• Mike Steketee

30 August 2010Labor as well as the Liberals disregard the consequences of this trend at their peril, writes Mike Steketee in the Australian

WHAT a fluke. Who would have imagined an election so close that a few independents and a Green determine the next government?

Actually, a few people did but we haven't been listening much and neither have the main parties. Eight years ago, Lindsay Tanner observed: "There is a restructuring occurring which is reflected in the fragmentation of voting behaviour and the emergence of parties like the Greens and One Nation because it is increasingly difficult for the two major political forces to hold together under a single umbrella the disparate aspirations and interests of their constituencies."

Apart from being one of Labor's thinkers, events in his own back yard were focusing Tanner's mind…

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Photo: Andrew Jeffrey