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The Rise and Fall of Minor Political Parties in Australia Tom King The Rise and Fall of Minor Political Parties in Australia Tom King A thesis submitted to satisfy the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy School of Politics and International Relations The Australian National University Canberra August 2017 Copyright Tom King August 2017 i Declaration I declare this thesis is the product of my own independent research. It contains no material that has been accepted for any other degree or diploma, or any copy or paraphrase of another person’s material except where due acknowledgement is given. Thomas King August 2017 iii Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank my wife Maureen for her love and support in this venture and for tolerating my many absences and early morning starts to the day at ANU or elsewhere in the pursuit of knowledge. I would like to acknowledge and thank my supervisors. Professor Linda Botterill of the University of Canberra supervised me while she was at ANU. I have much respect for Linda’s enthusiasm and knowledge. Professor John Wanna of the Australian New Zealand School of Government at ANU took Linda’s place when she was promoted to a professorship at the University of Canberra. I thank John for his interest in my research and his guidance. Professor Wanna also invited me to contribute a chapter on minor and micro parties to the book he edited on the 2014 Federal election. The planning weekend that John organised for that book allowed me to work closely with some of the leading lights in the study of Australian politics – it was an unforgettable and most enjoyable week end! I would like to thank John for that valuable opportunity. There are other people I would like to thank for their guidance and support including the members of my supervisory panel who were at ANU at the start of this venture, but now have moved to other universities. They include Dr Wayne Errington of the University of Adelaide and Dr Lindy Edwards at the Australian Defence Force Academy (University of New South Wales). I am very grateful to Emeritus Professor John Warhurst of ANU, who read and critiqued the DLP chapters for me. I would also like to thank most sincerely Dr Thuy Do of the Academic Skills and Learning Centre at ANU, for her assistance and guidance in the art of academic writing – she was indeed a tower of strength. Hans-Jorg Kraus of the Information Literacy Program at ANU assisted me in the layout and formatting of this thesis and I am most grateful to him. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the Australian New Zealand School of Government (ANSOG) for their generous support and interest in my work – I only hope I have reciprocated! I would like to thank Prof Andrew Podger, Sam Vincent, Marija Taflaga, John Butcher, Tanja Porter, Isi Unikowski, Ram Ghimire, Mansur Chisni, Stephen Darlington, Emily Millane and Val Barrett for their support and for the many useful and wide ranging discussions that we had. I wish to thank the librarians at the various ANU libraries and the librarians at the University of New South Wales (ADFA) for their cheerful assistance and support. The Librarians of the National Library of Australia were most helpful in locating for me relevant records from the National Library’s extensive manuscripts collection and I thank them sincerely. In a similar vein, the staff of the National Archives of Australia assisted me in tracking down many useful papers and files relating to the DLP and the Australian Democrats. Likewise, the staff at the University of Melbourne archives were most helpful in locating relevant records for me and suggesting further avenues of enquiry. My brother and sister in Victoria and my sister in London have taken a keen interest in my research from the beginning. I thank them for their interest and encouragement. Having seen the power of minor parties in the Australian Senate, my former colleagues in the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs suggested minor Australian political parties as a useful research topic. I thank them for that suggestion and for their continual professional interest. In the twenty or so years I spent in that department they iv were a terrific group of people to work with. Their professionalism is to be both admired and respected. My fellow members of the Australian Political Studies Association and the New Zealand Political Studies Association have been very approachable at annual conferences and at other times when I sought their guidance and advice. The professionalism and collaboration I have experienced at those conferences and at other times was outstanding. During my candidature, I presented three papers at various APSA conferences on the rise and fall of the DLP, the rise and fall of One Nation and the lifespans and second preferences of minor parties. I also presented a paper to the NZPSA in December 2014 on minor parties and the mass media. I have also benefitted from ANU’s membership of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). I was on the way to present a paper at the ECPR joint sessions at St Gallen in Switzerland in 2011 when I broke my ankle in London. My paper arrived at the conference but I did not. However, I did present in 2012 at the ECPR student conference at the University of Bremen in Germany and I wish to thank Professor Kris Deshouwer and his colleagues for that opportunity. Finally, I would recommend the MPhil and the PhD programs to anybody like me who has retired from the Australian Public Service. You are never too old to learn and contribute, and it is very satisfying to be able to prove your detractors, such as those from secondary school days, wrong! This research is supported by an Australian Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship. v Contents DECLARATION ..................................................................................................................................... I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................................... III LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................. XI ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................... XIII Chapter One: Thesis Overview................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 1 THE STRUCTURE OF THIS THESIS ......................................................................................................... 4 Chapter Two: Literature Review ................................................ 9 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 9 POLITICAL PARTIES IN CONTEXT ........................................................................................................10 THE CATEGORISATION OF MINOR PARTIES .......................................................................................11 ANALYSING THE RISE AND FALL OF A MINOR PARTY .........................................................................13 ELECTORAL MACHINERY ....................................................................................................................14 THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA ...................................................................................................................15 PEDERSEN’S TYPOLOGY OF PARTY LIFESPANS ...................................................................................16 THE AUSTRALIAN DEMOCRATIC LABOR PARTY ..................................................................................20 THE AUSTRALIAN DEMOCRATS ..........................................................................................................24 PAULINE HANSON’S ONE NATION .....................................................................................................27 THE AUSTRALIAN GREENS .................................................................................................................31 CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................................34 Chapter Three: Minor Political Parties in General ...................... 35 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................35 WHAT IS A POLITICAL PARTY? ...........................................................................................................35 WHAT ARE THE CORE FUNCTIONS OF A POLITICAL PARTY? ...............................................................38 GROWTH OF SUPPORT FOR MINOR AND MICRO PARTIES .................................................................39 THE NATURE OF MINOR PARTIES ......................................................................................................41 THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM ....................................................................................................................43 COMPULSORY VOTING ......................................................................................................................45 LEADERSHIP OF MINOR POLITICAL PARTIES ......................................................................................51 CHANGE OF LEADERSHIP ...................................................................................................................52
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