An essay on independents and Australian politics

This was the final assessment for my Australian Politics class in my first semester. I responded to the prompt: "Are Independents better for Australian democracy than party-affiliated MPs?" It's not anything special, and got an 83/100 – with notes on making the argument clear from the introduction. To avoid being kept in suspense like my markers were, the position I arrive at is that parties are good for stable government in the House of Representatives, but the Senate has the potential to be reformed to be an "independents' house".

Independents and members of minor parties are on an upward swing since the 2022 federal election, where they gained seven new seats in the House of Representatives, and four of the forty seats up for election in the Senate (increasing to seven after the resignations of Tammy Tyrrell, Lidia Thorpe, and Fatima Payman). The question of how an increasing number of independent MPs will affect the Parliament is still open. Independents are unaffiliated from any party and can act in ways that party-affiliated members cannot, potentially in ways that improve the quality of democracy overall. This essay considers how independents differ from party-affiliated politicians, what exactly is the character of parliamentary politics that is desired, the implications of independent and party-affiliated politicians in the parliamentary process, and finally the feasibility of an increased role for independents in the Parliament.

Independent politicians, unlike party politicians, are free to develop their own platform and vote as they wish on bills in Parliament. The freedom to create an electoral platform is a benefit, but also presents challenges, since policy research must be done individually, instead of using a party’s existing policies. Independents do not necessarily know what issues the electorate cares about, or what solutions will be accepted. Once an independent is elected to the Parliament, they may vote as they like without being coerced by their caucus, whether Labor’s stringent Pledge (Weller, 1975, pp. 10) or the more relaxed Coalition whipping (McKeown & Lundie, 2002, pp. 8). They are also free to pursue their own agenda rather than following any party line, clearly demonstrated by Andrew Wilkie (Lohrey, 2013, pp. 15).

Independents have difficulties that party politicians avoid. An independent politician lacks the resources of a party-funded politician, reducing their ability to communicate with the electorate to gain recognition and approval (Rodrigues & Brenton, 2010, pp. 112). Recent elections have changed this story somewhat, with funding groups including Climate 200 and Advance donating to over two dozen independent candidates, successfully electing many (Vromen & Rutledge-Prior, 2023, pp. 308-309). Once elected to Parliament, independents may find it difficult to prove to their electorate that they had a real impact on the political process as a whole, due to their limited power as only a single member. This is even more so the case when the government has a majority in the house of parliament the independent sits in. In this case, the government can pass legislation without the need for any negotiation with other members of parliament, bypassing independents entirely. In addition, Parliamentary committees are often dominated, if not entirely made up of, party politicians, further limiting independents’ political access (Elder & Fowler, 2018, pp. 658-659).

It is important to note that the strengths of independent politicians are intrinsic to the nature of an independent, while the weaknesses are a consequence of existing within a party-dominated political system. That is to say, the freedom to develop policy and vote freely will forever remain, but the lack of resources, limited impact, and likelihood to be bypassed in policy deliberation could be resolved given structural changes. The question is whether those structural changes would be a benefit or a hindrance to Australia’s democracy, and whether independent-dominated politics would be an improvement over party politics.

Before considering the value of independent politicians for Australian democracy, the desired character of that democracy must be understood, and in particular, the role of the parliament within the wider democratic process. J. S. Mill, in his Considerations on Representative Government (2010, pp. 104) describes the parliament as an arena within which the validity of propositions are debated until the best outcome is determined through argumentation. This view coincides with Edmund Burke’s (1887, pp. 90) view on representation, that members of Parliament should use their reason and conscience to solve political problems on behalf of the electorate. That is to say, Parliament and only Parliament deliberates on issues of public importance. However, in contemporary times, the parliament is expected to accurately represent the views of the electorate in order to act in the best interests of the people (Leydet, 2015, pp. 236). The public sphere (Habermas, 1991) forms a much greater part of the deliberative process. This has led to Goodin’s (2005) work in “sequencing deliberative moments”, making clear that a significant role of the Parliament is to represent public debate and make political discussions visible and understandable to the public. In this way, the Parliament behaves like lawyers at a trial, making a clear and transparent case for the jury to decide what outcome they prefer by way of election. Both party-affiliated and independent politicians are to be judged on this measure.

So how well do they stack up? Starting with parties, there exists incentives for acting in ways inconducive to making political debate publicly understandable. Parties, and their members in Parliament, are often more focused on tearing down opponents than engaging in sensible policy discussion. As a result, a party cannot concede that their opposition was correct without an appearance of appearing incompetent (Holden, 2020).

Another incentive for bad political behaviour is the fact that parties and their sizeable bureaucracies exists solely to be elected, not to create good policy. In addition, political parties receive significant portions of their funding from private donors (Edwards, 2017, pp. 400-401), occasionally resulting in policy and debate in the interests of donors, not the public, such as in the case of the Pharmaceutical Guild (Hanrahan, 2017). Finally, when parties do focus on communicating with the public, they do not communicate to the whole public, but instead merely to fringe voters, since committed supporters will vote for the party regardless (Leydet, 2015, pp, 236).

Australia’s two-party system further distorts the communicative role of the Parliament. This is simply because there can only be as many sides to a story as there are voices to be heard. Issues become dichotomised (to a lesser extent trichotomised in the case of the Greens), creating a binary of right solution and wrong solution. This hampers nuanced discussion of the many complex issues that exist today. Unlike a trial, there are more than two possible perspectives and outcomes of any policy issue.

Independents are able to go further. Current independents widen the policy debate, including David Pocock and Andrew Wilkie’s focus on political donations, Wilkie’s work on gambling reform, and Pocock’s commitment to Canberra’s territorial rights. Some independents, such as Dai Le, have little to no explicit policy platform at all, focusing on representing their community on a case-by-case basis rather than seeking to be elected based on policy (Dai Le, 2024; Stayner, 2023). Independents also tend to behave more cooperatively with their fellow members of parliament, notably standing together in Question Time this year to oppose Coalition misogyny (Canales, 2024).

Beyond the parliament itself, there are further implications of party-affiliated and independent politics for the wide political process. Parties group issues together into wide platforms, with issues as diverse as fiscal policy, migration, healthcare, manufacturing, tourism, and sport. This means that individual voters cannot have their voices heard on individual topics, and are only able to choose between two or three large policy platforms. The average voter likely prefers some but not all of the policies of the party they vote for. Independent candidates, by contrast, add more options to the table, partly causing the success of Teal independents in Liberal party seats (McAllister, 2023, pp. 317). However, this can increase the burden of choice on the electorate, with more attention on political affairs demanded of citizens.

At present, governing parties engage in relatively simple negotiation in Parliament. With a majority in the lower house all but assured by single-member preferential voting (Sheppard, 2024), the government usually negotiates with a single bloc in the Senate – either with the opposition (since the two major parties are tending to be closer and closer together ideologically) (Sheppard, 2024), or with the Greens, in the case of Labor. This silences the voices of as much as half the Parliament. It is harder to know how exactly negotiation in an independent-dominated Parliament may work in Australia, but Nebraska’s non-party unicameral legislature successfully passes laws without caucuses, forming new majorities for every bill, similar to Tasmania’s upper house (Weeks, 2015, pp. 64). All over the world, but particularly in the Pacific, democracies are governed without parties (Anckar & Anckar, 2000, pp. 226). What is undoubtedly true is that more voices will result in more complex and nuanced negotiation, possibly resulting in more sensible legislation.

This is similar to the original intent of many Westminster upper houses including the House of Lords – to have non-partisan members review bills passed by the lower house. Only Tasmania’s upper house continues to resemble this model in a democratic fashion, with other state upper houses becoming party houses and the House of Lords continuing to be unelected.

In the cases of Nebraska and Tasmania, the independent legislatures do not need to form executive government. They would face significant trouble if they did, a clear weakness of an independent-dominated politics, as was the case in the proto-party years of early Federation (Godbout & Smaz, 2016, pp. 478). In addition, the difficulty of managing wide and complex portfolios of today all but requires the stability and confidence a party majority provides.

The benefit or harm that independents provide to Australian democracy depend on the system through which they participate in politics. At present, independents are structurally inhibited from gaining a dominant position, primarily due to the electoral model and limited resources. Even if they gained a majority in Parliament, they would still struggle to form government.

Parties, at least for the time being, appear necessary for the formation of government. But this problem doesn’t exist in the Senate, which already has a larger crossbench by percentage. It is here that independents could play a significant role in improving the political process. They could work together to widen the policy spectrum by initiating bills and forcing a government response in the lower house. This could also help the Senate hold the government to account and act as a house of review, with both the government and the opposition parties unable to blindly support or oppose contentious legislation. Increased political freedom may result in more diversity of criticism as well as meaningful negotiation and amendment of legislation. Independents in the Senate could accurately represent the population’s views without being forced into the two-party binary. Independents, responsible solely to their electorate and not any party, may also potentially better ensure the parliament succeeds in its role of representing public debate and communicating political affairs to citizens.

This model would require some structural changes to the parliamentary system.

First, public funding for all candidates would need to increase in order to balance out the resource gap between parties and independents. Second, some reform would be necessary in the Senate electoral process, including an end to the priority given to parties through above the line voting. Independents in Parliament have unique strengths over their party-affiliated colleagues. They can facilitate wider policy discussion beyond party talking points. They can induce nuanced debate and negotiation. They are responsive to their electorate only. They are free to vote with their conscience, following either their reason or the will of their voters, without caucus pressure. Yet, this autonomy makes stable government all but impossible, requiring the executive branch to be chosen in a different way, either in another house or a separate presidential-style election. Independents improve Australian democracy, but only within certain constructs. The model of an amended Senate provides an option to take advantage of the benefits of independents without concern for the problem of government.

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