Joyce back at no small cost

12 July 2021

Followers of politics, especially in Western Australia, might be the only ones nowadays who remember Tony Crook. He caused a stir in 2010 when he won the seat of O’Connor at a Federal election, ending the career of the controversial veteran MP Wilson Tuckey, and then left at the next election, in 2013.

O’Connor is a rural seat in WA, and Tuckey was the first candidate to win it, back in 1980. He became quite a controversial character in his day, and was a stalwart for the Liberal Party. His loss at the hands of Crook in 2010 was something of a shock.

But Crook wasn’t a typical candidate in that contest. He was a candidate for the Nationals.

Despite the fact that the Liberals and Nationals usually work together in a formal alliance, as displayed in the existence of the Liberal-National Coalition, they frequently run against each other in elections, and sometimes without really being noticed.

It’s typical for the Liberals and Nationals to run against each other in vacant seats, or in seats that they don’t hold. If a sitting Liberal or a sitting National from the House of Representatives retires, normally there’ll be candidates running from both sides at the next election. But while it’s common for sitting Liberals and sitting Nationals to be left alone, they sometimes face challengers.

WA is one of the few States where the Liberals and Nationals regularly field candidates against each other, though the Liberals usually prevail, as the Nationals haven’t been that strong in WA for a long time. Crook’s victory over Tuckey in 2010 was therefore a rarity.

But despite being elected in O’Connor as a National, Crook didn’t see himself as part of the Coalition, and was more like a crossbencher.

I found Crook coming back into my head after reading reports of dissatisfaction among the Nationals in Victoria over the recent return to the Federal leadership of Barnaby Joyce. This followed a surprise coup against Michael McCormack, who’d been leader of the Nationals – and with that Deputy Prime Minister – since Joyce stepped down in the wake of a scandal in 2018.

The Victorian Nationals were reportedly upset at Joyce’s return, and possibly looking at dissociating themselves from their Federal counterparts. This would be something.

It’s been said that McCormack wasn’t as effective a communicator as Joyce, who can really cut through to people. Indeed I’ve seen Joyce on television in front of audiences full of people who disagree with him, but he’s regularly said things to make these people burst into applause. I dare say that not many politicians can do this. But while Joyce regularly cuts through, he’s also been subject to much derision and ridicule over what he believes in. Countless urban voters in particular loathe him.

With his return to the leadership of the Nationals, it’s been suggested that he might cost the Liberals seats in city areas, especially where voters care about issues like climate change. At present, various Liberal seats in big cities are marginal, and if voters don’t see them as doing enough regarding climate change, they might put the Coalition out of office.

Indeed before becoming Prime Minister in 2018, Scott Morrison pulled a memorable stunt in Federal Parliament when he held up a lump of coal and goaded the Labor Party over its perceived opposition to the coal industry – long seen as a major contributor to environmental pollution and climate change.

Despite making speeches about reducing pollution and tackling climate change, Morrison still comes across as cynical on the issue. The image of him and the lump of coal was brought up several times when massive bushfires were ravaging parts of Australia over the 2019-2020 period, as environmental activists and politicians and others talked of climate change as having caused the bushfires. Sydney was frequently shrouded in heavy smoke during that period, and with people increasingly regarding the fires as resulting from climate change, they were pushing for climate action. But they had doubts about whether Morrison really believes in acting.

And the return of Joyce, who’s long been cynical of climate change, might make voters more doubtful of Morrison’s commitment, especially if they remember his stunt with the lump of coal.

The Victorian Nationals apparently care more about acting on climate change than Joyce does, which could cause a split in the Nationals if they feel that strongly. While the Nationals mightn’t face much of a threat from Labor in its rural seats, some Independents might threaten them instead.

Many supporters of the Nationals might be delighted at seeing Joyce back. But his return to leading them comes at no small cost. The price might be paid in his own ranks, if not the election to come.

WA Liberals upside-down

10 July 2021

Minor parties traditionally win seats in elections involving proportional representation. These elections have two or more seats up for grabs in any given jurisdiction, with seats decided by the strength of the vote across the jurisdiction. This contrasts with elections in which only one seat goes up for grabs in the jurisdiction, because parties need a majority of the vote to win, and minor parties don’t achieve this feat that much.

I cite the Greens as an example. They’ve generally won Senate seats in Federal elections, with decent proportions of the vote in every State. But they don’t usually win enough votes within clustered areas, such as a group of suburbs in a big city or a group of rural townships in a big region, to win single-seat contests. For sure, they managed to win the seat of Melbourne in the House of Representatives in 2010, having obtained a majority of the vote after preferences, and they still hold that seat to this day, but they haven’t won any others like it. Mind you, they might well win more seats in the House of Representatives over time.

Winning a majority of the vote in seats like those in the House of Representatives is quite hard for minor parties, unless they enjoy strong support in concentrated areas. I’ve seen them win such seats at State level over time, but not that frequently.

It’s therefore quite normal for the Greens to hold a few seats in parliamentary chambers with proportional representation, and perhaps one seat in a chamber with majority representation if they’re lucky. The same could also be said of other minor parties.

On the other hand, major parties traditionally have a stranglehold on chambers like the House of Representatives, winning most of the seats with most of the votes – and preferences. Where proportional representation exists, they don’t win as many seats, even with strong votes. They traditionally end up in the reverse situation to minor parties, in terms of representation.

But earlier this year, an election resulted in a major party looking like a minor party, in relation to representation. It ended up with more seats in a chamber with proportional representation than in a chamber with majority representation – rather than the reverse.

I refer to the Liberal Party, after a State election in Western Australia in March. It had a massive defeat at the hands of the Labor Party, winning a mere two out of fifty-nine seats in the Lower House of State Parliament, where governments are formed. On the other hand, it won seven seats out of thirty-six in the Upper House there. As such, it had more Upper House seats than Lower House seats, which you don’t usually see from major parties.

In Parliament in WA, the Lower House has majority representation while the Upper House has proportional representation. The Liberals therefore ended up with what you’d imagine minor parties achieving, if they’re lucky.

As such, I could describe the WA Liberals as upside-down, in the context of the election result and how they’d normally go in elections generally.

Worse still for the Liberals, they finished behind the Nationals in terms of Lower House seats, with the Nationals winning four. If the Nationals ever have really good election results in WA, they might win something like a dozen seats across the State, and while their result in March was poorer than in previous elections, it wasn’t much worse than they might’ve done in a State where they don’t generally win that many seats.

The next State election in WA isn’t due until 2025. Labor won’t lose unless its seat tally almost halves, from fifty-three out of fifty-nine seats now to twenty-nine. While anything can happen between now and 2025, something absolutely astounding would have to take place for Labor to lose that many seats.

Mind you, I remember watching Labor being utterly thrashed at a State election in Queensland in 2012, when it finished up with just seven seats out of eighty-nine, and just three years later it won back enough seats to retake power – albeit with help from the crossbench. It therefore isn’t unprecedented for parties to have a huge result at one election, whether a win or a loss, and a complete reversal at the next election.

While Labor can be expected to lose seats at the next election in WA, it’s fairly safe to assume that the Liberals will gain a majority of whatever seats Labor loses, and will end up with more seats than the Nationals again. The Liberals should also end up with more Lower House seats than Upper House seats.

The kind of upside-down result for the Liberals in WA in March probably won’t be repeated.