Talk:Coalition (Australia)

States
It may be worth noting the situation in some states in regard to the coalition - since it has been dissolved in Victorian politics, and the only National in South Australia is a minister in the Rann Labor government. Ambi 03:29, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

you could have a section "where the coalition exists" and go through what levels of government have an existing or a past coalition agreement Xtra 04:18, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * This article probably ought to acknowledge Bjelke-era Queensland as an exception to some of its content, but I don't know the subject well enough to do it. --Calair 03:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Other coaltions?
Perhaps it would be worth mentioning other coalitions, such as the Labor-Green coalitions which held power at various times in the ACT and Tasmania.


 * The "Coalition" virtually always means the Liberal-National coalition in an Australian context. The "Labor-Green Accord" is more commonly used to refer to the Tasmanian one; "The Alliance" was the term used for the Liberal-crazy minor party coalition that ruled the ACT for a while. They might warrant a sentence linking to articles on those, but this article should remain near-entirely about the actual Coalition. Rebecca 09:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I've added a disambig link with info on other coalitions that should probably be cut down, but I can't find pages to point it to. twilsonb (talk) 14:54, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a separate disambig page is in order? —sroc (talk) 23:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Something along these lines:


 * In Australian politics, Coalition usually refers to an alliance between the Liberal and National parties.


 * Other coalitions include:
 * In the ACT:
 * Labor–Greens coalitions in 2008 and 2001
 * Liberal–Independent coalition in 1998.
 * In Tasmania, Labor–Greens coalitions formed in 2010, 1996 and 1989.


 * —sroc (talk) 23:40, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, there are already articles on coalitions (as a broad concept) and coalition governments (which already discussed the Liberal–National coalition), so rather than add another article into the mix, I have moved the list to the latter article. I have also re-ordered the list in forward chronological order.  Enjoy!  —sroc (talk) 11:57, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

state by state
This article is a bit of a mess in how it's organised. I think it needs to separately list the situation federally, and for each state, because there is so much variation across the country. Peter Ballard 01:33, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Tag added by other users
This article needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. Please include more appropriate citations from reliable sources.

There. Now it has been re-iterated, and in the process discussed. Timeshift 02:55, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Not to be confused with climate change coalition?
Sounds a bit like opportunistic advertising to me... Timeshift (talk) 16:10, 28 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. The CCC are never called "The Coalition". Peter Ballard (talk) 00:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Have we heard if the CCC are going to be around for another election? If they disappear, then the disambiguation would become redundant. Lester  05:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it's safe to say... no. —sroc (talk) 12:00, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

South Australia
Before Karlene Maywald, South Australia has only ever had one Nationals MP, Peter Blacker in Electoral district of Flinders from 1973 to 1993. This online biography of Blacker makes no mention of him ever being a minister or shadow minister. That would suggest to me that SA has never had a Lib/Nat Coalition. So I've removed the uncited claim that it has. (Though I haven't said there wasn't either). Peter Ballard (talk) 02:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Barnaby Joyce
A couple of points about the recent edit re. Barnaby Joyce. First, neither of the refs say that the Nationals will sit on the cross benches. So that should be referenced or removed. Second, Joyce isn't breaking the Coalition, so I question whether it needs mentioning at all, unless some refs are saying this is a sign of a major shift in Coalition relations. Peter Ballard (talk) 23:47, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * a) Watch question time, they are right next to the Greens. Feel free to add another ref but it's true. b) Joyce has said the National Party in the Senate will vote as an independent bloc. That is completely 110% relevant. Timeshift (talk) 03:33, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Regarding (a), has this changed since Barnaby's taken over? And if so, had anyone comment on it? (I'm happy for something to go in if it's a significant shift, but I'm not yet convninced it is.) Peter Ballard (talk) 03:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe they used to sit on the end of the Libs, so essentially they have broken off the end of the Libs and moved up to take the next 'block of 5 seats' section next to the greens. The greens use the last crossbench block on the opposition side. Fielding sits in the front corner seat on the government side, with Xenophon in the other corner behind him, in the last block. A clarification from those further aware of the situation would be good, but the seating is not as important as the independent bloc, which is the real news. Timeshift (talk) 04:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm puzzled. Why isn't this called "The Coalition (Australia)"
The is always part of the name of this entity. I have never heard it referred to as anything else. HiLo48 (talk) 09:05, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * As per Naming conventions (articles), article (page) names should include an article (a/the) if the article (a/the) is normally capitalised and forms part of the name. As at 2010-08-24, a search for the coalition on google shows that it isn't capitalised when part of the political party name, and is sometimes just presented "Coalition" or "A Coalition" (see particularly http://lnp.org.au/). So I don't think we should change it. twilsonb (talk) 15:08, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't understand your response. The specific example you gave - http://lnp.org.au/ - has "The" capitalised. In the Google search, I haven't counted the entries, but a lot of them have "The" capitalised. It is always spoken of with the word "The" in front, admittedly sometimes not capitalised, but my point is more about the word "The" being present, rather than the capitalisation. HiLo48 (talk) 18:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Labor is also referred to as "the ALP", but you would expect to find them referred to as "ALP", not "The ALP". "Coalition" is preceded by "the" depending on context, e.g., "The mood amongst Coalition MPs..." vs "The mood in the Coalition...".  I agree with Twilsonb that "the" is not essential to the name "Coalition". —sroc (talk) 23:33, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Your examples suggest that the presence of a "The" depends on whether "Coalition" is being used as a noun or an adjective. That would make it easy to clarify in the article. HiLo48 (talk) 03:18, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm back! Australia is now effectively being governed by a coalition, a coalition of the ALP, Greens and some independents. If I was to create an article about that coalition, its name would logically be Coalition (Australia), with a capital C, because that's how we do things here. But this article has that name, and it's about a totally different coalition. This article could quite fairly be renamed to The Coalition (Australia), because that's what it's called in all common usage as a noun. HiLo48 (talk) 03:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

National party dominated coalitions
The article is currently incorrect, Queensland is not the only state to have had a national party dominated coalition. Victoria has country party dominated coalitions from the 1920s to the 1950s — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.208.176.68 (talk) 22:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Question - NT Parliament in table
Why is the NT Parliament not showing in the table of seats held? Welshboyau11 (talk) 08:20, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Weird. It should, obviously. It might be something to do with the template not being coded to handle going up to eight fields ... I don't have the technical expertise to fix it, though. Maybe drop a note over at Template:Infobox political party? Frickeg (talk) 10:42, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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Warren Truss
This page still refers to Truss as Deputy PM - I'm not sure how to reword. JennyOz (talk) 01:15, 30 March 2016 (UTC)


 * ✅ Fixed by HangingCurve on 17 April JennyOz (talk) 01:01, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Bias
This article is severely biased towards the Coalition. In some sections it makes them seem god like. This article needs a clean up. Life200BC (talk) 01:10, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
 * User:Life200BC what sections would you say are biased? Ivar the Boneful (talk) 01:43, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Reconsidering it probably isn't that biased, but I found this "The Coalition was renewed in 1991, and won power under Rob Borbidge from 1996 to 1998." A little Biased. They didn't win power they formed a minority Government. It probably isn't bias though reconsidering. I will be more cautious before using the template again and will remove it now. Life200BC (talk) 02:00, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
 * If you see little things like that, you don't really need to tag the article and start a talk page discussion, you can just edit it yourself and see if anyone objects. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 07:14, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'm sorry for wasting your time and will follow your instructions if I see something similar. Life200BC (talk) 21:05, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 26 February 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

Coalition (Australia) → Liberal–National Coalition – The principle of article titles is that they are concise, precise and recognizable. It occurs to me that the title Coalition (Australia) is less concise, precise and recognizable than Liberal–National Coalition. A coalition is a mix of political parties/groups governing together, and that is not exclusivley the domain of the Liberal National Coalition in Australia. Saying "the Coalition" in Australian political discourse is reasonably likely to make someone think of the Liberal and National parties, but this is not guaranteed. As we speak there is "a Coalition" in power in the ACT, specifically a Labor-Green one, in fact such a coalition has existed for the last 8+ years. Its also not uncommon for the phrase "Labor-Green coalition" to be pursued during federal and state elections, often by Liberal or National advocates arguing against voting for either Labor or the Greens. Furthermore non-Australian readers would consider the "Coalition" to mean any number of potential political alliances. To sum up, it doesn't make sense to simplify a title to something vaguer and less recognizable than the lede of this article already implies; "The Liberal–National Coalition, commonly known simply as the Coalition..." Global-Cityzen (talk) 04:25, 26 February 2021 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose The Lib/Nat coalition is possibly unique in the world for its longevity, stability, and the fact that it exists even when the parties involved are not in government. In their case, it's NOT a mix of political parties/groups governing together. They work together at all times, whether in government or not. It's a special case within Australia, and possibly on the world stage. The Australian media routinely refers to "The Coalition" in the quite reasonable expectation that readers, listeners and viewers will know precisely what they mean. HiLo48 (talk) 06:58, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Support more recognizable, natural disambiguation is preferred. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  02:15, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Listen to any Australian news program, and you will hear them called the Coalition. There is no need to elaborate in the context of Australian politics. Andrewa (talk) 05:42, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Support I am swayed by the argument that this improves disambiguation. Natural disambiguation is to be preferred over parenthesised disambiguation. As for the point above about usage in Australia, Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia and so a simple reference to how the term is understood in Australia is not convincing. Obviously in the UK a reference to "The Coalition" is taken as referring to the Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition of 2010-15 (Wiki's page is entitled "Cameron–Clegg coalition") and this is how the term is used in the UK, so for this page to be where "The Coalition" redirects to is quite odd. There is also consistency with other coalitions where natural disambiguation has been preferred and so-forth. FOARP (talk) 08:19, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The current name reflects the scope of the article which doesn't just deal with the parties in their current forms and identities. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 09:57, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Support – this is the most WP:RECOGNIZABLE iteration. The other will still exist as a redirect. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 00:16, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Support: Better. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  01:30, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose since I've never seen them referred to as the Liberal–National Coalition in everyday life or news. It is other coalitions which get the extra clarification rather than the Coalition. As pointed out by Ivar the Boneful, the Coalition has been an enduring political grouping which has included the parties in a variety of guises, and as HiLo48 mentioned it exists on a permanent basis which as far as I know is the rare exception rather than the rule. The title should be a reflection of the term in practice rather than the most convenient term for editors. 5225C (talk &bull; contributions) 11:07, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. Clearer, more natural disambiguation. It's also worth noting that the Coalition is in no sense "permanent" as claimed above, and has been broken a number of times, most recently in the 1980s. "The Coalition" redirecting here is also strange and should be changed. Frickeg (talk) 21:01, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and HiLo48. As far as I can gather from sources, they overwhelmingly call it simply "the Coalition" (with a capital C), not the "Liberal–National Coalition". There doesn't seem any particular need to change the long-term status quo here. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 12:08, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

My State member
Article currently reads in part In the other states and the ACT, the Nationals have no sitting MPs and little or no organisational presence.

My State member is Paul Toole. And we're both in one of those other states. Andrewa (talk) 05:39, 5 March 2021 (UTC)


 * NSW is mentioned in the paragraph's third sentence; "other states" is intended to refer to Tasmania and SA. I do agree that this is potentially ambiguous, though, and given that it's only two states we're mentioning it seems more sensible to just name them. Frickeg (talk) 07:55, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

"The Coalition" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect The Coalition and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 May 23 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. &#8209;&#8209;Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 18:26, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal
The article Liberal–National party merger is a bit of a nothing article - it just lists a few events vaguely related to a possible merge, which has not happened, at least at the national level and most states - and I think it would fit better as a section here. I have put merge tags on both articles. Adpete (talk) 05:56, 11 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree, but I'm not sure the material is even particularly helpful - it's just, as you said, a few events vaguely related to a possible merge (and not even necessarily significant ones). Unity pushes with the forerunners of the Nationals goes as far back as at least the 1920s, and I don't really see a section that doesn't even mention the LNP merger and the CLP (beyond the note in the lead they exist), let alone the other mergers/attempted mergers (the CPNP in Qld, the LCL in SA, whichever of the "Liberal and Country" state parties in other states that weren't just one Coalition party up to shenanigans), as very useful. Better to redirect here and write a new history subsection from scratch that hits at least the most major points. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 06:20, 11 June 2022 (UTC)


 * The weird thing is that the Queensland merger is discussed fairly well at Liberal National Party of Queensland. Therefore I have gone through the pages which link to Liberal–National party merger, and changed them to link to Liberal National Party of Queensland where appropriate. All that is left (in terms of incoming links to Liberal–National party merger) are when people have expressed opinions on a federal merger. I have also separated Liberal–National party merger into two parts: opinions on a federal merger, and a short section pointing to the Queensland merger at Liberal National Party of Queensland. From here I can think of 3 possibilities:


 * 1) Copy all the material from Liberal–National_party_merger to Coalition (Australia), (i.e. merge as I originally suggested). However, it seems a bit long and detailed for Coalition (Australia), so two other suggestions are:
 * 2) Keep the material at Liberal–National party merger, but rename the page to something like Potential Liberal–National party merger. i.e. keep the detail of who has suggested what in a separate article, but renamed to make it clear it is speculation.
 * 3) Cull most of Liberal–National_party_merger and put a bit of it in Coalition (Australia). The problem is that would be throwing away some research someone has done.
 * I think personally I prefer option (2), but I'd be interested in others' thoughts. Adpete (talk) 09:06, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I feel like it's not very significant research in and of itself though - it's a few tidbits of individual support for the idea from one heightened period of historical support for the idea really without any real context. It'd be useful if someone went on and added the context for that era and at least at a basic level added the rest of the story, but it's just a list of random relevant stuff at the moment.


 * I'd probably lean towards 1) because it is a very relevant subject to the Coalition article - I think the merger proposals have possibly been going back longer than the formal Coalition in some places, and it's at least the start of a section to prod people to flesh it out more. The issue with 3) is that there's so little there that any cuts would probably cut out the only actual specifics in it. I really don't like the idea of 2) unless it's fleshed out enough to at least clearly define the scope and context of the article: for example, I wouldn't call what's in there as "speculation" because it's ultimately talking about the levels of support for a long-debated idea (just doing it very badly). The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 11:05, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Support. There's no need for a separate article at all, the main article can certainly accomodate whatever relevant. Reywas92Talk 21:57, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 9 May 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. "The" can be discussed separately. C LYDE TALK TO ME/STUFF DONE (please mention me on reply) 14:28, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Coalition (Australia) → Liberal–National Coalition – This has been proposed a few times in the past, however I feel like enough time has passed to restart the discussion. As has been mentioned in previous discussions, while the current title is shorter than the proposed one, it is in fact less WP:CONSICE and much less WP:PRECISE than the proposed title. While use of the lone phrase "the Coalition" is likely to make one think of the LNP, this is not guaranteed, with the concept of "a Coalition" stemming far beyond the one formed by the Liberal and National parties. Labor and the Greens were in a coalition at the federal level from 2010 to 2013, have jointly governed the ACT since 2008, and were previously in coalition in Tasmania in the 90s (with the Greens also governing with the Tasmanian Liberals in the 2010s). Furthermore, with the recent decline in the vote share of major parties, there have frequently been discussions of the possibility of a renewed Labor-Greens coalition, shown here and here. The current title disregards this, however, implying that in Australia, the concept of a coalition solely refers to the Liberals and Nationals. This is confusing and inaccurate to both international and domestic readers. Editors have also previously argued that the title "Liberal-National Coalition" is rarely used, however this is simply false. While the shortened version is commonly used more, the media nevertheless commonly refers to the "Liberal-National Coalition", as shown here, here, and here. Finally, the proposed title creates a nice WP:NATURAL disambiguator. Loytra (talk) 23:25, 9 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Weak oppose - From what I know about Australian politics, when one is referring to "the Coalition" they are generally referring to the Liberal National Coalition. However, I do understand the nom's reasoning considering the plausibility of a Labor-Greens coalition (notably, at last year's election). I would support a move to The Coalition (Australia) as I think that it will keep the concision while improving precision. Estar8806 (talk) 00:43, 10 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Comment The article's lead begins with "The Liberal–National Coalition" thereby probably breaking some Wikipedia rule about the lead describing what's in the title, but presumably pleasing the OP here. The word "The" is important. It is ALWAYS included when the Liberal–National Coalition is being referred to in Australia. The title of this article should probably be The Coalition (Australia) (with the capital C), and the lead should also begin with that expression. HiLo48 (talk) 01:10, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Lean oppose Not all the other examples given were actually coalitions (2010-2013 was a confidence & supply arrangement and a coalition involves more than one party actually in government, the Liberals and Greens did not form a government in Tasmania) and others were called different things (e.g. the Tasmanian Labor-Green government was called the Accord and the ACT Liberal-Residents' Rally government was the Alliance) and this article covers the whole history including the Liberals' predecessor parties. "The Coalition" still overwhelmingly means the Liberals & Nationals not other combinations. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:05, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I don't think it's ambiguous in the Australian context and there is precedent in other articles, e.g. Alliance (Sweden) and Alliance (Chile). Additionally, the article covers the full history of the Coalition and the parties have not always had their current names. I'm happy with the suggested move to The Coalition (Australia) although I think it could go both ways (WP:THE is probably against). ITBF (talk) 15:41, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Very, VERY old people vote for the Coalition.
The Electorate section tells me that one of the biggest voting blocs supporting the Coalition is "the Greatest Generation (people born between 1901–1927)". That means people aged 96 and over! I humbly submit that people aged 96 and over is NOT a big bloc. Would anyone object if I removed that content? HiLo48 (talk) 06:45, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree, and I think the article is incorrect in equating "voting bloc" as just any demographic that favoured a party at a specific election. Would be good to find some sources that look at Australian voting trends over a multi-election period. Not sure someone making $46k a year would agree that they're middle class either! ITBF (talk) 08:23, 11 December 2023 (UTC)