Honest politics demands that the independents not give their support to either Labor or the LNP before the election

All negotiation should be done on the floor of the parliament, not stitched up in advance

One of the things you are going to hear ad infinitum in the lead up to the 2025 federal election is demands for the independents to say in advance which party they will support if the crossbench holds the balance of power.

It is a complete furphy and we shouldn’t be fooled.

The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons. Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1835

Such a demand is yet another example of how the dominance of the two-party system has distorted how we think about politics. That system has taught us to presume that parties are the same as governments—that we can only have an LNP government or a Labor government—but that is misleading.

In the event of no-one getting a majority, it is up to the parliament to decide who has the confidence of the House. This means that what is at stake isn’t support for a given party, but the composition of the new government. That is a process that rightly should happen on the floor of the House once the result is in and it shouldn’t be usurped in any …