Independents may build on Australia’s history of hung parliaments, if they can survive the campaign blues

By Joshua Black, Visitor, School of History, Australian National University

Major parties used to easily dismiss the rare politician who stood alone in parliament. These MPs could be written off as isolated idealists, and the press could condescend to them as noble, naïve and unlikely to succeed.

In November 1930, when independent country MP Harold Glowrey chose to sit on the crossbench of the Victorian parliament while his few peers joined the new United Country Party, the local newspapers emphasised that he could not “become a cabinet minister” or “have a…

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