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In the debate over constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians since 2010, the high "Yes" vote in 1967 has been recalled as a benchmark of national unity and goodwill towards Indigenous Australians, something to which Australians must return. The 1967 referendum has been evoked as a "step" towards reconciliation, with constitutional recognition presented as the next step. The "recognition" that the 1967 referendum enabled has been (mis)represented as allowing Indigenous Australians to be counted in the Census, hence to "count" more generally. Explaining constitutional changes to voters in the referendum on an Indigenous Voice, "Yes" and "No" campaigns are likely to describe amendments in emotively powerful terms. False memories of "recognition" obscure a political fissure within the myth of 1967. Some who celebrate 1967 have wanted the Constitution to continue to distinguish Indigenous from non‐Indigenous Australians, one understanding of the 1967 amendment to Section 51(xxvi); others have hoped that the next referendum would complete the deletion of distinguishing words that had begun in 1967 with the repeal of Section 127. The myths of 1967 combine to accommodate opposing ideals of national "unity", allowing protagonists in the debate to read the "lessons" of 1967 in ways that reinforce their own political perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring party support in Australia by constructing a 'two-party preferred' vote has had a profound effect, not only on the way political scientists, journalists, and politicians understand electoral 'swing' and predict electoral outcomes, but also on their understanding of the party system, their thinking about electoral fairness, and their views about which party or parties can legitimately claim government. This article traces the origins - the maternity as well as the paternity - of the 'two-party preferred'. It documents its spread from federal to state elections, even as voting systems in some states have switched from exhaustive preferential to optional preferential. It discusses its wide-ranging impact, and its implications for notions of electoral fairness and the legitimacy of election outcomes. It evaluates various criticisms of the concept - technical, pragmatic, and conceptual. And it notes the implications for marginal seat campaigning of the commonly observed 'uniform swing'- implications completely at odds with the idea that marginal seats matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the expansion (and contraction) of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander franchise for Commonwealth, state and territory elections, and to a lesser extent local government elections; it outlines the arguments made for (and against) Aboriginal enfranchisement; and it examines alternative accounts of what drove the expansion (and contraction) of the vote. It pulls together data on Aboriginal enrolment, political awareness and party support, particularly in the Northern Territory. And it examines divergent views about the consequences of Aborigines having the vote: claims that the franchise is an empty formality; claims that it has allowed Aborigines to be manipulated; and claims that it has generated benefits — symbolic, expressive and instrumental. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While acknowledging that our study represents “a considerable advance on other studies of One Nation, its electoral support and social foundations“, and “correctly identifies the importance of conservative social attitudes of One Nation supporters“, Turnbull and Wilson take issue with three things: one of our key findings, based on the 1998 Australian Election Study (AES), that the vote for One Nation was driven by attitudes to immigration (among other things) rather than by a sense of economic insecurity; our argument around the fundamental difference between explaining the One Nation vote and distinguishing it from the vote secured by any of the other parties; and our refusal to cringe before the “comparative evidence about neo-populist parties“ or to defer to the superior wisdom of that political scientist extraordinaire, Australia’s present Prime Minister, John Howard.17 None of the points they make in relation to any of these things is even partly persuasive; for the most part, they are marred by errors of logic, fact, or interpretation. Each, however, is important - or potentially so. They merit, therefore, a response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper does three things. First, it offers a critique of the academic literature on the One Nation vote, focusing on the limitations of the work of political geographers and the methodological shortcomings of survey researchers. Second, it re-examines data from the 1998 Australian Election Study in order to explore the demographic and attitudinal forces that both drove the One Nation vote and distinguished it from the votes secured by the Labor Party, the Liberal and National parties and the Australian Democrats; this highlights the importance of gender, geography and class, of political alienation and of attitudes to Aborigines and immigration. Third, it suggests that the basis of One Nation's mobilisation did not lie in concerns about economic insecurity so much as in opposition to 'new class' values, particularly around race. In doing so, it challenges common understandings of the Party's constituency and of its distinctiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1996 election campaign, the Liberal-National Party Coalition pledged that if elected it would partly privatise Telstra. The pledge was a central part of its campaign pitch. This paper argues that the proposal came at a time when the tide of public opinion had moved against privatisation; it shows how the Opposition used poll data both to present its own proposal in the most favourable light and to portray the difference between its position and that of Labor Government's as minimal; and, using the surveys commissioned by both sides, it evaluates the success of this strategy. More generally, it suggests that in a "post-ideological" age, party ideology remains important. And it illustrates how polls can be used by parties not just to establish what the majority thinks but to galvanise support, neutralise opposition and convert those who harbour doubts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]