Oppositions since 1972: how they started and how they finished • Rodney Tiffen

Oppositions since 1972: how they started and how they finished • Rodney Tiffen

The competition between Australia’s two major political parties has two characteristics that encourage polarisation. As a zero-sum game, it doesn’t allow for mutual advancement or compromise; one side improves its prospects only at the expense of the other. As a winner-take-all game it creates an absolute chasm between the perks and opportunities of government and the frustrations and irrelevance of opposition. Competitions of this kind are not …