Dutton has a maths problem that a scare campaign can't solve
www.abc.net.au
The Coalition scare campaign says the next election will deliver a Labor minority government — propped up by an unholy alliance of Greens and teal independents — and that it will be chaos. But does that stack up?

You need to only look at the modern crossbench, and the teals in particular, to see the prospect of a 2010 repeat is unlikely.

These modern independents aren’t former Nationals blokes who have turned their back on their party.

They’re modern women who couldn’t see themselves in the party that once took their seats for granted.

“While the 2022 election might be heralded as a ‘breakthrough’ for the independents, the conditions for their election have been building over several decade,” the Australian Election Study noted in 2022.

“Many of these changes are associated with voters being ‘less rusted on’ to the major political parties and becoming more independently minded in their political choices.”

That’s the problem with scare campaigns like the Coalition’s. When you threaten voters with a minority government, that would require crossbench negotiations, some in the seats you’re trying to win might be left thinking: “Oh, that sounds more preferable than you.”

  • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Potentially, yes, especially in a seat like the Teals’ ones. But as I said, it can also hurt you if you do it at the wrong time.

    A great example of that would be the 3 seats in Brisbane that went Greens last election, which were extremely close races between Greens and Labor, and any Greens or Labor voter would have been wrong to try to compromise early to avoid the LNP winning.