April 28, 2025 • 16 mins
The election is very close. But there's still more explaining for us to do!
Yesterday, we took you through the major parties… Today, we're looking at who the minor parties are!
We take a look at the Greens, One Nation, the Trumpet of Patriots and more. Plus, who are the key independents? We explain in today's podcast.
Hosts: Billi FitzSimons and Zara Seidler
Producer: Orla Maher
Listen: Who are the major parties?
Listen: The politician leading an Australia MAGA movement
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,
now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to the
Daily OS. It's Tuesday, the twenty ninth of April. I'm
Billy fitz Simon's.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm Zara Seidler.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Happy Election week, Zara.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Happy election week. Could we be back with you?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Very good to be back. We are now less than
a week. We're just a couple of days away from
the Australian federal election, when more than eighteen million Australians
that is how many of us are enrolled in this election,
are all due to go vote for who will form
the country's next government and who will be the next
Prime minister. Now, yesterday, Zara, we took the listeners through
(00:46):
the major parties, Labor and the Coalition, and on today's
episode we are going to be breaking down the minor
parties and independents.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I don't ever take our listeners for granted. That's a
good lesson in podcasting. So, say someone was busy yesterday morning,
didn't around to listening to the TDA podcast, Can you
really quickly just explain or recap the political landscape here
in Australia.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah, so most seats in Parliament are filled by the
two major parties, like I just said, the Coalition which
is made up of the Liberal Party and the Nationals
and then also Labor. But then we also have minor
parties and Independence and they are increasingly popular in Australia.
And actually historical trends show that voters are more and
(01:34):
more putting minor parties and independents as their first preference.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
And we also know that it's especially young people. So
we have seen a trend of more and more young
people turning away from the major parties and towards those
minor parties and independence.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah, and just to give you an idea of how
much we have seen this swing kind of away from
the major parties. So in nineteen forty nine, the Labor,
Liberal and National Party secured about ninety six percent of
the House of Reps first preference vote and then at
the twenty twin two election that was down to just
sixty eight percent. Fascinating, Yeah, of Australians who voted for
(02:13):
one of those three parties as their first preference.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
It's so interesting. But you're right, it has been this
real long term downward trend away from the major parties.
So let's talk about where else some of these votes
are going. I want to start with minor parties, the
biggest of which is the Greens.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yes, And just to go back a step and to
explain what minor parties technically are. They are just the
parties that have members elected to Parliament, but not enough
members to form government or opposition. And the most prominent,
like you just said, is the Greens. Now, at the
twenty twenty two election, they recorded their best ever result,
(02:54):
going from one to four seats in the House of Representatives.
What's that like, a four hundred percent increase in your representation.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
They do have a lot more members though in the
upper house in the Senate. Yes, so they traditionally haven't
had many seats in the lower house, but they have
got a fair few in the upper House.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah. And now, yesterday on the podcast, I explained the
political spectrum of the left and the right. Yeah, the
Greens are on the left of that political spectrum. So
they're considered quite a bit more left than Labor and
they are known for their socially progressive policies. Now, in
terms of policies they are taking to this election, they're
(03:31):
proposing to freeze rent, increases for two years, so that
means every single person who's paying rent across Australia wouldn't
see an increase in their rent over the next two years.
They are also wanting to stop all new coal and
gas projects, and they're also proposing to wipe all student
debts and to make university and tay free for all
(03:55):
students in Australia.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Those are some fairly wide ranging and diverse policy perspectives
that the Greens are putting forward. And because they're a
minor party, they're not the government, they're not the opposition,
they do have less capacity to pass those bills through Parliament,
but there are certain situations where those policies become more
significant than they otherwise would have, and that's when the
(04:19):
Greens hold negotiating power.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yes, and they are quite explicit that their aim is
for there to be a minority government. So to explain
what that means, if no party wins a majority in
the House of Representatives where the government is formed, then
the party with the most votes need to negotiate with
minor parties or independents to form a minority government. And
(04:43):
like I said, that is exactly what the Greens want.
They want there to be a hung parliament and more specifically,
they want Labor to be the party that is needing
to negotiate to form a minority government, because history would
tell us that they are the party more likely to
work work with the Greens to form government.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Though Anthony Albanezi, when asked I was going to last debate,
very explicitly ruled out doing that.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah. I think throughout this entire campaign he has I
feel like every single day he's been asked if he
would do a deal with Agreeds, and he has been
so explicit and very you know, not mincing any words
when he has no.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
No.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
He has said no time and time again. But I
guess people are asking because it did happen relatively recently
in our lifetime. In our lifetime, it happened in twenty
ten under the leadership of Julia Gillard. Now, to just
go back to the policies I was talking about, it's
under a minority government that the Greens would be most
(05:45):
likely to get one of these policies through Parliament, and
that's because in exchange for their support of the government,
they could then ask the government to support at least
one of their policies.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, so it's this kind of horse trading agreement where
the Greens would say will support you if you support
this for example. And I think, just to be really clear,
the reason why the Greens would be wanting that sort
of arrangement is because it is unlikely, if not impossible,
for them to become the formal opposition right now in
(06:19):
Australia's two party system.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
This is kind of my Roman Empire because you think,
yes that like in theory, I'm not just talking about
the Greens, but any minor party. You know, maybe not
this election, but in fifty years and one hundred years,
one of these minor parties then actually become one of
the major parties and form government.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I mean, that could absolutely happen. We've seen, especially across Europe,
there is now this like real coalition of completely diverse,
mismatched minor parties that somehow get across the line to
form government. What we're saying though, is that at this election,
to go from the four seats that the Greens currently hold,
who passed seventy sixty sixty sittings that is needed to
(07:03):
form government, seems like a bit of a stretch, but
there is nothing stopping them in our electoral laws or
otherwise from forming government or forming the opposition. Yeah, okay,
So the Greens are the biggest minor party in our
political system here in Australia, but they're not the only
minor party that exists. Can you really quickly just talk
(07:23):
me through some of the other minor parties.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah. Another one is One Nation. Now, if you haven't
heard of One Nation, you probably have heard of their leader,
who is Pauline Hanson. Yep. Now, One Nation holds two
seats in the Senate, one of which is held by
Hanson herself, but she doesn't hold any in the House
of Representatives. Now. They're kind of the opposite to the
(07:46):
Greens in terms of where they sit on the political spectrum.
They sit on the right of that spectrum, and they're
best known for their anti immigration stance, which includes withdrawing
Australia from the UN Refugee Convention and they also want
to pull Australia out of the UN's Paris Agreement. Now,
in terms of things that would have more of a
direct or immediate impact on Australians, they also have this
(08:09):
family tax policy that they want to introduce to allow
couples with a dependent child to pay less tax. Also,
just a fun fact while we're here talking about one nation,
her daughter is running for the Senate.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Billion hands Electora.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yes, so we'll be interesting to what happens there. That
will be in the Tasmanian Senate.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
And Pauline Hansen has been in parliament for ages. Yes,
she is not a new figure on the parliamentary scene.
She's been there for ages.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I didn't realize she did hold a seat in the
House of Reps.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I only learned research and previously ran for the Liberals. Really, yep,
there you go.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So interesting. Now that's one nation, but another party you
may have heard about, or definitely you would have seen
the ads for this election cycle on TV newspapers. Is
the Trumpet of Patriots?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, right near our work when we're going home, there
is a humongous Trumpet of Patriots poster that gets changed
almost weekly. But it's just different angles of Clive Palmer's face.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yes, if you don't know what we're talking about, it's
the bright yellow one.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Can't miss it. No, we have actually dedicated a whole
podcast to talking about the Trumpet of Patriots and the
very unique way that they go about advertising. And we
will throw a link to that in today's show notes.
But Billy, can you just give us a brief overview
on the party.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yes, so this is a relatively new minor party, particularly
when we compare it to One Nation and Pauline Hanson
and so the Trumpet or Patriots. They are backed by
mining billionaire Clive Palmer. Now he certainly isn't new to politics.
His previous party was called the United Australia Party. I'm
pretty sure they also their coloring was also very bright yellow, right,
(09:47):
I was, yeah, And they were actually de registered following
the twenty twenty two election when it only secured one
Senate seat. In terms of their policies, their party, you
might have guessed by the name of the party, are
inspired by the politics of US President Donald Trump, and
they promise very similarly to Donald Trump to make Australia
(10:08):
great again. And so it wants to do things quite
similar to the Trump administration. For example, it wants to
establish a Department of Government Efficiency, which is the exact
same name as the department that is currently being led
by Elon Musk in the US.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And so we have the Trumpet of Patriots. We've got
One Nation. There are also a few other minor parties.
We've got Central Alliance Rebecca Sharky in the lower House,
we've got the Jackie Lamby Network Jackie Lamberinia, as you
might have guessed, in the Upper House. So there are
a few different minor parties dotted all across our parliament.
We have referenced a few times this idea that there
(10:45):
are a lot of minor party members in the upper
House in Australia Senate. Can you really quickly run us
through why that is the case.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, you're right that minor parties are more popular in
the Senate than they are in the House of Representatives.
And it's basically because the Senate has a system of
proportional representation which the House of Representatives doesn't, and that
system of proportional representation makes it much easier for smaller
parties to be elected. And that's just because the threshold
(11:15):
to be elected is much lower in the Senate than
it is in the House of Reps. So in the
House of Reps you need fifty percent of the vote
after preferences accounted to be elected, but in the Senate
you only need about fourteen to fifteen percent to be elected.
So basically, it's just like a lower bar to entry.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, it's super interesting understanding the different ways that people
are elected to the Senate and then comparatively to the
House of Reps. I do want to just leave the
conversation about minor parties there for a moment, though, in
turn to another feature of our parliamentary system, which is independence.
What is an independent? I mean the name does give
(11:55):
it away a bit. Minor party and independent both very
self explanatory.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It's quite simple. It's just any other candidate who is
not from a registered party. And similar to minor parties
when it comes to the House of Representatives, independents are
most important when there is a minority government, which we
explained before. So it could be that instead of doing
a deal with a minor party like the Greens, one
of the major parties might decide to deal with independence instead.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah. And so in the last election we saw the
rise of a very specific cohort of community independence. They
were labeled the Teals. What do we need to know
about the Teals?
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yes, So they were a group of independent candidates and
they won several seats. I think they won six exactly.
And they were independents who ran in traditionally safe for
liberal electorates, and they received funding from the group called
Climate two hundred. And they got their name because they
typically represent economically right policies, with blue being the color
(12:56):
of the center right liberal party, and then they tend
to have more green use on climate and so blue
and green together equals TILL Although I only recently just
learned that they actually don't like being called till Independence.
I think because they don't like being seen as this
party as a party, and calling them teal independence makes
it seem like they all think the same and they're
(13:17):
kind of part of this party, which they don't.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
They don't have a set of policies that they all
agree on. I mean, they do tend to have overlapping interests,
but not this kind of uniform approach. They don't have
to all vote the same way. It is interesting though,
at the last election they won all their seats off
moderate liberals. Yes, this time around, I understand that some
of the community independents are running against labor members, so
(13:40):
there does seem to be a bit of a change there.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yes, at the moment, we are obviously doing so much
coverage on this, and I was surprised to see how
many teal independents there are in traditionally safe Labour Sea.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah. And another feature of them, at least that the
last election was that the vast majority were women who
ran in those seats. Again, I think now there's a
bit more of a gender split because that was of
the moment at that time. There were some concerns in
the community about the representation of women. But this time
we will see more men running as those community independents.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
And one of the most high profile races last selection
was in the Melbourne seat of Kuyong, when TiAl independent
doctor Monique Ryan beat then Treasurer Josh Fredenberg. Now Friedenburg
was widely expected to be the next leader of the
Liberal Party, so that defeat received a lot of attention.
I don't know if you'd call it a shock defeat.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
But it was I think, yeah, I think that's fair.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It was a massive Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I mean it was clear that a lot of money
and a lot of attention was on that seat. But
I don't know that anyone expected Freedenburg to lose, and
then certainly as many moderate Liberals to lose as they
did last time.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, and they were particularly successful in the House of
Representatives again, like I just said, they won six seats there,
but they also did have success in the Senate with
till Independent David Pocock getting in. However, has since declared
that he won't receive any financial backing from that group
Climate two hundred for this election.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, really really interesting. Last election was defined I think
by two main factors. It was that it was the
climate election and that there was this Teal wave. What
we will see happen this election, no one really knows
whether that can be repeated again for the Teals or
if that was kind of a one time thing that
was a response to the moment and the time that
(15:27):
we were in.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
We'll be fascinating to see what happens, and we'll all
go down on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
We'll be here. We can't wait anyway. Billy, thank you
so much for taking us through the minor parties and
the independence of course of specific interest to young people
as we see more and more young people turning away
from the major parties. That wraps up another episode of
Politics One I one with the Daily Os. If you
have any more questions that you want us to answer
(15:53):
this week on the podcast, feel free to leave a
comment on Spotify and we'll be sure to answer it
as the week goes on. See you later. My name
is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Kalkudin
woman from Gadighl country.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on
the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to
all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations. We pay
our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both
past and present.
Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,
now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to the
Daily OS. It's Tuesday, the twenty ninth of April. I'm
Billy fitz Simon's.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm Zara Seidler.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Happy Election week, Zara.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Happy election week. Could we be back with you?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Very good to be back. We are now less than
a week. We're just a couple of days away from
the Australian federal election, when more than eighteen million Australians
that is how many of us are enrolled in this election,
are all due to go vote for who will form
the country's next government and who will be the next
Prime minister. Now, yesterday, Zara, we took the listeners through
(00:46):
the major parties, Labor and the Coalition, and on today's
episode we are going to be breaking down the minor
parties and independents.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I don't ever take our listeners for granted. That's a
good lesson in podcasting. So, say someone was busy yesterday morning,
didn't around to listening to the TDA podcast, Can you
really quickly just explain or recap the political landscape here
in Australia.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah, so most seats in Parliament are filled by the
two major parties, like I just said, the Coalition which
is made up of the Liberal Party and the Nationals
and then also Labor. But then we also have minor
parties and Independence and they are increasingly popular in Australia.
And actually historical trends show that voters are more and
(01:34):
more putting minor parties and independents as their first preference.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
And we also know that it's especially young people. So
we have seen a trend of more and more young
people turning away from the major parties and towards those
minor parties and independence.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah, and just to give you an idea of how
much we have seen this swing kind of away from
the major parties. So in nineteen forty nine, the Labor,
Liberal and National Party secured about ninety six percent of
the House of Reps first preference vote and then at
the twenty twin two election that was down to just
sixty eight percent. Fascinating, Yeah, of Australians who voted for
(02:13):
one of those three parties as their first preference.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
It's so interesting. But you're right, it has been this
real long term downward trend away from the major parties.
So let's talk about where else some of these votes
are going. I want to start with minor parties, the
biggest of which is the Greens.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yes, And just to go back a step and to
explain what minor parties technically are. They are just the
parties that have members elected to Parliament, but not enough
members to form government or opposition. And the most prominent,
like you just said, is the Greens. Now, at the
twenty twenty two election, they recorded their best ever result,
(02:54):
going from one to four seats in the House of Representatives.
What's that like, a four hundred percent increase in your representation.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
They do have a lot more members though in the
upper house in the Senate. Yes, so they traditionally haven't
had many seats in the lower house, but they have
got a fair few in the upper House.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah. And now, yesterday on the podcast, I explained the
political spectrum of the left and the right. Yeah, the
Greens are on the left of that political spectrum. So
they're considered quite a bit more left than Labor and
they are known for their socially progressive policies. Now, in
terms of policies they are taking to this election, they're
(03:31):
proposing to freeze rent, increases for two years, so that
means every single person who's paying rent across Australia wouldn't
see an increase in their rent over the next two years.
They are also wanting to stop all new coal and
gas projects, and they're also proposing to wipe all student
debts and to make university and tay free for all
(03:55):
students in Australia.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Those are some fairly wide ranging and diverse policy perspectives
that the Greens are putting forward. And because they're a
minor party, they're not the government, they're not the opposition,
they do have less capacity to pass those bills through Parliament,
but there are certain situations where those policies become more
significant than they otherwise would have, and that's when the
(04:19):
Greens hold negotiating power.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yes, and they are quite explicit that their aim is
for there to be a minority government. So to explain
what that means, if no party wins a majority in
the House of Representatives where the government is formed, then
the party with the most votes need to negotiate with
minor parties or independents to form a minority government. And
(04:43):
like I said, that is exactly what the Greens want.
They want there to be a hung parliament and more specifically,
they want Labor to be the party that is needing
to negotiate to form a minority government, because history would
tell us that they are the party more likely to
work work with the Greens to form government.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Though Anthony Albanezi, when asked I was going to last debate,
very explicitly ruled out doing that.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah. I think throughout this entire campaign he has I
feel like every single day he's been asked if he
would do a deal with Agreeds, and he has been
so explicit and very you know, not mincing any words
when he has no.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
No.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
He has said no time and time again. But I
guess people are asking because it did happen relatively recently
in our lifetime. In our lifetime, it happened in twenty
ten under the leadership of Julia Gillard. Now, to just
go back to the policies I was talking about, it's
under a minority government that the Greens would be most
(05:45):
likely to get one of these policies through Parliament, and
that's because in exchange for their support of the government,
they could then ask the government to support at least
one of their policies.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, so it's this kind of horse trading agreement where
the Greens would say will support you if you support
this for example. And I think, just to be really clear,
the reason why the Greens would be wanting that sort
of arrangement is because it is unlikely, if not impossible,
for them to become the formal opposition right now in
(06:19):
Australia's two party system.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
This is kind of my Roman Empire because you think,
yes that like in theory, I'm not just talking about
the Greens, but any minor party. You know, maybe not
this election, but in fifty years and one hundred years,
one of these minor parties then actually become one of
the major parties and form government.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I mean, that could absolutely happen. We've seen, especially across Europe,
there is now this like real coalition of completely diverse,
mismatched minor parties that somehow get across the line to
form government. What we're saying though, is that at this election,
to go from the four seats that the Greens currently hold,
who passed seventy sixty sixty sittings that is needed to
(07:03):
form government, seems like a bit of a stretch, but
there is nothing stopping them in our electoral laws or
otherwise from forming government or forming the opposition. Yeah, okay,
So the Greens are the biggest minor party in our
political system here in Australia, but they're not the only
minor party that exists. Can you really quickly just talk
(07:23):
me through some of the other minor parties.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah. Another one is One Nation. Now, if you haven't
heard of One Nation, you probably have heard of their leader,
who is Pauline Hanson. Yep. Now, One Nation holds two
seats in the Senate, one of which is held by
Hanson herself, but she doesn't hold any in the House
of Representatives. Now. They're kind of the opposite to the
(07:46):
Greens in terms of where they sit on the political spectrum.
They sit on the right of that spectrum, and they're
best known for their anti immigration stance, which includes withdrawing
Australia from the UN Refugee Convention and they also want
to pull Australia out of the UN's Paris Agreement. Now,
in terms of things that would have more of a
direct or immediate impact on Australians, they also have this
(08:09):
family tax policy that they want to introduce to allow
couples with a dependent child to pay less tax. Also,
just a fun fact while we're here talking about one nation,
her daughter is running for the Senate.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Billion hands Electora.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yes, so we'll be interesting to what happens there. That
will be in the Tasmanian Senate.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
And Pauline Hansen has been in parliament for ages. Yes,
she is not a new figure on the parliamentary scene.
She's been there for ages.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I didn't realize she did hold a seat in the
House of Reps.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I only learned research and previously ran for the Liberals. Really, yep,
there you go.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So interesting. Now that's one nation, but another party you
may have heard about, or definitely you would have seen
the ads for this election cycle on TV newspapers. Is
the Trumpet of Patriots?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, right near our work when we're going home, there
is a humongous Trumpet of Patriots poster that gets changed
almost weekly. But it's just different angles of Clive Palmer's face.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yes, if you don't know what we're talking about, it's
the bright yellow one.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Can't miss it. No, we have actually dedicated a whole
podcast to talking about the Trumpet of Patriots and the
very unique way that they go about advertising. And we
will throw a link to that in today's show notes.
But Billy, can you just give us a brief overview
on the party.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yes, so this is a relatively new minor party, particularly
when we compare it to One Nation and Pauline Hanson
and so the Trumpet or Patriots. They are backed by
mining billionaire Clive Palmer. Now he certainly isn't new to politics.
His previous party was called the United Australia Party. I'm
pretty sure they also their coloring was also very bright yellow, right,
(09:47):
I was, yeah, And they were actually de registered following
the twenty twenty two election when it only secured one
Senate seat. In terms of their policies, their party, you
might have guessed by the name of the party, are
inspired by the politics of US President Donald Trump, and
they promise very similarly to Donald Trump to make Australia
(10:08):
great again. And so it wants to do things quite
similar to the Trump administration. For example, it wants to
establish a Department of Government Efficiency, which is the exact
same name as the department that is currently being led
by Elon Musk in the US.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And so we have the Trumpet of Patriots. We've got
One Nation. There are also a few other minor parties.
We've got Central Alliance Rebecca Sharky in the lower House,
we've got the Jackie Lamby Network Jackie Lamberinia, as you
might have guessed, in the Upper House. So there are
a few different minor parties dotted all across our parliament.
We have referenced a few times this idea that there
(10:45):
are a lot of minor party members in the upper
House in Australia Senate. Can you really quickly run us
through why that is the case.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, you're right that minor parties are more popular in
the Senate than they are in the House of Representatives.
And it's basically because the Senate has a system of
proportional representation which the House of Representatives doesn't, and that
system of proportional representation makes it much easier for smaller
parties to be elected. And that's just because the threshold
(11:15):
to be elected is much lower in the Senate than
it is in the House of Reps. So in the
House of Reps you need fifty percent of the vote
after preferences accounted to be elected, but in the Senate
you only need about fourteen to fifteen percent to be elected.
So basically, it's just like a lower bar to entry.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, it's super interesting understanding the different ways that people
are elected to the Senate and then comparatively to the
House of Reps. I do want to just leave the
conversation about minor parties there for a moment, though, in
turn to another feature of our parliamentary system, which is independence.
What is an independent? I mean the name does give
(11:55):
it away a bit. Minor party and independent both very
self explanatory.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It's quite simple. It's just any other candidate who is
not from a registered party. And similar to minor parties
when it comes to the House of Representatives, independents are
most important when there is a minority government, which we
explained before. So it could be that instead of doing
a deal with a minor party like the Greens, one
of the major parties might decide to deal with independence instead.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah. And so in the last election we saw the
rise of a very specific cohort of community independence. They
were labeled the Teals. What do we need to know
about the Teals?
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yes, So they were a group of independent candidates and
they won several seats. I think they won six exactly.
And they were independents who ran in traditionally safe for
liberal electorates, and they received funding from the group called
Climate two hundred. And they got their name because they
typically represent economically right policies, with blue being the color
(12:56):
of the center right liberal party, and then they tend
to have more green use on climate and so blue
and green together equals TILL Although I only recently just
learned that they actually don't like being called till Independence.
I think because they don't like being seen as this
party as a party, and calling them teal independence makes
it seem like they all think the same and they're
(13:17):
kind of part of this party, which they don't.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
They don't have a set of policies that they all
agree on. I mean, they do tend to have overlapping interests,
but not this kind of uniform approach. They don't have
to all vote the same way. It is interesting though,
at the last election they won all their seats off
moderate liberals. Yes, this time around, I understand that some
of the community independents are running against labor members, so
(13:40):
there does seem to be a bit of a change there.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yes, at the moment, we are obviously doing so much
coverage on this, and I was surprised to see how
many teal independents there are in traditionally safe Labour Sea.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah. And another feature of them, at least that the
last election was that the vast majority were women who
ran in those seats. Again, I think now there's a
bit more of a gender split because that was of
the moment at that time. There were some concerns in
the community about the representation of women. But this time
we will see more men running as those community independents.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
And one of the most high profile races last selection
was in the Melbourne seat of Kuyong, when TiAl independent
doctor Monique Ryan beat then Treasurer Josh Fredenberg. Now Friedenburg
was widely expected to be the next leader of the
Liberal Party, so that defeat received a lot of attention.
I don't know if you'd call it a shock defeat.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
But it was I think, yeah, I think that's fair.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It was a massive Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I mean it was clear that a lot of money
and a lot of attention was on that seat. But
I don't know that anyone expected Freedenburg to lose, and
then certainly as many moderate Liberals to lose as they
did last time.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, and they were particularly successful in the House of
Representatives again, like I just said, they won six seats there,
but they also did have success in the Senate with
till Independent David Pocock getting in. However, has since declared
that he won't receive any financial backing from that group
Climate two hundred for this election.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, really really interesting. Last election was defined I think
by two main factors. It was that it was the
climate election and that there was this Teal wave. What
we will see happen this election, no one really knows
whether that can be repeated again for the Teals or
if that was kind of a one time thing that
was a response to the moment and the time that
(15:27):
we were in.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
We'll be fascinating to see what happens, and we'll all
go down on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
We'll be here. We can't wait anyway. Billy, thank you
so much for taking us through the minor parties and
the independence of course of specific interest to young people
as we see more and more young people turning away
from the major parties. That wraps up another episode of
Politics One I one with the Daily Os. If you
have any more questions that you want us to answer
(15:53):
this week on the podcast, feel free to leave a
comment on Spotify and we'll be sure to answer it
as the week goes on. See you later. My name
is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Kalkudin
woman from Gadighl country.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on
the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to
all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations. We pay
our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both
past and present.
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