What is a Majority Government?

When we talk about a majority government, we're talking about the makeup of the House of Reps.

Since there are currently* 151 seats up for grabs in the House of Reps, a party needs to win in at least 76 electorates across Australia to officially hold the majority.

(*electorates get redistributed every few years to account for Australia’s changing population. Due to changing populations in WA, NSW and Vic, this election will see the House of Reps drop back to 150 seats.)

Since all decisions in parliament are made by a majority vote, holding more than half of the seats means that a party in agreement can essentially pass any motion or bill (proposed law). Of course, the members can disagree, but they mostly do that behind closed doors in their party meetings. On the floor of Parliament and speaking to the public, they are a united front (think the coordinated choreography at Barbie’s big blowout party).

But wait, there’s more.

The party that wins a majority government also gets these sweet gigs:

• Deciding who the Prime Minister is. We just vote for the politician in our electorate, but the elected party members conduct an internal ballot to vote on who they think has the most rizz - amongst other things - to become the leader of their party. That lucky duck then gets to be the face of Australian politics while they’re in power.
• Appointing Ministers for the different sectors of federal power who are then responsible for specific portfolios.
  • e.g. Anthony Albanese appointed Tanya Plibersek as the Minister for the Environment and Water, so she gets the ultimate say on things like fossil fuel project approvals.
• Controlling how the House of Reps operates and spends their time.
  • You might remember Albanese calling an all-day National Cabinet Meeting to solely discuss the domestic violence crisis in Australia back in May? This power means that the majority government really dictates what gets airtime.
• Controlling the budget and national spending priorities.
  • Majority governments have to weigh up lots of competing priorities here, but ultimately shape what developments can end up being a success. In the most recent budget, for instance, the Albanese government committed $19billion to invest in renewable energy industries, which differs dramatically to how investment in climate was essentially left out of the previous Morrison government’s budgets.

‍

So, what's the point of the opposition and crossbench in a majority government?

The seats held by politicians outside of the majority are important for two reasons:

1. Every electorate gets a seat at the table. Maybe that’s obvious, but just because your electorate might not be represented by a politician in the party holding government, doesn’t mean your community is irrelevant. It’s your democratic right to be represented in the federal government, and we always encourage reaching out to your local member to make sure they’re aware of the concerns of the people they’re representing. When issues are raised, they can be a part of the discussion.
2. For any bill to actually become law, it needs to be passed in BOTH the House of Reps AND the Senate. It’s quite rare for the same party to hold a majority in both the House of Reps and Senate (it’s only happened two times in the last 40 odd years). If the government is proposing a law and it ignores the voices of politicians in other parties, it’s very unlikely that it will be supported in the Senate. The debate leads to bills being more balanced, representing the needs of the broad range of Australians, and ultimately being more achievable.

Even though members of a majority government have a lot of power compared to the other members of parliament, there’s still always debate with all members of parliament. The benefit of a majority government is that they can get things on their agenda done efficiently, but it’s not the only way that the government can be run...

‍

What Happens if No Party Wins a Majority?

Even if neither major party wins the minimum number seats required to ‘form government’, one of our major parties will still normally be in the lead with more seats than the opposition.

Their task then is to negotiate with cross-benchers (independents or politicians in minor parties) to essentially form an alliance to get them up to holding half of the lower house’s seats collectively. This mixed team is what we call a coalition (yep, that’s how the Liberal-National Coalition got their name; they are technically two separate parties, but have shared interests and so continue to work together to get the numbers up in order to form government - since like the 1940s!).

The end result is a minority government.

‍

But what if both major parties win the same number of seats?

We're so glad you asked.

In 2010, both Labor and the Liberal-National Coalition ended up with 72 seats each (shock, horror). Labor successfully gained the support of the Greens (who held one seat) and three Independents, getting them over the line to form a minority government. A similar result also occurred back in the 1940s. However, two cross-benchers who initially supported the Liberal party to form government, eventually changed over to supporting Labor just one year later.

By having no one party hold the majority, the cross benchers hold much more power to sway decisions. While arguments against this as an outcome suggest that it can take longer to get things through, the greater level of debate ends up meaning legislation passes that arguably better represents the broad range of perspectives across the country.