Search

During the October 2004 Australian federal election campaign the expected or possible effect of the election outcome on interest rates was a key point of differentiation between the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal–National Party coalition. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we examine whether this effect was a significant factor in the election outcome, as measured by the percentage swing towards the coalition in each electorate. Second, we use standard methodology from financial economics to examine whether the election outcome had an effect on interest rates. Contrary to media coverage of the campaign, we find that the election result did have an effect on interest rates but that the possibility of interest rate changes was not a dominant factor in the election result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the theme of the rise of the modern campaign—the electoral focus on polling, targeted appeals, and the professional, managed use of the media—as the strategic response by parties to the exigencies of electioneering in an era of increasingly fluid, weakly partisan electorates. Given New Zealand Labour's unparalleled policy-reversals since 1984, which rocked a political system noted for its stable, loyal partisan politics, it is argued the 1987 campaign constitutes a threshold election in which Labour's executive consciously embraced the modem campaign to deflect reactions to its unorthodox policies, and to allow appeals to newly heterogeneous bases of electoral support. Interviews with key figures in New Zealand's Labour and National parties afford the chance to examine this strategic tactic as a considered response to electoral uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]