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Most federations, including Australia, have systems of fiscal equalisation which transfer income between States. Economists have long studied the economic efficiency and equity arguments for and against such transfers. This paper concentrates instead on the political aspect; namely, it asks whether federal political parties wishing to maximise their expected votes at election time would ever support a system of equalisation, particularly one which mandates efficient transfers of the type studied by economists. The answer, found using a two-State model of a federation in which voters are mobile, is in the affirmative: the political process delivers an efficient and equitable system of equalisation. However, the result depends on certain assumptions. The implications of these assumptions are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the patterns of television news coverage of the political parties, their leaders and the issues they raised during the 2001 Australian federal election campaign. By focusing on some issues, parties and leaders, television has long been argued to constrain voters' evaluations. We find that television news coverage in the 2001 Australian election campaign focused primarily on international issues, especially terrorism and asylum seekers, and on the two major parties - virtually to the exclusion of coverage of the minor parties and their leaders. Within the major party 'two-horse race', television gave substantially more coverage to the leaders than to the parties themselves, thereby sustaining what some have called a 'presidential'-style political contest. John Howard emerged as the winner in the leaders' stakes, garnering more coverage than Labor's Kim Beazley. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of lower-house seats at Australian State and federal elections rely on a distribution of preferences from Independent and small-party candidates before seats can be awarded. Actors have attempted to gain political capital from this situation by claiming that the preferences of particular small parties have affected election outcomes. This paper uses the events of the Western Australian State election held in 2001 to explore the validity of such claims. More specifically, it investigates the widely propagated contention that the One Nation Party' s anti-sitting-member preference strategy was a key determinant of the Coalition's electoral defeat. It concludes that the increased number of candidates contesting elections makes it difficult to assess whether the second and subsequent preferences of any particular small party were critical to the outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of the Internet, specifically the World Wide Web (WWW) and e-mail on Australian parties in two key areas: (1) party communication: what exactly are parties using their Websites for? and (2) party competition: does the Internet lower the threshold for smaller parties to communicate their message compared with the traditional media? We examine these questions with two types of data—a questionnaire of party communication staff and content analysis of a representative sample of party Websites. Our findings show, first, that Australian parties have taken a fairly cautious approach to the new medium, using it primarily as an information storehouse rather than putting it to more innovative use. Second, while almost all Australian parties have a Web presence, there is a divide between those parties with parliamentary representation and those without in terms of their site quality and visibility on the Web. The study concludes by interpreting the findings in the context of research on parties' use of the Internet worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Making his first speech to Liberal Party MPs after his victory in the October 2004 Australian federal election, Prime Minister John Howard said that he was 'a great believer in perpetual campaigning' and that the government campaign to win the next election had already begun. The concept of the permanent campaign is important to understanding modern political communication. While an increasing number of voters are claiming to be making up their mind who to vote for in the last week of the formal election campaign, they are influenced in their decision by political messages received well before the formal campaign period. The 2004 Australian federal election displayed many features of permanent campaigning; in particular the advantage permanent campaigning affords the government over the opposition. The Government Members' Secretariat is an example of such advantage. Modern campaign methods such as focus groups, qualitative polling, voter databases, and strategic use of Senate resources for House of Representatives races are used on a permanent basis to build a communications strategy. The resources of the state, including government advertising, postal and office entitlements of members of parliament, are used to research and communicate with the electorate. While many of these techniques have been under development while also being in use for some time, it is only recently that they have been successfully coordinated to the extent that we can now say that the permanent campaign has reached Australia. This article examines this process in the lead-up to the 2004 Australian federal election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of candidates’ and parties’ web use during elections have focused primarily on the contents of their websites and the reasons behind the adoption of the technology. Evaluations of the electoral impact of web campaigns on voters have been limited and inconclusive. This study uses data from the 2004 Australian Candidate and Election studies to investigate the factors determining candidates’ use of web campaigning and its effect on the vote. The findings show that enthusiasm for web campaigning is strangest among established party members. More significantly, we show that despite being linked with traditional campaigning techniques, web campaigning exerts an independent and significant impact on the level of electoral support that a candidate receives. We investigate how this effect may be taking place and conclude that web campaigning, at least under present electoral conditions, constitutes an important component of a winning election strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern political campaigning is becoming increasingly professionalised to the extent that in Australia today the major parties use electoral databases to assist with their campaigns. The electoral databases of the Coalition ( Feedback ) and the Australian Labor Party ( Electrac ) store information on the constituents of each House of Representatives seat. The information gathered in the databases, such as the policy preferences and party identification of individual voters, are used by candidates for House seats to tailor correspondence to swinging voters, and to identify potential party supporters. Party organisations aggregate the information in the databases and use it to conduct polls and focus groups of swinging voters, and to tailor policy development and campaign strategies. Electoral databases have the potential to improve the level of communication between elected representatives and their constituents. There are, however, a number of ethical problems associated with their use. While the usefulness of the databases to the major political parties is undeniable, their use underlines the trend in modern campaigning towards targeting swinging voters at the expense of the majority of the electorate. Considerable public resources are devoted to the smooth operation of the databases. They would be much less effective were political parties not exempted from the Privacy Act. The use of personal information collected by members of parliament by political parties should be more closely regulated. Despite the wishes of the major political parties to keep their operation a secret, the advantages and disadvantages of the use of electoral databases should be more widely debated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the political scenario in Australia. Platforms of the political parties; Impact of an August 2001 crisis involving Afghan asylum-seekers in Australia; Results of the state elections in March 2002.