Disaffection in Australia

Abstract

Support for minor parties and independents at Australian Federal elections more than doubled in two decades from 15% in 2007 to 33% in 2025. Relatedly, there has been consistent rises in popularist parties around the world, especially right-wing parties, this century. This includes Italy, France, Greece, Sweden, Netherlands, Hungary, Austria, Germany, USA, Poland, Belgium, and for a short period, the UK. In this policy forum, we examine whether this drift from centralist Australian political parties parallels the trends and drivers present in other Western economies.

Populism typically presents enticingly simple answers to address complex problems. The binary populist narrative of the ‘pure people’ against the ‘corrupt elite’ undermines democratic systems and erodes the rule of law (Hisarciklioglu et al. 2022; Aktas 2024). Studies suggest several motives: cultural conservativism (coupled with anti-immigration); distrust of institutions and elite experts; and economic insecurity from declining employment opportunities, globalism and poor career paths. These can be summarised as the loss of one's self-perceived ‘entitled’ status (Ali et al. 2023; Friedrichs 2025; Aktas 2024).

The less economically secure strata of society, those on low wages; the long-term unemployed, and people from declining industries, see elections as an opportunity to punish the political and economic mainstream. This anger is often fuelled by candidates who play into this antagonism – somewhat reminiscent of Europe post-WWI. Aktas (2024) claims that the disaffected strata in Europe are frustrated with mainstream political parties' responses to economic and social problems.

Despite Australia's largely absolute rejection of extreme right platitudes in the 2025 federal election, which resembled right-wing politicians in the USA and Canada, it is clear that Australia must remain vigilant. Botha et al. (2025) argue that although Australia has not yet experienced the extreme polarisation and democratic erosion observed elsewhere, current trends put Australia on a similar trajectory. The three studies in this Policy Forum use unit record (person-level) data over an extended period to identify the disaffected citizens who are attracted to the minor parties and to investigate which factors appear to be driving these views.

The first study by Prakash et al. (2025) finds a negative association between experiencing energy poverty and voting intentions. They find that energy-poor households are 8 percentage points less likely to support either major party compared to alternatives and that energy-poor households are 1.4 times more likely to vote for right-wing populist minor parties compared with other minor parties or independents. They believe that experiencing energy poverty reduces support for renewable climate policies due to the perception that they raise household energy costs ‘on the backs of the poor’. The link between energy-poverty and voting intentions was also found in Spain and Sweden (Bolet et al. 2024; Brännlund et al. 2024; Brännlund and Peterson 2024).

The second article by Botha et al. (2025) tracks consumer sentiment since 1995 to reveal that economic pessimism is broad-based rather than confined to particular constituencies. Voters with negative economic expectations are significantly more likely to support minor parties or independents, and this association has strengthened since the mid-2010s. Both real and perceived economic dissatisfaction, especially since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), is related to unmet policy demands and long-standing dissatisfaction with government performance. This is surprising given the comparatively stable prevailing macroeconomic conditions in Australia during and since the GFC. They suggest that it is perceptions of performance – rather than actual economic crises per se – that accounts for the declining support for major parties.

They warn that without credible responses to fundamental issues like inequality, housing affordability and the cost of basic healthcare, political disaffection is likely to intensify. Voters increasingly view both the Coalition and Labor governments as unresponsive to their needs.

In the last article, Wilkins (2025) delves deeper into labour market experiences. He uses HILDA data to show that since 2001, access to full-time employment for young men without university qualifications, declined markedly. This was especially pronounced between the arrival of the GFC and 2018. By comparison, the wage-bargaining system has protected low-wage workers, and the growth in mean wages for men aged 18–39 without university qualifications was comparable to that of older men (19% between 2001 and 2023). Wilkins goes on to claim that the Australian system of wage determination, being more regulated than in the US, has ensured that less-skilled workers have achieved comparable or even greater wage growth than higher-skilled workers.

This lacklustre employment outcome has been reflected in subjective well-being. Changes in the three studied satisfaction measures have been the least favourable for male employees in the bottom quintile of the earnings distribution. Men in the bottom quintile also experienced the biggest decline in club membership and in level of trust in others. For women, there are no consistent patterns. Wilkins notes that although there are some indications of a link between wages and changes in ‘disaffection’ measures, wage changes this century seem unlikely to be a big driver of voter disaffection.

All authors comment on what can be done to forestall the slide into European and US-style populism.

According to Botha et al. (2025) housing policies that deal with first homebuyer grants and tax concessions without addressing supply constraints can be self-defeating. Similarly, the failure of governments to implement recommendations from the Royal Commissions into aged care, banking, and disability services could be a factor in disaffection.

Elsewhere in the world, commentators have focussed on the role of social media and partisan media in distorting public perception and shaping policy debates in ways that do not necessarily reflect broader societal concerns. Of concern to countries with voluntary voting is the weakening of traditional mechanisms of democratic accountability as politicians can secure power by catering to ideological extremes, and convince marginal voluntary voters that voting is futile anyway.

There are clearly no quick band-aid solutions, in which politicians can simply change some trivial policy levers to address these complex reactions. Well-thought-out solutions, likely requiring broad support in the voting population, will be required to address the concerns of the economic and politically disaffected. The landslide victory of the left-centrist Labor party in Australia in 2025 was not at all foreseen. If adequate policy responses to these real or perceived problems are not delivered by the 2025 Albanese government with its current sizable political mandate, it is entirely possible that the pendulum will swing the other way in the next election. The current situation in Trump's United States is an example of this previously unthinkable real possibility for Australia.