ISSUES IN THE 1993 ELECTION

On the face of it there are good grounds to assume that 1993 may have been an exception to the rule that issues debated in Australian federa l election campaigns do not generally have strong effects on electoral choice in the end. The government was beset by a poor recent economic record, emphasised most strongly by the recession and record levels o f unemployment. Economic theories of elections suggest that such diffi culties ought to have been a major liability for the government. Again st this the opposition approached the election with the highly unusual strategy of advancing its own agenda of radical economic reforms, mos t prominently the goods and services tax and proposed changes to the i ndustrial relations system. Issues relating to health care, family sup port and child care also featured prominently in the campaign and the question was frequently raised as to whether women and men would respo nd differently on such matters. This paper analyses the impact of thes e and other campaign issues on voting behaviour at the 1993 election a nd finds that certain issues did have a significant impact on the part y balance, most notably among floating voters, where Labor had a decid ed advantage.