Few sights are more desperate than old political parties on the run. In this Australian federal election, the challenge from independents and smaller parties has sparked a nervous reaction, much of it negative and most of it misplaced.
An example of such nervousness came from startling remarks from former Treasurer Joe Hockey that he would sooner see Liberal seats fall to Labor than independents. Sounding distinctly illiberal, he suggested that independents were all too representative, populists of the electorate. Broad, party-based machines made the ‘tough decisions’ such as going to war, irrespective of whether popular will sought it; independents, being a mere ‘voice of one’, would only believe in principle rather than ‘consensus’.
This astonishing, if frank admission, belies the deeper problem with parties which continuously fail to understand that Parliament comprises a body of individuals supposedly representative of the electorate who put them there.
This same lack of understanding colours the reasoning of Australia’s second longest serving Prime Minister, John Howard, who can only reason along traditional party lines. For him, independent candidates on the conservative side of politics who were ‘disillusioned with the government’ were engaging in some ‘very strange logic’ in running. ‘The only possible consequence of these candidates being successful is medium to long term damage to the Liberal Party. They won’t inflict any damage to the Labor Party.’
Such an argument tends to ignore the fact that Labor faces, and has faced, its own threats from independents and Greens candidates disgruntled by the party’s erratic approach to fossil fuels and the opening of new mines. Along with the Liberals, they continue to insist on the status quo, refusing to make deals or arrangements with independent candidates to form government, even in the event of a hung parliament.
'A case can be made that Australia’s 43rd parliament, which saw the remarkable labours of such centrist independents as Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, was truer to basic parliamentary principles than others.'
Australia’s longest serving Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, is similarly hostile to independents though gives little reason to appreciate an electoral system that sees, time and time again, a blood-letting battle between ‘the two major parties’ who fight ‘each other to a standstill.’
Understandably, his position is shaped by what yielded success: a long spell in government; the war chest filled with personnel and funds that comes with traditional politics. Independents – ‘so-called’, he sneers – were ‘little more than the most loathsome example of pork-barrel gangsters’. He implicitly touches on gender, suggesting that independent female candidates could potentially unseat MPs such as Josh Frydenberg and Dave Sharma, ‘who could become truly great men.’ Any victorious independents would eventually vanish, ‘totally forgotten in 10 years’ time.’
Such crude, incomplete assessments of independents ignore the fact that party machines are often filled with barely recognisable figures who react like obedient automata once they enter Parliament. They forget their electors with amnesiac flourish, elevating party discipline and conformity over parliamentary integrity. Voting against the government or party of the day – evidenced by the February crossing of the floor by five Liberal MPs - leads to stern sessions of scolding, recrimination and even, in some cases, expulsion. The party comes first; parliament is a mere vehicle to be oiled and tuned for policy.
High profile independents, boosted by the success of the ‘Voices of’ movement propelled by former Indi independent, Cathy McGowan, are threatening to upset the applecart in a number of seats. Almost all of them are women; and the seats, held by Liberals.
Former ABC journalist Zoe Daniel is running in Goldstein against Tim Wilson. In North Sydney, incumbent Trent Zimmerman is attempting to fend off the challenge from Kylea Tink. A similar challenge is being mounted by Allegra Spender in the seat of Wentworth, held by Dave Sharma.
There are already a number of independents with strong chances to be re-elected: Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Tasmania), Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, South Australia), Zali Steggall (Warringah, NSW) and Bob Katter (Kennedy, Queensland). Helen Haines, who succeeded McGowan in Indi — the first example in Australian federal politics of one independent replacing another — is in with a fighting chance.
Support is also forthcoming from other sources keen to push independents into the parliamentary mix. Climate 200, an outfit founded by clean energy advocate Simon Holmes à Court, is promising to fund independent candidates who can challenge a system ‘too broken to tackle climate change’. Some 20 ‘underdog candidates who stand for cleaning politics and following the science on climate change’ will be backed.
The standard reaction from the major parties — in this case, the Liberals — is that such candidates are not genuinely independent at all. This is also a favourite theme of the Murdoch press stable, who pursue that rather novel line that independents who have never run for office should somehow have no access to advice or expertise in campaigning and fundraising. Sky News has been particularly insistent that candidates such as Spender and Tink were tarnished by receiving advice from the communications agency, Populares, founded by former GetUp Campaign Director Mark Connelly.
Another almost idiosyncratic prong in the argument against the independents, one run by David Crowe for Nine newspapers, is that their triumph potentially risks sweeping ‘moderate Liberals out of Parliament while leaving conservatives untouched.’ The implication here is that you are better off sticking to the traditional political set, lest it cause dramatic change, such as shifting the Liberal Party ‘to the right.’
Democracy, in its genuine form, is a messy, untidy business that requires industry, negotiation and working across the aisle. There is no better demonstration of this than a government needing to work, rather than one holding a thumping majority urging rubberstamping from Parliament. A case can be made that Australia’s 43rd parliament, which saw the remarkable labours of such centrist independents as Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, was truer to basic parliamentary principles than others.
Despite being obstinately, even crankily devoted to Labor, that contrarian man of letters Bob Ellis swooned over Windsor and Oakeshott, along with Katter and a freshly elected Adam Bandt, the lower house’s only Greens MP. They had, he wrote, ‘reminded us of our duties in democracy: to think about our country and to plan, or dream, its future.’ They had been elected for their conscience and ‘because they thought about things.’ Australian voters have something to look forward to, much to the chagrin of traditional party strategists and apparatchiks.
Dr Binoy Kampmark is a former Commonwealth Scholar who lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Main image: A view of voters in the electorate of Eden-Monaro in Canberra, Australia. (Martin Ollman / Getty Images)