The concept of the level playing field: Assessing fairness in electoral competition

In 2019, the High Court of Australia used the term ‘level playing field’ no less than 18 times when considering limits on electoral campaign expenditure. This article examines the usefulness of this metaphor when assessing the opportunity to compete in elections on an equal basis. It shows that the metaphor is often used in electoral jurisprudence and by electoral monitoring bodies, but rarely subject to analysis. One place where it has been analysed is in the democratisation literature, where it is defined in terms of access to state resources, media, and the law. However, it needs further elaboration to make it useful in analysing the fairness of electoral competition in established democracies. The assumption of only two teams, incumbents and opposition, needs to be modified through considering the hierarchy of incumbency benefits. A case study of the 2019 Australian federal election illustrates the differential access to state resources of electoral contenders as well as the need to add the role of private money to the attributes of the playing field. It finds that although there has been some levelling of the playing field at the State and Territory level, at the federal level there has been further tilting.