Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics/Archive 5

Tas LC mixup
Not quite sure what's going on here, but we seem to have two separate sets of tables for the Tasmanian Legislative Council. There's these ones: Members of the Tasmanian Legislative Council, 1999–2005, etc., and then there's these ones: Members of the Tasmanian Legislative Council, 2002–2006, etc. Anyone know what's going on? I suspect that the latter group can probably be deleted, but I thought I'd check here first. Frickeg (talk) 23:50, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The 6-yearly one is the series I did (going right back to 1879); the other one, made to match the Assembly timelines, predated it. Probably safe to redirect the latter to the former provided any extra info has been moved across. Orderinchaos 00:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

WAFamilyFirst.com Party
Quite apart from the criminally inane name, does this party really qualify as notable? As far as I can tell it is nothing more than the WA branch of the federal Family First Party. As such, surely it makes sense to merge this one? Frickeg (talk) 12:35, 9 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Makes sense to me, as long as it's merged into the main article. Rebecca (talk) 13:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * IMO it was interesting at the time of the election (in the immediate preceding period it had either 2 or 3 MPs!) but its spectacular failure at the election to gain any traction whatsoever means it probably merits no more than a subsection somewhere in the main Family First article. And the criminally inane name was their own fault - they legally changed it on 15 July 2008, with the name becoming official on 14 January 2009. "WAFAMILYFIRST.COM INCORPORATED" was listed on 17 April 2009 (p.1329) and again on 30 October 2009 (p.4325) - both in connection with by-elections - as the legal name of the party at state level in WA. Orderinchaos 13:56, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Merged and redirected, noting their state registered name. Frickeg (talk) 03:44, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Yet another uncontroversial move
Donald L. Page to Don Page, please. (Is there a better place for me to put these?) Frickeg (talk) 03:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. Here is probably the best place for politically-aware Aussie admins to see it. --Canley (talk) 05:07, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. Frickeg (talk) 05:08, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

New minor party in Victoria looks interesting
I was browsing through the United Firefighters' Union website earlier today and discovered that their political wing, the "Safer Communities Party", plans to field candidates in the upcoming Victorian election. The Victorian branch of the union appears to well organised, right now they are running a separate campaign in Richard Wynne's seat of Richmond against the first in a series of planned cuts to inner-city fire stations. Personally, I find this all very interesting and might consider doing an interview with them for wikinews. Could somebody please check if the party has registered with the electoral commission yet? Ottre 16:34, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Not yet. There's no harm in doing a draft in userspace, though, to be moved to mainspace if it is registered. Frickeg (talk) 22:25, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Troy Buswell and Adele Carles
Trust my state to get interesting at the right moment - apparently the WA Liberal Treasurer and the WA Greens MLA respectively have had an affair and it's all over mainstream press. There's undoubtedly going to be a lot of strange editing on these articles in coming days, so just notifying so people can keep their eyes out. Orderinchaos 18:03, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Isobel Redmond
Assistance would be appreciated to clear up the fact that there is a conservative Evans faction and a moderate Chapman faction. For some reason they seem to dispute that its based on Stan Evans then Iain Evans, and Ted Chapman then Vickie Chapman. Cites back this up, but anon IP insists without reason and has been taken by a third party to the talk page. Timeshift (talk) 13:05, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Move request
Ronald Phillips to Ron Phillips (politician), please. Frickeg (talk) 02:31, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. Orderinchaos 04:04, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Em-dashes to en-dashes
A lot of the New South Wales electorate articles still have em-dashes in the member lists (I should add that this is largely down to me, since when I was doing them I didn't realise that en-dashes were more appropriate), while a lot of the other states still have simple hyphens. Didn't we have a bot doing this? Does anyone know one we could get to do this for us? It would be unbelievably tedious and laborious to do by hand, as it were. Frickeg (talk) 12:48, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Mochalski
I've got conflicting sources concerning Ric Mochalski, NSW Labor MLA for Bankstown 1980–86, who was forced to resign from parliament over allegations of improper conduct relating to the collapse of a trust he was directing. The New South Wales Parliament says he was charged, convicted and struck off the register; however, Antony Green, also writing on the NSW Parliament website, says that he was found not guilty of all charges. Does anyone know which one is correct? Frickeg (talk) 04:14, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't find anything in law reports, I'm afraid. --Mkativerata (talk) 04:30, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This doesn't really confirm one source or the other, but The Constitution of New South Wales by Anne Twomey says that in 1986 a notice of motion was given to expel Mochalski from the Legislative Assembly, but he resigned on health grounds before the motion was debated. Pure speculation, but I suppose he could have been charged, convicted, struck of the solicitors' roll... and then found not guilty on appeal? So both sources could be correct? --Canley (talk) 06:42, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Strangely, nothing in Political Chronicles either. Orderinchaos 06:51, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's another source from the NSW Hansard (The Hon. Ian Macdonald debating the Independent Commission Against Corruption (Amendment) Bill in 1994): "The code of conduct as it stands is subject to the mastery of this House. This House will determine whether a member has breached any form of conduct. That is occurring in the other Chamber this afternoon, and it has done so before. Rick Mochalski was drummed out of this Parliament seven years ago on the basis that he had been charged with offences under the Corporate Affairs Act. Those charges were later thrown out. He was hanged well and truly before there was any version of a trial. We must be careful about putting up propositions that set up a regime that is virtually impossible to control." This seems to imply he was charged but not convicted, as no trial appears to have taken place and the charges were thrown out. --Canley (talk) 06:54, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Uncontroversial move
Robert Messenger to Rob Messenger, please. (Clearly better known by the latter name.) Frickeg (talk) 23:22, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. Orderinchaos 23:54, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Carles
As she's now left the Greens, I'm not sure where such things are maintained but totals of Green MPs around the country etc need to be updated, and references in Greens- and Fremantle-related articles to her currency as a Green MP. ED Fremantle and Carles have been updated - Greens WA on an initial inspection looks to be more than a year out of date generally. Sorry for kind of dropping this here, I'm busy with offline stuff. Orderinchaos 11:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Paluzzano
Carles isn't the only MP to leave her party, with Karyn Paluzzano suspended from the ALP in NSW, and resigning from the parliament too. The question: does the fact that she was a "suspended" Labor MP for one day mean that she should be listed as an independent? My view on this is no: we've got precedent here with Milton Orkopoulos and Steven Chaytor, and I think that less than 24 hours is probably insufficient, to be honest. Frickeg (talk) 13:03, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the fact she resigned almost immediately makes it irrelevant (in terms of tables/affiliation in infobox etc - obviously still gets documented in the text of the article). Had she done it 24 hours before an election and lost it, or as you said been in parliament/office for a longer period, that would make it relevant. Orderinchaos 13:09, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Peter Cox (politician)
Extra eyes appreciated here - certain people, apparently family members, are very insistent on adding the names of all fourteen grandchildren, not to mention questionable assertions about who was the "favourite", etc. All very silly, but help appreciated anyway. Frickeg (talk) 03:52, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * As the edits seem to be coming from different IPs, and the edits are adding information about non-notable people (I assume including minors), semi-protection may be warranted. --Mkativerata (talk) 03:56, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah I think that's reasonable - have semi protected for now. Orderinchaos 04:28, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

new article
Hi, I've been working on Peter Lawlor I'd appreciate any feedback as I am new, I will work on the Minister section more but seeking feedback/assistance on what I've done so far. Thanks, Molendinarmania (talk) 09:07, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Andrea West
After a long break in former MP deaths, we seem to have a spate of premature deaths, with former federal Liberal MP Andrea West sadly dying of breast cancer at 57. The article linked as a source has an image that looks like a Parliament image - if it is, we should be able to upload it as fair use. Anyone know for certain? (The Parliamentary Handbook online doesn't go back that far.) Frickeg (talk) 12:17, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Keep an eye on Julia Gillard
Front-page story in The Age today about how branch-stacking in Melbourne "benefited senior ALP figures with electorates in the western and northern suburbs, including Deputy Prime Minister and member for Lalor Julia Gillard and federal parliamentary secretary and member for Maribyrnong Bill Shorten." Ottre 00:24, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Tony Abbott
There are currently several discussions about content at Talk:Tony Abbott which I think would benefit from greater participation from uninvolved editors. Nick-D (talk) 00:20, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. It ended in a massive edit war and protection the other day. Orderinchaos 00:56, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Pollie nicknames
Do we have a guideline on when a nickname for a politician is worthy of inclusion, and when it is not? IMO simple insults aren't worth including but if there is an interesting story behind the name (eg Ironbar Tuckey) then it should be included. --Surturz (talk) 18:11, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd agree. Only when it's relevant to the subject in some way. Frickeg (talk) 23:39, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Notability of political candidates
Since we're getting close to what is sure to be the mayhem of the federal election (and the project's rather quiet, so it'll be all hands on deck), now seems like a good time to come to a firm decision on the notability of political candidates. People may remember the O'Dwyer and Jennings AfDs, which created a bit of uncertainty. Considering it's extremely likely that these kinds of articles will pop up again in the near future, we should have a clear policy on what we do with them. Obviously some people are notable outside their candidacy, but for those that aren't it seems to me the best course of action would be: This is not to suggest that we should encourage people to pre-emptively create these articles, merely to ensure that we have a firm policy worked out when they inevitably do. Frickeg (talk) 16:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * For "shoo-ins" (i.e. first 2 on main party Senate tickets, safe seats, etc.), move to userspace (or possibly to a project page, similar to the incubator) to allow article to develop. These should be obvious enough to identify.
 * For doubtfuls, as above. A "doubtful" can probably be given a "marginal seat" definition; candidates whose election is very unlikely but not impossible shouldn't be included in this. In this case I'd suggested a <6% margin for the seat as the threshold.
 * For candidates with no chance - turf, obviously.
 * This seems very sensible to me. Not many political candidates are surviving AfD at the moment; only those who are notable for other reasons. Incubating or userfying the genuine prospects of election is the best alternative.--Mkativerata (talk) 22:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Agree - I don't think we should create any candidate WP:BLPs until they are elected, as per WP:POLITICIAN. It's not up to us to determine their chances at election; that's WP:CRYSTAL. For practicality, we should not create any new WP:BLPs for candidates - even when they are WP:N for reasons other than their candidacy - until after the election; this is to stop "star candidates" triggering edit wars. I'm a bit ambivalent as to mentioning candidacy in an existing WP:BLP. E.g. Andrew Leigh. The trouble being that once you mention candidacy, it is tempting for editors to insert running commentary on their exploits during the election campaign, which threatens WP:RECENT.
 * I have no problem with "shoo ins" being created as subpages here (or on personal pages), and then moved to the main encyclopedia if are elected, or deleted if they are not elected. It is up to individual editors to calculate whether their efforts are likely to result in an article that lasts.
 * I don't think there should be any particular restrictions on an incumbent's WP:BLP. --Surturz (talk) 01:16, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * In my view, it all depends on whether they meet WP:BIO. I agree that it's generally best to wait for the candidate to be elected (or lose in a very notable way) but not creating articles on notable people or deliberately excluding mentions of the candidacy of already notable people makes no sense, and runs against any number of guidelines. To use the Andrew Leigh example, his preselection received considerable media coverage so it belongs in his article and there have been no subsequent problems (interestingly enough, the article on one of the other notable candidates for Fraser, George Williams (lawyer), has been targeted by IP vandals seeking to remove mentions of his candidacy). Nick-D (talk) 01:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The Andrew Leigh article existed before his pre-selection. We just have an odd situation that if an article exists for the person, then it is notable that they are preselected; but if there is no article, preselection is not notable. OTOH I guess it isn't that odd - many BLPs include a birthdate, but just being born doesn't make you notable!! :-) --Surturz (talk) 01:58, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed with Frickeg's approach. As others have said there is an exception when the person is independently notable - i.e. when they meet another facet of WP:BIO without their political candidacy. Orderinchaos 03:01, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Agree with Frickeg as well. We shouldn't be creating articles on any candidates unless it's patently obvious and indisputable they're going to be elected (ie: Kelly O'Dwyer), or if they can be shown to be notable for something other than their candidacy.  I expect that the number of exceptions for both cases will be quite small.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 02:21, 5 June 2010 (UTC).

Incubation
For an incubation article moved to the user space, is the talk page allowed to refer to where the article is developing in the user space?
 * It sounds fair enough to me, it is not a forbidden topic. I assume you mean the talk page of the incubated article. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I mean the talk page of the article space. Otherwise how will people who wish to help edit find the incubating article? Maybe this is a stupid question. Donama (talk) 23:52, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know if that would work ... it's against policy to have talk pages for non-existent articles, isn't it? We could, however, have a prominent notice on WP:AWNB and on this project's page, and when the mainspace page is deleted the deletion rationale should, if possible, include a link to the incubator page. Frickeg (talk) 05:35, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * subpage of wp:incubator is the place, I'd suggest a list of links from this page too. --Surturz (talk) 17:59, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

First cab off the rank
And, to get us going, Patricia Petersen (AfD), although this one's escaped attention as an orphan for years. Frickeg (talk) 12:11, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * As I've commented in the AfD I think that she is sufficiently written about in spite of her unsuccessful campaigns. Just seems to be a perennially visible figure in the media - Peripitus (Talk) 13:31, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Penny Wright
Started here: Article Incubator/Penny Wright Donama (talk) 01:09, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Can I just say, that is a perfect example of what we should be doing. I suggest we maintain a list on the main politics page, which I'll start now. Frickeg (talk) 01:32, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Lang Labor in New South Wales
Hi User:Frickeg and I have recently been discussing the classification of Labor members of the NSW Parliament during the first appearance of Lang Labor 1931-36. I have cut and pasted our correspondence but we would like your input.

Hi - saw your change to Electoral district of Phillip. I've been uncertain about how to handle Lang Labor at state level for a while (apart from the very limited 1940s version, which is easy). As I understand it, all NSW Labor MPs were "Lang Labor" between 1931 and 1936. I don't know how we should show this, seeing as NSW Labor was the main Labor party in NSW and "Federal Labor" (which won no seats) was the breakaway. As such I've been leaving them as Labor. Thoughts? Frickeg (talk) 04:46, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes I have wondered that too and made the change to Phillip as a little experiment - I have left the others alone. It is a difficult one because as you have said all the state members were Langists and the federal candidates were lucky to get 10%. It is also difficult for the different manifestations of Lang labor, ALP (NSW) (this does not seem to have a separate colour on wikipedia and I used the Lang Labor colour), ALP (non-communist) and finally "Lang Labor" in federal parliament. However, the ALP (NSW) party was not formed by a move from Lang but by the expulsion of the NSW executive from the Australian Labor Party by the Federal executive and it came to an end when Lang's NSW executive was again recognized by the Federal executive (Brian McKinlay, A Documentary History of the Australian Labor Movement 1850-1975 p119-20) Hawker's History of the NSW Parliament 1856-1965 isn't very good but lists the members from 1931-1936 as Lang Labor. On the other hand Antony Green's summary of the appropriate elections has them as ALP or Labor Party e.g. http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/resources/nswelectionsanalysis/1935/Totals.htm. I haven't got immediate access to contemporary Hansard or the Electoral Commission documents but I suspect that they would not be helpful as parties were not given official recognition on ballot papers etc. until much later. Finally I have looked at the SMH report of the election results in 1932 and 1935 when they are called variously Lang Labour or State Labour. I suspect the Labor Daily may have used different titles but its readership was not great and I do not have easy access to it. http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/16899980/1156286?zoomLevel=3 http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/17157285/1116568?zoomLevel=3

I am inclined to call the members ALP (NSW) but perhaps this should be put up for discussion and I won't change any more till then.

Many thanks


 * I don't have a strong opinion, but at a state level, I'd be inclined to go with either "State Labour" or just "ALP" and mark the dissidents as "Federal Labour" (which is what they were known as). From memory (having read quite a few articles from the time) "State Labour" seemed to be in more common use with regard to the majority state-level MPs of the time - "Lang Labour" seemed to be more in use among the federal MPs (where they were very much in the minority). Again, no particularly strong opinions though. Rebecca (talk) 02:24, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

New category for ALP
I've created and populated Category:Australian Labor Party. Those more familiar with Australian politics might be able to add more pages and sort the contents into subcategories. Fences &amp;  Windows  13:18, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Procedural question - casting vote?
As far as federal/state parliaments go, does someone know the rundown on which speakers/presidents have a casting vote and which don't? Timeshift (talk) 18:03, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Probably longer than you were looking for - I had some trouble sleeping tonight (too damn cold!) so researched the question for you.

A deliberative vote is a vote used to express the opinion of the individual casting the vote on the matter being discussed. A casting vote is where the person presiding over the relevant meeting has a vote to determine the issue only when the deliberative votes are tied. 

The normal case in Australia appears to be "casting but not deliberative". Exceptions are the Senate, the Victorian LC and both Territory LAs.


 * House of Reps
 * casting but not deliberative
 * s40 Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act: "Questions arising in the House of Representatives shall be determined by a majority of votes other than that of the Speaker. The Speaker shall not vote unless the numbers are equal, and then he shall have a casting vote."


 * Senate
 * deliberative vote but not casting
 * [...] "In the Australian Senate the President has a deliberative vote but not a casting vote. In the Senate if voting is tied the question is declared in the negative."
 * s23 Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act: "Questions arising in the Senate shall be determined by a majority of votes, and each senator shall have one vote. The President shall in all cases be entitled to a vote; and when the votes are equal the question shall pass in the negative."


 * NSW
 * both houses, casting but not deliberative vote
 * LA - s32(2) Constitution Act 1902 "All questions which may arise in the Legislative Assembly shall be decided by the majority of the votes of the Members present other than the Member presiding, and when the votes are equal the Member presiding shall have a casting vote." (s184 LA Standing Orders adds "and any reasons given may be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.")
 * LC - s22I Constitution Act 1902 "All questions arising in the Legislative Council shall be decided by a majority of the votes of the Members present other than the President or other Member presiding and when the votes are equal the President or other Member presiding shall have a casting vote." (see also s116 LC Standing Orders)


 * VIC
 * LA: casting but not deliberative, LC: deliberative but not casting
 * LA - s40(2A) Constitution Act 1975 "Subject to section 18 all questions arising in the Assembly shall be decided by a majority of members present other than the Speaker and when the votes are equal the Speaker shall have a casting vote." See also
 * LC - s32(2A) Constitution Act 1975 "The President has a deliberative vote but not a casting vote."


 * QLD
 * casting but not deliberative vote.
 * Strangely, not in constitution at all.
 * s107(2) Standing Orders: "Every member present in the House when the question is put with the bars closed must vote except the Speaker, who shall have a casting vote if the votes are equal."


 * WA
 * both houses, casting vote but not deliberative
 * "In the West Australian Parliament the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly does not have a deliberative vote but does have a casting vote. In the Legislative Council similarly the President does not have a deliberative vote but only a casting vote" [...]
 * LA - s24 Constitution Acts Amendment Act 1899 "all questions which shall arise in the Legislative Assembly shall be decided by a majority of votes of the members present, other than the Speaker, and when the votes are equal the Speaker shall have the casting vote"
 * LC - s14 Constitution Acts Amendment Act 1899 is identical to s24 substituting "President" for "Speaker"


 * SA
 * both houses, casting vote but not deliberative:
 * HoA - "When the votes are equal, the Speaker gives a casting vote. Any reasons that the Speaker gives for the casting vote are entered in the Votes and Proceedings." s180, Standing Orders, HoA. See also s37(2) and (3) of Constitution Act 1934.
 * LC - "In the case of an equality of votes, the President shall give a Casting Voice, and any reason given by the President shall be entered in the Minutes." s231, Standing Orders, LC. See also s26(2) of Constitution Act 1934.


 * TAS
 * both houses, casting vote but not deliberative
 * HoA - s25(2) and (3) Constitution Act 1934 - "All questions shall be decided by the majority of the votes of the Members present, exclusive of the Speaker [...] In the event of an equality of votes the Speaker or such person as aforesaid shall have a casting vote."
 * LC - s20(2) and (3) Constitution Act 1934 - identical to s25 substitution "President" for "Speaker".


 * NT
 * deliberative and casting vote.
 * LA - s27(2) Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act 1978 (Cth) "Subject to subsection 21(3), the Speaker or other member presiding at any meeting of the Legislative Assembly shall in all cases be entitled to vote and shall also, where there is an equality of votes on any question, have a casting vote." (21(3) is simply a conflict of interest provision.)


 * ACT
 * deliberative vote but not casting
 * LA - s18(3) Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988 (Cth) "The member presiding at a meeting has a deliberative vote only, and, if the votes on a question are equal, the question shall pass in the negative."

Orderinchaos 20:27, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the detail! Hope you get better soon! Timeshift (talk) 20:47, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

LNP federally
Seems best to get this out of the way now rather than when the election comes up. How are we going to handle the LNP? It's not as simple as the CLP in the NT, because both the AEC and the Parliament website recognise the CLP as a completely separate party (even if it's not really in practice). The LNP, however, is another matter. The Parliament website doesn't recognise it at all, while the AEC recognises it as the Queensland branch of the Liberal Party. Naturally in election boxes and things they'll come up as LNP, but how about in the final result, in member lists, etc.? It wouldn't be accurate, really, to have the LNP has an entirely different party on the results page (that is, Australian federal election, 2010), because it's defined by the AEC as part of the Liberal Party. On the other hand, I don't think listing Bruce Scott or Paul Neville as Liberals is going to work - the Parliament site still recognises them as Nationals. So ... what to do? Frickeg (talk) 06:40, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * In my view it is something of a separate party, so should be treated as we do the CLP. I might fire off an enquiry to the AEC as well to find out how they intend to report the results. Orderinchaos 06:46, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * So should we be listing Scott, Neville and Truss as LNP on pages like Division of Wide Bay, Members of the Australian House of Representatives, 2007-2010, etc.? The parliament site still lists them as Nationals, but if any new LNP MPs are elected we'll need to know where to put them. Frickeg (talk) 07:56, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Federal division coord missing tags
A bot has been tagging the federal electoral divisions with "coord missing". I have suitable coordinates for all 150 divisions at User:Barrylb/Electorate coordinates and maps at User:Barrylb/Federal 2010 maps. However, the coordinates and maps are for the 2010 boundaries. When should the articles switch to the redistributed boundaries? Whenever we do update the articles, I'd like some help doing so :) -- Barrylb (talk) 03:56, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I would be happy to help you with this. I am very interested in both politics and geo so this would be very interesting task to me. Love your maps by the way. --Canley (talk) 05:57, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Much appreciated. Once the election is called seems like the right time to update the articles. Barrylb (talk) 08:59, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Personally I dislike wikipedia using coords for things like electoral seats which are always changing. Timeshift (talk) 10:12, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I have to agree - I'm not sure about the usefulness of coords for things that are not really geographic entities. After all, they'll only be accurate for the present, and there'll be no way to say that what the Division of Werriwa is now is not much like what it was when it was created. Additionally, how does one give coordinates for a monster like the Division of Durack? Frickeg (talk) 22:39, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Very much of the same opinion, as electorates are transient rather than fixed entities. Division of Moore, which has outright moved several times in its lifespan, is a brilliant example of the incorrect assumptions that lurk behind the notion that a central coordinate for each is in fact useful. Orderinchaos 23:13, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Keating
I seem to have attracted the attention of Skyring, with a discussion occurring at Talk:Paul Keating. It is over these measley words, 100% true, balanced, NPOV, not out of place. "Keating became PM in 1991, won 1993 and the fifth for his party, however lost in 1996" basically. The objection Skyring has is that Keating assisting in a fifth consecutive win for his party is somehow not relevant to his WP:BLP, which IMHO is nonsense. I would appreciate some comments for what I really feel is trivial and energy being wasted that could be much better spent. Timeshift (talk) 19:14, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Discussion here. My opinion is that Bob Hawke's election wins are irrelevant in the lead of Paul Keating's biographical article. --Pete (talk) 19:32, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * But the fact Keating successfully pulled off a fifth consecutive win for the party completely and utterly intertwines him. Leading a party to it's fifth consecutive win is by no means an easy task - but it's all a part of Keating's bio. You seem to be too rigid in what you think should be excluded from a BLP. Timeshift (talk) 20:06, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think giving Keating credit for Hawke's wins is icing the cake a little richly. I realise that if one sees life in terms of a political party, a football team, a religion, then the temptation is to make one's preferred team, one's preferred godlings come out a little better than they deserve. List as many successes as possible, don't mention the failures, always tilt the scales a little. To be frank, Timeshift, what aroused my interest was that, twenty-seven years after Hawke won his first election, and seventeen after Hewson lost, you were making edits to Keating's article. What new encyclopaedic information could one possibly add to something as extinct as Keating's parliamentary career? Adding useful info or polishing up the picture? --Pete (talk) 20:23, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia has a guideline somewhere that articles always remain a work in progress. Evan FAs aren't 100 percent perfect. I thought it was relevant to add to the unexpected 1993 win that he got Labor an unheralded fifth term. It's certainly noteable for breaking new territory, and only adds like three extra words to the lead. On the Keating page, we already have one user at this early hour who says that the edits are appropriate. If you feel your version is better, then argue it (at the Keating page, no two discussion stuff). But I have better things to do than spend energy on such a trivial minority objection. Timeshift (talk) 20:28, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Timeshift's edits in this case are perfectly justifiable - a fifth consecutive election win for a party is entirely unusual, and I don't think the wording "giv[es] Keating credit for Hawke's wins" - I'd support the same wording in Gorton's or Iemma's articles. My only whinge is a misuse of "it's" as a possessive. Orderinchaos 20:32, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Orderinchaos; the material is clearly relevant. I'm also flabbergasted at the comment that what "aroused [Pete's] interest" is the fact that Timeshift edited Keating's article seventeen years after Hewson's loss. I shudder to think what he'd make of my edit history, then. Frickeg (talk) 22:53, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Most of mine are written about people who died before my father was born. Orderinchaos 01:19, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Let me put it another way. Some Wikipedia editors do not love wisdom and truth so much as they love a particular cause, be it a football team, a faith, Collingwood or a party. A week or so ago, and our article on Kevin Rudd had barely a word of mild criticism, at a time when the media were gleefully listing his faults, the polls were on a one-way trek to Tasmania, the ALP knew he was unelectable and Tony Abbott was rallying the troops to glory. A few hours later, he was gone, and if a seeker after knowledge had turned to Wikipedia for the answer, or even an explanation of what every journo was splashing across the front pages and prime time telly, they would come up empty. In Wikipedia's eyes, Rudd was the goods. If Wikipedia shades the truth by adding Bob Hawke's election victories to Keating's lucky tally of one, or actively conceals the truth in the case of the declining Rudd, then we are not doing the lovers of truth and wisdom who come here seeking enlightenment any service at all. We have editors who trawl over old ground, relentlessly turning the soil to their favour. Keating's been out of Parliament for fourteen years, it is no sudden revelation who won the 1993 election, yet Timeshift here wants to polish up the Keating pedestal and add a bit more gloss. And when I gently point this out, do I get praised for my perception? Like hell, I get a childish or thoughtless attack on my sanity! --Pete (talk) 00:08, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Pete, they're agreeing with me, it's a trivial issue, just... move... on... seriously. Timeshift (talk) 00:32, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This isn't a pissing contest, brother. If you cannot see the point I'm making, then just let it go. It's not about who has the numbers in Wikipedia. It's a matter of playing fair to our readers. There would have been any number of people turning to the Kevin Rudd article for answers last week, and we had less than what the papers have been saying for months. What we had was factual and sourced, sure enough, all done by the wikirules. But it was a load of steaming tripe when it came to presenting the true picture. That's one very visible example of the results of polishing up partisan heroes, whether they be politicians, movie stars or ocean liners. We should present the unvarnished facts. --Pete (talk) 01:39, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, unvarnished facts - like the fact that Keating led the ALP to its fifth consecutive victory. I see the point you're making, but I honestly don't think that amounts to "polishing up" anything. Frickeg (talk) 04:47, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Pete, it's a matter of pragmatism. A handful agree with me, none agree with you, in my opinion your point is invalid, trivial, and a waste of my energy, therefore the easiest thing to do is to say i'm done with this debate :) Timeshift (talk) 11:13, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I somewhat agree with Pete, the lead can be easily misread as inferring he won five elections. Actually, the grammar is pretty poor on that sentence in other ways; "After becoming prime minister in 1991, he led Labor to its fifth consecutive victory in the 1993 federal election, which many had considered unwinnable for Labor, mainly due to the effects that the early 1990s recession had on Australia." A strict interpretation is that he won the election BECAUSE of the recession, not DESPITE it. --Surturz (talk) 05:24, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * While I can't see how anyone could possibly read that as Keating winning five elections himself (I mean, between succeeding in 1991 and the 1993 election there were five elections? Honestly), I do agree about the recession wording, which makes it sound as if the recession was Keating's big election-winning issue. Frickeg (talk) 05:47, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi all, i've begun reading Unfinished Business, and even at this early stage i'm left thinking the current Keating article on wikipedia is very much from a Liberal POV. Do others agree much has been slanted and/or left out? Timeshift (talk) 10:30, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * What are your specific concerns? Seems fairly okay to me. --Surturz (talk) 05:24, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Nothing specific, all 1983-96. But one example, the absolutely astounding pool of capital we have floating around now because of everyone's compulsory super, and just how much of a massive impact that's had on Australia's wealth. But don't address that point, the entire article needs working over. It also exposes how Hewson not Howard deserves the credit for the Campbell Committee, and funnily enough the Treasurer section of the Howard article doesn't even mention Hewson. Love the revisionism by certain elements on here. Timeshift (talk) 08:32, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Future elections
A CFD here has renamed Category:Future elections in Australia as Category:Scheduled elections in Australia. I personally think the renaming is ridiculous, since many of these elections are not "scheduled" at all - they could be at any time in the next few years. I'd like to hear others' thoughts on it, though, and on the best method of moving it back. Frickeg (talk) 23:26, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, correct use of language is important in Wikipedia. My understanding of the meaning of scheduled is that the date has been set. That's very different from future. The move was just plain wrong. Not familiar enough with this part of the system to know how to fix the mess. HiLo48 (talk) 23:37, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I have added a deletion review entry. Make comment at Deletion review/Log/2010 July 8 -- Barrylb (talk) 00:35, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

How do others handle a random user who wants a cite for everything?
Steven Griffiths... it had five sentences and one cite. Just very basic stuff like what seat, how long, he's deputy lib leader, nothing at all controversial. Someone has come along and tried to slap a refimprove tag despite no controversies, no cite needed tags, and five lines with a cite. They want a cite for every sentence. This is going overboard, AFAIK no MP has a cite for every line, especially of an article only 5 sentences long. Suggestions? Timeshift (talk) 11:54, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow, that's rather an odd one, isn't it? (I mean, it's clearly hugely controversial to claim that anyone is a member of the Liberal Party!) I've added three citations (rather less than the user was suggesting) at grammatically sensible places, which hopefully will satisfy everyone. They may make things easier when it comes to expanding the article as well. Frickeg (talk) 12:00, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not adding cites that's the issue, I could have done that. It's the fact someone comes along and does something so silly, and then expects others to do the work that they think need doing (think back to the great uncited BLP article purge)... Timeshift (talk) 12:22, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know; there really is a terrible arrogance when people throw WP:BLP at you and then refuse to actually do any work towards improving the issue. Sometimes it's just easier to do what they want, though ... I mean, after all, improving the encyclopaedia is the ultimate goal. Frickeg (talk) 12:27, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * But this (no offence against you) is not improving the encyclopedia, this is giving in to some idiot's unfounded demands. I think it's good when an article is improved upon, but that is not what i'd call an improvement. But I get what you're saying. I just don't like giving in to such silly demands from anons. Timeshift (talk) 13:35, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I personally think there are times when "bite me" is quite the appropriate response. I believe that this is one of those times. :P Rebecca (talk) 17:01, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Then i'd be accused of unnecessary bad faith etc. The mini edit wars aren't particularly fun or productive either. There isn't anything that can be done to stop silly edits such as those is there? I re-iterate my last post above... rock and hard place really. Timeshift (talk) 20:22, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Since they're chucking random acronyms at you and demanding you do the heavy lifting, just throw WP:SOFIXIT right back at them. Frickeg (talk) 23:09, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * But how does that stop them re-adding the cite needed tags when I remove them...? Timeshift (talk) 23:48, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It doesn't. It just makes you feel a bit better. I really don't think there's a way to deal with this kind of thing, other than attempting to initiate a policy or guideline against slapping and other tags onto articles without at least attempting to fix the issue oneself. Frickeg (talk) 23:54, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * A polite, sage like comment on a user's Talk page will sometimes help, although success is less likely with an IP editor. HiLo48 (talk) 00:22, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem there is that they are actually following a guideline. In the past i've found it not to be very productive and head-wall-banging to convince these contributors otherwise. The far easier option is to cave in to their demands and ref each sentence... but I don't do blackmail. Timeshift (talk) 00:40, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I suppose that it's better than nominating the article for speedy deletion on the grounds that its an unreferenced BLP though ;) (whatever happened to that particular crusade?). Nick-D (talk) 00:46, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It's a weird form of malicious compliance that allows people to be random bullies and actually be protected by process. I did hear someone was doing their research PhD on this very subject regarding Wikipedia, and sent them some links which I thought might help, but haven't heard anything for a while. Orderinchaos 01:24, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Michael Considine
I was curious as to why there was a ? between his birth month and birth year... looked at the article's ADB reference, it states Considine was "probably" born on specified date. I've removed the question mark between his birth date and birth year. Surely there is a standard format on wikipedia for such situations? A question mark is way too ambigious, it gave me the impression it was the contributor who was unsure, not the source/history in general. As an aside, just incase anyone doesn't know much about Considine... "conservative criticism of him reached a peak when he announced that he was acting consul for the new Bolshevik government of Russia. In July 1919 in Melbourne City Court he received three weeks imprisonment and was fined £100 for saying publicly, 'bugger the King, he is a bloody German bastard'. Next month he was suspended from the House for four weeks for refusing to withdraw an assertion that the Australian government was supporting the forces of Kolchak in Russia." Colourful lad. Timeshift (talk) 02:21, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The question mark was there because the ADB specifically said the date was not certain, the Parliamentary Handbook wasn't sure either, and nor was Psephos. This seemed to me to indicate doubt as to his exact birth date. However, I agree that a question mark is perhaps not the best way to do this. The Manual of Style gives no example for this particular case (where the exact date, but not the year, is uncertain), but uses c. when the year is uncertain (c. 1885). Perhaps this would be more appropriate (i.e. c. 26 January 1885 – 2 November 1959)? Frickeg (talk) 02:38, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me! Timeshift (talk) 03:34, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Family histories
An anon editor has adjusted the birth dates and places for Daniel Curtin; since I'm a regular lurker at Poll Bludger, it seems obvious that this person is (or claims to be) a relative of said MP. This is the latest in a long line of "family" additions that I've had to revert. But when I ask them for a source, the question arises: is there a way to source family history? And what is the best way to deal with relatives of politicians who (in good faith) just want to add some more specific information? Frickeg (talk) 07:20, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Well we do want articles to be correct and sourced. So we have a problem if it is sourced and wrong.  In this case a footnote may be in order.   The same for if there are contradictory sources. In principle the information is verifiable at the births deaths and marriages registry, but in practice these records may only be made available to the public after 100 years or so.  In many cases the birth date is disclosed for the MP on a place like the web site of the parliament, but this may not cover those earlier elected   A relevant Who's Who in Australia, will likely list their birthdate and parents.  Relatives updating details on entries are also much more likely to know what newspapers or books the person's details appear in and would be a good source for identifying these. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:58, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Election infobox
Can I have some comments regarding using this style of election infobox in New South Wales past and future elections, it will add practical character to the articles and a fixed place for electoral maps for researchers. It also includes past and next and MP lists, as well as further information regarding the leaders of the two main parties as opposed to the current style of infobox currently used at New South Wales state election, 2007, which is very dull and everything there fits into the infobox displayed here. Романов (talk) 08:18, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, let's see. I have to say, I'm supportive of a change - I find the current NSW ones very limited, and these are the best. However, a few issues: a) I think we need a way of including two-party-preferred rather than (or as well as) primary vote, considering its vital importance; and b) I'm not sure I support having the maps in the infobox, which seems to bloat it a bit. I'm open to convincing on this last one, though. Frickeg (talk) 08:22, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I second Frickeg's concerns - I like the idea, and I think it's a helpful change, but I think having the maps in the infobox bloats it unnecessarily. Rebecca (talk) 08:39, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't have a problem with the infobox for current and immediate past elections, but would have issues with extending it to historical elections (I can elaborate if anyone's interested). Also agree with Frickeg's points above. Orderinchaos 10:15, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm interested - which particular problems do you foresee? If we're going to do this we should know how far back to go, because while I'm not advocating complete consistency it would be good to go as far as we can without compromising accuracy and readability. Frickeg (talk) 10:56, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Lee Rhianon, major re-draft
I have re-drafted Lee Rhiannon's page in my user area here. There are citations missing which I am chasing, but I would appreciate any feedback, especially on POV etc. I've tried to keep things neutral but I should disclose that I am a supporter, so that can be hard. Best solution is to bounce it off concerned editors here. Feel free to edit it directly in my user space. Thanks. Sambauers (talk) 10:16, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The 'State Politics' section needs a lot of work - at present it reads like her website (eg, repeated claims that she 'campaigned' for things and no mentions of the results of these 'campaigns' or any difficulties/failures). The article should also mention the recent problems she's had with using state government funded websites to support her senate campaign, which was reported as leading to Bob Brown calling for her to stand down from her State position. Nick-D (talk) 11:57, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

New article
Australian Labor Party leadership election, 2006 new article regarding the 2006 leadership election of the ALP (Rudd v Beazely). Романов (talk) 14:13, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Oldest federal MP?
I was reading Wilson Tuckey and Division of O'Connor, and the bit about being the oldest House MP make me wonder who in the Senate is older... or was it just an oversight to say House of Reps than all of Aus Parliament? Timeshift (talk) 21:08, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This source says he is "Australia's oldest Federal MP". Surely no Senator comes close... (Boswell is 69, Heffernan 67). --Mkativerata (talk) 21:15, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, i've altered both pages. Timeshift (talk) 22:52, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep ... and random trivia: the oldest Senator is actually Judith Troeth, of all people, who will be 70 in August (about five months ahead of Boswell). Frickeg (talk) 23:01, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * And there are 25 sitting US Senators (25% of the chamber) older than Troeth.--Mkativerata (talk) 23:05, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Not that that is relevant to the Australian Parliament. --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   13:05, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * No ... just a fun bit of trivia. I don't think anyone was suggesting actually adding it to the article. Frickeg (talk) 14:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

2010 election link in Gillard article lead
It seems there are a couple of unexplained objections having the 2010 election link in Gillard's lead. It is pretty obvious that she will call the election soon. It's completely relevant. I'm going to break WP:AGF and assume there are less than genuine reasons for wanting it removed. Timeshift (talk) 02:13, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The Gillard article is meant to be about Gillard, not an election. Please drop your obsession. HiLo48 (talk) 02:20, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * How is the 2010 election not central to Gillard...? Timeshift (talk) 02:27, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Firstly, it should NOT be called the 2010 election. It could still happen in 2011. Any other view is speculation, something Wikipedia must avoid, NO MATTER WHAT THE MEDIA IS FILLING ITS HEADLINES WITH. Secondly, given that it IS speculation, it should not be a major part of a politician's bio. We don't talk about the next election in every world leaders' article, not until the election is actually announced. Please take a step back and see that you really are obsessed with this next election for Gillard. HiLo48 (talk) 02:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The person who is responsible for determining the date has said it will be in 2010. That is not speculation, and I am not obsessed. You seem to be obsessed with it's removal....... Timeshift (talk) 02:55, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * To be entirely honest, I really can't see that this is such a huge deal. I think it's more than reasonable to take from Gillard's numerous, cited assertions that the election will be held in 2010, and saying it might be held in 2011 is rather like saying it might be won by Family First. Certainly once the election is called it will be relevant in the lead; I'm less sure about its relevance now, but as the point is more than likely to be moot in a week or two it seems rather a waste of time to edit war over it. Frickeg (talk) 03:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, i'll wait until it's official and then re-add it. Timeshift (talk) 03:09, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

But then the same group is adding the MEDIA speculation in about tomorrow being the day it is called. The hypocrisy is so rich it's fattening! Timeshift (talk) 03:47, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I only added it under the PM part to satisfy you. I don't think it should be in there at all - if in there it should be under it's own heading down the bottom. I'm sure if you re-add it in the lead, I and others will re-add it further down the bottom where it is now! CanberraBulldog (talk) 03:53, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I have removed ALL the speculation. I agree that as soon as the date is announced it should go straight into the lead. HiLo48 (talk) 04:02, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I concur with HiLo48 and the majorityCanberraBulldog (talk) 04:06, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

So as soon as it's announced the 2010 link will go straight in to Gillard's lead. Excellent! Timeshift (talk) 04:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

28 August is not yet confirmed by the people who count
Yes, we're at that time of the electoral cycle again, the announcement of the federal election is imminent, and right on time randoms turn up thinking they are right in adding media speculation of the election date to articles such as the edit war at Australian federal election, 2010. It's going what appears to be unnoticed at the moment, i'm bringing this up here for this and the many more incidents we all need to be on guard for coming up to the election. Timeshift (talk) 06:12, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

State electorates
Is there an accepted naming convention for the state electorates? I ask as it seems all the states have the electorates as Electoral district of ..., whereas in Tasmania they are Division of ... (state).Shadowmaster13 (talk) 08:51, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It depends on what things are called in each state. In Tasmania the state electorates are called divisions and share the same boundaries and names as federal electorates, which are also called divisions. Hence the need for (state) to disambiguate the state divisions. -- Barrylb (talk) 09:26, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
 * In Tasmania due to their electoral law they are actually the same divisions, but we separate them out at state and federal level as they're filled by two different parliaments at two different levels. NT uses Electoral division of (per legislation), ACT uses "_ electorate" (see legislation) and all others use "Electoral district of". The reason for naming at each level is reflected in each state's Electoral Act (NSW, WA, QLD, SA, etc.) The formatting comes from the gazettals of the names in each state/territory (see e.g. WA), which thankfully for the most part (unlike LGAs which are a minefield of different terminology) are the same across most states. Orderinchaos 10:23, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks for explaining it, it just seemed weird, still does but thats the government fault not you guys' Shadowmaster13 (talk) 00:15, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Trust me, if you ever end up working with the naming of Local Government Areas of Australia you'll end up tearing your hair out and burning it. :) I've spent almost three years trying to work it out. Orderinchaos 01:29, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Stephen Conroy
Nice edits... POV, spelling errors, non-reliable sources, it's a minefield. I've got enough fronts to deal with at the moment, does anyone care to take this one onboard? Timeshift (talk) 06:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Fixed. I couldn't salvage anything from it, the only thing that might have been acceptable per the neutrality and biography policies was changing "Stephen Conroy is a Catholic" to "Stephen Conroy states he is a Catholic", but the source clearly says he is one, so that couldn't stay either.  -- Lear's Fool 07:10, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Timeshift (talk) 07:18, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The internet filter has certainly been responsible for some of the worst editing in Australian politics articles in recent years. I'd have thought that the opponents of this move would generally be mature and capable of sensible editing, but the actual edits suggest the exact opposite. Given that I think that the filter is awful, I'm a bit worried about the company I keep ;) Nick-D (talk) 09:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I know! Pretty much the same here. Orderinchaos 10:27, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The semi-protection (thanks Orderinchaos) should solve edits like the above, but I wonder if, in light of the persistent bad edits over the last months, this might not be a candidate for the pending changes trial. Rebecca (talk) 10:41, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Democratic Party (NSW)
Do we have a colour for the Democratic Party in member tables? Electoral district of Eastern Suburbs currently uses the colour of the modern Democrats, which looks decidedly odd. Rebecca (talk) 13:48, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * A random decision at a time when I had no information on the party and had to choose something. I have no idea of any colour that they used at the time, although being a Catholic party affiliated with Labor it was possibly reddish. In the absence of a source giving an official colour, we've made arbitrary decisions in the past, taking into account the colours already assigned to other contemporary parties and any impressions that the colours might give. Frickeg (talk) 14:23, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Use of opinion poll data
tl;dr version: I would like to establish consensus that inserting references to primary opinion poll data, without a corroborating secondary reference, is original research.

I'm as much of a newspoll junkie as anyone, but I'd like to make a case that direct links to opinion poll data (e.g. ) should not be interspersed into auspol articles. This discussion at Talk:Tony Abbott demonstrates the problems with using opinion polling as article content:
 * Opinion polls are hard to interpret properly, since often it is the change in the numbers that are of import, and you need to compare with similar situations in history, which is necessarily subjective. (e.g. maybe there is a national swing to the government, but what if there is an undercurrent swing away from the government in marginal seats?)
 * Following any article text with an opinion poll number, violates WP:SYN, since you are implying that the preceeding text caused the change in opinion poll numbers.
 * Another problem is that you need to put opinion poll data throughout an auspol article, top-to-bottom, to avoid WP:NPOV arguments.

Where I think refs to primary opinion poll data can be used: --Surturz (talk) 00:39, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Where there a secondary source is provided e.g. ref 1 to a newspaper article says "Since the introduction of the frobozz policy, the government has had a surge in popularity", an editor could then link to the actual opinion poll to flesh out the content with actual numbers
 * 2) Almanack style articles where uninterpreted opinion poll data is presented for its own sake e.g. Australian federal election, 2010


 * I don't see anything wrong with using opinion poll data as long as you let the reader form their own conclusions rather than attempt to push a narrative on them. You can't start dictating where and where not they can be used. Eg, Rudd had 4 years of stratospheric polling with a sudden sharp plunge in mid-2010 that he could not recover from. He went from a solid net positive to solid net negative satisfaction-dissatisfaction rating in a single poll (more or less reinforced by other polls). Remarkable. But one has to question, after all the time you've been on here, swimming amongst opinion polls in articles, why now is the time that you seem to take issue. I could make an educated guess but i'll keep those opinions to myself and let others form judgement :P Timeshift (talk) 00:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)


 * You have just interpreted a series of polls. Editors cannot do that in articles. Therefore we either present raw poll data, or interpretations from reliable sources. I could go with raw data, but I'm not sure if you want that. HiLo48 (talk) 03:28, 21 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Um, this is a talk page, not an article. Timeshift (talk) 03:29, 21 July 2010 (UTC)


 * As long as it is presented correctly (i.e. In X / over X period, Newspoll reported that ... (ref)) and any findings from them are related back to reliable secondary sources, we should be fine. There's a trend towards recentism and trying to analyse everything the moment it happens rather than waiting for the dust to settle (this is not limited to any one side of politics or any one commentator) and see what impact it had which is both annoying and entirely counterproductive from Wikipedia's point of view. Orderinchaos 11:46, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Karen Chijoff
To hark back to the rather more tranquil arena of 2007 candidates, surely this is a classic case of WP:ONEEVENT? Any objections to redirecting (and merging, if necessary) with the article on the pamphlet scandal? Frickeg (talk) 05:08, 21 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd delete the article, as opposed to redirecting it. While the pamphlet scandal concerned her campaign, all the public evidence is that she personally didn't know about it, so I think a redirect would be a bit of a BLP violation. Rebecca (talk) 08:09, 21 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Rebecca. Given that she wasn't blamed in any of the inquires the article should be deleted rather than redirected. Nick-D (talk) 08:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed with Rebecca and Nick - no reason to redirect as she was not part of the scandal. My understanding was she was so angry upon discovering it that her relationship ended, which generally wouldn't suggest prior collusion. Orderinchaos 11:43, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree as per Rebecca, Nick and oic. Delete. --Surturz (talk) 12:14, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Duly prodded. Frickeg (talk) 12:26, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Gillard image from Socialist Alternative is free? Doubts...
I've removed. The site has a cc-by content license, but I have doubts as to whether the SA actually took the photo. Timeshift (talk) 09:44, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Judging from the placement of the flag, that photo appears to have been taken in the ALP party room in Parliament House. It's possible that SA had a photographer there at least once when Gillard was speaking, but not all that likely. Nick-D (talk) 09:48, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Adding to that the tiny size of the image and the lack of metadata, on the balance of probabilities, no. Timeshift (talk) 10:04, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I dont understand, they clearly state at the bottom of every page on the site that "Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License". The image is content on the site, hosted on their server, and they allow for use of all content on that site to be licensed under the CC license. How can that not be taken at face value? E.3 (talk) 11:15, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Because on the balance of probabilities, SA do not own the photo. It is small, has no metadata, and there's no attribution to who took it on the page. Timeshift (talk) 11:19, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * They do this for all their images. It is unlikely that a registered political party and movement in Australia would be clearly breaching copyright for years and years without anyone kicking up a stink, in my opinion. There is another image similarly noted, which could be useable, at http://www.sa.org.au/component/content/article/2790-gillards-labor-offers-nothing-for-workers . E.3 (talk) 11:22, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd like other editors input. Timeshift (talk) 11:25, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I have asked the question on Media_copyright_questions E.3 (talk) 11:30, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I also have noted that Tin Eye reverse image search for all images of http://www.sa.org.au/images/stories/Gillard.gif finds no results in its image search that are the same image. This may be viewed at http://www.tineye.com/search/7a37b10a6f36b01ed60dc0f1633096eb2388c914/ for the next 72 hours. I therefore contend that Socialist Alternative own this image, it is licensed under CC, and as this is a fantastic image of Julia Gillard, front on, would like it to be used as the main image on her page. An image update on that page is needed IMHO. Any thoughts from any editors would be welcome before I do this. E.3 (talk) 11:55, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * If it's SA's photo, why isn't a larger image available, and why does the image have no metadata? This discussion notes they are claiming a lot of various images as their own and such is further evidence it's not likely to be owned by SA. Timeshift (talk) 12:41, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Also, it isn't attributed to an author on the site, and we can't use it without correct attribution (or at least that's my understanding). Currently it's just got "Socialist Alternative" as the author, where does that come from? If it was just added when the image was uploaded, then we're not meeting CC-BY-SA conditions anyway, right? Still, it's a good image (certainly better than the current one), is it worth e-mailing SA to see what's going on? -- Lear's Fool 06:49, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Federal electorates and localities
Does anyone know of a quick (automated?) way of updating the "Federal electorate" field in Infobox Australian place in the thousands of locality articles across NSW and Queensland affected by the redistributions prior to this election? It would nice to get this as right as we possibly could. -- Mattinbgn\talk 02:34, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * (Not to mention WA) Sadly, no I don't. What I usually do is an Excel spreadsheet which tells me what I need to change to what exactly, sort it by source,destination, and then use a series of AWB queries to process like changes. Orderinchaos 03:02, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I have a table of suburb-to-electorate that could help. It is based on an intersection between suburbs and federal electorate boundaries using electoral commission (AEC) data. We would need to map AEC names to Wikipedia articles. We would also need to find a friendly bot operator to apply the edits. If you are interested in taking this on, I can provide the file. Barrylb (talk) 03:18, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I just updated Parkes localities, and many of them still showed Gwydir.--Grahame (talk) 07:32, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm just finishing the WA redistribution now. Orderinchaos 11:21, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm seeing the work tick over in my watchlist - many thanks for your quick attention. -- Mattinbgn\talk 07:40, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Boothby 2001 final results?
I can't locate the final results for Boothby for the 2001 election - only the "close-of-poll" result with ~95% of the votes counted. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks in advance, Pdfpdf (talk) 11:34, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * is as final as they get. You can go to Psephos to get the two-party-preferred votes themselves. Frickeg (talk) 11:49, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * What the AEC calls "Votes Counted : 95.99%" in that set of results mean votes counted against enrolment in that division, in other words, the turnout. At the bottom of the page it says: "The percentage of votes counted is calculated against the total enrolment figure." There were 89,366 people enrolled in Boothby when the rolls closed, 85,779 votes were cast, which equals 95.99% turnout. --Canley (talk) 11:54, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

OR at Division of Blair?
Additional eyes appreciated. Frickeg (talk) 12:04, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

AfD of interest
An Australian political candidate at AfD: Nick Beams (AfD). Frickeg (talk) 12:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Discussion re: image at Kevin Rudd
There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Kevin Rudd regarding what image of the former Prime Minister should be used at the top of the article. Any input is welcome. -- Lear's Fool 01:19, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I like the new one, seems better quality, full body, more Kevin Rudd like - I say update.CanberraBulldog (talk) 01:22, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * You should mention it at the discussion on the talkpage, that's where it's being debated. -- Lear's Fool 02:13, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Issues at Division of Boothby
I've removed a bunch of stuff that is not standard to the other seats, but the person wishes to enter in to a long (and pointless) discussion that I really can't be bothered with. Those that care about standards amongst the 150 federal seats, please assist with this page. Thanks. Timeshift (talk) 13:49, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "Those that care about standards among 150 federal seats" - hmm, that sounds like me! I've left an explanation at the user's talk page. Frickeg (talk) 14:06, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It appears to be unformatted election results which are being argued over - the results are correct, but a screendump doesn't really work. Orderinchaos 14:08, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd like to point out I'm not arguing about anything. I'm asking for information. At least Frickeg has the good manners to reply in a civil manner, not to mention that he also answered the questions - Politely. Thanks Frickeg. Pdfpdf (talk) 14:30, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * We're also making some progress on this question about the sometimes questionable AEC ratings for electorates. Given how many of them more correctly have two classifications rather than one (eg Boothby, inner and outer metro and Pearce, rural and outer metro but both given simply "outer metro"), I'm inclined to suggest we abandon them and write descriptively about the electorates instead. I've given an example of this on Pdfpdf's talk page - another is at Division of Moore and I'm sure others exist around the country. Orderinchaos 16:31, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. The description of Pearce you gave at Pdfpdf's talk page (with specifics added) is far, far more useful than calling the seat "outer metropolitan". Rebecca (talk) 17:58, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. Frickeg (talk) 23:33, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the Boothby page should have blank 2010 results either. Thoughts? Timeshift (talk) 03:28, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit ambivalent on this one. It's been common practice for UK articles for years, but it's never caught on here - I have to say it seems a bit of a waste of time and I certainly wouldn't suggest implementing it across the board, but as it does actually give pertinent information I can't see anything particularly wrong with it. Frickeg (talk) 05:05, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I actually agree with you Frickeg, but if the rest of the seats don't have one then neither should Boothby. I don't think we have the same resources here as the UK politics area of wikipedia does... unless someone or a group is willing to add them to all 150 pages, then I don't think it should be on Boothby either. Timeshift (talk) 05:31, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * We've generally solved this issue by having the "Candidates of x Election" pages, which I think are actually quite a bit more informative. Rebecca (talk) 07:35, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Re Timeshift's comment:
 * 1) As you all know, I'm new here. Hence, I'm not familiar with Timeshift. Is he just a "grumpy old man", or has he some sort of personal vendetta against me, or is there some other explanation for his negative / bad faith attitude?
 * The information I put at Boothby, plus the hidden comments containing the rest of the "template" data, will be added to the article some time within the next couple of months.
 * Why is it such a big deal to add it now? It means that within the next couple of months, it only has to be added to 149 articles, not 150.
 * Also, it actually adds useful (accurate and informative) information to WP now.
 * Why is this a problem?
 * 2) "unless someone or a group is willing to add them to all 150 pages" - I'm happy to help. The data will be added sometime in the next couple of months anyway, so why not start now?
 * Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 11:30, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Re: Rebecca's comment: I'm unfamiliar with what you're referring to, so I can't make a useful reply. Pdfpdf (talk) 11:30, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I didn't have the time to respond to your detailed request. I could have just reverted again and again without explanation - but I took the time to advise other editors on wikiproject australian politics about the issue so someone with more time could inform you of where you were going wrong. I'd suggest to just get over it and move on? Timeshift (talk) 11:33, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) I could suggest lots of things, but won't. Instead I'll say: How about being just a teensy-weensy bit less abrasive?
 * 2) I'm going to WP:AGF and conclude that your reply means that you don't have some sort of personal vendetta towards me.
 * 3) I look foreward to you providing some sort of relevant answer to ANY of the questions I have asked you.
 * Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 11:43, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I didn't have the time to respond to your detailed request. I could have just reverted again and again without explanation - but I took the time to advise other editors on wikiproject australian politics about the issue so someone with more time could inform you of where you were going wrong. No vendetta. I'd suggest to just get over it and move on. Timeshift (talk) 11:45, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * No vendetta - Thanks for the clarification.
 * I'd suggest to just get over it and move on. - I could suggest lots of things, but won't.
 * Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 11:51, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

arbitrary breakpoint

 * As to why it's a waste of time to add them now - they'll need to be completely reconfigured in a month anyway. Much easier to just add them then. And regarding the candidates page: it hasn't been done yet; here's the 2007 one. Once the candidates are declared at the end of the month we can write the 2010 one. Frickeg (talk) 11:55, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "As to why it's a waste of time to add them now - they'll need to be completely reconfigured in a month anyway." - Why do you say that? (I either don't understand, or I disagree.)
 * "Much easier to just add them then." - I disagree. I don't see what difference it makes.
 * Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 12:12, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S. Nothing more on this from me tonight - have to do domestic things like put the bins out and load the dishwasher. Pdfpdf (talk) 12:12, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'll try to make it clearer. By placing these candidate lists in now, we double the work that we have to do. Normally, when the election results are declared, we would go in, add the table, and that would be that. You're proposing that we go in and put in the table now, and then when the election's over we'd need to completely move it around (for order of votes received etc.), which is a lot of work for not much return. Once the candidate page is up in a week or so the whole point will be moot anyway. Frickeg (talk) 12:15, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * (The bins are out - next stop: dishwasher)
 * Oh dear. How embarassing. I completely agree with you. (Mea culpa.) Pdfpdf (talk) 13:06, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * No worries! Happens to us all at the start (I had to go round undoing pages and pages of my own mistakes). Glad you're around to help us out! Frickeg (talk) 13:13, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Um ... you agreed with the decision to leave out the 2010 candidates. And as for the formatting - I'm sorry to be abrupt, but it is pointless. The headings are contained within the tables. What purpose do a whole heap of hidden "2010"s serve? Frickeg (talk) 12:50, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Isn't English a wonderfully ambiguous language! Yes, I agreed with your rationale, and that there was little value in adding it to other pages. But not with removal. But I'm not about to "die in a ditch" over it. It's not doing any harm there, so I don't see any point in removing it. But if you have a "bee in your bonnet" ...
 * And as for the formatting - I'm sorry to be abrupt, but it is pointless. The headings are contained within the tables. What purpose do a whole heap of hidden "2010"s serve?
 * "I'm sorry to be abrupt, but it is pointless." - What a well reasoned and well argued rationale! (NOT!!!) That's simply your POV, and WP:I just don't like it is NOT sufficient rationale to remove it.
 * More later. Pdfpdf (talk) 12:59, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Sigh. I woud have thought this was obvious, but I'll point you to WP:HIDDEN anyway, which gives guidelines for using hidden text. None of them refer to having hidden headings or anything similar, especially when the headings already exist. It is not WP:IDONTLIKEIT to remove useless clutter. I honestly haven't intended to offend you or be rude to you, so please stop taking everything so personally - I'm not doing this to upset you, only to keep the encyclopedia consistent. I'll be up to Boothby results after I finish Barker anyway so the whole issue will become moot, as the past ones will all get moved to a new page. Regarding the candidates - you may not have intended to agree with removing them, but everyone else did. This page makes it redundant anyway. Frickeg (talk) 13:05, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. 1) I don't agree with your point of view. 2) I don't agree with your assessment or summary.  3) It's pretty effing obvious that somebody who reverts something that's under discussion is starting an edit war. 4) I'm going to bed. I will respond in 24 hours. Pdfpdf (talk) 13:13, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Look, for someone who's complaining that I've been rude and not explained my point of view, you're not doing a bad job of it yourself. You have yet to explain why you think the hidden headings are of any use whatsoever, and the fact remains that consensus on the candidates thing was reached above. I considered - hoped, perhaps - that my explanation on your talk page would be adequate (it was, after all, merely pointing to a pre-established consensus and the hidden comments were against the established practices, which I thought we'd agreed to respect unless absolutely necessary). As it clearly wasn't, I haven't reverted again - that would be edit warring, so I'll wait to hear others' perspectives. But please, assume good faith. Frickeg (talk) 13:17, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Pdfpdf might be unaware, but the consensus of the AusPol project had been to separate the election results onto a new page for each federal seat, and Frickeg has been doing the (~99%) majority of the work to make that happen. The centralised Candidates page (which is rapidly becoming a project standard) is the best place to have candidates noted. Most of our considerations take into account two things: 1. what is useful to readers, and 2. what is reasonable to maintain and keep up-to-date given our limited supply of project workers. Orderinchaos 22:17, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Fortuitously I was up to Boothby next with the seat result pages anyway and have created the relevant page, which hopefully will put this discussion to rest. It's all in line with conventions across the other 200-odd current and former divisions. Frickeg (talk) 05:41, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Nicola Roxon
Eyes on this article would be appreciated, it seems an IP has dug up some old bones from the past. There's been no consensus to remove what the IP has removed and thinks is warranted. Timeshift (talk) 06:59, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikiquote
Does anyone know how wikiquote works? Would a "Quotes from the 2010 Australian Federal Election Campaign" page be a bit of fun? --Surturz (talk) 08:38, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Could well be - there's been some howlers from all sides. Not sure what their rules are over there though. Orderinchaos 13:07, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

The two Tony Smiths
A very minor issue that I've recently remembered: the current opposition frontbencher is currently at Tony Smith (Australian politician). The one-term Liberal-turned independent (1996-98) is at Tony Charles Smith. I created the latter page ages ago, but I've never liked the title since it combines a diminutive with a full name. Are there any objections to moving Tony Charles Smith to Tony Smith (Queensland politician), and should the current MP be at Tony Smith (Australian politician) or Tony Smith (Victorian politician)? Frickeg (talk) 10:01, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, they both are (were) Australian politicians, so to differentiate it makes sense to use the state for both. HiLo48 (talk) 11:39, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * What Hilo said. Rebecca (talk) 07:19, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Can an admin oblige with the former change (the Queensland one), then? Frickeg (talk) 01:21, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Done! --Canley (talk) 03:51, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

What constitutes assassination?
An anon has just changed John Newman from being the "second Australian politician assassinated" to the "first". I'm not sure who the previous one was intended to be - but is Newman really the only example? What about Thomas Ley's victims, Frederick McDonald and Hyman Goldstein? There's another example that I can't quite think of ... is there a definition somewhere that defines the difference between assassination and murder? Frickeg (talk) 12:20, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * My understanding is assassination = murder for political reasons; either to seize power or simply to get rid of an opponent. Murder of a public figure for other reasons (eg family dispute, common crime) would not be an assassination. Only reference I can find to anything earlier is in Aust Inst of Criminology (1989): "The only successful assassination attempt occurred in South Australia in 1921 when a minor state legislative candidate was assassinated in a rural railway station by an apparently insane gunman." Orderinchaos 12:47, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * What a load of bollocks. The "minor state legislative candidate" was Percy Brookfield, a prominent - and elected - politician in NSW. He was killed in an attempted mass shooting after he tackled the shooter, so it couldn't really be called a political assassination. I get grumpy when supposedly peer-reviewed journals are much less accurate than us...


 * As for calling it the first or second assassination, from memory Newman often gets referred to as the first, but that's hardly surprising considering that McDonald and Goldstein were killed so long ago. I have no problem calling it the second, as long as we accept that we're better informed than some of the sources :P Rebecca (talk) 13:45, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That's often the way :P I've found heaps of mistakes in sources about WA politics, even from reputable authors, which can be so easily checked against source documents. Orderinchaos 14:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Opinion_polling_for_the_Australian_federal_election,_2010 - copyvio?
This article seems to be a cut-paste of tabulated numbers from the newspoll website. The source web page has a notice "Copyright 2006" on the bottom left. Is there a notice somewhere else on the website that lets us reproduce the numbers? --Surturz (talk) 08:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Newspoll releases (PDFs) state "Any reproduction of this material must credit both NEWSPOLL and THE AUSTRALIAN". Timeshift (talk) 09:49, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we should link the PDFs instead to be on the safe side
 * The PDFs also state "Copyright at all times remains with Newspoll". Does the clause quoted by Timeshift9 actually give us permission to copy the results wholesale, or only to use it as a reference for selective quotation? I draw the parallel with newspaper articles - we can quote bits of the article if we reference, but we can't copy the whole article into WP.
 * --Surturz (talk) 00:53, 12 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Do you consider Newspoll, or Nationwide opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2008, or Opinion polling in the United Kingdom general election, 2010 copyvios? Happy to hear from anyone with more expertise than us. Timeshift (talk) 00:59, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm.. you are right it could indeed be a general problem. My reading of WP:NFC is that small excerpts of non-free text is okay, but wholesale reproduction is not okay. "Copyright at all times remains with Newspoll" to me definitely implies that a license is required to reproduce the data. I'm not entirely convinced that "Any reproduction of this material must credit both NEWSPOLL and THE AUSTRALIAN" gives the reader a license to use the material past "fair use" (ie. small excerpts).
 * I'd like someone more expert to comment too. Is there a noticeboard for this sort of query? WP:SCV says

"Aside from brief, clearly marked excerpts, information taken from non-free sources cannot be presented in identical language and must be sufficiently rewritten to avoid constituting an unauthorized derivative work."
 * So I think we are okay with the graphs made from the opinion poll data. --Surturz (talk) 05:01, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The pages I mentioned are far more text-detailed than Australia's, so I suggest if you have an issue with wholesale reproduction of polling data that you take it higher than WikiProject Australian Politics talk. Also note that no single article on wikipedia reproduces the entire history of polling for a polling company, but just for the previous term's worth of polling in question. That is for all intents and purposes an excerpt. Timeshift (talk) 06:39, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Mischief at Talk:Robert Brokenshire, Talk:Dennis Hood and Talk:Bob Day (Family First)
(cleaned up)

Various page protections implemented and SPI commencing. Timeshift (talk) 02:25, 8 August 2010 (UTC)


 * At Bob Day, an IP has begun removing content and refs, substituting unreferenced WP:OR. I don't know if they are related to the SPI. Extra eyes would be appreciated, thanks. Timeshift (talk) 03:15, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Template:Australian federal election, xxxx?
I came across this and this... do contributors think this sort of infobox would be useful for Australian elections? Timeshift (talk) 06:57, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
 * While I do like the template, I'm not sure if we colonials have enough content for it to be worth it. I mean, the UK template has entire articles devoted to boundary changes, and has a lot more parties to play around with, while the US has the whole primaries to include, and also has extensive (some might say excessive) coverage of the campaign (entire articles devoted to the debates, congressional endorsements, individual campaigns for each presidential candidate, etc.). Perhaps if we end up with that many articles related to 2010 it would be useful, but somehow I doubt it'll come to that. Something to aim for in the dim and distant future, perhaps ... Frickeg (talk) 09:07, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like someone's already done it... Timeshift (talk) 05:06, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Can you test for a potential viewing issue?
I've changed the new map at Australian federal election, 2010 to one of better quality, however it is vertically longer. Can anyone tell me if they have issues viewing the changed revision (and didn't with the vertically shorter map)? If so it may need reverting. Timeshift (talk) 06:25, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * No viewing issues; but to be honest I'm not sure there should be a map there at all. I mean, the key is completely unreadable, and it's going to say next to nothing to people who don't already know quite a bit about the electoral system. Not to mention the rather strange colour choices (I know they're from Psephos, but not everyone's going to know that he uses yellow for the Nats). Frickeg (talk) 08:34, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed with Frickeg. Orderinchaos 16:06, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Division of Gippsland
Discussion regarding inclusion of photo of the sitting member here; other views appreciated. Frickeg (talk) 21:56, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Wyatt Roy
I'm trying to avoid the election as much as possible. Is this guy notable enough yet? The-Pope (talk) 16:45, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Nope. Maybe on Sunday, not yet. Frickeg (talk) 01:02, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Now clearly notable. Given his remarkably young age (probably the youngest Federal MP ever) I suspect that we're about to see a large number of profiles of him in the media. 23:48, 21 August 2010 (UTC)Nick-D (talk)
 * I've cleaned this up a little. It was all over the shop. Hopefully, it has a little less POV Jherschel (talk) 02:57, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

New members, etc.
Just so that everyone's clear on this: all new members are officially members from yesterday (i.e. election day). Take a look at the Parliamentary Handbook. So if we know that a seat has a new member, it's perfectly OK to add them in. It's only for the seats in doubt (by my count Brisbane, Denison, Hasluck, Corangamite and Lindsay) that we can't make the changes. Their members will be officially members from election day as well, but we just don't know for certain who they are yet. Frickeg (talk) 01:38, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I question this, at least until the Divisional Returning Officer declares the poll. Please indicate the exact source of your assertion. Thanks, WWGB (talk) 01:45, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, what are you questioning? Look at the handbook, and the dates. Compare them to the dates of the election. That should answer your question. Frickeg (talk) 01:47, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Frickeg is correct. Timeshift (talk) 01:49, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * As an example, I've added Michelle Rowland, the expected victor in Greenway and used a note to say the article is current with an expected likely outcome. Following the return of the writs which may preclude some unforseen event (e.g. a victor may die between now and the writs being returned), we have no way of knowing other than the declaration may by a local divisional returning officer. Jherschel (talk) 02:55, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * A person who would have been declared elected except for her death would probably be considered notable.--Grahame (talk) 03:27, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

They are not members until the return of writs and the swearing-in. It is not appropriate to refer to them as members in the interim. If a misadventure befell, for example, John Alexander before taking his seat he would not be considered to have ever been a member. WWGB (talk) 04:42, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Not correct. Members who die after election but before swearing in are usually referred to in parliamentary member archives. Rebecca (talk) 05:36, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * See John Clasby for an example. As I said, look at the link I gave previously to the Parl Handbook. They're members from the date of the election. Neither of those sources say anything about being the member or not, only about taking their seats, a very different thing. Frickeg (talk) 05:40, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I stand corrected on the "death before sitting" provision. I still believe it is technically incorrect to refer to a (new) member until at least the declaration of the poll. It is analagous to Rudd's position from 24 November to 3 December 2007: everyone "knew" he was PM, we just couldn't call him that. Anyway I have no doubt that John Alexander "will be" the next member for Bennelong, so pedantry from me in his article is just that. Cheers, WWGB (talk) 06:53, 22 August 2010 (UTC) (Aside: where's Jack of Oz when his opinion is needed? Grrr ...)


 * As an aside, Rudd wasn't actually prime minister until 3 December, but all the MPs elected became MPs on 24 November. Frickeg (talk) 06:54, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * True. There's a difference there between the legislature and executive. The PM must be sworn in, but MPs are voted in. - Richard Cavell (talk) 10:42, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Coalition clarification
Queensland Liberals and Nationals are now LNP, right? Frickeg (talk) 05:52, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep. - Richard Cavell (talk) 10:40, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Election articles.
This is more relevant now, but I find a lot of the Australian election articles difficult to read. To me, it seems like it cares more about electoral mathematics (which, don't get me wrong, is important in AUS and I find interesting) than actually explaining. That, and at the very least, the 2010 election infobox isn't standard either. Sceptre (talk) 14:18, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * And that's our choice thankyou. Timeshift (talk) 23:36, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't be a choice to obfuscate articles or break standards just because "it's your choice". Every other country with a representative government uses Infobox election for its articles (from the presidential U.S. to the semi-presidential France to the parliamentary Anglosphere), so I don't see why Australia shouldn't. Also, the 2010 election article didn't have any results at about 4pm BST (~2am Sydney), even though all but a handful of seats had declared. For comparison, the 2010 UK election article was being updated through the night from 11:30pm onwards. Sceptre (talk) 00:20, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Incorrect. It is completely our choice, Australian politics on wikipedia has been through this time and time again. We are not bound to any standard. We choose. Timeshift (talk) 00:23, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * As an aside - no seats have yet declared, although the results in most are practically certain. Around 15% of votes are yet to be counted. Orderinchaos 01:25, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't be, though. It's good enough for every other country, so why don't Australian election articles use it? If "because we don't want to" is your only reason, it really isn't good enough. Standards are standards for a reason: because they're supposed to apply to everything. If they didn't, they'd simply be suggestions. Sceptre (talk) 01:08, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The issue here is that Australian and UK elections are completely different, and Australian elections are rather unique. We have preferential voting, which means we need our templates to be able to deal with that specifically. Also, in the UK they have final results on the night. We won't have final results for a few weeks yet. The seats that are "declared" are merely saying there's no chance someone else could win it; they'll still be counting postal votes all of next week. Frickeg (talk) 01:10, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that explanation. Still, I think it'd be wise for, in the interim, to use provisional results where several news sources are agreement (such as the Liberals being predicted 72 and the ALP 70). By the way, I don't think using the difference in voting systems is a good enough reason to depart from the standard. The French Assembly uses two-round runoff, Germany and the Celtic regions use MMPR, Ireland uses IRV for the presidential elections and STV for the Dail elections. There's nothing unique about Australia's system that means it has a reason to depart from the standard for literally all other election articles. Sceptre (talk) 01:25, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Did I not make myself clear? We are NOT bound to other countries usage. Timeshift (talk) 01:27, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Why? Absent a good reason, articles are expected to conform to standards, such as the MoS, or infobox usage. For example, articles about musicians are expected to use Infobox musician. "Because we don't want to" is not a good enough reason, and it's not just any arbitrary country, it's nearly every country; the infobox is used on articles about Argentinian, Chilean, American, Canadian, Irish, British, French, German, Spanish, Iraqi, Japanese, Taiwanese, South African, etc elections. There needs to be something that makes Australian elections stand out from the rest. Frickeg, however, is at least trying to answer my question. Sceptre (talk) 19:37, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

There have been efforts to change the infoboxes before, but the other ones simply don't deal with the two-party-preferred figures very well, which are of vital importance. At present, our consensus is to use these infoboxes. By all means suggest changing it, but be aware that consistency across the encyclopaedia is not uniform - try suggesting uniform infoboxes for biographies! Frickeg (talk) 01:31, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah. Well, your assertion that the 2PP figures are more important in Australia than anywhere else. My suggestion would be to make the Australian infobox to look more like infobox election, which is more aesthetically pleasing, but would still allow you to use 2PP votes, or ask for Infobox election to be modified to allow a 2PP field. Also, thanks for your responses; at least one person is taking these objections seriously. It doesn't really pay well to be so insular :) Sceptre (talk) 19:37, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * 2PP figures are critical in Australia whereas they don't even exist in any other jurisdiction at national level. Additionally, your idea of having "provisional totals" for the election would require a level of maintenance that our project can't support - it's better to simply wait until the totals are declared by the AEC in around 2 weeks (until which, by the way, even a seat total can't be finalised) and use article text in the meantime. Orderinchaos 01:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * My two cents: I definitely think that divisions in the House of Reps should have two-party-preferred statistics in the infoboxes. Because of compulsory voting and preferential voting, the statistics are crucial. - Richard Cavell (talk) 01:23, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Family First/Adelaide Uni sockpuppetry continues...
See here and here (EDIT: And here). SPI continuing here. I'm hoping to get an admin's attention to deal with the new ones... Timeshift (talk) 07:42, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * As it's in part (moderately entertaining) personal attacks directed at me since my last effort to help, I'd appreciate a neutral set of eyes on it. Orderinchaos 07:47, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I've removed them but they're in the links above still. I would appreciate anyone who can to remove anything posted as it's quite clearly not aimed at article improvement. I have to go offline for a bit unfortunately, i'll be back later on. Timeshift (talk) 07:49, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, I'm just going to keep an eye on that progressive communist, Orderinchaos. LOL HiLo48 (talk) 07:52, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * LOL, it doesn't make much sense at all, does it? :P Orderinchaos 08:04, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Family who? Funny that they selected a candidate from Sydney for the Riverina seat but they only got 887 (1.15% of the 82,416 votes) votes, but they love resorting to attacks. Bidgee (talk) 08:16, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I've just blocked the two CU-confirmed accounts which hadn't been previously blocked. This is the first time I've actioned a SPI report, so hopefully it's all been done correctly! Nick-D (talk) 08:48, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

New image for Barry O'Farrell
Hi everyone, I would like other editors opinions as to which of the following images either A or B are best suited for the info box image for the Barry O'Farrell article. It seems it has come down to these two images. Cheers Романов (talk) 10:11, 27 August 2010 (UTC)




 * Why is image A so small and without metadata? Nick-D (talk) 11:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Can A be brightened a bit? Tony   (talk)  11:17, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * This is what I have asked (EXIF data, larger size and lightened but at this stage Романов is refusing). Also the original infobox image was File:Barry O'Farrell.jpg but it was changed to Image B by another editor. Bidgee (talk) 11:19, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Of course the image can be brightened. The program to do it however I do not have. Refrain from being malicious Bidgee, where have I refused to do something you have asked? Where have I sad NO? It is so small because the image has been cropped to remove another person from the picture. Романов (talk) 11:56, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not being malicious, any other editor/contributor would have been happy to and would upload a larger file. You don't have to say NO for it to be refusing and treated your comment as such (refusing to talk about the image itself). Bidgee (talk) 12:02, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Any other editor would have they... I would have if I could have -but I couldn't so I didn't: easy to wrap your head around? I don't have the camera the photo was taken with, I captured the photo was emailed the image cropped -no metadata- uploaded as is. Романов (talk) 12:15, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Again, why is there no metadata? Also, the original photo must have been unusually small if the cropped version of one of it's main subjects is so small yet is of high resolution - can you please upload it to demonstrate that this is in fact your own work? (historically, unusually small images without metadata have proven to be copyright violations, and this has been a long-running problem on articles concerning NSW Liberal politicians). Nick-D (talk) 12:08, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


 * If you didn't take the photo, why has it been uploaded as your own work? Nick-D (talk) 12:24, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Indeed, I would appreciate an answer from Романов to a previous question that I asked on his talk page about another image claimed as 'own work' that probably is not. Barrylb (talk) 12:35, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

(: I did take the photo, just not my camera :) File:BO'F temp full pic blanked.jpg is as good as your going to get. Романов (talk) 12:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

NSW LC candidates
I have now tracked down Legislative Council candidates in NSW for 1978 and 1981, but I am still missing 1984, 1988 and 1991. I'll continue hunting for these, of course, but if anyone happens to be in one of the big state libraries any time soon (especially the NSW one), it would be great if they could have a look for these. I've had some success in the NSW Parliamentary Papers, but my closest large library only has up to 1983. Frickeg (talk) 07:16, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
 * 1984 is here:, see top of page 26. WWGB (talk) 07:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Many thanks. Frickeg (talk) 15:28, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Found the rest. Frickeg (talk) 03:56, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

The Advertiser centre-left? Opinions please.
The Advertiser in Adelaide is most certainly not centre-left. I'm a fair man when it comes to media bias, but the absolute best the 'tiser could get away with is centrist at most. I'd call them weak centre-right to centre-right myself. Did the person who added centre-left also choose that image date strategically? Opinions please! Timeshift (talk) 06:56, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

LNP needs house/senate MP numbers/colours in infobox
Per discussion here, the consensus was to go with the four parties getting their own seats each. I'm not sure of the correct infobox colour, can someone more familiar with this area please do the needful? Thanks. Timeshift (talk) 07:19, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

A Funny
Totally offtopic but here is a funny (click) for everyone. --Surturz (talk) 08:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I see they have no idea what the two party preferred vote is :) Timeshift (talk) 08:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I've seen a version without the English subtitles. It was perfectly clear what was going on and actually funnier. Very clever indeed. --Merbabu (talk) 08:27, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Two-party preferred
The correct line is two-party preferred. A search of Google reveals only one site besides wikipedia puts a dash betweeen party and preferred. Not to mention i'm sure we already reached consensus somewhere that the dash doesn't belong. I moved the two-party-preferred vote page to two-party preferred vote but Tony has reverted me. There should be no dash between party and preferred, correct? Timeshift (talk) 23:52, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Your title here is unusual in being a (compound) adjective alone; the guidelines say titles should be a noun or noun group. These are hyphens, not dashes. The national broadsheet, The Australian, I noticed, used both hyphens on their front page just the other day. It's a triple adjective ("vote" is usually the noun). There is no logic in hyphenating two of the adjectives to leave one dangling in the middle. If you wish, please ask the experts at WT:MOS. Tony   (talk)  01:19, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:RS. Only one site on the entire internet has a dash or a hyphen or a purple hippo between party and preferred. This is what you need to explain. Timeshift (talk) 01:33, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Tony1's ridiculous hyphen fetish has got to stop. None of the references in the article use hyphens. The term is, quite correctly, Two Party Preferred vote. --Surturz (talk) 07:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Surely this is extremely simple. I have re-read WP:MOSDASH and see nothing there that relates to this page. Perhaps I have missed some pertinent information somewhere else, in which case please direct me (and others) there. Otherwise, we need either a reliable source explaining why the most common version used in reliable sources is wrong, or we go with that version. Frickeg (talk) 09:08, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

George Christensen (politician)
Extra eyes appreciated. Two entirely separate issues: one IP wants to list him as National Party, while the other wants to add excessive detail about the student newspaper stuff. Neither has responded to talk page comments, but I'm at 3RR on both of them so help required. Frickeg (talk) 13:29, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've reverted back to LNP. It seems (or I hope) the other IP has given up - if he reverts again, lets report him to WP:AN3. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:35, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Extra eyes needed again - they're both back and I'm out of reverts. --Mkativerata (talk) 09:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Are we sure about the QLD Nats sitting in parliament as LNP? The IP's cited website implies otherwise - are we sure he's actually wrong? Rebecca (talk) 13:16, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * From what I've read it will be like the CLP is at the moment; they'll be LNP members but sit in the Liberal or National party rooms as appropriate. A comparable cited website would be this. Frickeg (talk) 13:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think they're members of the LNP of Queensland (as in paid branch members) but are accepted into the National parliamentary party. Orderinchaos 13:52, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * In which case the IP would be right. Rebecca (talk) 09:25, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No they wouldn't. See here for the way Parliament currently treats Nigel Scullion of the comparable CLP. Frickeg (talk) 07:28, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Bob Katter
And can someone move this back from Bob Katter, Jr. please? Frickeg (talk) 14:30, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Grech
Forwarding a question on my talk page for consideration. I think it's a reasonable request but would rather abide by a consensus here. Orderinchaos 19:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi Orderinchaos. Having looked up what information there is on Godwin Grech, and read Articles for deletion/Godwin Grech, I think that Godwin Grech should redirect to OzCar affair. What do you say? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:05, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmmm. A redirect would work, but would be in use far more often than the direct path. I know that I personally will remember Godwin's name forever, but have already forgotten the name OzCar. The redirect should probably be in the other direction. HiLo48 (talk) 21:18, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with SmokeyJoe. The AFD discussion was clear that he was notable for one event, and nothing has happened since the event to increase his notability. -- Bduke   (Discussion)  22:22, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I think Utegate would be a better title for the article - who remembers "OzCar affair"? Rebecca (talk) 13:00, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sadly, I have to admit that I do. However, like Rebecca, I think "Utegate" would be a better title for the article ... Pdfpdf (talk) 13:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I would argue strongly that OzCar is also not notable apart from this one affair. Let's look at three names - Godwin Grech, Utegate, and OzCar. Which is the most memorable name connecting to the event? For me it's definitely Grech. HiLo48 (talk) 18:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Having Grech as the article title is unduly narrow - it focuses on one man rather than the broader political affair. That broader affair involved other people (Turnbull, Abetz, Rudd and Swan) and had political ramifications. So an event title rather than a bio is warranted. I have no views on "Utegate" vs "Ozcar affair" or whatever. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:49, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The fact that Grech had an unusual and memorable name is irrelevant. The article needs to be about the affair, not about him. Although the name "Utegate" is completely moronic, I have no objection to moving it there since that's its best-known name. Frickeg (talk) 23:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Lets have it at utegate, as that is far more outstanding than ozcar. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:10, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

By-election articles need some work
I hate to do this, but I have a very busy week coming up. If anyone suffering withdrawals from the federal election would consider expanding the articles on the two current by-elections (Armadale state by-election, 2010 and Araluen by-election, 2010) it would be great - they're both in embryonic form at the moment. Frickeg (talk) 08:30, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll see if I can have a crack over the next few days - I've been looking for something to write. --Mkativerata (talk) 02:00, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Me too. I enjoy working on by-election articles. --Canley (talk) 02:50, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Canley, I should send you some old Victorian stuff to work on :) Orderinchaos 03:56, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ha ha, yes, maybe I should have worked on that before promising to take on others! Sorry, I haven't had a chance to get to the State Library which I wanted to do to get some supplementary material before writing those up. --Canley (talk) 04:25, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've done a little bit of work on each but haven't got very far. There's really not much news coverage of either by-election yet. --Mkativerata (talk) 09:06, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Murdoch state by-election, 2008 was the one we pretty much got right, if anyone wants to steal any ideas - Rebecca and me had very different ideas how to proceed with it at the time, and the result actually accommodated both. Orderinchaos 23:22, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've somewhat rewritten the Armadale article. Orderinchaos 00:17, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

List of MHRs
Silly question. Where can I find a complete wikilinked list of elected MHRs? I was thinking of trying to work out how many photos are missing. --Surturz (talk) 04:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Found it! Members_of_the_Australian_House_of_Representatives,_2010–2013. Nevermind. --Surturz (talk) 04:20, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Debate on the inclusion of the infobox of party leaders on 'next' election pages
See here. Timeshift (talk) 02:08, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Rudd-Gillard Government starting to get out of date
Barely a thing mentioned about her policies from the election campaign or otherwise so far... anyone care to take on updating the page? Timeshift (talk) 01:44, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Supposed old Oakeshott ministry offer
Views appreciated here. Timeshift (talk) 03:00, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

GetUp! - POV much?
"GetUp! is a left-wing Australian political organisation funded by the unions that campaigns on left-wing causes." - POV much? Timeshift (talk) 08:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Activity at Bob Day again...
Assistance appreciated. Timeshift (talk) 11:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I've just blocked the latest sock/meat puppet and semi-protected the article for a week. Let me know if this still doesn't work. Nick-D (talk) 11:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Sigh. It's on again. I'm being accused of all sorts of things, most noteably a conflict of interest, and a COI has been raised against me. Proposterous. Timeshift (talk) 18:16, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

One party coalition...?
There is a dispute here as to what tables should be used at Full national and state-by-state lower house results and maps for the 2010 Australian federal election. The 'Australia' national table at the top of said page has the four coalition parties grouped together. However, the state tables, an example shown above, have been changed to create state one-party coalitions. In the example above, it looks unnatural and wrong - it is the SA ALP vs SA Libs. There is no such thing as a Coalition here in SA (and various other Australian states). For SA it should instead be:

And other states along the same lines except for where two coalition parties are running - as per what was done for the 2007 federal election. Opinions appreciated. Timeshift (talk) 01:18, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * To answer this original question (as the debate below spiralled off somewhat), I agree with Timeshift on this issue. Orderinchaos 01:13, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Would you agree that the consensus for the national results table does and did not spread to the individual state by state results tables, and as he has not been able to form a consensus on this that the status quo should remain until such time? Timeshift (talk) 01:23, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It's more a case of "that aspect was never discussed" than "it definitely doesn't apply", but had such a discussion taken place I would essentially have taken the same position as you have in this one, that each state has its own set of circumstances and there is no need to treat them identically. Orderinchaos 16:23, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Timeshift basically just doesn't like that people want to redo his tables. These pages do not belong to Timeshift, or to any one Wikipedia editor, as most of us know.


 * He has also posted extensively on other Australia politics talk pages that I do not live in Australia (true) in order to somehow suggest that I can't tell whether a political party is a member of the Coalition or not. That's nonsense.  I live in Canada, and the distinction between federal-level and provincial-level political parties is the same here as the distinction between federal-level and state-level parties is there.  Timeshift knows better than that, too.


 * The SA Liberals (to take his example) are clearly part of the nationwide coalition between the Liberal and National parties. It does not matter even if they have different arrangements with respect to state-level politics, if they committed to back the Coalition's candidate for Prime Minister, Tony Abbott (they did), then they're a party representing the national Coalition in South Australia.  We made a large distinction on the Australian federal election, 2010 page between the National Party of Western Australia, which renounced such a commitment to the national Coalition, and other state-level parties, which did no such thing.  I have the "nuance" correct here, and Timeshift knows this, but prefers argumentum ad hominem to make the point against me. Zachary Klaas (talk) 14:43, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Please cease your baseless accusations and play the ball rather than the man. I am trying bring views of other editors in to the discussion. Note this. Timeshift (talk) 14:59, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Pretty sure most of that post was "playing the ball". But let's move on. The ongoing existence of the Coalition (Australia) does create a linguistic problem. If Abbot had succeeded in getting enough support from the Independents to form government, in any other country it would have been normal to say that he had cobbled together enough support to form a governing coalition. Note the small c. Coalitions are normally temprary arrangements which exist for the explicit purpose and duration of one particular government. Our Coalition is a linguistic anomaly. It exists (in varying forms) independent of whether it is in government or not. It creates difficulties with explaining what is going on. So, it is difficult to write about what is going on, because a word that should be available to us, coalition with a small c, is not, and we have to be more careful with what we say here. From a clarity and good language perspective I just wish they would properly and permanently merge and get on with their job! HiLo48 (talk) 17:58, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * One day they will, HiLo, and all Australian Wikipedians will breathe a sigh of relief. Until that happy day, though, I'm with Timeshift on this one. The first example, quite frankly, looks ridiculous, not to mention unnecessary. Readers will have gleaned from the complete table at the top that the Liberals are always part of the Coalition, and anyway there is no Coalition in WA, SA and Tas, as demonstrated by Crook's independence from it. Frickeg (talk) 22:06, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The Coalition across Australia has four parties in it. End of story.  If parties ran candidates and got votes in a state for more than one of the four coalition parties, they should be represented together as I have done, with the heading "Coalition" above their names, and indented to show that these are coalition parties.  If we have a state where the Nats got some votes but no seats, they will be listed under Coalition at the point when the votes of all the parties in each state are shown (we're supposedly doing this).  If we have a state where only one of the coalition parties ran, that may be different - but I think we need to come up with another way to ensure that people know that party is the representative of the Coalition in that state.  If you don't like the heading "Coalition" and one party underneath, indented over to signify it's the Coalition party in that state, then find a way to identify it as the "Coalition" party on one line.  But it's unacceptable to just put "Liberal Party".  It needs to say something like "COALITION:  Liberal Party" on one line, or something like that, in order to demonstrate what we agreed needed to be demonstrated.  Myself, I don't prefer that - I'd prefer the format I've put up already, since it's consistent with the others.  But the whole point of this change was to show "at a glance" the "Coalition" parties. Zachary Klaas (talk) 22:37, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Unacceptable? Hilarious. Timeshift (talk) 22:41, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Unacceptable from the perspective of the consensus that voted to properly represent whether a party is in the Coalition or not in these tables. Or did you forget that there was a consensus on this point.  Stop being a jerk about this.  Zachary Klaas (talk) 22:57, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Jerk? Nice. There was never any consensus formed for this. There was a consensus for a national table. You're clearly unacceptably stretching the consensus to a different area. Timeshift (talk) 23:03, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * You know damn well this is exactly what we agreed on...check Talk:Australian federal election, 2010 to refresh your memory. Zachary Klaas (talk) 23:08, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * And I quote: "The parties in the Coalition are grouped together, making them easier to identify".  The reason for the change is to make it easier to identify Coalition parties.  Zachary Klaas (talk) 23:10, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I think you missed the point, Zachary. The Coalition does not exist in WA, SA or Tas (or the Territories, for that matter). The WA and SA National Parties are outside the Coalition, while the Nationals do not exist in Tasmania or the territories. As there is no Coalition in those states, there should be no Coalition in the tables. We can show those four parties in the top table. End of story. Frickeg (talk) 22:43, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hear hear! Timeshift (talk) 22:47, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The Coalition does exist in the Northern Territory, Nationals or no Nationals. The CLP is in the Coalition.  So that's just wrong outright.  Western Australia's National Party is not in the Coalition, but its Liberal Party is.  South Australia's Liberal Party is.  Tasmania's Liberal Party (although it got no seats, it ran in Tasmania) also is.  Membership of the Coalition is the same thing as committing to support the Coalition's candidate for Prime Minister and to take the Coalition's whip in Canberra.  Your interpretation of this is incorrect.  My turn to say "End of story." Zachary Klaas (talk) 22:50, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * If the CLP only operates in the Northern Territory, and the CLP is universally regarded as a member party of the Coalition, how is that possible when no other Coalition parties run candidates in the Northern Territory? Unless, of course, the two of you are wrong about this... Zachary Klaas (talk) 23:12, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Some recent comments by the elected CLP member could actually blow that right out of the water and give them a status akin to the WA Nationals in the next parliament. Orderinchaos 01:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * If that happens, we can make the change for the next election. WP:CRYSTAL otherwise, right?  Zachary Klaas (talk) 01:21, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The Liberals' membership in the Coalition is made clear by the table at the top of the page. Having a one-party coalition is ridiculous. Perhaps we should have "Coalition" headings on this page for SA, WA etc., and put (Lib) after every single one? Of course we wouldn't do that, because it's ridiculous. Same thing here. Frickeg (talk) 01:51, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it would be a proper solution to put "Liberal (Coalition)" on the header for states/territories that only have that party representing the Coalition. It's still the Coalition.  Zachary Klaas (talk) 02:37, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Timeshift here (gasp!). The first version is ugly and unnecessary when there is only one Coalition party. Even with two parties, it may not be necessary. I do not think that the consensus regarding the format change to the summary table for the national results in the 2010 election article extends to the state tables. Grouping the parties in the Coalition only really becomes useful when you look at them on a national scale. —sroc (talk) 09:10, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It really is quite amazing watching some people try to stretch consensus in to whole new areas and reattempting to claim consensus! Timeshift (talk) 09:45, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll accept the verdict if sroc can tell me what his answer to my question about the CLP is. How can the CLP be referred to as a Coalition party if it's only active in the Northern Territory and there are no other Coalition parties there to join with.  The argument being given here leads to the conclusion that the CLP may not be so characterised, because coalitions are done at the state/territory level and not at the national level.  Yet universally the CLP is in fact referred to as one of the parties of the Coalition.  I want the answer to this specific question because this is the litmus test for whether the argument advanced on this talk page sets off the bull-crap-o-meter.  I promise that, if sroc answers that the CLP really isn't a Coalition party because coalitions are made at the state/territory level, I will gladly defer to this consensus.  Zachary Klaas (talk) 13:04, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * No consensus is no consensus, regardless of what you are prepared to accept. Timeshift (talk) 13:49, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Just the same, I want to hear sroc's answer, because it seems to me that what's being claimed here has not been thought out. Zachary Klaas (talk) 14:01, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Bob Day continued...
Still there remains unilateral edits with no consensus, and there is still zero talkpage discussion on the issues and how to fix them. The latest issue is that i'm being told Bob Day never made it in to the ABC provisional count. He did! That's what spurred The Advertiser's news article! Bob Day was listed sixth here for several days before being removed again. The Australian federal election, 2010 diffs support this - if it wasn't true it would have been reverted quick smart! Also, since when does/did Family First support WorkChoices? They didn't! They don't even know what they're talking about! Assistance from others would be appreciated. Timeshift (talk) 04:09, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Ian Hunter - new user making it a self promotion
I wanted to draw some extra eyes to this page... recent edits by a new user or two have lengthened the article about 500 percent (or is that percentage points? points? oh who cares! :) and made the article come across as somewhat of a self promotion. I'm hesitant to edit because a lot of it does seem noteworthy. Opinions on article talk/changes to article welcome. Timeshift (talk) 03:40, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Really need opinions on Talk:Bob Day...
It seems two editors feel it is justified to add BobDay.com.au to Bob Day as it is his "official site", yet the site has no claim of ownership and is an attack site against his wikipedia article. Why/how should this be included? I've been taken to CoI and EL noticeboards, both have rejected the accusations against me, yet it continues. I've repeatedly asked for talkpage discussion and consensus but have gotten nowhere. I am requesting people consider the sort of external link that these two want added and whether it is appropriate. I would appreciate people voicing their opinions on the talk page there seeing as they are not willing to discuss the issue. The more voices the better. Timeshift (talk) 03:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Earlier election pages
Now that 2010 is dying down several of the earlier election pages could use some attention and research to tidy things up. There are several problems so far:


 * The figures on the individual pages, List of Australian federal elections and the various lists of members of the resulting parliaments aren't always in line with each other (or with other sources like Psephos).
 * Some of this confusion is rooted in candidates using a different label in their electorates from Canberra and/or having the endorsement of more than one parties - this is a particular problem with the Coalition, especially in states where the two parties merged (e.g. South Australia from c1931-c1960s), and also with the state Country parties pre 1922. There isn't always consistency on whether the election label or resulting parliamentary party is the determining factor.
 * Some election results are inadvertently showing minority governments.
 * Other elections are showing the Coalition when it didn't operate.
 * Some of the state Country/National parties were avowedly independent of the Coalition in particular elections but didn't get seats so weren't noticed - IIRC the WA & SA Nats both contested 2007 with much the same independent stance they have now.
 * Then there are various other alliances between parties - the 1974 National Alliance in WA between the Country Party and the Democratic Labor Party is just one such.

Individual articles that will need some thought (and this is by no means the full list):


 * Australian federal election, 1919 Several sitting Nationalists were also endorsed by their state Country parties; some but not all sat in the federal Country Party when formed. The sources are divided over how to total them. We're also showing a hung parliament & minority government when conventionally the only six elections to produce these were 1901, 1903, 1906, 1922, 1934, 1940 & 2010.
 * Australian federal election, 1931 Here we're showing a majority Coalition when it didn't operate at this time. List of Australian federal elections shows a minority UAP government. Members of the Australian House of Representatives, 1931–1934 shows the UAP had an outright majority of members. Part of the problem seems to be how to handle the Emergency Committee of South Australia, which looks like a a prototype of the Liberal and Country League merger the following year, but with a few separate Country candidates. The EC MHRs all sat as UAP.
 * Australian federal election, 1943 Multiple Country parties appear in some lists including List of Australian federal elections but not others including Members of the Australian House of Representatives, 1943–1946. The talkpage hasn't yet worked out for sure what is what.
 * Australian federal election, 1974 The Country Party and DLP ran on the National Alliance platform in WA but isn't currently tabulated that way. They elected one Senator who sat with the Country Party.
 * Australian federal election, 1980 & Australian federal election, 1983 The WA Nats were split in 1978-1984/5 between the National Country Party, who sat in Coalition, and the National Party, who didn't. I'm not sure if the page vote totals for the NCP are including the breakaway party.
 * Australian federal election, 1987 We're showing the Coalition in some tables when it didn't operate in this election; the tables also don't appear to know the difference between the Nationals and Joh's Nationals (and I dread to think how the former could be clearly split between candidates supporting party leader Ian Sinclair and those supporting Joh).

Anyone got any suggestions on ways to get better clarity and consistency? Timrollpickering (talk) 19:50, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * These could all do with a bit of a rework, I agree. My thoughts:
 * 1919 - include "Nationalist & Country" as a separate group, with a note explaining their joint endorsement. Note that they all sat as Nationalist MPs at first, although some of them joined the CP when it formed in 1920.
 * 1931 - count the EC as part of the UAP; that's essentially what it was.
 * 1943 - this probably needs the country parties separated on all relevant pages. A good source on this would be hugely helpful since Psephos doesn't differentiate them; I suspect Hughes & Graham does though, so I'll have a look there.
 * 1974 - separate the National Alliance, with a note somewhere about its status.
 * 1980, 1983 - separate the two parties somehow.
 * 1987 - This is the hardest one to resolve. Sources conflict on this; I've seen some claim that John Stone was the only Joh-for-Canberra Nat elected, but others seem to think that all the Queensland Nats were of that mind. I am fairly certain that in the other states all Nationals candidates were Sinclair supporters, and the Joh Nationals ran as independents.
 * Frickeg (talk) 01:22, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Will come with some suggestions and/or edits on these later. A few further cases:
 * 1901 - Labor and the Protectionists didn't have national organisations and a lot of members (especially in smaller states) didn't fully align until after the election.
 * 1922 & 1934 - the Coalition didn't actually operate in the elections but was assembled afterwards, the intro and tables need rewording.
 * 1958 & 1961 - the Queensland Labor Party didn't formally subsume into the DLP until 1962 and fought the earlier elections under their own title - separate out?
 * Timrollpickering (talk) 13:06, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Re 1958 & 1961 (not commenting on others only because I will let more informed people decide) the QLP was most definitely a separate party in those elections and its members disavowed any link to the DLP (although the DLP told its supporters to vote for them). When it merged in late 1961, a heap of people left the QLP over it, including two of its sitting state members in Queensland, who both maintained their seats until 1969 as independents. (I do one day intend to write an article about all this - I'm busy offline until at least Christmas though.) I don't know how this impacted upon federal politics. Orderinchaos 05:30, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

The Australian - when is a WP:RS no longer a WP:RS?
Read this and this. At what point do we as a community form a consensus that The Australian is no longer to be considered a WP:RS when it comes to anything related to the Greens? This is my belief. Some may feel differently. Open and frank discussion very welcome. Timeshift (talk) 00:48, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A good point. I think that perhaps not counting it as an RS solely for anything Greens-related may be justified. Frickeg (talk) 01:14, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it's worth comparing Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 73, where I felt the most convincing arguments were those advocating a sensible case-by-case caution in using FOX as a reliable source, but no blanket rule. By-and-large I think The Australian is still going to be okay for factual stuff, but there should be additional caution used when it starts to editorialise, and especially when it does, other sources should perhaps be given preference.  Anyway, that's my two cents.  -- Lear's Fool 02:27, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I was thinking about this the other day, and my conclusion was that The Australian may be the broadsheet equivalent of the dreaded "Controversy" sections in Wikipedia articles: not incorrect or unverifiable, but often written in such a way that gives undue weight to a usually negative aspect of a person's biography. --Canley (talk) 02:38, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Really, we should be considering the news source every time we use a news report in a citation. And that should include older, established news sources like The Australian. I do think your specific example of anti-Greens bias carries weight. Will be on the alert when dealing with news citations in Greens-related articles. Donama (talk) 02:55, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * News Ltd has a long history of lying about The Greens. Some years ago Melbourne's Herald Sun posted downright lies about Greens policies on drugs. It was easy to see at the time that what The Hun claimed was Greens policy was very different from what other sources were saying. Unfortunately, I still quite frequently hear members of that paper's demographic claiming that they could never vote for the Greens because they support free drug use. On the more general issue of "always" trusting a WP:RS, I think it's always worth noting how well even the finest media outlets cover events in which one is personally involved. My impression? Appallingly. HiLo48 (talk) 04:22, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Just because a publication is considered an WP:RS does not mean that every article in it is suitable to be used as a reference. Newspaper articles are actually fairly low-quality references at the best of times; peer reviewed journal articles and textbooks are much better sources. Each newspaper article should be considered on its merits. Just because the Oz has been a bit biased lately on certain topics does not mean we should consider the entire publication to be unreliable. Where editors disagree about the veracity of an article, they should find other references that support or contradict the article in question. WP article text that is only supported by a single disputed newspaper story should probably be removed as per WP:UNDUE. --Surturz (talk) 07:44, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * And on a tangent in addition to Surturz's comment, even articles within publications can be valid references in one instance, but not in another. Cryptic? Not really, just common sense.--Merbabu (talk) 07:53, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed with both Surturz and Merbabu on this one. Orderinchaos 05:32, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Post-election candidate pages
I've been having a look through the election pages (not just for this one) to check for non-notable candidates and such like, and I'd like to get others' input before I start dealing with them. Some things I've found: So - thoughts? And has anyone found any others? Frickeg (talk) 23:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Revolutionary Socialist Party (Australia) and Van Thanh Rudd. The first was never registered; the second seems a classic case of WP:NOTINHERITED.
 * 2) Glenn Druery - this is an article I'd personally quite like to keep, as it gives us a convenient place to outline his various preference machinations, but unfortunately I can't find much evidence of notability; it's asserted as a cyclist, but I can't find much there either.
 * 3) Patricia Petersen ... sorry, couldn't resist.
 * 4) Do mayors have inherent notability? Darren McCubbin is an example.
 * 5) Should John Madigan (Australian politician) not win, his page should be prodded, yes?
 * 6) Going further back, slighlty dubious about Justine Caines.
 * 7) Richard Pascoe (Australian politician).
 * 8) David Risstrom and Rochelle Porteous both seem to be based on almost-but-not-quite candidatures.
 * 9) Paul F Downton - this article is a mess but looks potentially notable. Anyone know anything further on this guy?
 * 10) Michael Towke - I recall mentioning this before, but it still seems very WP:ONEEVENT.

My thoughts: Have to get to the rest later. --Mkativerata (talk) 01:37, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Sadly Van might have done enough to surpass BLP1E and NOTINHERITED. But I won't cry if these get deleted.
 * 2) Delete: fails WP:POLITICIAN and the cycling isn't enough.
 * 3) Clear delete.
 * 4) A shire of McCubbin's size is too small to make a strong case for notability (I'm making this judgment on the way that I normally see US/UK mayors go or stay at AfD.
 * 5) Delete if he doesn't win.

Delete Paul F Downton, I remember it at the time, the guy was writing his own article. Timeshift (talk) 01:44, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I think all except John Madigan should be deleted, with 5 being considered on the basis of whether the guy gets elected or not. Orderinchaos 04:45, 28 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Just noting that although most of these would be prod-able, Petersen, Risstrom and Porteous have previously survived AfD so would need to go through AfD again. Frickeg (talk) 05:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Druery should definitely be kept. There's a ton of sources about his role in preference machinations, especially surrounding when he basically forced a change in the NSW electoral system after his 1999 shenanigans. I don't think this one's even doubtful. I think Risstrom is notable. The defeat of his Senate bid has had ramifications for national politics which are still ongoing today, and he was a Melbourne City Councillor before that. There's good sources for all of it, and I really think this one surpasses WP:ONEEVENT. He's a lot more notable than, say, a pre-last week Larissa Waters.

The RSP, Rudd, Petersen (I changed my mind on that when BLP issues emerged) and McCubbin should be deleted. I also think Porteous should be deleted now that she doesn't seem to have been preselected for 2011. Madigan should be deleted if he loses. Towke should be redirected to the election article, I think, as long as something's mentioned there; it's a case where WP:ONEEVENT actually makes sense. I think a party president is a position that does imply at least a claim to notability, but ultimately I think Pascoe could be redirected to an article on the SA Democrats, considering his short term. I have no particular opinion about Downton, but if it's going to be kept someone needs to clean that article up. Rebecca (talk) 05:51, 31 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The issue with Risstrom is that there don't seem to be any reliable sources for anything other than the Senate run, and that can probably be covered in the main 2004 article. As I understand it, WP:POLITICIAN says that councillors of large cities are "likely" to meet the criterion listed, which is "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent", something that seems to be completely lacking in Risstrom. As for Druery - there's a ton of sources about his preference machinations, yes, but not many about him. I suspect that these are best covered in the articles for the elections themselves. (And Waters, of course, was not remotely notable before her election.) Frickeg (talk) 03:40, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


 * That's a bit of a stretch. There's 180 Factiva hits on him before he even ran for Senate preselection, and nearly five hundred in total. There's profiles of him, there's some good stuff on what he's done since politics. It's not even a close call. Druery's notable for his shenanigans at about seven different elections and with about four different parties. Dispatching that material all over the place just makes for bad coverage of a genuinely significant figure. Rebecca (talk) 13:45, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I should've been clearer - I meant that I couldn't see any sources, and that the articles didn't cite them. If they're there, great - as I've previously said, I'd love for Druery to be notable and I do think it would be better to detail his various machinations in his own article. The reason I listed them here was to see if anyone did know of lots of sources for some of them, to save the trouble of AfD. But excluding Druery and Risstrom, they all seem to be fairly uncontroversial. I'll leave it a few more days and then nominate them all for PROD or AfD as appropriate. Frickeg (talk) 04:45, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The point is that the sources are there. They're notable people; their articles just aren't brilliant. I don't have the time these days to dedicate a few hours to fixing an article to prevent stupid deletion nominations, but I can and will point out that it's bloody silly to delete an article on a notable person rather than wait for it to be suitably expanded. Rebecca (talk) 09:14, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Which is why I raised this here before pre-emptively nominating them all for deletion. Frickeg (talk) 09:16, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Mat Hines is another one. Frickeg (talk) 08:55, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * No particular objections to that one. There's a potential case to be made for notability, but it doesn't quite get there. Rebecca (talk) 09:14, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I forgot Justine Caines in my initial reply. I still strongly think that article should be kept for her notability as a prominent-in-her-own-right homebirth activist rather than her political candidacy. Rebecca (talk) 13:17, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I've prodded the RSP, Pascoe, Hines and Towke; the rest are probably not proddable and I'll AfD them when I get time (excluding Risstrom, Druery and Caines, and Madigan of course). Frickeg (talk) 04:37, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I haven't had a chance to look at these closely, but any preliminary thoughts on WA First (perhaps redirect to the mining tax?) and Stuart McBeth (possibly WP:ONEEVENT?)? Frickeg (talk) 08:39, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd delete them both. Rebecca (talk) 15:37, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Rudd and the RSP at AfD. I'll get around to Downton, Petersen and Porteous when I have time. Frickeg (talk) 03:48, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Election candidates pages

 * Copied from User talk:Timeshift9 and User talk:Mrodowicz.

The Australian election candidate pages would be more useful if the successful candidates were highlighted, so that it would be clear who had won in each electorate. I'm approaching you on this because I think you're very familiar with both Australian politics and with Wikipedia formatting to know how to get it done. If you don't have the time or the inclination to do it, I would appreciate if you could show me how to highlight wiki text, and I will then do it myself. Thanks.Mrodowicz (talk) 05:15, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I personally share that view. Orderinchaos 05:17, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh God. I kind of agree myself, but it's not going to be as easy as that. I mean, how do we show "other" candidates who win, like Oakeshott, Windsor and Wilkie? And what about the Senate? If a way can be worked out, I'm happy to take this on myself. Frickeg (talk) 05:19, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I might handball this one on to you guys...! Timeshift (talk) 08:44, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I think highlighting would be the most effective way to do it. However, if there are technical difficulties in achieving this, there may be alternative ways to do it, such as placing an asterisk next to the name of the successful candidate Mrodowicz (talk) 10:42, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * My ideal preference would be for highlighting too, but I think we may have to settle for something else. I can just see too many technical problems, especially when we get into seats with two Coalition candidates or seats with winners from the "Others" column, which will become all the more frequent as we go further back. Asterisks are a good option, but they're not very graphical and it would be nice to make it really clear. I think perhaps we should take this to WT:AUP to get further input. Frickeg (talk) 11:32, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've done some sandboxing here, where I've got four different options. I'm not entirely happy with any of them, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. All of them would, of course, require some explanation at the top of the page as to their interpretation. Frickeg (talk) 03:15, 19 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd be happy with any of them apart from number two, which is ugly as sin. One is probably my preference. Rebecca (talk) 03:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Any idea how to overcome the Coalition/Others problem? (One is my preference too if we can get past that.) Frickeg (talk) 03:20, 19 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Here's a solution to that and/or just a suggestion for another method. Add a winner column, possibly not called exactly that. Some might say that this information wouldn't belong in an article about candidates but if we're going to colour the winner's box then we'd be adding the information surreptitiously anyway. And the right-most column of the winner could be shaded in the colour as per Frickeg's first example. Downside is it's harder to maintain because working with tables in wiki markup with a lot of columns is always a little confusing/human-error-prone. Donama (talk) 13:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The only problem with that is that in most cases there's no room for another column (they've been worked out that way), so this would need a major reformat. The other thing that we need to address is the Senate - how on earth could we show the winners there? Frickeg (talk) 23:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Australian politics articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
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Adam Bandt image
Hmmm, interesting... I just noticed that the Biography for Adam Bandt on the ParlInfo website uses the same image as the Wikipedia article (Adam Bandt)! Given the quality and metadata of the image on Commons compared to the APH version, it looks more like Parliament House are using the Commons image (credited to AusPic) rather than the other way around. --Canley (talk) 02:56, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it's a heck of a lot more likely that the Commons image is not, in fact, copyright-free, and the uploader is bullshitting. Rebecca (talk) 11:50, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

An offer
As I'm no longer nearly as active as I'd like to be, I want to make an offer to those who are.

Does anyone want access to my offline source (PDF) archive?

If so, please contact me privately and I'll send you what I have on CDR for free. I would hate to think this resource I've worked quite hard to build over the last 3-4 years is sitting here gathering dust when someone with far more enthusiasm and time than I presently have might be looking for things to do but struggling for reliable source material to do it from. I'd be happy to do it for as many people as want it. Orderinchaos 01:09, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Would love access to it if that's possible. Rebecca (talk) 01:33, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If you send me a postal address by email, I can get it to you pretty easily. It looks like I'll be sending it to three people at this stage. Orderinchaos 07:50, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Australian federal election campaign, 2010 remains a blight
At the very least, it needs severe balance and neutrality implemented, at the most, deletion. Please discuss as this is the remaining mess for the Australian federal election, 2010. I've commented there so please discuss here. Timeshift (talk) 23:31, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

"Seats changing hands" section being added to every federal election article...
I obviously have no issue with this detail being added, but looking at the historical elections it's been added to so far, it doesn't seem accurate to me compared to the seat swing numbers for many of them if not the vast majority? Also, it seems the only seats being added are Labor v Coalition (and ind), what about seats that went from, say, Lang Labor to Labor? Timeshift (talk) 12:32, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Patricia Petersen
I rewrote this article when it was at AfD before the election, and since then have been continually dealing with edits from an editor from a dynamic IP with a pretty clear conflict of interest. I have made a note of my concerns on the talkpage, but the editor has continued unabated. He or she undid a null edit with a link to the requests on the talkpage, so they are certainly aware of my request to stop this behaviour. I have no intention of getting into a revert war with an IP, and would appreciate some fresh eyes to provide assistance, and some administrative help may be needed. -- Lear's Fool 14:32, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Bad links in federal electoral division articles
Hi WikiProject Australian politics. I have noticed that numerous Australian federal electoral division articles contain links to non-existent federal elections instead of by-elections, e.g. Division of Australian Capital Territory and Electoral results for the Division of Australian Capital Territory both contain a link to Australian federal election, 1970 which should actually be a link to Australian Capital Territory by-election, 1970. I'll probably get around to fixing them all eventually, but I thought I'd mention it here in case anyone here was keen to fix them sooner. Regards. DH85868993 (talk) 02:36, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Election candidates again
Re: the recent discussion about identifying successful candidates - after a bit of a hiatus I've looked at this again, and I agree with Mrodowicz's suggestion on my talk page of dealing with the multiple-candidate issue (i.e. Libs and Nats) by identifying them with asterisks within the shaded box (see here). I've applied this to the Senate too, which seems to work OK. Thoughts/suggestions? Draft colours are Template:Australian party shading. I've just done the parties that I can think of us actually needing at the moment. Feedback much appreciated. Frickeg (talk) 04:39, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll take the deafening silence as tacit approval and get to work. Please let me know of any issues. Frickeg (talk) 01:26, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing
I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 21:14, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Which election infobox?
Discussion on election infoboxes here, trying to keep more modern informative infobox (please comment there). Timeshift (talk) 22:52, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * More modern = can't be viewed on a significant number of mobile devices. Informative = introduces factual errors. Riiiiight. Orderinchaos 23:08, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I've requested comments there. Please don't push fallacies/untruthes/opinion here. Timeshift (talk) 23:20, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * LOL - "modern informative" is an opinion last I checked. Orderinchaos 23:37, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, that was my reaction too. I find most infoboxes anything but informative. HiLo48 (talk) 01:06, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Stop trying to crank up the anti-any-infobox brigade again. You tried a few months ago at the federal election but failed. This is about the type of infobox. Please don't hijack discussion. Timeshift (talk) 01:12, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If at first you don't succeed..... Please don't try to stifle or even narrow discussion. I like to get people thinking outside the (info)box. HiLo48 (talk) 01:25, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Northern Territory "state" by-elections
Probably don't need an CFD for this as it's only used in two articles so should be pretty easy to change manually, but the category name Category:Northern Territory state by-elections is a bit misleading as it, you know, isn't a state! Should it be changed to "Category:Northern Territory by-elections" (as "Northern Territory territory by-elections" sounds pretty silly)? Have there been any federal by-elections in NT? What do others think? --Canley (talk) 00:50, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There have been no federal NT by-elections, no. But the suggested change sounds sensible. Frickeg (talk) 00:51, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Michael Darby
I wonder if I could get some input on whether this article is worth keeping? In its present form, of course, it's virtually useless, but Darby has been quite a big gun in the CDP recently and there was the high-profile spat with the Libs. Is he notable? Frickeg (talk) 01:58, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * There's certainly enough reliable sources for an article, but whether he's significant to bother is up to you, I guess. Rebecca (talk) 04:25, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Just wanted confirmation. I've made a start on expanding it, but this guy's had a colourful career - if anyone knows anything or has sources about his 1980s split with the Liberals, do come forward! Frickeg (talk) 05:41, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

NSW 2011 election
Can this edit be reviewed by others as to it's suitability and neutrality? Timeshift (talk) 02:46, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Apart from some seriously dubious grammar, I'd say it's probably unnecessary. Obviously there is no campaign - the campaign is traditionally used to refer to the election campaign and not to include by-elections or the big "phony" campaign. Regardless, we don't need to be repeating the Liberals' press releases. Frickeg (talk) 07:02, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yup. Timeshift (talk) 07:04, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I find it amusing when something that a writer intends as a puff piece has quite the opposite effect due to its over-the top style and sloppy grammar. HiLo48 (talk) 07:12, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh I know - same :) Orderinchaos 07:39, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Tasmanian Legislative Council
I hate doing this, but I haven't the time to spend on this right now - I'll get to it as soon as I can, but it may require more than one person anyway. It seems there was a redistribution of the Tasmanian Legislative Council way back in 2008, which we failed to notice. The most significant of the changes for our purposes were that Paterson was renamed "Launceston", Wellington was renamed "Hobart", and Rowallan was renamed "Western Tiers". Full details here. Frickeg (talk) 22:48, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm on it. Should have it all fixed up by today. --Canley (talk) 23:18, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I think it's all done. There were a few references to the redistribution/renaming here and there, but for the most part it seems to have escaped notice. --Canley (talk) 03:10, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Don Dunstan and his election pages
Can anyone make a suggestion as to how to have Dunstan's image on his election pages? Despite the fact he's dead, a user believes that his image can't be put on the election pages. There's no other suitable image, not to mention the fact Dunstan is dead so I can't exactly take a photo of him. Suggestions? Timeshift (talk) 00:55, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I strongly endorse that plea. A picture of Don in his hot pants would make this article the highlight of Wikipedia. (A plain one would be good too.) HiLo48 (talk) 01:32, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Where is this user saying that? Just tell him he is wrong. Of course we can add his image to any page about him. -- Bduke   (Discussion)  03:22, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It's actually a revisit of an earlier dispute. I don't know where it is, but the user that has the username looking like a triangle says that it's a fair use image of a deceased person so it can only be used minimally and not plastered over election pages. I don't believe this should be how it is, he believes otherwise. Timeshift (talk) 03:29, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The user is correct. Look at WP:NFCC. --Mkativerata (talk) 03:24, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I interpret NFCC#7 as being that if wikipedia is hosting a fair use image, it must have a one-page minimum use. It doesn't say maximum use. It's the rule that causes bots to mark orphaned images for deletion - click the link in NFCC#7! So how does one get an image on his election pages? He's dead! Should we put some makeup and hotpants on his skeleton? Timeshift (talk) 03:29, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Whoa major facepalm for me. I read it too quickly and saw it as saying something that was in my head. What was in my head was "unnecessary use across multiple articles" being prohibited. That concept is reflected in number 8 (also, and where it is used across multiple articles, it has to do so in accordance with number 10). Is having Dunstan's mug necessary to understand a state election? As we can click-through to Dunstan's article from the election page, I doubt it. --Mkativerata (talk) 03:37, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I wholeheartedly disagree. Originally, AusPolitics started with a rump of images, few free, most not, but today we have a free image available for every federal election page bar 1993... still no Hewson. There's no reason why Dunstan's image *shouldn't* be included on the election pages, like everyone else on wikipedia, here and overseas. We have infoboxes awaiting images, and history shows that the gaps are ever decreasing. To leave it off is to hamper progress. Timeshift (talk) 03:47, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a reversal of the question. The question is, why do we need the image, being a non-free image, on the page? Why does the reader need to see his face to understand the subject of the article? Of course, we can and should use free images - we can do what we like with them. But our options for non-free images are significantly circumscribed. I'd suggest taking the issue here. Image copyright is a specialised WP field that few editors understand well, so expert, rather than wikiproject, attention is best. In the meantime, I'd suggest leaving the images out (you don't want an admin to take the view that you're edit-warring a copyvio into an article). --Mkativerata (talk) 03:51, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The need is that Premiers/Prime Ministers here and overseas get their mug on election pages by default. With the added complication of the fact Dunstan is dead, I fail to see how anyone could argue no usage and go against the election infobox conventions. How is one expected to get a free image of a dead person? It defies logic. Timeshift (talk) 03:55, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * They probably get their mugs up because they are free images. To your question "How is one expected to get a free image of a dead person?". Before asking that question, it is better to ask "do we need one for the article concerned?" --Mkativerata (talk) 03:57, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * But those who are dead get their mugs on said pages. Timeshift (talk) 04:00, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Including where the images are non-free? I'm not saying the argument can't be made, I'm pointing out that you need to establish how the image improves a reader's understanding of the article. If you could find other examples where the community has accepted that a non-free image of a candidate does improve the election article concerned, it would help. --Mkativerata (talk) 04:07, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Jarrod Glover
I'm not sure if he is notable.--Grahame (talk) 00:36, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I would doubt it, after a cursory search. The article also has zero appropriate/verifiable references so might not survive. Donama (talk) 00:57, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've speedily deleted it under G10. You can't make unsourced claims like that in a BLP.  -- Lear's Fool 01:08, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

NSW Election Database
Just a reminder if you haven't seen it: Antony Green posted on his blog the other day about his NSW Election Database project (hosted on the NSW Parliament website). He says he was prompted to plug the site as a number of references on Wikipedia incorrectly credit the site to the NSW Electoral Commission. I've fixed up a few but others may want to keep an eye out for such references. --Canley (talk) 03:49, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The site is here (http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/resources/nswelectionsanalysis/HomePage.htm) by the way. --Canley (talk) 03:50, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Federal elections in Australia: articles
In Category: Federal elections in Australia we find all the articles about each of the elections since 1901. We also find some articles about results, mainly, but their titles are a complete mish-mash and we need to bring some consistent titling to bear.

Here are the current titles and my alternative suggestions:

(a) This article isn’t currently in the category but should be.

Shall we discuss? If we agree, I'd propose that any future articles of these types have the same format. --  Jack of Oz   [your turn]  09:29, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I dont have a strong opinion on the results pages (although they suggested changes are in a rather non-standard format), but can we please not mess with the candidates pages? The present nomenclature is clear and I'd really rather not see those couple of hundred pages moved. Rebecca (talk) 19:26, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed with Rebecca re candidates - it's not only here that that format is used. However, I agree with nearly all of Jack's other suggestions. Orderinchaos 02:18, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Candidate article struck out. --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  12:20, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If we're not going to use colons for the candidate pages (which I agree with, for all pages), then other page titles shouldn't be colonised. Timeshift (talk) 00:04, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see these changes are against practice across the rest of Wikipedia. Perhaps raising it at a higher place would be a better idea? Frickeg (talk) 04:02, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Infoboxes of PMs
I've removed the Governors-General from the only 2 PM infoboxes they were in. I was wondering, which is preffered?: Having the Governors-General in all 27 infoboxes or not having them. If the former, I can beginning adding them. GoodDay (talk) 00:44, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think they were included as there seems to be some convention for including the name of the person who notionally appoints the subject to the office (constitutionally as their "primary advisor"), so the Governor-General for the PM, or the Monarch in the vice-regal infoboxes. I've only looked at Gillard and Rudd so far, but it looks very strange that they have the Monarch listed in the PM section of the infobox but not the Governor-General (I don't know if these were the two where you removed the G-G?). I'd be inclined to include the Governor-General but remove the Monarch from the PM infoboxes, but keep the Monarch in the Governor-General infoboxes. --Canley (talk) 03:31, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Constitutionally, the Queen of Australia is the higher executive & the one who appoints the GG & PM. GoodDay (talk) 03:48, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The Monarch is the head of the Executive Branch, etc. but the Governor-General operates on their behalf in Australia. In that the roles are essentially those of "advisors", the Prime Minister "advises" the Governor-General, the Governor-General "advises" the Monarch. The Prime Minister does not "advise" the Monarch, and although the Monarch is at a higher rung on the "ladder", because that role is a step removed from that of the PM is why I would not show the Monarch in the PM infobox. It's certainly not incorrect to though, just my opinion, but I think you need to include the G-G if the monarch is going to be in there.--Canley (talk) 06:03, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The Governor-General is also the one who appoints them and swears them in as Ministers of the Crown. And, as we saw in 1975, can theoretically fire them. Orderinchaos 08:18, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll begin adding the GGs into the 27 infoboxes. It'll take a while, as I'll be doing the same with the New Zealand PMs. GoodDay (talk) 14:30, 9 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Task completed, will also add PMs to the GGs infoboxes, in future. GoodDay (talk) 16:41, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Per the monarch: the Prime Minister of Australia can and does advise the Queen. Most regularly in regards to the appointment of a governor-general, but also on matters related to letters patent and honours, amongst others. Plus, the Queen, when in Australia, may perform any executive duty otherwise carried out by the governor-general.

I wonder, what will you do with the infoboxes for state premiers, GoodDay? Since the Australia Act 1986, they too may advise the sovereign directly. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  16:46, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The state premiers infoboxes would require the addition of their respective governors, but minus the Monarch of course. GoodDay (talk) 16:51, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Why minus the monarch? -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  16:55, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * For now, I'm just gonna concentrate on the Federal level. But, I don't believe a Monarch should be mentioned in the non-Federal 'first minister' infoboxes, just like they're not mentioned in the infoboxes of the Canadian premiers. Also, I'm approaching this on a 'country by country' basis, with the knowledge that it would be impossible to have infoboxes of all the Commonwealth realm PMs consistant. GoodDay (talk) 16:59, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The Prime Minister of Australia wouldn't be mentioned in state premier infoboxes because the prime minister has no jurisdiction in the states. The Queen, on the other hand, does; she is a part of the executive, legislature, and courts in each state and the premier advises her directly on related matters. Did you not see what I wrote about the Australia Act 1986? -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  17:03, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I corrected my post. I meant to say, the Monarch isn't mentioned in the Canadian premiers infoboxes (for example), which is how it should be. GoodDay (talk) 17:05, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The constitutional arrangement of the Canadian provinces is not the same as that for the Australian states. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  17:15, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * How so? GoodDay (talk) 17:17, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The Australian states are more independent of the federal government. Whereas, in Canada, the provincial premiers cannot advise the sovereign to do anything and the lieutenant governors are appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister, in Australia, only the state premiers may advise the monarch on state affairs and the governors are appointed by the Queen on the relevant premier's advice, in which Canberra has no say. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  17:23, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * So I should leave the Monarch within the bio infoboxes of the Australian state premiers? GoodDay (talk) 17:26, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know. You could. For those after 1986, at least. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  17:29, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll leave the state premiers bio infoboxes alone, there's too much uncertainty. GoodDay (talk) 17:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Mies, you seem to have an inflated view of the Queen's powers. The Queen cannot, for instance, appoint or dismiss ministers. Not unless the Governor-General were to delegate her as a deputy under s126, which is unlikely. --Pete (talk) 18:06, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The Royal Powers Act 1953 says otherwise. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  18:13, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Can you find any credible source that says so? Your interpretation of the RPA is erroneous. The Queen, for example, was unable to intervene in the 1975 crisis - you seem to be saying that if she had jumped on a jumbo and landed at Fairbairn she could have reinstalled Gough Whitlam. We should not seek to mislead our readers. --Pete (talk) 19:16, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * My source is the Royal Powers Act 1953. Your hypothetical includes actions outside the limits of constitutional monarchy and is therefore irrelevant. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  19:34, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Rather than saying the Queen "was unable to intervene in the 1975 crisis", I think the only thing we can say with certainty is that was she did not intervene in the 1975 crisis. Many believe it was a deliberate choice on her part. HiLo48 (talk) 19:41, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Mies, your interpretation of the RPA is erroneous. Unless the Constitution uses the formula "until the Parliament otherwise provides", no Act may over-ride the Constitution. For example, the salary of the Governor-General is set at five thousand pounds per annum until the Parliament otherwise provides, which of course it does from time to time. Similar provisions allow Federal Parliament to legislate for elections, number of senators etc. But there is no such provision giving Parliament the power to extend the ability of the Governor-General to appoint or dismiss ministers. Please provide a source for your interpretation that is not your own self. --Pete (talk) 20:19, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * My source is the Royal Powers Act 1953. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  20:39, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I am reminded of those people who bang on with their own colourful views, and if challenged, say "The Bible clearly states..." Mies, when asked to provide sources for your bizarre assumptions, you resort to bluster. If you cannot provide any source other than yourself, you may as well admit what is plain. I should not have to embarrass you by highlighting the deficiency. --Pete (talk) 22:09, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not certain this WikiProject is the place to be arguing, about what yas are arguing. I merely wanted to know if the WikiProject prefferd having the governors-general included or excluded, as the PM infoboxes weren't consistant about it. GoodDay (talk) 22:30, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You're right. Pete/Skyring should start a blog he can fill with all the non sequiturs he wants. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  23:06, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

LNP leadership (Queensland)
Feedback appreciated as to how we deal with the Liberal National Party's leadership issue as regards to Talk:Next Queensland state election and Talk:Leader of the Opposition (Queensland). --Canley (talk) 02:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Albert Gould at GAN
With some trepidation, I've nominated Albert Gould for GA. This is my first nomination of any kind, so any feedback/comments/unrestrained criticism would be most welcome. Frickeg (talk) 08:21, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I got Andrew Fisher to a GA so feel free to review article/talk page revisions if you wish. I believe Fisher is about the closest you'll get to a GA for an MP. Timeshift (talk) 08:24, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, yeah, I've had a look at that - was a while ago, though, and I believe the system has changed. (Wilfrid Kent Hughes was useful too.) Frickeg (talk) 08:28, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Independent vs. Unaffiliated candidates
Should we be distinguishing between these? (Unaffiliated is where the party designation is left blank, rather than stating "Independent".) It's already done in the electorate result boxes, and is fairly straightforward there, but should we extend it to the candidates pages (maybe by having (-) rather than (Ind) after unaffiliated candidates). In addition, unaffiliated candidates are generally endorsed by unregistered parties and their literature often identifies them as such rather than as "independents". Is there any objection to a small section at the bottom of the candidates pages detailing (with citations) other endorsements? The Australian Democrats at the 2010 Victorian election come to mind, or more minor groups like the Revolutionary Socialist Party. Possibly this section could also be used for loose groupings of independents, such as John Hatton's group at the NSW state election or Bob Katter's several attempts over the years.

I'm aware that some of the electoral commissions don't use "independent" as a party label and don't distinguish between the two; obviously these would need careful treatment. Frickeg (talk) 12:45, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I take it this is fairly uncontroversial then. I'll get on it, although I imagine sources will only be available for fairly recent elections. Frickeg (talk) 05:15, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Wow, this is a huge job. Anyone who feels like taking a trip into the mirky waters of ultra-micro-party politics, please join in. I think we should be very careful to cite absolutely everything here, though, because these sections will be very prone to unsourced and questionable additions. To wit: can anyone help with confirmation that Paul Hennelly was The Fishing Party's candidate in Paterson last year? It's clear by inference that he was (Fishing Party just deregistered, stood both previously and in the 2011 state election under FP banner), but I can't find confirmation. Frickeg (talk) 11:52, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Present
Has there been any consensus to remove "present" from articles as in this edit? An IP has been doing so in multiple articles without any explanation as to why it's being done. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:01, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No there hasn't, and it's been annoying me too. Timeshift (talk) 15:21, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks AussieLegend for cleaning up after this, too. Frickeg (talk) 22:11, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * There are still quite a few to do. I'll get to those when I have a chance. --AussieLegend (talk) 00:04, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. This is an interesting question. I couldn't find any intelligible answer in the MoS as to whether the open-ended hyphen is preferred or not in this context. Of course (in partial support of AussieLegend), it makes little sense to change a consistently adopted style when there is no question of error or ambiguity. However: (1) There is nothing wrong in principle with the style substituted by the IP editor. According to Hart's Rules (at p. 177) "An en rule may also be used when a terminal date is in the future: [e.g.] The Times (1785– ). . . .Jenny Benson (1960– ) . . .A fixed interword space after the date may give a better appearance in conjunction with the closing parenthesis that generally follows it. (2) I am often seriously annoyed by a quite general problem in Wikipedia arising from editors' occasional use of expressions like "the present", "now", "current opinion", etc, etc, because of my understanding that an encyclopedia does not in fact reflect knowledge only at a particular moment in time. Cheers, Bjenks (talk) 02:00, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * In general I agree with you, but in my opinion this is a clear-cut exception. Timeshift (talk) 02:24, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

The IP is at it again. I've directed him here for discussion. Additionally, he/she is making some pretty weird other edits. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:55, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems the IP is not interested in discussion. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:05, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:OTHERDATE, "dates that are given as ranges should follow the same patterns as given above for birth and death dates", and above it states, "not (September 26, 1981 –) " The IP appears to be out of step. WWGB (talk) 12:36, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Adelaide Oval
Does anyone have the time and energy to clean this up? Timeshift (talk) 08:20, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Editing on NSW articles
I am hardly here any more for offline reasons, so am noting this IP address's contributions for someone here to look at. I only reverted the part of his contribs which had previously been deemed disruptive, but there's a lot of others people might want to have a look at. Orderinchaos 01:36, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Bernard Finnigan and talk page
If others can keep an eye out that would be appreciated as i'm off to bed shortly. Timeshift (talk) 13:29, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Based on the talk page logs, we're going to get daily to near daily occurrances of potential issues until a later date. Is it worthwhile putting a full user block on the pages? Nothing could be added between now and that later date that's of any substantial interest that isn't already on there, and if there is, it can always be added. Timeshift (talk) 01:04, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Why not just let the truth be on the page? The suppression order only applies to South Australian media outlets. Several other Australian media outlets, including respected metropolitan dailies (http://uyac.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=204340) and Derryn Hinch (not so respected but it's here http://www.hinch.net/hinch-says-2011/April/21-04-11.1.html). The fact that Finnigan is the member charged is now pretty well common knowledge, it can be googled in about 5 seconds and if you don't want to google it comparing the list of Labour members on the SA Parliament page with the list of members on SA Labour's own page it's pretty easy to spot who has been dropped. Jaxsonjo (talk) 21:53, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Please help me, i'm spinning out...
Ok, i'm in a total conundrum. Until now, South Australia has had an MP charged with child pornography offences, and seperately, Bernard Finnigan has resigned from cabinet. Today, the MP charged with said offences has had his party membership suspended. At what point does said MP become an independent? Which flows on to, at what point does said MP's wikipedia article and associated pages such as house membership templates get changed? I think I need a bex and a good lie down... Timeshift (talk) 06:11, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I presume there is a reason why ABC and related sources are not identifying the MP. We probably shouldn't until they do. Orderinchaos 11:32, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

In South Australia it's against the law for the media to report the name of someone charged with a sexual offence until they enter a plea. On May 10 when he appeared in court he did not enter a plea and he will appear again in August. Wikipedia is not hosted in SA so there is no reason not to allow information from sourced articles to be placed on the page. Jaxsonjo (talk) 21:57, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Katy Gallagher
Set politics-importance=Top as the new Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory. 203.7.140.3 (talk) 01:01, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * She won't officially be CM until Friday, according to news reports. Orderinchaos 03:27, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * An update on this: Gallagher has been elected ALP leader on Friday 13 May, but she won't be Chief Minister until a sitting of parliament on Monday (the votes of the ACT Greens are needed to confirm her appointment). Some edits have been made saying she's Acting Chief Minister, in fact Shane Rattenbury, the Speaker, is acting Chief Minister until Gallagher's appointment. --Canley (talk) 01:55, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Katter's Australian Party
What colour shall we use? It's colour is red, but that obviously clashes with Labor. Jmount (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:43, 5 June 2011 (UTC).


 * He says his party "would unashamedly represent agriculture", so how about a rich brown for the soil? HiLo48 (talk) 08:07, 5 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Its website is very red, for some reason. Nick-D (talk) 08:27, 5 June 2011 (UTC)


 * British Empire red maybe? HiLo48 (talk) 11:49, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Also my understanding is that Katter's Australian Party has not yet been registered by the AEC. The application has been lodged, but it hasn't yet been formally approved. Thus Katter remains an Independent. Jmount (talk) 22:00, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Opinions requested
I would appreciate the opinions of others on these edits. --AussieLegend (talk) 05:55, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The Harry Jenkins edit is WP:OR as it stands, but there is a better ref: here --Surturz (talk) 07:01, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

UAP and Country coalition arrangements in 1931 and 1934
The articles Australian federal election, 1931 and Australian federal election, 1934 say that the UAP and Country Party were "coalition partner[s]", and add the number of seats together for the result. However, I read yesterday (4 July 2011) in Crikey, in an article by Mark Latham criticising Gerard Henderson, that this may not have been the case. Latham cites an exchange between Michael Kroger and Anne Henderson (Gerard's wife) in which Henderson disputes Kroger's claim that Malcolm Fraser's 55 seat majority in the 1975 election was the "biggest majority in the House of Representatives":

"In numbers of seats (Kroger’s statement) cannot be disputed. However, if changes in the number of seats in the House of Representatives over time is taken into account, the record for the greatest House of Representatives win must go to Joseph Lyons, the conservative leader at the 1931 election. In this landslide victory, for what was then a coalition of non-Labor parties known as the United Australia Party, the Country Party and the South Australian Emergency Committee, the Lyons government held 74.6 per cent of the House of Representatives seats after the 1931 election.  Malcolm Fraser’s Liberal Party/Country Party Coalition did well in 1975, but not so well as Lyons, holding 71.6 per cent of seats after the federal election."

Kroger replied, citing Country leader Earle Page's autobiography, that the UAP and Country parties were not in coalition until 9 November 1934, after the 1934 election, and that the Country Party's position was to offer "general support to the Government"(presumably "supply and confidence"):

"The Country Party was not part of a coalition with the UAP at the 1931 election. Its position was to offer “general support to the Government”, according to the autobiography of Earle Page, the then leader of the Country Party. Page refused a ministry after that election and his party wasn’t part of the Lyons government.  Accordingly, it’s incorrect to include their 16 seats with the UAP’s 34 and the South Australian Emergency Committee’s six (total 56 of 75 seats) in the 74.6 per cent claimed by Henderson.  The Country Party joined the UAP in government after the election held on September 15, 1934 by an announcement made on November 9 that year."

I haven't edited these articles, as I would like to corroborate this coalition arrangement (or lack thereof) with other references other than Crikey, Latham and Kroger. Just mentioning it so that others can keep an eye out for material and sources. --Canley (talk) 02:21, 5 July 2011 (UTC)


 * From what I can see there's a lot of confusion on this and several of the election pages have a tendency to blindly present the Coalition as existing without checking if it was actually operating at that particular election. The main article on the Coalition could do with a decent history section that covers the on & off nature of the beast. Timrollpickering (talk) 08:17, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

User:Timeshift9 user page deletion kerfuffle
Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Timeshift9 --Surturz (talk) 00:40, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Gosh, I can't believe they deleted Timeshift's page! And before I got to read it too... WP's starting to look like a totalitarian state! Donama (talk) 23:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Not "they" - User:Timotheus_Canens deleted it. It was an admin action, not a consensus delete. Shifty's edit history abruptly stops after the user page deletion, surprise surprise. His admin review page is at Administrator_review/Timotheus_Canens if you would like to provide feedback. --Surturz (talk) 01:09, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Deletion_review/Log/2011_June_5 --Surturz (talk) 13:34, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Round 2
User_talk:Timeshift9 --Surturz (talk) 10:11, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, National Party historian editing Nationals entry
Over at National Party of Australia I see that some editing has been going on (including blanking all sections) by User:TheNationals, apparently National Party historian, Paul Davey, and "authorised by The Nationals Federal Secretariat, Canberra. August 2011". I'm rushing off to work so I wonder of someone could have a chat to the user about neutral editing and if they are the Nationals historian, what resources, they might have that could be shared by the project. --Roisterer (talk) 14:46, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Christmas Island: the land that political parties forgot?
The List of political parties in Christmas Island has been recently created and states, quoting the CIA World Factbook, that Christmas Island doesn't have any political parties. Given that island is part of the Division of Lingiari and participates in Australian federal elections this seems a bit dubious - surely there are members of political parties living on the island with some kind of organisational support (at least to hand out how to vote cards). Can anyone confirm or deny whether there are political parties active on the island? On a larger note, it seems a bit odd to have this article given that Christmas Island is part of Australia for most intents and purposes. Nick-D (talk) 23:05, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * There's a Union of Christmas Island Workers (UCIW) affiliated with the ACTU, I'm sure some members would have some kind of political leanings/party membership. I'm guessing the article is referring to parties involved in local governance, i.e. members of the Shire of Christmas Island council, who like Norfolk Island don't represent political parties. --Canley (talk) 06:37, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It ought to be redirected to List of political parties in Australia. Rebecca (talk) 11:25, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a good idea - I've just redirected it. Nick-D (talk) 08:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I know that Warren Snowdon, the member for Lingiari that covers Christmas Island, used to regularly visit the island and I am sure he organised folks to hand out his "how to vote" cards. Knowing Warren, I am sure he is still doing that. -- Bduke   (Discussion)  10:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Malaysia Solution derailed by High Court
yikes!. Have we got adequate coverage of the role of the High Court on immigration policy? A lot of the refugee issue is presented as Left vs Right but a lot of it is really Federal Government (Coalition or ALP) vs. High Court. --Surturz (talk) 07:52, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm writing an article right now on the "Malaysia Solution", will try and address this. --Canley (talk) 02:43, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
 * When I heard this news I immediately thought, what a wonderful example of the Separation of powers. Please highlight that. HiLo48 (talk) 03:09, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

ACOTF nom for Rudd Government
Never really noticed ACOTF before, but I've nominated Rudd Govt: Australian_Collaboration_of_the_Fortnight --Surturz (talk) 13:09, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

List of Indigenous Australian politicians
I have just created List of Indigenous Australian politicians and was wondering if people could have a look over it; I've probably missed someone and I'm sure someone could create a better introduction for it than me. --Roisterer (talk) 12:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

WP Australian Politics in the Signpost
"WikiProject Report" would like to focus on WikiProject Australian Politics for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Other editors will also have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 16:33, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The report came out very well, although I should point out I can't remember actually writing my responses. It seems I wrote them while in a refreshed state after a few drinks. --Roisterer (talk) 06:51, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

NSW election results
Antony Green has published his analysis of the 2011 election results; for our purposes, the interesting point is that he includes the two-candidate preferred results, which we don't seem to have had access to before (due to the Commission's decision to show Labor-Coalition totals in all but a few electorates). This raises a question of which one we should be showing in our electorate result tables - the actual result under preferential voting, or the one the Commission made widely available. I'm tempted to say we should waive our convention against including both for this rather extraordinary election, although my instincts for consistency tell me we should only include two-candidate preferred (i.e. not just Labor-Coalition). Frickeg (talk) 23:34, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Why not both, as the AEC do with e.g. New England? link Orderinchaos 00:45, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I would tend to just include the two-candidate totals; a Labor-Coalition TPP where one of them wasn't Labor or Coalition is more NSWEC fuckup than useful psephological data in my book. Rebecca (talk) 02:09, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It does, however, indicate swing. The next NSW election will probably be a recovery of sorts for Labor, meaning 2011 will be an aberration. Orderinchaos 05:37, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I support two candidate over two party for two reasons. We list candidate rather than party by default for all elections on wikipedia where applicable, and NSW has optional preference voting, making candidate more relevant and informative. Timeshift (talk) 05:57, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Ashworth
Could an admin please unprotect Thomas Ashworth so that I can create the article for this politician? It seems to have been salted back in 2007 in relation to someone completely different. Frickeg (talk) 10:52, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Dealt with. Frickeg (talk) 12:45, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Anna Bligh protection needed
The article requires protection as IPs won't stop adding Alan Jones commentary "calling for Bligh's scalp". They have indicated on my talk page that they will continue to re-add it consistently. Timeshift (talk) 10:15, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Electoral district article name change denied
Hi, i'm posting on the Aust noticeboard and wikiproject ozpol to see if there's much local support in moving a challenge to an article name change result that said Electoral district of Croydon (South Australia) should remain, rather than assume the name Electoral district of Croydon, as the only current non-abolished seat of that name. I must say it's rather interesting that the only ones who support a change are those I recognise as Australian political contributors - Frickeg, and Miracle Pen, and me. The closed discussion is here. Discussion would be best had there rather than here so that discussion can remain centralised. Thanks. Timeshift (talk) 05:15, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Speaker of the House of Representatives
I've been doing some updates based on the resignation of Harry Jenkins as Speaker of the House of Representatives and the subsequent election of Peter Slipper to the position. I and several others have made edits to the effect that Slipper is an independent now, and appears to have resigned from the Liberal National Party. Now I'm not so sure... any confirmation of this? I was going on a caption in the news.com.au live coverage: "Peter Slipper has quit the Liberal Party to sit as an independent Speaker" but that sentence doesn't seem to be on the page anymore. He appears to have said "I do intend to be an independent Speaker..." which doesn't seem to be a formal resignation from the party and may have been misinterpreted. Any references or confirmation much appreciated. --Canley (talk) 05:03, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "But in his first main address as Speaker, Mr Slipper told Parliament he was resigning from the LNP, heading off any move that could be made to see him expelled." (ABC News) --Canley (talk) 05:13, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

The two Tonkins
Can anyone tell me if David Tonkin and John Tonkin were related, and what the connection was? Thanks. --  Jack of Oz   [your turn]  11:36, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Very unlikely to have been any connection - different parties, one went to one of Australia's elite schools while the other went to state schools on the Goldfields, and the surname doesn't have geographical roots (although is from England) so more than likely simply a name coincidence. Orderinchaos 14:58, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Good answer. But what about Arthur Tonkin (Labor, Morley, 1971–1987) who was one of Burke's ministers? Cheers, Bjenks (talk) 15:06, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Strangely, I have never found any evidence they were related either! Arthur Tonkin, school teacher, was born 21 January 1930 to Norman Sedrick Tonkin (labourer) and Florence May, née Cole in Kelmscott and studied at Gosnells, ultimately becoming a school teacher, while John Tonkin, who also became a school teacher, was born in the WA Goldfields, then taught around the state from 1922 to 1933 when he became an elected MP. My info is Black & Bolton, btw. Orderinchaos 21:32, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick responses. --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  08:52, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Federal ministerial reshuffle
Second Gillard Ministry needs updating in accordance with the reshuffle (12th Dec 2011). I've made a crude attempt at mentioning it in the introduction, and I provided two citations. They seem to have all of the information required. I've done as much as possible given lack of time and experience. Maybe someone here can do more? DonkeyKong64 (Mathematician / Mathematical Modeller) (talk) 15:25, 12 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The reshuffle was announced on 12 December, but it is expected to take effect on 14 December, when ministers will be sworn in to their new portfolios by the Governor-General. I've already reverted a few rash edits that had the changes occurring yesterday 12 December.  We live in a constitutional monarchy, for better or worse, and the prime minister can propose any changes to the ministry she likes but it's still down to the governor-general to give the formal OK.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  20:51, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Use of the office holder infobox
Any feedback regarding Talk:Tanya Plibersek would be welcome as it may have implications for other articles as well. Thanks. --Elekhh (talk) 22:00, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

The issue here is, the editor removed all "successor" and "predecessor" names from the infobox in the article on the basis that it was too long. All Aus MPs have successor and predecessor. We either keep them for all Aus MP articles or on no Aus MP articles. I'm not particularly fussed either way, however, consistency is key. Timeshift (talk) 05:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * For me purpose is key (i.e. providing a summary of the article) and that is being lost when these see also type navigation fields are multiplied in the infobox. At the very least IMO these should be limited, by removing them from ministry positions. That would keep most infoboxes unaltered, retain consistency and address the most acute problem. --Elekhh (talk) 06:11, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Third Gillard Ministry?
I notice a new article has been set up listing the current Cabinet (as of 14 December 2011) as the Third Gillard Ministry. It's been a while since I've trawled through these federal ministry lists in detail, but from memory isn't the convention to list it as a new ministry only when the government wins an election (or the Prime Minister otherwise changes)? I know it can get messy to show "reshuffles" within a single article, but from my understanding that is how all the other Ministry articles are organised. What do others think? --Canley (talk) 00:50, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Timeshift (talk) 05:09, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed. HiLo48 (talk) 06:42, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Gillard herself has referred to it as her third ministry, and so have various journos. I'd rather wait till the updated version of this list is released, before making a decision. Not sure why it isn't already out there.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  11:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)


 * More research has demonstrated just how little care is taken with important details in the corridors of power these days. It was called the "Third Gillard Ministry" when she made a minor change on 21 February 2011 – see Hansard p. 896.  But when a further amendment was made on 3 March, it was back to the "Second Gillard Ministry" – Hansard, p. 2657.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  01:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess someone must have made a mistake with the first change on 21 Feb. I agree that we should go with the title listed on aph.gov.au.DonkeyKong64 (Mathematician / Mathematical Modeller) (talk) 12:26, 17 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Legally speaking, it's the second until either an election or a change of prime minister. A reconstitution of the Second Ministry - no matter how major or minor - is still the Second Ministry. Orderinchaos 14:31, 17 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't know that there's anything "legal" about it; it's all down to convention. And ministries have certainly ended in circumstances other than an election or a change of PM.  Whitlam's first ministry lasted only 2 weeks, 5-19 Dec 1972 (admittedly, that was a special case). Gorton's first lasted only 7 weeks, but more of that below.


 * See this page from the Parliamentary Handbook, which states:


 * * The termination date of each ministry coincides with the date on which the Prime Minister submitted his resignation, and that of each of his ministers, to the Governor-General. In a number of instances, however, such resignations have been the occasion for the Prime Minister of the day to ask the Governor-General for a commission to form a new ministry and thus remain in office. WM Hughes was the first Australian Prime Minister to follow this procedure, which he did on three separate occasions between 1915 and 1923.


 * Thus we had Hughes forming new ministries on 14 Nov 1916 and 17 Feb 1917, although the election was not till 5 May 1917. He formed another new ministry on 10 Jan 1918.  We show Hughes with 5 ministries, but the Parl Handbook recognises only 4, and the start-end dates of the latter ones don’t match up.


 * Lyons formed a new ministry on 7 Nov 1938, a year after the 1937 election and 2 years before the one due in 1940. We show 4 Lyons ministries, but the Parl Handbook has only 2.


 * According to the Parl Handbook, Menzies had the same ministry from May 1951 to January 1956, although there were 2 general elections during that time (May 1954, December 1955). We show this as 2 separate ministries.


 * Gorton was sworn in on 10 Jan 1968. His second ministry started only 7 weeks later, on 28 Feb 1968. His third started 12 Nov 1969.  We concatenate the first 2 into a single ministry.


 * So, it's clear that Wikipedia's system of numbering ministries is sometimes quite at odds with officialdom. --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  20:57, 17 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I confess to not having a recent Parliamentary Handbook but the 24th edition (1988) lists certain ministries (pp 356-75), assigning roman numerals as follows:
 * (FIVE) Menzies Ministries (i) 19.12.49 to 11.5.51; (ii) 11.5.51 to 11.1.56; (iii) 11.1.56 to 10.12.58; (iv) 10.12.58 to 18.12.63; (v) 18.12.63 to 26.1.66. (Wikipedia currently lists ten!) In similar fashion there follow TWO Holt ministries, ONE McEwen ministry, THREE Gorton ministries, ONE McMahon ministry, THREE Whitlam ministries (including the initial duopoly), FIVE Fraser ministries (including the initial 'caretaker' team), and THREE Hawke ministries (a fourth occurring after publication of that record).  The book does not provide individual lists of each ministry but generally lists all ministers under each P.M., with their terms of office alongside.  Personally, I think Wikipedia should preferably deal with 'governments' rather than individual ministries, perhaps using section delineation only for encyclopedically significant variations, such as the Whitlam duopoly. It could easily be said somewhere that, e.g., "Menzies formed five distinct ministries when he was prime minister between December 1949 and January 1966". Cheers, Bjenks (talk) 01:31, 18 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The link I provided above gives all the ministries up to Rudd. It shows Menzies with 8 ministries (3 between 1939-41, and 5 between 1949-66), whereas we have 10.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  02:27, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Right, I left out Ming's three prewar ministries, which are detailed at pp 349-352 of the 1988 Handbook. At the very least, we should merge the articles on his 5th and 6th ministries, as well as the 8th and 9th. But much of the content simply reiterates available directories, something which Wikipedia IS NOT. So we really need to take a much different encyclopedic approach to all of this unreadable stuff. Some of our political pundits need to accept that "An encyclopedia article is a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject, not a complete exposition of all possible details." Cheers, Bjenks (talk) 06:40, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Colonial liberalism - WP:OR?
This article was started last month, and to me, seems to be a lot of WP:OR and a sleuth of generalisations. Personally I think the article should be deleted. Colonial liberalism is a broad brush to use on a range of early Australian politicians... Timeshift (talk) 04:53, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Category: Australian electorates contested at every election
Just letting this project know, I have suggested this category be converted to a list here. --Qetuth (talk) 12:44, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Seems a reasonable suggestion - I've supported it. Orderinchaos 13:56, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month
Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:Australian politics will have interest in putting on events (on and off wiki) related to women's roles in Australian politics. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. These events can take place off wiki, like edit-a-thons, or on wiki, such as themes and translations. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 20:59, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Liberal caucus votes
I have added vote_type to Infobox election and changed all examples in Category:Australian leadership spills to "Caucus votes". However, as described here we don't realy refer to the Liberal caucus in Australia. If you think a better term can be used, please change them. Mark Hurd (talk) 03:22, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

'Manipulation'--a POV term?
My own view is that 'manipulation' is a justifiable term for some of the things that electoral campaigners do. However, an IP editor has disagreed (or maybe expressed hir own pov) in making this edit to content about the tricks of Glenn Druery. As a genuinely disinterested observer (and the one who introduced the term 'manipulation' to this article), I won't jump back in—but invite other qualified observers to consider this one. Cheers, Bjenks (talk) 03:11, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it's a perfectly valid term to describe clever political operators. But it does, for some people, carry a pejorative tone. Such sensitivity is always when it's written about their preferred candidate. I, for example, regard John Howard as an incredibly clever politician for the way in which he manipulated racist tendencies among part of the electorate over boat people, but his hard core supporters, including those I see as having been manipulated, do not see it that way. So, it's a difficult word, probably best avoided. The problem we have, though, is that the IP editor's deletions have actually changed the meaning of the article a bit. Not good. HiLo48 (talk) 03:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * ...and has gone on to revert some of my other balancing edits, including getting rid of a perfectly valid blockquote and restoring non-npovs of the subject and one Malcolm Jones. As a distant sandgroper, I'm now well out of my depth among these NSW, er, machinations! Cheers, Bjenks (talk) 04:38, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep. Gone too far this time. I've reverted the lot. HiLo48 (talk) 04:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Voting Systems
I've noticed a growing inconsistency in how the articles are labelling the preferential voting system when mentioned and especially when abbreviated. For one example the Electoral systems of the Australian states and territories article includes, 'The New South Wales Legislative Assembly has 93 members elected for four-year terms using optional preferential voting, (also known as instant run-off voting).'

'The Victorian Legislative Assembly (lower house) has 88 members elected from single-member constituencies (districts) under the Alternative Vote system of preferential voting.'

'Like New South Wales, Queensland uses the optional preferential form of the Alternative Vote.'

'The 47-member South Australian House of Assembly is elected under the preferential Instant-runoff voting (IRV) system.' As well as having a table listing the systems all as 'AV', all while election results are listed under headings like 'House of Representatives (IRV) — Turnout 93.21% (CV)'.

I'd suggest, though can't prove that AV is the most foreign term to use in an Australian context, though appreciate the recent UK debate has popularised that description of the system. 'Preferential Voting' is probably the most common term in practice for it, though probably too vague to use. Which probably leaves IRV as the best balance between being accurate and being understood by most readers, helped by the fact a link to 'AV' ends up at the article titled Instant-runoff Voting (though I recognise there's an argument to move that article). That said, that article also cites an AEC document that mentions 'The Alternative Vote is known to Australians as Preferential Voting and to Americans as Instant Runoff Voting.'

Either way, a single consistent term, and ideally not a need to write an AKA message next to every mention of the system, would be better than the current practice. The AEC citation would be a strong argument to standardise behind 'Preferential Voting', 'PV' and 'OPV' - however they aren't specific terms outside of the Australian context. I'd suggest that IRV is slightly more known than AV in the Australian context, and that is used more often in Australian articles than AV is.

Thoughts? --GoForMoe (talk) 16:17, 23 March 2012 (UTC)


 * A lot made out of a little. Both are correct. Timeshift (talk) 22:15, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Both being correct doesn't make using both correct, the point I was making is that at the very least a single consistent term should be used, and the examples cited of one article using a different way of describing the same voting system in each mention is not the best way to give a clear article to readers. --GoForMoe (talk) 13:08, 24 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Part of the problem with "AV" is that it has been used with mixed meanings - Antony Green wrote a number of pieces during the UK referendum and did consistently use it to mean just the optional preferential version . IRV is not entirely accurate - literally the Contingent Vote fits that description more. I think it would be best to use "compulsory preferential voting", "optional preferential voting" and "[whatever term is used for the inbetween version used for the Tasmania LC]" and have links to the IRV article rather than trying to divine the best known alternative term when few other countries use the system. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:18, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, AV jumps out to me to be referring to what I'd usually call OPV. The VEC uses 'Full Preferential Voting', the QEC calls theirs 'Optional Preferential Voting' as does the NSW EC . The Electoral Council of Australia also follows the Full/Optional preferential descriptions . In fact, the only mention of the term 'Alternative Vote' I can find from one of the Electoral Commissions is buried in a WAEC document  in reference to a 1907 act. Likewise, every search for 'compulsory preferences' in relation to the Alternative Vote usually is either actually talking about Australia's compulsory voting or contrasting AV with Full Preferential Voting, making the Antony Green usage of AV in strict reference to the optional preferential form backed up fairly well by overseas usage (dominated by the UK issue), as well as the WA example cited. --GoForMoe (talk) 13:08, 24 March 2012 (UTC)