PAST ELECTION Date of election: 13 March 1993 (37th Election)
Result: The Labor Party closely won for the fifth consecutive year with a percentage of 51.44%. They won two new seats in the House of Representatives (from 78 to 80 of the 147 seats at that time).
The Labor Party with Paul Keating who had had been Prime Minster since 1991 and the Opposition Party which was the coalition with the Liberal and National Party. This coalition was led by John Hewson and his partner was Tim Fischer from the Nationals.
Minor parties were were the Liberal Democratic Party, and The Greens (that stood in parliament for the first time), The Natural Law, Confederate Action, Call to Australia, Independent EFF, Rex Connor Labor, Citizens Electoral Council, Indigenous Peoples, Against Further Immigration, Grey Power, Abolish Self Government and the Independents.
Note: Due to the eight of the twelve parties on this list being deregistered, limited information is available about the leaders of these parties.
What seemed to be the major issues and concerns at the time?
The late 1980s to early 1990s was a time of recession for Australia as a result of the 1987 Stock Market Crash (Black Monday). Australia’s Gross Domestic Product (the price of all goods and services produced in a nation in one year) has lowered by 1.8%. As a result, unemployment rose to 11.25% due to businesses having to fire employees, inflation increased and working class Australians became concerned with whether they could keep their jobs and afford to provide for their families. This meant that for both the Labor and Liberal parties, they capitalised on the unemployment rate by promising to create new jobs to end this crisis.
Indigenous rights were also supported more by Australians resulting from the 1992 Mabo Decision that settled the dispute that the British had wrongfully claimed land that belonged to the Indigenous people and that Australia was not empty land (terra nullius). This also meant that Indigenous people could take land rights cases to the courts and be taken seriously in their land rights claims. Support was also shown by Paul Keating during his Redfern Address on the 10th of December 1992 where he discuss the harm caused to Indigenous people by European settlement.
The Liberal Party was concerned with the economy, which resulted in the Fightback! Campaign, an attempt to help Australia’s economy grow after the recession. A significant policy in this campaign was the introduction of Goods and services tax (GST) for the first time in Australia. This tax would be 15% of every GST item and would lower the price of products overall as tax isn’t continuously added at each stage of production. They also aimed to abolish taxes such as coal exports and payroll as well as promising to assure health security.
The Labor party wanted to create economic growth after global economic recession by promoting trade with Asian countries. They aimed to do this by growing Australian companies that can export goods to ensure that they do so to Asian countries, as a result furthering the economy and foreign relations. A minor slogan for their campaign “We’ve turned the corner,” was English saying that means that they’re overcoming difficulty, implying that they are attempting to overcome the economic recession. They promised that they would make an agreement with worker’s unions that would result in reduced inflation and consistent work hours, keeping Medicare (as the Liberals planned to remove it) as well as benefits to care for the sick, elderly and unemployed. Finally, they promised to help small businesses recover from the recession, an example of this being through the 33% tax on the business’ profits as opposed to the 42% that the Liberals offered. However, the Labor parties campaign was in addition a scare campaign against the Liberal Party, this resulted in their policies being based off rebutting the Liberal Party.
The Natural Law (NLP): This party aimed to act within the laws of nature whose major policy was the “Maharishi’s Master Plan.” This plan was named after the Indian meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi best known for creating Transcendental Meditation. This party advised against modern medicine and using ‘positivity’ through meditation as a shield for Australia.
Confederate Action: This right wing party’s policies consisted of using convicts as labour as it was during Australia’s founding, denying all applications of political asylum (people having to leave their country to avoid political conflict) and reintroducing the death penalty. This party didn’t win any seats and was accused of having radical views.
Call to Australia: Now known as the Christian Democratic Party, this party aimed to promote the common good using its Christian values.
Independent EFF: The Independent Enterprise, Freedom, Fighters party and aimed to reduce workers compensation, abolish unemployment benefits.
Rex Connor Labor: This party, founded by a former labor minister Rex Connor, was founded to rival the ideas of liberal economy.
Citizens Electoral Council: This party began in 1992 promoted economic development after global economy recession that affected Australia as a result.
Indigenous Peoples: As the name suggests, this party advocated for the rights of Indigenous Australians such as better education, healthcare and ending discrimination against Indigenous people.
Against Further Immigration: This anti-multiculturalism party promoted stronger border protection to ensure that immigrants are unable to enter Australia and to ensure job security for Australians.
Grey Power: This deregistered party began as a lobby group and campaigns for the rights of people over 50, this includes increasing pensions and better aged care.
Abolish Self Government: This party campaigned against self government that had been established in the Australian Capital Territory in 1988.
In what was known as the ‘Birthday Cake Interview,’ the leader of the opposition John Hewson was interviewed by Mike Willesee about the effects of Goods and Services Tax (GST) that the Liberal Party were keen to introduce. Willesee asked the question of whether adding GST to a birthday cake would make of the cake price increase. Hewson then answers the question by rambling on about how this would depend on what type of cake it was, whether it was decorated with candles and its flavour. Willsee intervenes and asks again for a more direct answer, and he eventually claims that there is an issue if a birthday cake is so complex. This embarrassed the Opposition as it suggested that the party’s leader didn’t understand his own policy, thus making himself subject to criticism by the Labor Party. As a result, media bias shifted in favour of Labor as newspapers were able to capitalise on the idea that John Hewson didn’t know his own policy. This was a critical point in the campaign and the Liberal Party’s popularity quickly declined, resulting in Labor’s victory once again. This then lead to the winner Paul Keating during his victory speech to claim that this election has been “the sweetest victory of them all.”
Ultimately, many Labor campaign highlights and lowlights revolved around rebutting the Liberal campaign’s policies. In response to the Fightback! Campaign, due to not many Australians understanding the complex policy, Paul Keating retaliated at Hewson by calling him a “feral abacus” and telling the public that “If you don’t understand it, don’t vote for it; if you do understand it, you’d never vote for it” as opposed to deconstructing the policies that the Liberals had made. Another action against the Liberal party was when Keating entered a cake shop to discuss the detrimental effects that introducing GST would have on his business. However, this action backfired as the store owner claimed that he was instead interested with abolishing payroll tax, a policy that the Liberals aimed to implement.