Breaking up the Senate? Why it’s such a bad idea
The Australian reported on Sunday about an idea from Queensland LNP senator James McGrath that would see the Senate broken up so that senators represent “provinces” within each state.
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Exhausted votes in the Senate drop in 2019
Opponents of Senate voting reform in 2016 focused a lot of attention on the danger of votes exhausting – which happens when a voter hasn’t marked a preference for any of the remaining candidates.
Below-the-line rates go up in 2019
This is the latest in my occasional series looking back at the final results of the 2019 federal election.
The 2019 federal election was the second election held under the new Senate voting system, which included changes to make it easier to vote below-the-line. The election saw the rate of below-the-line voting increase nationally, with particularly large increases in New South Wales and the ACT.
Voting system change boosts Labor and Greens in Brisbane City
I posted back in March about the Queensland government’s proposed reforms to local government in that state. The reforms include a bunch of other changes to electoral finance and council procedures, but I focused on two proposed changes: introducing compulsory preferential voting for single-member elections, as well as introducing proportional representation with compulsory preferences for multi-member elections.
NSW to raise council election costs to make private providers “competitive”
New South Wales council elections are due in September 2020, which means that local councils right now are having to decide who they will contract to run their election.
This may seem strange to people not familiar with NSW council elections. In most states, all council elections are run by the state electoral commission. Yet in New South Wales, local councils can choose to either use the NSW Electoral Commission (NSWEC) or a private contractor.
NT redistribution – changes to a handful of seats in second draft
I blogged about the draft boundaries for the Northern Territory redistribution before I took a break back in June. At the end of July, the NT Electoral Commission released a second draft (not a final map), which contained changes to the boundaries of five electorates. Because the changes between two seats were reasonably significant, this triggered another round of consultation, before a final map is released later this year.
Preference flows – dive into the map
The Australian Electoral Commission finalised the results of the 2019 federal election last week (now available at results.aec.gov.au) and this included the publication of data showing how primary votes for each candidate flowed on a two-candidate-preferred basis, as well as two-party-preferred flows for each party at a state and national level.
Victorian government vs local democracy
In the wake of the federal election you may have missed a story about how the Victorian government is planning to change the way that Victorian local councils are elected, something which will be disastrous for local democracy and has come completely out of the blue.
Taking a break for a while
Now that the election is over I will be taking an extended break. I won’t be doing any work on the Tally Room for the next six weeks.
NT redistribution – draft boundaries released
While we’ve been focused on the federal election, redistributions have been progressing for the local Legislative Assemblies in both the ACT and the Northern Territory.
I blogged about the population numbers in the NT in April, and since then the first draft of the boundaries have been released.