Australian Federal Elections

It was a rocky year for Australian politics with three Prime Ministers serving over the course of the year.

As the year dawned, Julia Gillard was beginning her third year as PM of Australia. Unfortunately for Gillard her popularity was rapidly declining, along with that of her Labor Party. It also didn’t help that there was massive frustration with her leadership within the party. After surviving one leadership contest in March of this year she was faced with another contest just three months later. In this vote she was defeated by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Incidentally Gillard became PM by defeating Rudd in a leadership contest back in 2010.

The main opposition to the Labor Party is the Coalition. Currently there are four parties in the coalition; the Liberal, Liberal National, National, and Country Liberal parties. By far the largest of the four parties is the Liberal Party, which is led by Tony Abbott. What may confuse a lot of non-Australians is that the coalition is not centre-left! You would be forgiven for thinking it would be as three of the parties have the word liberal in their name. So why are liberal parties in Australia not actually liberal? Well that’s because they aren’t talking about modern liberalism, but rather classical liberalism. Classical liberalism dates back to the 19^th Century and refers to people who believe in government non-interference in markets.

So heading into the September elections you have the left wing Labor Party and the right wing Coalition squaring off. You also have several smaller parties such as the Greens.

The results of the election turned out to be a defeat for the Labor Party, but not exactly devastating. It wasn’t like Britain 1997 or America 2008 when the ruling party got trounced. The swing was only a measly 3.69% and already polls are showing that Labor has more support than the Coalition. That would suggest to me that Australians are fed up with establishment politicians. Australia wants a fresh faced populist, regardless of which side of the political spectrum they are from.

Although Tony Abbott will form a new government and has a majority of 14 in the House of Representatives, he will need the help of at least six opposition Senators to get legislation through the Senate.

Results:

House of Representatives (150 up for election, 76 for a majority)
Party	Seats	Change from 2010	Percentage won	Swing
Liberal Party	58	+14	32%	+1.56%
Liberal National	22	+1	8.92%	-0.2%
National Party	9	+2	4.29%	+0.56%
Country Liberal	1	0	0.32%	+0.01%
Labor Party	55	-17	33.38%	-4.61%
Greens	1		8.65%	-3.11%
Others

Senate (40 of 76 up for election, 39 for a majority)
Party	Seats	Change from 2010	Percentage won	swing
Coalition	33	-1	37.7%	-0.59%
Labor	25	-6	30.11%	-5.02%
Greens	10	+1	8.65%	-4.46%
Others	8	+6

The new Prime Minister of Australia
source: heraldsun.com.au