Sources of Electoral Support for the Australian Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate Elections of 1990 and 1993: A Comparative Analysis

Election to the Australian Senate under proportional voting and statewide quotas gives to minor parties of the political centre a chance to win parliamentary representation otherwise denied them in the single member constituency-based House of Representatives. Focusing on the Australian Democrats, vote splitting in the context of consistently higher levels of support for the Democrats in the upper house provides some evidence of differences among sources of electoral support between House and Senate, but within a context of general similarity of voter behaviour. Findings support a view that, as a party of ‘concerns’ rather than ideology, with a highly unstable support base, the future of the Democrats as other than a focus for protest must remain in doubt.