Skip navigation  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