The Scenario They Didn't Want

In late May I presented at the Sustainable Agriculture Summit in Toowoomba, Hosted by Agriculture Minister Murray Watt and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen Queensland. The presentation was on possible futures for agriculture in a net zero carbon future. Following the presentation, I facilitated a room of 140 people on future scenarios and strategies.

I had very limited time on the day, so I am going to write a series of posts expanding on the issues.

You can see the previous post here:

(3) Changing Consumer Buying Decision Points and its Effects on Agriculture Supply Chains | LinkedIn

Today it is about one of the scenarios they did not want on the day. Which was fair enough for two reasons. Firstly, because I put forward more scenarios than could be fitted into my presentation time, and secondly because it was about politics and the future legislative regulatory environment that might occur and with two Federal ministers in the room and lots of media coverage it could have created problematic headlines. That was fully understandable (more on that later).

It looked like this:

Political Landscape

In the 2022 Federal election the ALP recorded its lowest primary vote since 1934, and the Coalition its lowest primary vote ever. This is part of a long-term trend which has seen the primary vote for the two major parties fall from 93.1% in 1983 to 68.28% in 2022[1]. Since then, the Coalition has lost the seat of Aston in a by-election so there is now a plausible scenario that we may be seeing the last majority Federal Government in Australia, with the Coalition required to win back 19 seats to get the barest majority and Labor currently having a wafer-thin 2-seat majority.

Scenario: Permanent minority governments more power and influence ceded to the Greens and the Teals (useful shorthand but a diverse group)

Accelerated Scenario – The success of Teals and Independents leads to even more Independents in Parliament as that movement provides more resources, especially based in regional cities where local profiles can more easily be turned into political votes. Increasing the complication of the power structures and voting agreements in both houses of parliament.

Counter-Scenario: A snap back to politics as usual with the two major parties holding majorities in the lower house that swap back and forwards.

Implications:

A more Teal/Green influenced/balance of power Federal Parliament is likely to produce policies and regulatory framework that are more environmentally/climate change focused.

I have since written a more forward looking one for another client that describes a more specific set of events looks like this (some detail removed on specific legislative implications) to avid identifying the client):

Scenario 4: Minority Governments Forever

At the 2025 election, while the Coalition won eight seats from the ALP, they also lost three more seats to independents, leaving them fourteen seats away from a majority government. The ALP lost one seat to the Teal-Style Muslim independent group that campaigned on the Israel=Gaza issues in seats with high Muslim populations. They also lost another seat to the Greens, leaving them 8 seats away from a majority government.

The ALP formed a minority government with an agreement with the Greens and the Teals. Most expectations were that issues would plague the resulting government and that the ALP, independents, and Greens would lose support at the next election. The government struggled through the next term but lost less support than expected by standing firm against the Greens and independents on policy issues. However, the electorate surprised everyone by electing more independents at the 2028 election, with both major parties losing ground. The ALP again formed a minority government, but the independents and the Greens, encouraged by their electoral support, gained significant concessions from the ALP in order to create a government.

The subsequent turmoil in the government and the political toll of 3 terms in power led to further losses for the ALP in the 2030 election. The Coalition was unable to form a majority government but was able to do a deal with the independents to form a minority government. Despite the Coalition opposing some of the changes that were put in by the previous minority government, the new government is wary of reversing the changes put in place in the previous term, fearing a revolt from the independents and?a backlash from voters.

This client did not want to utilise the scenario either because the project involved talking to external stakeholders about their views and the client as concerned about being seen as too political.

I fully understand why both these clients did not want to utilise the scenarios in the context of the individual projects. In the case of the Federal Agriculture Summit it could have ended up as a media headline of "futurist says coalition has no path back to majority government" at an event hosted by a Federal Department.

On the other hand one of the basic tools in foresight is the use of the STEEP acronym to make sure a breadth of issues are being considered:

• Social
• Technological
• Economic
• Environmental
• Political

I normally add disruption to make it STEEPeD

I would encourage you to consider scenarios and trends around politics more often. They affect more organisations and businesses than you would think and sometimes the effects can be quite abrupt.

Or maybe I have a cognitive bias on this particular scenario?

I would be interested in your thoughts

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Australia#Lower_house_primary,_twoparty_and_seat_results