The 2022 Australian Election Study

The 2022 Australian federal election was distinctive in several ways. The election was the first in many decades to be held in the wake of a major crisis, in this case the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, almost one in three voters cast their ballots for a minor party or independent candidate, the highest since the 1930s. Of the two major parties, the Liberals fared worst, winning their lowest seat share since 1946. What explains this seismic result, and what does it tell us about the future of electoral politics in Australia? This drew on the recently released 2022 Australian Election Study – a comprehensive post-election survey conducted at each election since 1987 – to examine what drove voter behaviour in the 2022 Australian federal election. The discussion covered the impact of government performance, generational change, as well as what can explain the rise of the Teal independents.

This event was organised by the Queensland chapter of the Electoral Regulation Research Network (ERRN).

Speakers

Dr Sarah Cameron is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at Griffith University. She is a Chief Investigator on the Australian Election Study, funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project ‘Political Trust and Satisfaction with Democracy in Australia’ and an Investigator on the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. Cameron authors the series of major reports on Australian elections including, ‘The 2022 Australian Federal Election: Results from the Australian Election Study’ and ‘Trends in Australian Political Opinion 1987-2022’. Before joining Griffith University in 2022, she held appointments at the University of Sydney and was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University.

Professor Ian McAllister is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The Australian National University. He has been director of the Australian Election Study since 1987. His recent books include Australian Public Opinion, Defence and Foreign Policy: Attitudes and Trends Since 1945 (Palgrave, 2021, with Danielle Chubb) and The Australian Voter (University of New South Wales Press, 2012). He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Chair

Dr Ferran Martinez i Coma is Senior Lecturer in the School of Government and International Relations. An applied political scientist with consulting, public policy, research and teaching experience, his current research specialises in elections, electoral integrity, comparative politics, political parties and electoral behaviour. Before Griffith, Ferran worked at the University of Sydney within the Electoral Integrity Project and at the Centro de Investigaciones y Docencia Economicas (CIDE) in Mexico City.

The Australian Electoral Study

Access the 2022 Election Report here.