Do independents like to party? The rise in independent and minor party MPs in Australian parliaments since 1970

Abstract

Commentary about the successes of the ‘Teals’ and the Greens in the 2022 federal election echoes scholarship regarding the ongoing fragmentation of major party support, weakening partisan alignment, and the rise of post-materialist voting since the 1970s. To explore the dynamics behind this trend, we construct a novel dataset of independent and minor party members of parliament elected to single-member electorates in Australian lower houses since 1970, empirically exploring the circumstances through which these candidates are successful. Tracing the rise of independent and minor party MPs, we observe that initially, these MPs often emerged through lower levels of government and outside organised politics, while, more recently they have succeeded through party structures and what we term ‘party-like’ forms of organisation. Our results suggest that political fragmentation is increasingly a challenge to conservative politics, especially via the rise of organised party-like independents, representing a realignment from the twentieth century.