The electoral politics of economic reform in Australia: The 1998 election

Ian McAllister, Clive Bean

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    29 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Like many other advanced industrial democracies, Australia has experienced major and ongoing economic reform over the last two decades, the pace of which has, if anything, increased since the election of the Liberal-National government in 1996. These developments have led to a growing sense of economic insecurity among many voters. Many of these concerns were focused on the 1998 election, when the Liberal-National Coalition advocated the introduction of a goods and services tax. This paper uses the 1998 Australian Election Study (AES) survey to examine the impact of economic evaluations, economic insecurity and economic issues on voting in the election. The results demonstrate the existence of widespread economic concerns across the electorate, but that the Coalition gained a marginal electoral advantage on the tax reform issue. Economic issues were also a cause of defection to the new One Nation Party, although further analysis reveals that its support was motivated more by race and ethnic concerns than by economic discontent.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)383-399
    Number of pages17
    JournalAustralian Journal of Political Science
    Volume35
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2000

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