Your questions about the election, answered

This podcast is produced in partnership with the Australian Electoral Commission. Camera already and.

This is the Daily This is the Daily OS.

Oh now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Sunday, the twenty seventh of April. I'm belief, it's Simon's.

I'm Sam because losky Sam.

Can you smell that?

Is that a democracy?

It is the smell of democracy in action. And we are so happy, aren't we, Sam, to be here on another Sunday with another bonus episode, this time on all of the questions that you have about Australia's election process. Think of this as going right back to the basics. We are doing politics one oh one.

It's a good time to tune in, isn't it. Because we are going to the polls next Saturday.

It is a very good time to tune in all of Australia. Like you said, Sam will be heading to the polls on Saturday day, the third of May, when the country will decide who will next form government. Now, Sam over on Instagram, We asked our audience what they wanted to know and we were completely inundated with questions. So today we are answering all of those questions.

Let's start off with the first one from Sharane. She asked what positions or roles are we actually voting for.

That's the perfect one to start us off because it does take us right back to the basics and it's really important for us to understand. So in this election, we're all actually voting for a couple of things at the federal election. So you're voting for who you want to represent your local area in the House of Representatives, and you're also voting for who you want to represent

Cool.

So it's in the House of Reps that voters will be electing someone from their area, which is also known as an electorate, and that person will speak on their behalf in Parliament. Now, Sam, do you know how many electorates there are in Australia, Well, I.

Do know that you need seventy six seats to win. That is true, So therefore there would be seventy five times two, which is one hundred and fifty.

That is true and a great guest because last election there were actually one hundred and fifty one electorates, but now there's been a redistribution and now, yeah, did you not know?

I didn't know that.

I love that you learned something new along with the audience. That's so good. So now there are one hundred and fifty electorates in Australia, and so that means that there are one hundred and fifty seats up for grabs in the House of Reps. And those electorates are based on population side, so there are roughly about one hundred and twenty thousand voters who live in each electorate.

And then I imagine that would mean that there's many electorates in a metropolitan city, but then an electorate might be really massive in the outback or exactly in some of the more regional areas.

Yeah, definitely. And each electorate will have several different candidates, usually one from each major party, so from the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, and then some from minor parties and others will also have independence running in that electorate, which means that they just don't belong to a registered party.

So it's kind of like, there's one hundred and fifty different races happening all at once, and the party or the coalition of parties that wins the seventy six number across the races is going to be the next government exactly.

So there literally are one hundred and fifty different races happening at once. Plus there's also the eight Senate races. I know, we said that we were just going to focus on the House of Reps, but you can't forget about the Senate, so there are also eight Senate races.

Race, which makes Saturday night, when everyone's counting one hundred and fifty races at once or trying to figure out what the numbers mean and where and why, it makes it such a chaotic, bit exciting night.

All the more exciting. Yeah, and it's because of this, of what's happening in all the different electorates that you won't actually see either Labor leader Anthony Albanesi or Liberal Party leader Peter Dunden on your ballot paper unless you are in their actual electorate. And it's also why when you know you're walking around your area and you see lots of posters up for the election, you're probably not

Is one of the big differences we have with the American presidential system. Yeah, where it's all about kind of the two leaders. We've got that one hundred and fifty race system. And when you said the House of Representatives is where the government's formed, tell me a little bit more about how that actually works, Like how do you form a government?

Well, you kind of just answer that by saying that they need to have at least seventy six seats. So to just take a quick step back, so to form government, a party needs to have at least seventy six of their party members winning their electorate. You kind of already did the mass for us, sam be I'll do it again. So seventy six is the magic number because it is a majority of the one hundred and fifty seats up.

For grabs, And I literally picture a pigraph of the House of Reps in my head, and see that kind of middle point. And if you can sneak over a little bit into the other side, you're forming government.

You're in government. And it's the Labor Party and the Coalition, which is made up of the Liberal and National Parties, who are usually the two groups who are able to form that majority. So they're trying to reach that number of seventy six seats at the election next Saturday.

And that might happen on Saturday night if they've got heaps of seats, but it might take a little bit longer, and they might have to kind of figure out deals with smaller parties and independence to form a minority government. Right.

Yes, And that is another question that we got a lot, which is what exactly is a minority government.

I hear that term thrown around a lot every couple of elections. I feel like it's kind of an almost predicted result every so often. Can you explain exactly what that means?

Yeah, So if no one reaches that magic number of seventy six seats, then that's when our attention turns to a minority government, which is also known as a hung parliament. And it means that the major parties will need to negotiate with minor parties or independents to form government. Now, this doesn't mean that those parties formally join forces or

Explain what that means.

Yeah, So that means that they agree to keep the government in power and to vote to pass the budget so that money can be allocated to keep the country essentially running. And in exchange for that support, minor parties and independents will likely impose some sort of conditions which could look like support for particular policies that are important to them.

I remember it would have to be maybe fifteen years ago or so. Now we went through one of these scenarios and it was down to a group of three independents to pick who they were going to back for that confidence and supply.

You're talking about when Julia Gillard was Prime Minister exactly.

Yeah, and I remember it almost feeling like a little bit of an Australian Idol style press conference when they were announcing who they were going to back, and it was incredible that we have this big system with all of these races all over the country, and because of the dynamics of that election, it all came down to who those independents were going to back.

I'm picturing like ten year old Sam or twelve year old Sam when that was going on TV. So excited.

But it can be really confusing.

It can be confusing, and so I want to just give you an example, and I'm going to use made up parties and policies here to just explain how a minority government works. So, Sam, let's say the Orange Party is a major party and they after the election has been held, only have seventy four seats.

So on my pigraph, in my head, they're not over the halfway line.

They're not over the halfway line, and so they need two more seats to form government and to get over that halfway line. And then let's say that we have the Pink Party, which is a minority party, and they have won two seats. So if the Orange Party and the Pink Party came together, then that would mean that they have seventy six seats and that's enough to form government.

It's such an interesting way that power can kind of evolve in those situations. I mean, it's a quirk of the system.

Yeah. And so basically, if you're kind of listening to this and a little bit lost, all you need to know is that when it comes to the House of Representatives, which is where government is formed, minor parties and independents are most important. When there is a minority government.

Can you imagine a country where everyone had a free puppy.

That's why I use that example because I think it would be a happier country.

I would try and figure out how to be selling like leashes or you've got that's incredible. Let's let's stick to a more real, listic scenario. Though. The next question came through. It's a really interesting one. Tell me about a marginal seat.

Okay, so a marginal seat is basically an electorate where it's not clear who's going to win because it appears to be a really close race.

But it's worth noting that we don't actually know who's going to win in any seat though, right.

No, that's true, But the AEC has a formal definition of a marginal seat, so they define it as one where the winner last time, So at the last election in twenty twenty two received less than fifty six percent of the final vote. Now, last election, they were actually about a third of the seat, so a third of the one hundred and fifty one remember last time, it was different. A third of the one hundred and fifty one seats that fit that description of being a marginal seat.

Okay, that's really interesting and it kind of gives you a little bit of guidance. If you're sitting on the couch next Saturday night watching the election, what you should be focused on is how some of those marginal seats are going to fall. Definitely, Billy, we've got time for one more question. What if the leader of the winning party doesn't win their seat, So Anthony Aberenezi or Peter Dutton, whoever wins, they're one of the one hundred and fifty races.

So in theory, that could happen because, like you just said, Sam, the leaders of the parties they don't just need to win the election, they also need to win the race in their electorate. Now, I do think it's worth mentioning that this is rare that it would happened, but it can happen. So the most recent example which I only learned about this whilst researching for this podcast, and I couldn't believe. I didn't know it was so interesting. You're a political not so you're.

Absolutely eleven year old Sam soaked this up.

Okay, So for those who don't know, the most recent example of something slightly similar happening is in two thousand and seven when John Howard, who was the incumbent Prime Minister at the time, and he was also the leader of the Liberal Party, he lost his electorate during the two thousand and seven election. He lost it to Kevin Right at Kevin O seven. How could we forget? But the difference with the question that you asked is that

Do you know who he lost his seat to.

I think it's a female journalist.

Maxine McHugh, a former ABC journalist.

Interesting who's no longer in politics.

No longer in politics, But for an eleven year old Sam aspiring journalist, that was pretty cool.

Eleven year old Sam is getting so much air time. He would be so proud, he would be so proud. But just quickly to answer your actual question of what would happen if a leader of a party lost their seat but the party won the entire election. If that happened, then the party would simply need to decide who the new leader of their party would be.

Right, So it's unlikely, but there is a process of what could happen should that be the case. And it does just remind us all that we operate in this party.

Structure and it is That's what I was going to say.

It's less about the prime minister.

It is much less about the prime minister because in Australia we are voting for which party we want to govern, not which leader we want to be our prime minister.

I feel like we were all taught that in school, but it's always worth reminding ourselves that that's how our system actually works.

Yeah, and you mentioned the differences with the US before. That's again the key difference. We are voting for the party, We're not voting for the leader.

It's really important to get familiar with the mechanics of the election and I think it's a point of pride always for me when we dive into how our democracy works, all the different tools available to politicians to get over the line get that magic seventy six seat number. Billy, thank you so much for taking us through that, Thank you so much, and we'll be back in your ears tomorrow morning for the final countdown towards the federal election.

See then, my name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Kalkotin woman from Gadigl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.