Martin Kettle theguardian.com, Thursday 15 August 2013

Australia's candidates want to avoid a minority government, but whether they want it or not, strong majority governments are a thing of the past – and coalitions do work

Australian voters go to the polls to vote in 2010 in Bondi, Sydney. Photograph: Matt King/Getty Images

Yesterday both Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd made clear they did not want to entertain the possibility of a hung parliament – but mass parties, supported by millions of members and claiming to speak for a majority of a nation, are creatures of the 19th and 20th centuries, not of the 21st century.

Almost everywhere in the world, that form of majority politics is now in decline, reflecting rapid social change and challenged by greater political pluralism, greater voter volatility and much weaker and less hegemonic parties. This is not going to change any time soon, let alone by a return to the party systems of half a century ago.

One consequence is that governments increasingly have to adapt to 21st century realities in order to operate and survive. In much of the world, this means that governments are formed by coalition, either formally or informally. This has long been a formal reality in much of continental Europe – notably including Germany, most Scandinavian countries and Ireland – and in several other democracies, including Israel.

In recent years, formal coalitions have become common in the UK — both at devolved level in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and, since 2010, at UK level too. Australia has had an informal coalition, in the shape of a minority government operating with minor party support, since 2010. This is the shape of the future, not just of the present.

Politicians, especially from old majority parties, dislike coalitions. But voters increasingly like them and keep on electing parliaments which require them. So in modern politics the big question facing parties is not whether to compromise with others, but how.

Broadly speaking, there are two models. The first is to form a coalition before the election. The second is to form a coalition after the election, retaining a party’s core ideals and traditions during the election campaign but then trading with other parties to form an administration once the votes are counted. Increasingly there is no third way.

Majority minded politicians – including most UK and Australian politicians – talk as though single party majority government is synonymous, in a good sense, with what they like to call strong government. This is not true in many circumstances, even if it was still routinely attainable, which it increasingly is not.

To a significant degree, the ALP and the British Labour party are both coalitions already. Party discipline can become unenforceable on key issues or at pivotal moments in the election cycle, especially when a party has a small majority or is government as a minority. Individual members of parliament acquire disproportionate power to shape outcomes, which is not always healthy.

Historically, left wing parties tend to disparage coalitions, mainly for two reasons. First, left parties have emerged from a history in which they think of themselves as the party of the masses, or the many against the few. Their sense of historic mission is in conflict with the idea of compromise. That’s why, in the UK and Australia, there is always a tendency for the party of the left to prefer the idea of minority government to coalition. Minority governments are always fighting for their lives. But the left has always quite liked heroic failure rather than unheroic melioration.

Coalitions may not be strong governments in the old sense. But they work. They get things done. They endure – especially when a prime minister or chancellor cannot dissolve parliament, as is the case in Germany and Israel (and, as part of the coalition deal of 2010, in the UK too). They are often re-elected, as Angela Merkel’s CSU-FDP coalition may well be in Germany next month.

In the UK, it is by no means inconceivable that voters will decide in 2015 to impose another hung parliament, with another Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition a highly possible outcome. The politicians may dislike it, but they will have to adapt to it and get used to it. There is, as someone once said, no alternative – including in Australia.

What's so wrong with coalition governments? | Martin Kettle | Comment is free | theguardian.com