NSW election guide now live
As part of my efforts to prepare election guides for all of the upcoming elections, I have now published a guide to the 2027 NSW state election. While that election is still almost a year and a half away, the lack of redistributions in...
Federal redistribution projections published
The Australian Electoral Commission yesterday published the official statistics that will be used for federal redistributions in South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT. This gives us a bit more insight into what is likely to happen in those redistributions.
Electorates must be drawn so each...
New Zealand’s new electoral map
New Zealand will go to the polls next year at their next general election, and the electoral map of New Zealand has been redrawn in advance of that election.
New Zealand's parliament is elected via mixed member proportional, with a majority of MPs elected to...
Hinchinbrook by-election incoming
A state by-election will be held in the north Queensland seat of Hinchinbrook at some point near the end of this year or early in 2026, following local MP Nick Dametto's announcement that he will contest the mayoralty of the City of Townsville at...
Who would benefit from an expanded parliament?
Today's blog post is inspired by a strange opinion piece in the Nine papers yesterday by former federal Liberal Attorney-General George Brandis.
Brandis' piece (in addition to incorrectly stating that the last increase in the size of parliament was in 1987) makes two main claims...
Are the mapmakers playing it safe?
We rely on independent mapmakers to draw electoral boundaries at each redistribution. There is an extensive process of public consultation, and there are rules about how seats can be drawn, but ultimately the mapmakers have quite a lot of discretion about how they apply...
Shrinking Tasmanian councils is not the answer
The Tasmanian government has announced plans to "reform" Tasmanian local government by slashing the number of councillors across the state. The government has put up a discussion paper on the topic, but in short it would reduce the number of elected officials on councils...
Kiama by-election – results live
11:20 - I don't think we'll get any more voting data tonight. I've done a quick video summing up the results on Instagram. That's it for tonight.
10:13 - Kiama pre-poll and postal two-candidate-preferred has reported. Labor is on 60% of the two-candidate-preferred vote, a...
Podcast #155: Queensland’s state redistribution
Ben was joined by Matt Dennien from the Brisbane Times to discuss the Queensland state redistribution, specifically the first round of submissions. The conversation focuses on the Labor and LNP submissions, and also run through some of the other public submissions.
This podcast is supported...
What do the Queensland redistribution submissions say?
The first round of public submissions for the Queensland state redistribution were published last week - about three weeks after they were submitted to the Commission. So I thought it would be useful to examine what they say, with a particular focus on the...