Enemy at the Gates Trivia Quiz

Answer: Liberal/National coalition

Traditionally, Australian federal elections have been fought between two parties: the centre-left Australian Labor party (Labor) and the centre-right Liberal/National Party coalition (Coalition). Over successive elections both parties have fought for the middle ground (the centre) where most of the swing votes lie.

This 'fight for the centre' has resulted in very little ideological differences between the two parties.

Answer: The voting public do not vote for the Prime Minister of choice directly

Australia is divided up into 151 electorates of roughly equivalent number of people in each (the 2020 figure is about 102,000 people). These electorates therefore range from a few square kilometres in the largest cities to hundreds of thousands of square kilometres, some bigger than large countries. Each electorate elects one person to the house of representatives where they occupy a seat in parliament. (The senate has a state-wide proportional voting method).

The party with the most seats is the ruling party, providing they have a majority of one (76 seats). The party has previously voted for a leader and that leader becomes the prime minister. However if the PM loses support of the party (like Kevin Rudd did in 2010), the party elects a new leader and that person is then sworn in as Prime Minister (this is how Julia Gillard became prime minister following Kevin Rudd - she was subsequently re-elected after the next election). The Australian public do not vote directly for the PM, they vote only for their local representative. However, perhaps because there is little ideological difference between the two major parties, over time the elections have been fought over which leader of their respective party will make the best prime minister. While local advertising may feature the photograph of the candidate trying to win the seat pre-election, it will nearly always have a photo of the leader of that party alongside the local candidate.

This has caused the Australian voter to consider the local candidate the mechanism to get the leader they want regardless how how that local candidate will represent their needs in parliament, when ideologically, one would vote for the local member they think will serve that voter the best. The resulting PM will be the person leading the party that had the 'most suitable' local candidates.

Answer: True

Opinion polls in the past were seen as a fairly accurate predictor of an election outcome. However in 2019 a predicted comfortable ALP win turned into a narrow but decisive coalition win. As a result, when the opinion polls predicted a similar ALP win in 2022, people were reluctant to trust them.

In the end the 2022 polls were close to the actual outcome: Labor won 77 seats, one more than the minimum majority.

Answer: Preferential voting

Around the world, the most popular voting method is known as "first past the post", in which the person with the most votes wins the seat. In a simple example, if "A" gets 40,000 votes, "B" gets 35,000 votes and "C" gets 25,000 votes, then "A" is declared the winner.

However in preferential voting, the voter must number each candidate from 1 to X (X being the number of candidates on the ballot paper). In the above example the ballot paper might be numbered A-1, B-2,C-3. In the above example, "A" has only 40% of the vote (i.e. only 40% of the electorate want him as their candidate), so no candidate has an absolute majority. In this case, the person with the least number of votes (in this case "C") has their second preferences distributed to the remaining candidates. If these are 5000 for "A" and 2000 for "B", then "A" now has 45,000 votes and "B" has 55,000. "B" now has an absolute majority (i.e. more than half the vote) so is declared the winner, despite having fewer votes in the first round.

Rarely is a vote so simplistic, but voting preferences are a big deal and parties will fight to get another party's preferences. It get more complex with more candidates and this is why counting may not produce a winner on election night (there is also a waiting period for postal votes). If a party does not get an absolute majority on first preferences (a frequent occurrence), preferences must be directed until the absolute majority is achieved. This favours the two major parties. For a minor party to be any sort of chance they must come second before the final round of preferences are distributed. In other words, they need to have more votes than one of the major parties. In the past this has been very hard to do and is reflected by the low number of seats held by a small number of candidates not in either major party. Not more than a few sit traditionally on the crossbenches.

Answer: Lack of preventative measures for keeping COVID out of Australia in 2020

It was generally thought that Prime Minister Morrison did a good job in instigating preventative measures to keep COVID-19 out of Australia. He did this mainly by closing all international borders early.

However Mr Morrison and his government were criticised for the lack of effectiveness in rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine. The opposition also called out Mr Morrison for integrity issues after the French President Mr Macron called Mr Morrison a liar after reneging on a submarine contract with France. When the PM did not act quickly enough on allegations a woman made of sexual misconduct within Parliament House, the Opposition Leader called Mr Morrison out on this. When you factor in the Liberal-National Party's policy of not moving fast enough on climate change and its reluctance to set up an integrity commission with the range of powers that the other parties wanted, then the opposition saw these issues as ways to publicly discredit Mr Morrison and hence the Liberal/National coalition.

According to analysts post-election, all these factors contributed to Scott Morrison not being able to deliver the election result in favour of the Liberal - National Party coalition. In his conceding defeat speech Mr Morrison accepted responsibility for losing the election.

Answer: The "Teal" independent candidates

The biggest voting group in 2022 were professional women. Many stood as independents in traditional inner-city liberal held seats some of which had never been anything else but Liberal. They were tired of lack of action from the current government on climate change. They were nicknamed "Teals", i.e. a mix of blue (traditional Liberal color to reflect their standing on general issues) with green (to reflect their climate change stance). They were well-funded by Climate 200 (an Australian fund that donates money to election candidates who advance climate policy). Seven of them got elected - all women. (Zali Steggall won in 2019 and was funded by Climate 200 but was not known as a Teal independent at the 2019 election but she was regarded as a Teal in 2022). Most Teal candidates were from inner-city Sydney and Melbourne. The federal treasurer Josh Frydenburg was one Liberals that lost his seat to a Teal Independent..

The issue, apart from a common goal with climate change, was that these elected women were independent representatives - they were not a political party, nor were they a bloc. They were free to vote either way on introduced legislation unlike the two major parties' members who must always tow the party line. Gone are the days where the government forced through legislation in the House of Representatives by sheer numbers. After the 2022 election government, legislation will need support from the cross benchers with the Teals making up the majority of this middle cross-bench group in the House of Representatives.

Answer: It increased significantly winning three lower house seats

The "Teals" did not take votes off the Greens despite their stance on climate change. The Greens are left of the Labor party and this party had previously won its first seat off Labour in 2010. (It briefly held the Cunningham electorate for two years in a by-election in 2001).

In 2022, The Greens won three seats in inner Brisbane, the Queensland capital, taking one off the Labor Party and two off the Liberal Party. (Interestingly, Queensland had no Teal winners. Also the Liberal/National coalition held all their seats in Queensland except for the two it lost to the Greens). With the Teals and now Greens on the crossbenches in significant numbers, this very loose 'bloc' but united on climate change makes the government accountable to ensure rapid improvement in climate change policy is implemented.

Answer: The Australian Labour Party took ten seats off the Liberal/National coalition

The Australian Labor Party won 77 seats, one more than the majority needed. While they lost two seats, one to The Greens and one to a non-Teal Independent, they lost none to the Liberal/National coalition. And, Labor took ten seats off the coalition, particularly in Victoria and Western Australia. This gave them a net gain of nine seats, enough to surpass the needed 76 for a majority. It had been an accepted 'truth' that in Australia, you needed 40% of the primary vote to win office. (The Liberal/National Coalition won government in 2019 with 41.4% of the vote). Incredibly Labor won with a drop in its over vote. It secured only 30.0% of the vote, a drop of 0.8% over its 2019 result where it won 10 less seats.

The Liberal National coalition lost 19 seats, seven to the Teal independents, ten to Labor and two to The Greens. It gained none. It's primary vote was down 5.7% to 35.7%. The loss of seats to the Teals is a measure of the loss of confidence of the female vote and its lack of climate change policy that meets the electorates' needs

The Greens' vote increased by 2.3% to 12.7% but they went from one seat to four
The rest of the independents (including the Teals) vote was an unprecedented 22.9% facilitated a rise in seats from five to twelve (ie the increase in seat due solely to the new Teal candidates)

So while the Australian Labor Party were able to govern in the House of Representatives in their own right, it will need to collaborate with The Greens to the left and Teals to the right with such a slim majority.

The days of the two party system where the major party in power did everything it could do to stay in power by keeping the enemy at the gates, is over. The two party combined vote has been dropping since World War II From a high of over 90% in the 60s the figure drop to 64% in 2022. (Liberals-Nationals 34%, ALP 30%).

Australia did not elect an independent to parliament until 1990 where it elected a single independent. In the elections in the first two decades of the 21st century, there was rising disenchantment with the major parties but 2022 delivered a knockout blow. The Greens, minor parties and the Independents attracted 34% of the vote, more than Labor and almost on par with the coalition in 2022.

Answer: The non-major parties elected a further four candidates

The Senate is a house of review. It has 76 members and each is elected on a complex quota system. It normally has only half its members due for election at any single election and senators are elected for six years not three as for the House of Representatives. This ensures that there is less radical change than might be possible in a lower house election.

In the 2022 election. all 15 Labor seats up for election were held by that party maintaining their total of 26 senators.
The Liberal/National coalition lost four dropping from nineteen to fifteen. With the seventeen sitting members, this gave the coalition 32 members.

The Greens gained three seats making six for this election and twelve overall. The minor parties and independents elected four candidates making six altogether with the two already sitting members. This meant a total of 18 senators sat on the cross bench (ie from neither major party). This was the highest number of independents in the Senate since the domination of the two party system began after WWII.

In the 21st century both major parties have struggled to have a majority in the upper house when they have 'won' the lower house (and hence government). In these cases the government needs to convince enough crossbenchers to vote with them to ensure legislation is passed. Usually this is a small number.. However with only 26/76 seats held in 2022, Labor needed votes from 13/18 crossbenchers to ensure legislation passed.

Answer: The new Prime Minister had an international meeting in Tokyo on Tuesday

Mr Albanese and four ministers were sworn in on the Monday after the Saturday election day by the Governor-General, the Queen's representative in Australia. Mr Albanese did not have a majority of 76 at this time (He was close with a presumptive 71-74).

However he had assurances from enough of the sitting independents and minor parties that they would not block supply not vote against him in any no-confidence motions. These two caveats were the minimum support needed from non-party members to ensure Mr Albanese could form a government.

The swearing in had to be done quickly as there was a Quad Leader's Meeting in Tokyo the following day and an Australian Prime minister was one of four members (The other countries in the alliance were USA, Japan and India).