Existential election as class loyalties fragment

Independent candidate for Wentworth Allegra Spender. Picture: Getty Images

This election is an existential moment for the two major parties, Labor and Liberal, as allegiances have fragmented and voters have become less tribal, shattering the post-war political stability that the two-party system provided and giving rise to the increased likelihood of minority parliaments.

The 22 teal independents, backed by corporate entity Climate 200, represent a progressive, professional, prosperous middle-class revolt against the Liberal Party. Their targets are incumbent Liberal MPs in wealthy seats. If they succeed, these independents will decimate the moderate wing of the Liberal Party.

Labor’s heartland has been under assault for longer. Labor has lost much of its socially conservative, less-educated, low-income, working-class constituency to the Coalition and some higher-educated and wealthy voters to the Greens. Labor has struggled to appeal to different constituencies to retain seats in cities, suburbs and regions.

Voter dealignment in Australia mirrors that in Western democracies. Education and income have become more important than subjective class affiliations in determining who citizens vote for. It means party loyalties have broken down, challenging their identities as they swap constituencies and the political system fractures.

A study led by French economist Thomas Piketty of how socio-economic factors have reshaped political preferences in 50 countries charts this shift. Last year, Piketty shared with me his work on Australia. It was published in Political Cleavages and Social Inequalities (Harvard University Press), co-edited with Amory Gethin and Clara Martinez-Toledano, late last year.

The Australian political divide in the post-war era was class-based with conflicts structured on a strict left-right axis: Labor on the centre-left and the Coalition on the centre-right.

But voting along class lines is in long-term decline. The relationship between education and ideology has reversed and there has been a shift in voter preference based on income.

In 1963, the Liberal Party gained the support of 63.1 per cent of voters with university degrees and Labor 19.5 per cent. By 2019 the Liberal Party’s support from those with a university education dropped to 24.3 per cent and Labor’s share increased to 37 per cent. This is a marked change in party constituency.

In 1963, the Liberal Party received the votes of 68.3 per cent of top income earners. By 2019, this had fallen to 37.7 per cent. In 1963, Labor secured the support of 61.8 per cent of voters on low incomes but only 30.8 per cent in 2019. The change in income influencing ideology also has been dramatic. These socio-economic changes have had a huge impact on Labor. Its primary vote has declined from 50 per cent in 1943 to a dismal 33 per cent in 2019.

Labor may be able to lift its primary vote by a few percentage points at the May 21 election but it is unlikely to stabilise in the 40s where it was for generations. The data shows how Labor has lost its claim to be the party of working-class Australians. In the 1960s, working-class voters chose Labor by a 30 percentage point margin over the Liberals. In the decade to 2019, the gap between Labor and the Coalition closed with both sides of politics attracting 42 per cent of working-class voters.

Picketty says Australia, like other Western democracies, is transitioning to a “multi-elite party system” composed of a “Brahmin Left” (mostly intellectuals who support centre-left parties) and a “Merchant Right” (mostly wealthy business people who support centre-right parties).

This elitism has led to the rise of populist fringe parties such as the Greens, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and the United Australia Party as voters look for alternatives. The teal independents also provide a populist outlet for disaffected major party voters.

The Liberal Party, when it was formed in 1944, saw itself as predominantly a middle and upper-class party to counter the working-class appeal of Labor. In 1963, the Liberal Party gained the support of 57.1 per cent of middle and upper-class voters. By 2019, this middle and upper-class support had fallen to just 31.6 per cent.

In 1942, Robert Menzies spoke of “the forgotten class” in an evening radio broadcast. They were “the middle class” who were not “rich and powerful” or “the mass of unskilled people” but the “unorganised and unselfconscious” in the middle who were taken for granted by the major parties. He named them as, in part, “professional men and women”.

This is the essential target audience for the teal independents. The danger for the Liberal Party is that what was left of its share of votes from the highly educated, socially progressive, professional, wealthy middle and upper-class constituency could drift not only to Labor but to the teal independents. Indeed, Labor has next to no chance of winning these target seats.

Four of the independent or minor party MPs seeking re-election are backed by Climate 200: Zali Steggall (Warringah), Andrew Wilkie (Clark), Helen Haines (Indi) and Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo). The teals targeting Liberal MPs include: Allegra Spender (Wentworth), Kylea Tink (North Sydney), Sophie Scamps (Mackellar), Despi O’Connor (Flinders), Zoe Daniel (Goldstein), Monique Ryan (Kooyong) and Kate Chaney (Curtin).

These independents lack transparency about their organisation, funding and policies. But that does not seem to be inhibiting their appeal in a volatile electorate looking for alternatives to the major parties. They underscore the dramatic shift taking place across the political spectrum which is eroding major party support. As the Liberals risk losing the progressive middle class and Labor its working-class support, both major parties must grapple with their identities and constituencies. But the end result of this political fragmentation that has long been in the making, now accelerating, is likely to be weaker governments, less policy progress and greater political instability.