I have always been deeply sceptical of claims – repeated with metronomic regularity before every election – that Australia’s two-party system is breaking down. The last federal election was supposed to see a Greens breakthrough. They lost all but one seat. The teals were breathlessly proclaimed as heralds of “a new politics”. (Yawn.) Their numbers remained static: gained one (maybe), lost one. Labor emerged stronger than it has ever been. While the result was a catastrophe for the Coalition, the votes the opposition bled went to the government.

The twin guardrails of compulsory and preferential voting raise the barriers to minor parties and insurgents and protect us from the extremes of left and right. Although our politics sometimes seem fraught, among the democracies Australia is a model of stability.

Well may he laugh: Reform leader Nigel Farage’s party stands to attract the biggest block of votes at the next election.Credit: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

The story is very different elsewhere, where the franchise is exercised under different voting methods. Recent European elections have seen upheavals across the continent, with established postwar parties displaced by new political movements led by charismatic disruptors such as Emmanuel Macron in France, Giorgia Meloni in Italy and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands.

In Britain, a similar fragmentation of the major parties is increasingly evident – originally on the right, but now on the left as well. Although Labour won a smashing victory only a year ago, every major opinion poll finds it would now lose its majority. An average of the 10 leading polls, published on the government’s first anniversary, put the Reform party of Brexit leader Nigel Farage ahead........

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