A volatile minority government may be the lesser evil when compared with the narrowly cast and ineffectual governments of the past decade
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The sword of minority government hangs over the major parties. It has threatened their viability ever since the shock of the 2010 federal election, when the Australian people cut down a first-term Labor government but stopped short of returning the Coalition to office.
Neither side commands an electoral base broad enough in the 21st century to guarantee that power, once secured, can be sustained for more than a single three-year term. That recognition had destabilised our democracy in the decade just past, as Labor and Coalition governments sacrificed four prime ministers between them to appease the impatient gods of opinion polling.
