The ACT had a batch of mosts, leasts, highests and lowests in the voting for the Senate at the last federal election.
According to the latest Electoral Newsfile put out by the Australian Electoral Commission, the ACT had the lowest vote for the Coalition of any state or territory; the highest vote for Labor; the highest vote for the Democrats; the lowest informal vote and the highest below-the-line voting.
The ACT has had the lowest informal vote in every Senate election since 1987.
Another indicator of high political awareness, is the high percentage of below the line voting — expressing preferences for candidates individually, rather than just ticking a party box above the line. Across Australia, 5.1 per cent of voters vote below the line. In the ACT it is 21.83 percent, closely followed by Tasmania with 21.76, Northern Territory on 14.38 and the rest all under 10 per cent. Only 3.2 voted below the line in Victoria.
The ACT and Tasmania at state level have the Hare-Clark system which has no above-the-line voting and demands individual preferencing, so voters are used to voting that way. Also the ACT, Tasmania and the Northern Territory are smaller so usually have fewer Senate candidates and a higher level of personal knowledge about candidates.
In the House of Representatives, an analysis of commission figures by the Parliamentary Library’s Gerard Newman reveals that almost half of the seats won by the Coalition are marginal (less than 6 per cent swing) and 10 of these are held by less than 1 per cent. Less than 20 per cent of Coalition seats are safe (10 per cent margin or more). On the other hand, more than half of Labor seats are safe and 12 of its 67 are held with margins of more than 20 per cent.
This wasted-vote phenomenon explains why the ALP lost the election even though it got more votes and more two-party preferred votes than the Coalition.
It would now take a uniform swing of just 0.92 per cent to unseat the Government. Going into the 1998 election it would have required 4.6 per cent.