After trading blows around predictable topics, the only issue of consensus in a recent televised debate between the leaders of the Tasmanian Liberal and Labor parties, Will Hodgman and Lara Giddings, was…
People who win large amounts of money on lotteries tend to switch their political allegiances towards the right of the political spectrum and become less egalitarian, joint UK-Australian research has found…
The release of Mick Keelty’s report on the missing Western Australian Senate ballot papers from the 2013 federal election gives us an unusually in-depth look at how the Australian Electoral Commission…
The Queensland government last week introduced a bill to parliament that, when passed, will make voter identification a prerequisite for casting a ballot. This is a first for Australia and follows several…
The news that Peter Chester and George McGeoch have had their Supreme Court appeal against the ban on prison inmates voting dismissed will cause few people on the outside to lose much sleep - in fact the…
Tony Abbott was today sworn in as Australia’s 28th prime minister. The election results, however, are yet to be formally declared, with some controversy surrounding the counting of votes in the electorate…
Following a close count on election night, the result in the rural Victorian electorate of Indi is still unknown. As the counting of votes continued, it was still unclear whether Liberal incumbent Sophie…
Election 2013 Essays: As the federal election campaign draws to a close, The Conversation asked eminent thinkers to reflect on the state of the nation and the challenges Australia – and whichever party…
A bill passed its first reading in the House of Commons this week which, if it became law, would prove far more punitive in restricting access to social benefits than anything yet suggested by Iain Duncan…
People tend to prefer present gratification to conserving resources for the future. This tendency is made worse by election cycles that encourage politicians to concentrate on policies that will get them…
Most Australian journalists describe themselves as left-wing, yet amongst those who wield the real power in the country’s newsrooms, the Coalition holds a winning lead. But while the media’s political…
A casual vacancy in the Victorian Legislative Council has now been filled. The replacement member for the Western Metropolitan Region in the upper house, union official Cesar Melhem, enters Victorian parliament…
An ageing population is a threat to not just the Australian economy, but also our political system. In The Republic, Plato wrote: “it is for the elder man to rule and for the younger to submit”. This concept…
A “gender dimension” now envelopes national politics unlike anything we have observed in the past. Julia Gillard’s popular but arguably unfair [accusation](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-10/international-reaction-to-gillard-speech/4305294](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-10/international-reaction-to-gillard-speech/4305294…
Graham Richardson, the legendary Labor numbers man, pronounced last week that “if I was religious, I would pray that my long-held view that Labor will be slaughtered under Gillard’s leadership would be…
In an election year, perhaps the only thing more inevitable than the major parties’ verbal jousting is the media’s obsession with marginal seats – that handful of bellwether electorates that can supposedly…
In Western Australia business is booming for the mining and resources sector. The number of fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) workers employed in the state has increased over the last five years to more than 35,000…
In the run-up to today’s presidential election, President Barack Obama received just over $632 million in candidate contributions. Want to know who from? These direct, individual donations (known as “hard…
It is now election day in the United States. You can compare being on an American political campaign on this final frenetic day to spawning salmon giving their all to leap waterfalls before they die. Media…
Hurricane Sandy will leave more than physical destruction in its wake. Arriving just days before the US presidential election, the storm could have a political fallout as well. Sandy has affected the key…