Why risk instability, uncertainty?

In most elections, the excuse by Kooyong independent candidate Monique Ryan’s campaign director for her lack of a tax policy or a defence manifesto amid the China build-up would see her dismissed as a fringe dweller. “Dr Ryan would not be making tax policies or declaring war,” was the flippant answer sent to a constituent who inquired. Much is at stake in Kooyong, where Dr Ryan, a former ALP member funded by Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 party, is running against Josh Frydenberg. According to Newspoll, 29 per cent of voters are planning to direct their first preferences to candidates outside the major parties. The inclination of voters to shop around also was clear on Wednesday night when 25 per cent of the undecided voters who watched Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese debate each other in Brisbane did not support either of them at the end of the event. The range of small parties and independents, real and fake, standing for office warrant scrutiny. So do their policies (or lack of them), their intended preference flows and their intentions in the event of a hung parliament.

The composition of the Senate is also at stake. “Teal independent” Allegra Spender and Wentworth Liberal MP Dave Sharma found a few points of agreement in their debate on Sky News on Thursday. But Ms Spender, who is running for a seat that has never returned a Labor MP, could not say who she would support in the event of a hung parliament. She left open the possibility of backing Labor if the Opposition Leader’s agenda was best aligned with the values of her community.

The question marks extend beyond the teal independents, who are standing only in Coalition seats, and the Greens, whose impractical, dangerous economic policies would pave the way to poverty if they found themselves in a position to exert leverage over an Albanese government. Queensland voters’ Senate choices, for example, include Pauline Hanson; former Brisbane lord mayor and former premier Campbell Newman, standing for the Liberal Democrats; and billionaire businessman Clive Palmer. Mr Palmer was notorious for his poor attendance record when he represented the Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax from 2013 to 2016. Amid voter concern over rising inflation and likely increases in interest rates, Mr Palmer is pitching a populist policy with potential to wreak havoc on the housing market and home building industry.

The United Australia Party leader wants a legislated 3 per cent cap on home lending rates. Such a move would take Australian financial regulation back 30 years, destroying the independence of the Reserve Bank board to set interest rates by factoring in economic conditions. More seriously for voters, it would hurt those it is supposedly designed to help, especially homebuyers eager to get off the rental roundabout. The policy would never pass both houses of parliament. If it did, banks, which soon will be paying more for their funds, would not lend for homes if they stood to make a loss.

Voters toying with minor parties to give the bigger parties “a kick” should be wary. Unintended consequences can be costly.