A parliamentarian likely uses most of these important publicly funded entitlements in the course of their work. However, these guaranteed funding advantages—elevated by the benefits of non-financial resources, such as information, research capacity, and exemptions from communication preference laws—give parliamentarians an inherent advantage in re-election campaigns.

Any challenger must mobilise within strict time constraints to as they compete against the office, staff and communications financial resources that the parliamentarian and their party (if any) will have built over the past term of Parliament. Additionally, parliamentarians continue to draw salary in an election period, while challengers may have to take leave or go without work, increasing the financial burden of running against an incumbent. Together these advantages of incumbency create a multimillion-dollar barrier to entry for challengers.

It is reasonable to assume that this barrier to entry contributes at least in part to the narrow chances of success challengers face against incumbents in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

These barriers will be exacerbated by the Federal Government’s changes to political finance law in 2025, including limiting the spending of independent challengers to $800,000 – even though they will be running against major party MPs who have benefited from millions of dollars of incumbency advantages.