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Antony Green's Q&A

Stephen asks, what convention governs the association of red with Labor and blue with the Liberal Party?

Q: In media coverage of elections, the same colours are commonly assigned to each major political party in graphs, charts and other representations. For example, Labor is usually given red while Liberals are given blue. What is the convention, if any, that governs this? - Stephen Mok

There are no particular conventions. To a large extent, we have adopted the same party colours as used in the United Kingdom. Traditionally, candidates in the UK use rosettes pinned to their chest when campaigning, and it is an old tradition that these rosettes be coloured. The Conservative Party has always been blue, Labour has used the traditional red colour of socialism, and the Liberal Democrats yellow.

We have simply adopted the same colourings in Australia. Until quite recently, the signs stuck up on power poles (known colloquially as corflutes) were blue for Liberal candidates and red for Labor candidates. These days they are often printed in brighter colours, like yellow or hot pink.

We have simply adopted this red and blue convention for the Labor and Liberal parties. The National Party have traditionally been given dark green as their party logo is green and gold. The Australian Democrats have traditionally used yellow in their publicity material. Recently the ABC has adopted the convention of colouring the Greens light green.

Beyond those established colours, ABC-TV has used brown and light blue for other parties in recent years. These colours have been used mainly to distinguish them from other colours used on graphics. Independents and minor party candidates are traditionally been coloured grey.

Posted: Monday, July 26 2004 .