Oz Politics

In Western liberal democracies, including Australia, political parties are the intermediate structure between society and government. Modern democracy is party democracy. Representative government is party government. Elections are essentially party contests. Legislatures are party chambers. Politics is party politics. Political parties are central to all levels of political activity, debate and decision-making.

Political parties serve a number of purposes. They enable diverse interests to be aggregated, articulated and represented. They facilitate two-way communication between policy-makers and the electorate. They are the major actors in formulating policies and in communicating those policies to the electorate. In summary, they simplify choices and provide stability.

Since 1910, the essential characteristic of Australian politics has been the contest between Labor and non-Labor parties:

• The Australian Labor Party has represented (broad) Labor interests for the entire period.
• The non-Labor interests were first represented by the (Deakin) Liberal Party (1909-17). Subsequently the non-Labor interests were represented by a succession of parties in tight coalition. Representing rural interests is the National Party, previously known as the National Country Party and the Country Party. Representing urban/business interests since 1944 is the (modern) Liberal Party. The urban/business interests were previously represented by the United Australia Party (1931-44), and the Nationalist Party (1917-31). While there are two key non-Labor parties their tight coalition in government and opposition means that they can be considered as one party for analytical purposes.

Although major political parties are often depicted as unified and coherent bodies of thought, in practice this is most unusual. Electorally successful political parties are broad churches of conflicting, sometimes contradictory, interests and ideologies. They are divided internally with contending factions of competing interests, political theories, and worldviews. Behind their facades of unity, there are significant differences of opinion within all of the major political parties in Australia. Although the major parties often exagerate their differences to appeal to voters, because they are both broad churches, they tend to have more in common with each other than areas of disagreement. Furthermore, the policies and priorities of both parties are constantly evolving. The Labor Party of today is markedly different to the past Labor Parties of Whitlam, Chifley, Scullin and Fisher. Similarly, the Liberal Party of today differs to the non-Labor parties of Fraser, Menzies, Lyons, Hughes, and Deakin.

In addition to the two major party groups, there has been hundreds of minor parties which have from time to time been able to exercise some influence (even significant influence on occasions) over Australian politics. Over the past twenty years the Australian Democrats and various “Green” groups have on occassion been able to make governments and curtail the legislative agenda of governments. More recently Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party has demonstrated itself to have significant electoral support. There are also independents who get elected to legislatures from time to time. The minor parties and independents have been able to capitalise on the growing disillusionment with two-party politics and the behaviour of the major parties over recent years.