I’m a swinging voter. Here’s why prospect of a new centre-right party has me excited

March 1, 2026 — 2:00am

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I’ve long been the archetypical swing voter. It’s now two decades since I first joined the queue at my local public school, nervously skirting the flyers thrust in my direction on the way in, checking whether I had enough coins in my purse for a sanga on the way out. I usually make up my mind before entering the booth, but on a couple of occasions I have been known to decide then and there, standing in front of the cardboard partition with pencil in hand.

Given the current state of Australian politics, figuring out who to vote for has never been harder.

My vote is usually a toss-up between a couple of candidates. Sometimes I like the local member but don’t like the direction their party is travelling. Sometimes my vote in a state election is influenced by the antics of federal counterparts. Sometimes I think the government has been there long enough and should be turfed out as a matter of principle.

I’m not an expert on voter behaviour, but I’d hazard a guess that such tendencies are pretty common in today’s Australia, where membership of political parties is at record lows and scorn for the political class is more widespread than ever. Voters like myself sit in the so-called “sensible centre” – all we want is decent leadership, good policies and the continuation of the quality of life that has delivered Australia decades of prosperity, but is now failing younger Australians. Sometimes this recipe can be found on the left and sometimes on the right, but it rarely strays far from the........

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