Leadership Change, Policy Issues and Voter Defection in the 2010 Australian Election

Abstract

Leadership change formed the backdrop to the 2010 Australian federal election, with the replacement of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister by Julia Gillard, the country's first female Prime Minister. This article uses the 2010 Australian Election Study to examine patterns of voter defection between the 2007 and 2010 elections. The results show that the predominant influence on defection was how voters rated the leaders. Julia Gillard was popular among female voters and her overall impact on the vote was slightly greater than that of Tony Abbott. Defectors from Labor to the Greens disapproved of Kevin Rudd's dismissal from office. Policy issues were second in importance after leadership, particularly for those moving from the Coalition to Labor, who were concerned about health and unemployment. Overall, the results point to the enduring importance of leaders as the predominant influence on how voters cast their ballot.

Changing Leaders, ‘Mediscare’ and Business as Usual: Electoral Behaviour

“…Interestingly, a question in the AES about whether voters approved or disapproved of the move to replace Abbott revealed that a narrow majority disapproved (51 per cent, to 49 approved). This finding stands in contrast to when the Labor Party replaced Rudd with Gillard before the 2010 election, after which some three quarters of the AES sample disapproved (Bean and McAllister 2012). Table 10.6 looks in more detail at the images of the two main leadership rivals, Turnbull and Shorten.…”

“…The first variable in Table 10.3, gender, is a case in point. Over time, the so-called gender gap had virtually disappeared, but in 2010, when Australia's first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, contested the election, it reappeared, albeit with its direction reversed (Bean and McAllister 2012). In 2013, the gender gap closed up again (Bean and McAllister 2015), but in 2016 we see a pattern similar to that of 2010 in which women are more likely to support Labor than men (by 7 per cent) and also more likely to vote for the Greens than men (by 4 per cent).…”

“…While the issue agendas of the political parties tend to dominate the election campaign, it is increasingly becoming apparent that voters have their own issue agendas (Bean and McAllister 2015;Goot and Watson 2007;McAllister, Bean and Pietsch 2012). For example, voters repeatedly emphasise their concerns about policies relating to health, education, taxation and the economy in general, irrespective of the extent to which the major parties focus their campaigns on these issues.…”

Abbott's Gambit: The 2013 Australian Federal Election

“…A growing body of research has also been documenting how voters have their own issue agendas, which may or may not coincide with the emphasis placed on these issues by the political parties during the election campaign (Goot and Watson 2007;McAllister, Bean and Pietsch 2012). Thus, health, education, economic management and taxation repeatedly feature as election issues of significance.…”

Documenting the Inevitable: Voting behaviour at the 2013 Australian election

“…A growing body of research has also been documenting how voters have their own issue agendas, which may or may not coincide with the emphasis placed on these issues by the political parties during the election campaign (Goot and Watson 2007;Bean and McAllister 2012;McAllister, Bean and Pietsch 2012). Thus, health, education, economic management and taxation repeatedly feature as election issues of significance.…”