ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the results of the analysis and an assessment of how the campaigns met their apparent goals and objectives from the perspective of the traditional approach to strategic communication campaign planning.
The chapter offers a review of electoral data that suggest voter dissatisfaction with the major parties was manifested in the seats won by the Teals, and won or retained by, other independents not only by reductions in major party primary votes, but through an increase in non-voting and informal voting. The latter data suggest that some voters used non- and informal voting as a tactical protest: they could not bring themselves to vote for a major party they had supported regularly, nor for a Teal nor an independent, so they did not vote or voted informally.
Quantitative electoral data illustrate the impact of tactical voting on the major parties. The data inform the later qualitative analysis that explains, first, why and how the election result occurred and, second, the assessment of the major parties’ communicative action.
The quantitative data, in tandem with an assessment of the policy approaches of the major parties through the prism of the Overton Window and the application of Hallahan’s five publics model to the election result, explain, from a strategic communication perspective, why the 2022 election result was so devastating for the Coalition.
