CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
The Labor Party’s base is shrinking by the day, now that Australia’s regions are no longer dominated by hard-headed communists who are willing to bash anyone for supporting those softcocks from the Liberal Party.
This decline in voters has increased steadily since Labor first tried to yuppify and distance themselves from the country towns and industrial suburbs once dominated by hard-drinking trade unionists.
Now, with the trade unions rallying around the country to accuse Labor of being sell-outs – the Albanese government is struggling to sell themselves as the party of the workers.
But it’s not just them, both sides of Australia’s historic two-party system is facing an existential crisis – with their respective bases shrinking rapidly as minor parties and independents surge.
Without any real information provided to voters by an increasingly politicised Australian media, social media and grassroots campaigning has far more cut-through. With the Greens scooping up three seats in Queensland and the Teals snatching six former Liberal safe seats across the nation.
This reckoning for the major parties began to rear its head at the 2022 election, when Labor won a majority of seats with a record low primary vote of 32.8%
Even with Albanese pitched as the ‘turn the page’ candidate after Scott Morrison’s dismal leadership during the black summer bushfires and subsequent pandemic, almost one in three voters cast their ballot for minor parties or independent candidates in the 2022 federal election, the highest number in almost 100 years.
With the next election 12 months away, both major parties are polling even lower than they were leading into 2022.
This has all but assured a minority government, most likely lead by Labor, who will have to form a coalition with a smorgasbord of Independents – or maybe even the increasingly frustrated Nationals who are starting to find the Liberals too weird for even them.
It is not yet certain what Labor will do to stem of bleeding of voters to the Greens and independents, but it seems that banning kids from social media and getting photos with obscure Olympians is a good start to winning back over the working class!
