A dynamic electorate? Analysing the geography of minor parties at Australian state and federal elections, 1997-2006.

Abstract

Australian minor parties have played an important role in the Australian electoral landscape, yet have received sporadic coverage in Australian electoral geography literature. The dearth of coverage of minor parties has been evident in the contemporary context. This thesis seeks to broaden knowledge of geographies of minor parties through an investigation of Australian state and federal elections conducted between 1997 and 2006. Six minor parties are investigated in this thesis: Australians Against Further Immigration, Australian Democrats, Family First, The Greens, One Nation and Unity. To conduct this investigation, a conceptual framework that combines an assessment of geographies of electoral performance, presence and participation was developed. A mixed methods approach incorporating qualitative and quantitative methodologies and assessments of three case study elections were adopted. This thesis has been informed by an interest in the contemporary experiences of minor parties as participants in Australian electoral settings. Exploring the six selected minor parties enables the evaluation of notions that minor parties provide a vehicle for electoral change and offer an alternative to the major parties to be made. The ability of minor parties to engage with the electorate through information dissemination and exploiting electoral landscape conditions to build a constituency is crucial for sustaining an electoral presence. Besides electoral performance, this thesis suggests that there are other barometers focused on electoral presence and participation that should be considered when assessing minor parties. A main finding of this thesis is that candidate standings are an important indicator of how minor parties sustain an electoral presence and their visibility at an election. This thesis also recognises that minor parties face handicaps as electoral participants, confronting challenges such as attracting publicity, utilising limited resources, fluctuating electoral fortunes, small constituency size and competition from rival political parties. These contributions show that a geographical perspective can broaden the existing knowledge base of minor parties.