The tipping point:
Where I somehow convinced everyone I knew what I was doing.
A new majority rises outside the two-party system
A quiet revolution is underway in Australian politics. For perhaps the first time, voters are decisively moving away from the major parties.
University of Tasmania Professor David Adams suggests, “This will almost certainly be the first election in Australian history in which each of our two traditional parties will poll fewer primary votes than the sum of the other parties and independents.”
Labor and Liberal, those lumbering red-and-blue giants of Australian political life, are about to be eclipsed, not by each other, but by the growing constellation of everyone else: independents, minor parties, Greens, teals, libertarians, librarians, local heroes, cranky centrists, and hopeful idealists.
This isn’t just a protest vote. It’s not just disillusionment. It’s frustration
And fatigue.
The Liberals have spent two decades wandering further right, ever since John Howard baptised them a “broad church“, which turned out to mean everything from moderate centrism to culture war crusades. Somewhere along the line, the pews emptied out, and the sermons stopped resonating.
Labor, meanwhile, pitches itself as the party of the sensible middle. But voters aren’t convinced. For all the talk of modernisation, too much of the party still seems captive to an unformed and often unaccountable union movement, loud when it wants to be, silent when it matters.
So where do voters turn?
They turn to candidates who aren’t bound by party-room groupthink. To voices that can speak plainly without checking the factional script. To people who live in their communities, not behind parliamentary glass.
The reality of this shift is undeniable.
The crucial question now is whether the political system can adapt to this evolving landscape.
The consistent decline in the major parties’ primary vote, falling below 70%, then 60%, and now potentially 50%, is a clear warning sign.
The traditional political centre is not holding; it’s being rebuilt, brick by independent brick.