Dan and Dom

Holding back the green-and-teal tide

Photo by Tek Bahadur on Unsplash

At the last federal election, the number of people voting for someone other than the so-called “two major parties”—Labor or the L&NP—was at a record higher, more than 30% of votes cast. This trend has been developing for a while, though it has tended to be supressed in its effects thanks mainly to our preferential voting system which directs votes back to the “majors”.

There is a whole argument to be had about the nature of this trend, about the way in which people vote strategically or not, but I won’t get into that here. I just want to note the obvious trend, which is influenced by a range of social and political changes that have happened over the preceding decades, especially regarding the changing workforce and what this has meant for women and young people in particular, for career formation, the ability to own a home, and the way in which people are able to accrue superannuation. Again, I’m not going into details here, but I’m sure most are aware …