That’s much more true for Nixon in 1968 than Morrison in 2019
Because the US has a “hard” two party system - third party candidates have very little hope, especially at the national level; voting for a third party is indistinguishable from staying home, as far as the outcome goes, with some rather occasional exceptions
But Australia is different - Australia has a “soft” two party system - two-and-a-half major parties (I say “and-a-half” because our centre-right is a semipermanent coalition of two parties, one representing rural/regional conservatives, the other more urban in its support base). But third parties and independents are a real political force in our parliament, and sometimes even determine the outcome of national elections
This is largely due to (1) we use what Americans call instant-runoff in our federal House of Representatives, and a variation on single-transferable vote in our federal Senate; (2) the parliamentary system-in which the executive is indirectly elected by the legislature-means the choice of executive is less of a simplistic binary, and coalition negotiations involving third party/independent legislators in the lower house can be decisive in determining that outcome in close elections; (3) twelve senators per a state, six elected at a time in an ordinary election, gives more opportunities for minor parties to get into our Senate - of course, 12 senators per a state is feasible when you only have six states (plus four more to represent our two self-governing territories), with 50 states it would produce 600 Senators
And minor parties receive funding from the Australian Electoral Commission if they receive over certain percentage of votes.
It was 5% last time I cared to be informed by may be different now, and they would receive $x for each vote, or what ever it is now.
Currently minimum 4% of formal first preference votes, which gets you $3.499 per a first preference vote (indexed to inflation every six months)
Then you automatically get paid the first $12,791, and the rest of the funding is by reimbursement of substantiated election expenses.
This is per a candidate (lower house) or per a group (upper house). And this is just federal elections - state election funding is up to each state, but I believe the states have broadly similar funding systems.
https://www.aec.gov.au/parties_and_representatives/public_fu...
https://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/public_fu...
Note the US also has public financing for presidential campaigns, which is available to minor parties once they get 5% or more of the vote. But in the 2024 election, Jill Stein (Green Party) came third on 0.56% of the popular vote. The only third party to ever qualify for general election public funding was the Reform Party due to Ross Perot getting 18.9% in the 1992 election and 8.4% in the 1996 election. There is also FEC funding for primary campaigns, and I believe that’s easier for third parties to access, but also less impactful.
Also, there is nothing centre-right about Susan Ley.
She is the leftest left leaning leader of the Liberal party I’ve ever had the misfortune of having to live through.
She was absolutely on board with this recent Hitlerian “anti-hate” legislation that was rammed through with no public consultation.
Okay, that’s a bit uncharitable. We had 48 hours.
And the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security definitely gave the literal thousands of submissions due consultation before recommending the original, un-split bill pass.