Election entrée: First preferences of different governments
It’s funny that we call single-party government “majority” government, because no one party or coalition has won a majority of the first-preference or primary vote since 1975.
In 2022, the Labor Government received just 33% of the primary vote – but won a majority of the seats. In Australia’s single-member electorate system, a minority of votes easily becomes a majority of seats.
New Zealand adopted proportional representation in 1996 after an election where a majority government formed with a record low vote share of just 35%. Since then, most of its governments have formed from parties that won a majority of the vote.
In the 2023 New Zealand election, the incoming three-party coalition of Nationals, ACT, and NZ First had 53% of the vote between them. Another proportional system (Hare-Clark) is employed for elections in Tasmania and the ACT, where governments generally have the support of half or more of the primary vote.
While no Australian government has won a majority of the primary vote since 1975, the Gillard government was in some ways the closest to it.
Only 38% of Australians voted for Gillard’s Labor in 2010, but 13% voted for the Greens and independents who made formal confidence and supply agreements with the government.
That makes the 2010 election is the only time since 1975 where confidence in the government was based on MPs receiving the votes of most Australians.
Between the Lines Newsletter
The biggest stories and the best analysis from the team at the Australia Institute, delivered to your inbox every fortnight.
You might also like
Full preferential voting means you can’t waste your vote
Full preferential voting is a proud Coalition reform – one that benefits every political persuasion Compulsory voting and full preferential voting make up the backbone of Australian democracy, and protect us from voter suppression and disengagement seen in other countries. We owe both to the parties of the centre-right, what would become the Liberal–National Coalition.
There is no such thing as a safe seat | Fact sheet
A notable trend in Australian politics has been the decline of the share of the vote won by both major parties at federal elections. One effect of this is that there are no longer any safe seats in Australian politics: minor parties and independents win more “safe” seats than they do “marginal” ones. The declining
Election entrée: Not all party candidates make it to election day
Sometimes parties part ways with their candidates.