A record number of Australians voted for independents and minor parties at the most recent federal election election.
They exceed those voting for the Liberal and National Coalition – which is, at least theoretically, the “alternative government”.
At 33.6 per cent of the vote, independent and minor party voters are almost as numerous as the 34.6 per cent who cast their first preference for the Labor government.
Of course, independent and minor party candidates represent a variety of ideologies, approaches and personalities – although, as the last fortnight has demonstrated, the same is true for major party candidates.
The Australian electoral system allows every voter to express their preferences, without reducing the effectiveness of their vote.
Some Greens voters prefer an independent to the Labor candidate; others prefer Labor. Some Liberal voters would settle for a non-Labor candidate such as a Green or independent; others will plump for Labor if the Liberal doesn’t make it to the final two.
This system, called full preferential voting, is why you must number every box on your ballot paper. You must express a preference between every candidate running to be your local member.
It means that in most cases you do not need to worry about voting “tactically” – your vote will still help decide between the final two candidates.
The trade-off is that counting votes takes a bit longer than it does in the US or Britain, where they use “first past the post” voting.
I have seen no evidence that the Australian Electoral Commission is “under strain” from counting preferences even in complex counts, as claimed in The Guardian’s commentary on the count in the Melbourne seat of Calwell.
Counting for the 2025 federal election has been thorough, and there are a few places where it continues. But Parliament does not sit for two months, so there is no hurry – and even on election night there was no doubt about who would form government.
If the AEC needs more resources, it should receive them – but otherwise, it can be safely left to do its job.
Counting took so long in Calwell because the choice was so rich for voters. There were 13 candidates – including the ultimately successful Labor candidate Basem Abdo on 31 per cent of the vote, Liberal Usman Ghani on 16 per cent, four independents who won about 30 per cent between them, Greens, One Nation and several others besides.
Represented in just one of Australia’s 150 electorates was an expression of the nation’s priorities and political movements. And thanks to full preferential voting, Calwell’s 100,000 voters measured all 13 candidates against each other.
Independent Carly Moore leapfrogged the Liberal candidate to end in second place and make Calwell a marginal seat. That wasn’t decided by political party preference deals or where each candidate lives on the left or right of the political spectrum – it was decided by the people of Calwell.
Of course, Australians can celebrate full preferential voting while keeping an open mind about further improvements.
An obvious place to start is proportional representation, which would have multiple local members representing each electorate.
As more Australians vote outside the two major parties, it becomes harder to justify their being represented by overwhelmingly Labor and Coalition MPs only.
The ACT has had proportional representation since self-government in 1989. The effect is that Labor, Liberal, Greens and independents are elected roughly in proportion with their share of the vote.
Psephologists like Ben Raue who make a career from studying elections have modelled how proportional representation could work in the federal House of Representatives.
It would mean a diversity of voices, and more opportunity for the mix of people in an area to be represented by politicians who speak for them. It would also make elections more competitive, putting to an end forever the idea of “safe seats”.
Australia’s electoral innovations – including full preferential voting, the secret ballot and weekend voting – could embolden the country to imagine new ways of doing things. But Australians should also be proud of what they have and prepared to defend it.
Full preferential voting works. It keeps every vote in the mix right till the end, when the winner is chosen from the two final candidates.
That requires a more thorough count, but Australia reaps the benefits in a more robust and representative democracy.
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