Both major parties are heading towards record low primary votes at this election, is this the beginning of the end of the two-party system in ?
The final Ipsos poll for Daily Mail recorded what would represent record low primary votes for both major parties, if those sort of numbers play out tonight.
Ipsos gave the Coalition just 33 percent first preference votes, but the situation was even worse for Labor at just 28 percent.
Labor is still expected to win this election, in no small part because it gets the lion’s share of Green preferences, and the Ipsos poll gave the Greens 12 percent support.
The Ipsos two party vote can in at 51-49 percent in Labor’s favour, suggesting minority government is in the offing.
Labor won in 2022 with a record low primary vote, just 32.6 percent.
Winning with 28 percent would be unthinkable if the Coalition’s support hadn’t also fallen dramatically, which is has.
So is this the end of the two party system? Will we see minor parties rise up to challenge the dominance of the major parties? No, or at least not for a while.
While independents and minor parties are doing well on first preferences, even having a preferential voting system helps keep the majors in power.
And it looks like if anything there will be fewer crossbenchers represented in this coming parliament than the last one.
Greens and perhaps teals look like losing seats, as well as other crossbench MPs.
The class of 2022 had more crossbenchers than ever before.
So the two party system, which has existed in for more than 100 years, might not survive another hundred years, but it will certainly survive tonight, and probably for a few more electoral cycles to come.