The Tally Room

With a hung parliament looking very likely at the upcoming federal election, there has been quite a lot of looking back at the last hung parliament in 2010. Amongst other elements, there has been some parallels drawn between the experience of the crossbenchers in 2010...

Ben is joined by journalist Rachel Withers, writer of the Crikey column 'Well Hung', to discuss the prospects for independent candidates, including teal and Muslim independents, at the 2025 federal election. A 2023 meme from Twitter user Pineapple Crab applying different definitions for a "teal" Read...

I'll be speaking at an event next week in Sydney as a preview for the federal election. The event is hosted by my employer GovConnex along with FTI Consulting. We'll be previewing the election and discussing prospects for a possible hung parliament. There will be an...

We're less than two weeks away from nominations closing for the federal election - nominations will close on Thursday 10 April, and will be announced the next day. Yesterday I made a bunch of updates to my list of House of Representatives candidates, and have...

Ben is joined by Ben Moffitt from Monash University to discuss the role of right-wing minor parties in federal politics, why it is so hard for them to work together, and chances in the Senate. We also discuss the seat of Hunter in New...

We are now less than two months away from the last possible date for the 2025 Australian federal election, so it seemed to be about time to take down the paywall around my federal election guide. But I am also launching another election guide...

11:32 - We haven't had any more updates for over an hour so it looks like we've got all we're gonna get tonight. The main batches left are three of the five major pre-poll booths, plus the remaining postal votes. There are some other...

Over the last few years I have had the privilege of making submissions and then appearing before parliamentary inquiries reviewing the conduct of the most recent federal election and the most recent state elections in New South Wales and Victoria. Each of these inquiries are...

We have a lot of information about how the count is going for the Legislative Assembly in Western Australia - there's a few close races, and places where we're waiting for full distributions of preferences, but the information is reasonably clear. Unfortunately there's a lot...

The federal Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters holds an inquiry into the conduct of each federal election, and they did so in 2023. I had the opportunity to make a submission, and then appear before the committee. Their final report was published in...