George Osborne has delivered his latest Autumn Statement, announcing there has been no recession during this parliament and forecasting that the British economy will grow by 3% this year. This final Autumn…
Parties who gained a very small first preference vote look set to be elected to Victoria’s upper house.
AAP/Luis Enrique Ascui
The final count for Victoria’s Legislative Council is still some days away, but it appears members elected from micro-parties will hold the balance of power in the upper house. This will be a challenge…
Comedian Stephen Colbert at the 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
Reuters
John Oliver’s new program Last Week Tonight is the most recent addition to the parody news genre. Like its predecessors, the show frequently mocks American politics; for example, an attention-grabbing…
Despite pressure from the pet community, few are turning up.
Rikki's Refuge
Even before the results come in, turn-out for electing South Yorkshire’s next Police and Crime Commissioner was shown to be extremely low. As the votes were being counted from the October 30 ballot, it…
Is there room for more?
US Capitol image via shutterstock.com
The American public’s dislike of Congress is far from a new development in US politics. However, over the past few years the situation has gotten even worse with public approval of this institution hovering…
Hope you didn’t skip a race …
Scott Miller/Reuters
Although the midterms are typically referred to as federal elections, there is no federal entity that governs the conduct of elections in the US. There are basic election laws governing the timing of federal…
The outside is being renovated, but what about the inside?
Jim Bourg/Reuters
Foundation essay: This article is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the US. Our foundation essays are longer than our usual comment and analysis articles and take a wider look…
Treasurer Joe Hockey and his Coalition colleagues continue to demand that their opponents ‘respect the mandate of the new government and the will of the people and vote with the government’.
AAP/Gary Schafer
The Abbott government, when faced with opposition over the past year, has commonly resorted to two lifeline statements. The first is that it’s carrying out the “will of the people”. And the second is that…
One political scientist recently claimed that the evidence isn’t strong enough for lowering the voting age in Australia to 16. What are the arguments to the contrary?
AAP/Lukas Coch
Richard Berry, London School of Economics and Political Science
Pressure is building in democracies around the world to lower the voting age to 16. For national elections, Brazil (in 1988), Austria (2007) and Argentina (2012) have led the way. For local elections…
Politicians mustn’t turn their backs on young people.
Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
Matt Henn, Nottingham Trent University and Nick Foard, Nottingham Trent University
Young people’s relationship with politics in Britain is often considered to be both complex and problematic. On the one hand, this generation is often characterised as apathetic, with no interest in, or…
Citizens line up to cast their vote in New Delhi.
AAP
Since Monday the Indian people have been voting in the largest elections the world has ever seen. So far things have gone smoothly as 815 million people are expected to turn out at polling stations all…
Will a number of Western Australians vote differently in the Senate re-vote than how they voted in September?
AAP/Lukas Coch
Natalie Mast, The University of Western Australia; David Glance, The University of Western Australia, and William Bowe, The University of Western Australia
Most Western Australian voters are justifiably annoyed at having to vote again as a result of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) losing 1370 Senate votes cast in the September 2013 federal election…
Liberal leader Will Hodgman casts his vote in the 2010 Tasmanian election. But just how is Tasmania’s lower house elected?
AAP/Julian Smith
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…
We’ll drink to that - although we don’t know how Cathy and Richard Brown vote…
Chris Radburn/PA Wire
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…
Are fixed term elections the answer to the AEC’s problems, as identified in the report into the handling of the ballot papers in Western Australia?
AAP/Lukas Coch
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…
Queensland has witnessed many firsts in Australian politics, and is set to be the first state in Australia to institute controversial voter ID laws.
AAP/Martin Silk
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…
Banged up: a Bill on prisoners’ voting rights is presently before parliament.
PA Archive
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…
Clive Palmer, who is locked in a tight battle for the seat of Fairfax, has called for another election to be held, citing improper conduct by the AEC.
AAP/Dave Hunt
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…
Coalition frontbencher Sophie Mirabella appears likely to be unseated in her rural Victorian seat of Indi by a popular local independent candidate, Cathy McGowan.
AAP/Julian Smith
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…
Australia has a form of compulsory voting. But why should we even bother?
AAP/Julian Smith
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…