum: Straws in the wind of the blogosphere

This article discusses the blog Possum Pollytics that became very well regarded by its readers, other bloggers and journalists over the course of the 2007 Australian federal election campaign, and examines it for harbingers of the impact of new media on journalists and their publics. The article commences with an account of the main features of the blog, with special reference to its analysis of the voting trends evident in the pre-election opinion polls. It then discusses two issues with respect to the challenge posed by new media uses to professional journalism: firstly, the way that the anonymity highlights the challenge by some bloggers on behalf of publics to the brandname mastheads and journalistic personalities, particularly in the challenging circumstances of no business model for new media; and secondly, that Habermas’ early theorising of the public sphere might re-emerge as a valuable way to understand the current developments.

Political blogging in the 2007 Australian federal election

Much of the discussion of the emergence, role and significance of the political blogosphere in Australia has been marred by boosterism on one hand and tired and stereotyped dichotomies on the other. As with so much of the discourse that developed from the 1990s onwards surrounding the social and informational roles of the internet, boosterism and a constant search for the new ‘killer app’ have gone hand in hand.

Contestability of Australian Federal Elections

Using data on federal elections for both the Upper and Lower Houses in Australia and the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI), we explore whether the contestability/concentration varies across elections. Our results show significant movements in contestability over time. The results also imply a smaller degree of concentration than we would expect to find in a two-party system. To the extent that the Upper House (Senate) – until the 2004 election – is not controlled by the executive, this implies a greater level of political competition, and choice for voters, than that associated with two-party systems.

CHILD POLITICS, FEMINIST ANALYSES

The long campaign leading to the 2007 Australian federal election was punctuated by ‘child politics’. This was also the time when the articles in this special issue of Australian Feminist Studies w...

Howard's End: The 2007 Australian Election

The Australian federal election of 24 November 2007 saw the defeat of the Howard Liberal-National Party coalition government after almost 12 years in office and brought to power a Labor government, the first since 1996, under the leadership of Kevin Rudd. John Howard, Australia's second longest-serving prime minister, became only the second prime minister to lose his own seat at an election. This article summarizes the election result and places it in the context of post-Second World War Australian political and electoral history. The highly unusual character of the large swing to the Labor Party is underlined, as is the rarity of a change of government in Australia since the Second World War. The article also examines the influence of the political leadership of the two major parties in contributing to the changing climate of opinion during 2007 and surveys the campaign itself, underlining the many problems experienced by the Howard government in the final weeks of its life. Finally, the article emphasizes the critical roles that interest rates, climate change and industrial relations all played in fatally undermining the Howard ascendancy. The government, faced with a politically credible and electorally attractive opponent, emerging economic difficulties and a shifting policy agenda, was unable to present itself as equipped to deal with new local and global challenges after a long period in power.

Health care reform: looking back to go ahead

Health was a prominent policy issue in the 1972 Australian federal government elections, and the policy of the new Labor Government at that time emphasised the regional approach to health service delivery, including community-based services and preventive health programs, in close cooperation with the states. The Hospitals and Health Services Commission Act 1973 (Cwlth) was passed in December 1973 and members of the new Commission were appointed in April 1974. The Commission had broad-ranging functions and powers that had major influences on national health policy development in Australia. Major accomplishments of the Commission included the Community Health Program, which incorporated: the Hospitals Development Program, health services planning and research, a review of the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at the University of Sydney, diagnostic services, rehabilitation, Aboriginal health, rural health, health transport, nursing personnel, health careers and occupational health, many of which were long-neglected areas of public health. The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission established by the Rudd Labor Government in February, 2008, while welcome, is an investigative body, whereas the Hospitals and Health Services Commission was responsible for both health policy development and implementation.

The 1996 Election: How the Coalition Won the Environment Debate.

This monograph outlines in detail the development of the Liberal-National Coalition's environment policy in the lead up to the 1996 Australian Federal Election.

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.