An Overview of the 2013 Federal Election Campaign: Ruinous politics, cynical adversarialism and contending agendas

'Boat People' and Discursive Bordering: Australian Parliamentary Discourses on Asylum Seekers, 1977-2013

“…Given the small numbers of arrivals relative to other immigration categories, the political fascination with boat people in Australia gives the term disproportionate power in public policy debates. That asylum seekers could consistently rank among the top three issues discussed during parliamentary Question Time from 2010 to 2013, for instance (alongside Australia's public debt and taxation policies) (Rayner & Wanna, 2015), is testament to its contemporary prominence in the public sphere. Such prominence motivates and in turn is abetted by the economic and political capital the issue generates in media and parliamentary theatres, where it can function strategically as a wedge issue that can win election campaigns and reassert national sovereignty to the domestic public and regional neighbours.…”

‘I’m Not Expecting to Lose …’: The Election Overview and Campaign Narrative

“…The previous federal election in September 2013 had turned out largely to be a foregone conclusion; Labor was not competitive and suffered a 'thumping defeat' while the Coalition, led by Tony Abbott, scored the second-largest majority in the parliament since 1945 (Rayner and Wanna 2015). Tactically, 'Abbott's gambit' in plumping for a strategy of outright opposition across a small number of wedge issues paid off and made the result somewhat inevitable (see Bean and McAllister 2015;Johnson and Wanna 2015).…”