The Liberals, the senate, and preferences

However, the method of voting is not the reason the Coalition has been so dismally unsuccessful in the Senate. They did poorly both before and after the system was changed.

The primary reason is the reluctance of the Liberals (as the dominant party in the Coalition) to establish beneficial relationships with minor parties on the right.

The party’s attitude, mostly found among its national and state directors rather than its elected representatives, is that any party that competes for primary votes is a foe, irrespective of any assistance they might provide via preferences.

There is also little interest in helping a candidate from a sympathetic minor party win a Senate seat rather than Labor or the Greens, if the Liberals cannot win it themselves

There have been exceptions – a couple of minor parties that supported them on every vote – but the contrast with Labor is stark. While Labor has always been open to negotiating with other parties, somewhat irrespective of policies or history, the Liberals engage reluctantly if at all. And when they do it is often too late, being close to the election when deals with other parties are already in place.

Their treatment of my party, the Liberal Democrats (now Libertarian Party), illustrates their thinking. Not only were they always reluctant to engage on the issue of preferences, in 2021 they changed the law to prevent my party from having the word “liberal” in its name. That cost the Liberals many preferences. The architect of the change was a former state director.

Under the group voting ticket system the Liberals could probably have won several more Senate seats if they had negotiated preference deals with some of the many minor parties. They not only did not know how to do this; they did not want to.

Under the Turnbull system, preferences are mostly exchanged via how-to-vote cards, which many voters automatically follow. If they had negotiated deals with minor parties on these, there is similarly a good chance the Coalition could have won more Senate seats.

Whether the Liberals can recover from their current malaise to regain government is a moot point at the moment, with One Nation snapping at their heels. But even if they do, unless they adjust their thinking to the realities of the voting system they introduced, their ability to govern will continue to be severely compromised.