Following the global trend away from establishment political powers, Australians are abandoning the major political parties for the July 2nd federal election according to the latest election polling.
The latest Newspoll reveals support for other parties and independents have reached record highs. A record 15 per cent of voters plan to snub the establishment Coalition, Labor and Green parties, casting their ballots for an independent candidate or microparty instead.
Australia’s Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, called an early election back in April in an attempt to eliminate non-establishment figures from the senate. Rather than negotiate with these senators to get the government’s policies passed, the Liberal government instead chose to wage war against the senate which it couldn’t control, attacking the non-establishment senators as obstructionist and selfish, and flouting new election rules which would significantly disadvantage small parties.
Unable to bully the senate into submission, Prime Minister Turnbull called an unorthodox double-dissolution election. Australia’s Constitution allows for the government to call for a double-dissolution election when the senate rejects a bill two times in a period of three months. In such an election the whole senate is up for re-election, rather than only half, as is normally the case.
But Turnbull’s gamble seems to have backfired, as the current polling shows the two major parties have fallen in popularity and are now neck and neck in the race for the July 2nd election. If such polling is accurate, then this would be a major embarrassment for the government, which was gambling that the public would vote them back into power with a ruling majority. The government, or Labor party if it were to win, would have the same turbulent balance of power that caused Turnbull to call the double-dissolution election in the first place.
The polling also showed that support for the Green party, which has often held the balance of power in recent times, has fallen 2 points this year, in a sign that the Green party is also falling out of favor with it’s supporters.
Taking advantage of this widespread disillusionment, the newly formed Nick Xenophon Team is recording national support of 3 per cent and a primary vote of 22 per cent in it’s home state of South Australia. Election analysts suggest that such significant figures will translate into enough seats won in the election to hold the balance of power.
The rise of the Xenophon team is causing alarm in establishment circles due to the appeal of the party’s center-moderate policies, which has potential to rob a significant portion of the major party’s disillusioned base supporters.
To compound the establishment’s worries, the personal approval ratings for both major party’s leaders have fallen, and has caused the corporate media outlets to launch a negative propaganda campaign against the popular Xenophon team in a desperate attempt to secure the establishment’s reigns on power.
Prime Minister Turnbull has become vocal in urging voters not to vote for micro-parties like the Nick Xenophon Team or the independents, repeatedly issuing fear-mongering warnings that it could lead to “chaotic unstable alliances” in the parliament, and that Xenophon’s stance against the globalist Trans-Pacific Partnership is “protectionist” and will damage Australia’s trade relationships and it’s own exporters.
The Labor party also took aim at the Xenophon threat earlier in June, by referring the Xenophon party to the Australian Electoral Commission with trumped-up charges about alleged breaches of the electoral act.
It is expected that these such attacks by the major political parties will only intensify as the July 2nd election draws closer.
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