Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

The Australian party system
per cent to about 14.4 per cent. A similar fall in the percentage of the statewide vote
needed at full-Senate elections meant that it was now easier for minor parties to
reach the threshold required to win seats in the chamber.
The Hawke government also introduced the group ticket vote (GTV), which
simplified the method of voting for the Senate. Instead of having to number every
box on the Senate ballot paper, citizens could now indicate their first preference
by voting ‘above the black line’. Their preferences would be distributed by the
Australian Electoral Commission as per the instructions lodged by their preferred
party. 46 These changes to the Senate voting system coincided with a significant
change to the Senate party system, as shown in Table 1.
As Table 1 shows, there were just three minor parties elected in the 34-year
period between the adoption of proportional representation in 1949 and the last
election before the introduction of the Hawke government reforms in 1983.
Following the implementation of these reforms in 1984, however, 13 minor parties
won Senate representation in 32 years. The parties winning Senate representation
post-1984 have also been qualitatively different to those elected in the period
between 1955 and 1983, as will be discussed below.
‘Green’ parties in the Senate
The first minor party to win Senate representation following the Hawke government
reforms was the Nuclear Disarmament Party (NDP) in 1984. The party
opposed the Hawke government’s pro-uranium mining policies and support for the
broad foreign policies of the USA. 47 This was significant as it was the first time that
a party advancing a specific policy agenda concerning environmental, conservation
and humanitarian matters won Senate representation.
The party’s candidate in Western Australia (WA), Jo Vallentine, won a Senate
seat, but the party soon collapsed. Vallentine, however, advanced her party’s agenda
in parliament and was instrumental in creating the Vallentine Peace Group, which
then morphed into the WA Greens. The WA Greens, which pursued similar goals
to the NDP, continued to win Senate seats from 1990 onwards but was displaced as
the pre-eminent ‘green’ party by the Australian Greens in the mid-1990s.
The Australian Greens combined a range of conservation movements, especiallyfromtheeasternstates,tocreateanewparty.LedbyDrBobBrownfrom
Tasmania, the new party was able to win its first Senate seat in 1996. It advanced a
socially progressive agenda and emphasised cosmopolitanism, conservation, social
justice and humanitarian issues. 48 By the time of the 2004 election, the WA Greens
(which had been a separate political entity) had joined the Australian Greens
confederation, and the party displaced the Australian Democrats as the third force
46 See Green 2015a.
47 Quigley 1986, 14.
48 See Miragliotta 2006.
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