Around 15 million Australians voted in the Federal election held on 2 July.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had called for a double dissolution election, so seats in both the lower house, the House of Representatives, and the upper house, the Senate, were up for grabs. After winning a landslide in the 2013 Federal election, Turnbull’s conservative Liberal-National Party Coalition government was expected to win comfortably.
In the event, 2 July proved to be a day of surprises. The government was returned to power with the slimmest of majorities, of one seat, in the 150 seat lower house, suffering a 3.5% swing against it. The opposition Labor Party’s scare campaign that the government was planning to abolish Medicare, the national health system, gained considerable traction – although it is clear that the government never had that intention.
Prime Minister Turnbull’s stated reason for the double dissolution was to address the extent to which minor parties controlled the balance of power in the Senate. In fact the election exacerbated the problem.
Australia’s preferential system of voting makes it difficult for minor parties to gain seats in the lower house. Indeed, only five of the 150 seats in the new Parliament will be held by minor parties. The situation is different in the Senate, where a proportional representation system allows for a much greater minority party presence. The Senate election was therefore vigorously contested by a plethora of parties, ranging from the two established major party groups to a motley collection of minor groups.
Several Christian parties contested the Senate elections, but disunity produced a largely ineffective campaign. The Family First Party, Christian Democratic Party, Australian Christians and Rise Up Australia Party together garnered almost 500,000 votes, promoting many similar policies based on traditional family values. A combined ticket would have gained seats in the Senate. The fact that they ran as separate parties meant that none gained representation.
Battleground in the Senate
The new Senate is destined to become a battleground between the third and fourth largest parties in Australia. The Australian Greens (10% support), like their namesakes in other Western countries, sit on the left of the political spectrum. They champion same sex marriage. They are bitterly critical of the present (and previous Labor) government’s policy of detaining asylum seekers, insisting that ‘immigration must be non-discriminatory on the grounds of nationality, ethnicity, religion, language, gender, disability, sexuality, age or socioeconomic background.’
They will clash swords with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, which has returned from the political wilderness, garnering 4.3% of the popular vote. One Nation is sceptical about climate change, conservative and populist. The party is bitterly critical of multiculturalism, declaring that ‘One Nation will abolish multiculturalism and the Racial Discrimination Act and promote assimilation, nationalism, loyalty and pride in being an Australian’. One of their chief targets is Muslim immigration, with their official policy statement declaring that ‘many believe that Islam is solely a religion, but the reality is that it is much more. It is rather a totalitarian political system, including legal, economic, social and military components, masquerading as a religion.’
If discussion of Christianity is largely absent from the new Senate, a similar ignoring of Islam in political debate is highly unlikely. The return of the One Nation Party in the Australian Parliament has been lambasted by left-wing commentators and the Greens, yet with almost 600,000 Australians choosing the One Nation Party as their first preference, Australia’s democratic system should clearly accommodate the party and debate its policies.
