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ABSTRACT
The election of four One Nation Senators at the 2016 Australian Federal election has been seen as part of a world–wide rise of populist movements that criticizes main stream politics and rejects pluralism, putting forward single concepts of “the people”, that the movements claim to represent. While it is clear that Australian voters, like voters elsewhere, have been seeking alternatives to the major parties, it is less clear that the preferred alternatives fit this populist framework. Australia provides a good case study as the Australian electoral system makes it relatively easy for independents and minor parties to be elected to Parliament. This paper examines all independents and minor party candidates successfully elected in 2016 and at previous Australian Federal elections to determine whether the alternatives to the main stream parties elected since 1945 fit anti-pluralist populist models. It is concluded that, with the exception of the One Nation Party, most of the independents and minor party candidates elected to the Australian Federal Parliament have not fitted such models. However many of those elected do present a challenge to the electoral claims of the major parties. The article concludes by considering the implications of these findings for representative democracy.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Dugald Monro is an adjunct associate at the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra. He graduated with a PhD from the University of Sydney in 2003. Prior to that he spent over 20 years as an Australian Commonwealth Public Servant, where he worked on policy issues and administration of programmes for housing, crisis accommodation and social security. Research interests include political representation, citizen participation and federalism.
Notes
1 A double dissolution is a device in the Australian Constitution to resolve disputes between the Senate and the House of Representatives and may be held if the Senate has twice rejected a Bill passed by the House of Representatives. At a double dissolution election all Senators and Members of the House of Representatives face election, whereas at other Senate elections only half the Senators elected from each State face election.