NSW federal redistribution – official numbers published
Federal redistributions have recently commenced in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.
The AEC yesterday published the enrolment data to be used to draw New South Wales federal electorates.
There are two sets of data - enrolment data as of August 2023, and projected enrolments...
Mulgrave by-election guide posted
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews will be stepping down today as premier and as Member for Mulgrave, a seat he has held since 2002.
This means a by-election will be held for that seat soon, likely before the end of the year.
My guide to Mulgrave is...
Podcast #103: A history of Indigenous elections in Australia
Ben is joined by historian Alison Holland, who is researching the history of ATSIC, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. We discuss the history and current existence of Indigenous elected institutions around Australia, including ATSIC and its predecessors at a federal level, regional...
Choosing a voting system for NZ councils
I have been fascinated recently with voting systems for local government, and how they change - in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.
New Zealand also has an element of choice in their local government electoral system. Each council gets to choose from one...
Podcast #102: A history of Australian referendums
Ben is joined by Paul Kildea and Andre Brett to discuss the history of Australian referendums. We discuss the historical origins of referendums at both the state and federal level, the dynamics of referendum campaigns, how different states tend to vote, the voters' bias...
Good, bad and ugly ward redistributions in NSW
The process of redrawing local council wards for next year's New South Wales council elections is now quite advanced, with the councils due for a change having mostly decided on draft boundaries and put them out for public commentary, ahead of an early October...
Western Australia’s first step on local council voting reform
The Western Australian Labor government has been recently going through a process of changing the structures of local government elections in the state. The process involves the replacement of first-past-the-post with preferential voting (including with the single transferable vote where more than one councillor...
Warrandyte by-election live
9:45 - All election day booths have now reported, and the Liberal primary vote is on 57%, and the two-candidate-preferred vote is on 70.6%. The turnout so far is about 48% of the total enrolment, with a substantial early vote yet to come. I'm...
Podcast #101: Group voting tickets and ward changes in Victoria
Ben is joined by psephologist Henry Schlechta to discuss two issues of democratic reform in Victoria: the arguments around abolishing group voting tickets, and the implementation of single-member wards for urban Victorian councils. Sadly this isn't a story of Victoria improving its electoral systems...
NT redistribution – second draft redistribution published
The second draft of boundaries for the next Northern Territory assembly election was published late last Wednesday, and it's taken me until now to complete my analysis of the new boundaries.
The first draft was made redundant by a large surge in enrolments in remote...