Issues in the 1993 Election

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Abstract
On the face of it there are good grounds to assume that 1993 may have been an exception to the rule that issues debated in Australian federal election campaigns do not generally have strong effects on electoral choice in the end. The government was beset by a poor recent economic record, emphasised most strongly by the recession and record levels of unemployment. Economic theories of elections suggest that such difficulties ought to have been a major liability for the government. Against this the opposition approached the election with the highly unusual strategy of advancing its own agenda of radical economic reforms, most prominently the goods and services tax and proposed changes to the industrial relations system. Issues relating to health care, family support and child care also featured prominently in the campaign and the question was frequently raised as to whether women and men would respond differently on such matters. This paper analyses the impact of these and other campaign issues on voting behaviour at the 1993 election and finds that certain issues did have a significant impact on the party balance, most notably among floating voters, where Labor had a decided advantage.