Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics/Archive 9

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Australian People's Party

There is a new incantation of the Australian People's Party registered with the AEC. I added it (and the Australian Workers Party) to the list articles, and found that the APP already has an article from many previous uses of that name. That last ten or more edits were by a user with the same name as the registered officer of the new party. I have tagged the talk page, and had a go at improving the structure overall of the article, including reducing the new contribution and restoring some of the older content. Could I request a few more eyes and fingers on the article please? I felt a bit inclined to try to split it, but not sure how many times it has been worth documenting the parties. [Update before I saved this message - I tried to sort out the actual references, and think I came up a few short, so those might be deletable sections] Thanks. --Scott Davis Talk 14:10, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

I tend to think some of these are splittable (although needing a bit more content) and some aren't notable at all. The 1901-11 one, from memory, was one of the groups that merged into the Commonwealth Liberal Party and I think had a fair bit to do with proto-conservative party politics in Victoria particularly (I remember @The Drover's Wife: and @Canley: doing some research into this which I think is in the archives). The 1929 one I know very little about but it seems like it might be notable (Richard Windeyer ran as an "independent Australian People's Party" candidate, so there must be a story there). The 1996 one appears to have been registered, so maybe warrents a stub. All the 2000s ones except the current one are obviously nothing and could easily be ignored, including the bit about The Honourable Wally Norman.
(The Australian Workers Party also seems to have at least one namesake, although the latter outfit appears to be far nuttier than the registered version.) Frickeg (talk) 11:10, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
I actually know nothing about any of these: only the first and the last would seem to be obviously notable, but would be useful to know if there was anything that would warrant fleshing out any of the middle ones. I'm not sure we went back far enough when we were wrangling with the Victorian stuff: I think we got stuck trying to make sense of the next decade. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:36, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Article for deletion Australian Justice Party

FYI. I make no claim as its notability or otherwise, but as it was uncategorised, I thought it might not come to this group's attention as it probably should. Kerry (talk) 07:32, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Lucy Gichuhi

I've started on Draft:Lucy Gichuhi in case/when the CoDR appoints her to replace Bob Day. I will happily delete it if she turns out not to become notable. Anyone else is welcome to add to it. --Scott Davis Talk 13:40, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

The article has been moved to Lucy Gichuhi and now has a couple of editors. "...first person of African descent ever to be elected to the Australian Parliament" is referenced, but not consistent with Wikipedia's categorisation according to petscan which shows eight others.[1] Seven of those appear to have been ethnically British but they or some of their ancestors were born in Africa, and Anne Aly is Arabian (I think?) so does not have dark skin like Gichuhi. Does anyone know of a better way of describing this? (asking here as the article's talk page likely has very few watchers yet) --Scott Davis Talk 06:00, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
In so much as Egypt is in Africa, that's not true: Anne Aly is Egyptian, and Peter Khalil is of Egyptian descent—Khalil said in his maiden speech that he and Aly were "the first African Australians in this place". --Canley (talk) 06:20, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
I assume what is trying to be said but maybe not be politically correct is "first black African". Personally I get a bit tired of these kinds of attempts to pigeonhole people by ethnicity. We all had 2 parents and most of us had 4 grandparents, 8 grandparents, 16 great-grandparents, and so on, so how can we attempt to prescribe a single ethnicity to people? According to Ethnic groups, an ethnic group is something that "can be adopted if a person moves into another society", so maybe it's not a question of ancestry but of self-identification. I'd say something along the lines of:

Although Gichuhi is not the first African-born member of Australian Parliament (e.g. Anne Aly was elected in 2016 and was born in Alexandra, Egypt), it has been claimed that Gichuhi is the first person of "African descent" to be elected to the Australian Parliament.[cite]

which leaves the claim in place with its citation but points out that the claim is subject to some interpretation in relation to the term "African descent" (and points to a possible alternative candidate). I'd then copy this discussion back into the Talk page's of both women in the hope that later someone will be a position to be more precise about the claim or debunk the claim. Kerry (talk) 06:43, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

First Sub-Saharan African or simply, first Kenyan? I'm not keen on pigeonholing either. JennyOz (talk) 07:53, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Family First–Australian Conservatives merger

Heads up about this just announced merger between the Family First Party and the Australian Conservatives. Apparently it will happen tomorrow (26 April 2017), with Family First essentially disbanding. Lucy Gichuhi has refused to join AC and will sit as an independent Senator.

--Canley (talk) 12:19, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

That at least explains Gichuhi's comments about thinking for herself and having her values that might be different to her predecessor's. She probably knew what was coming. All the more interest in her maiden speech. --Scott Davis Talk 13:40, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Two-party-preferred versus two-candidate-preferred

I'd like to propose a small adjustment to the way we deal with divisional results where the final two parties are not Labor and the Coalition. At the moment they look like this. My first issue is that I don't think we should use the term "two-party-preferred result", because it isn't a result, it's an indicative count done solely for the purpose of calculating the statewide (and therefore nationwide) 2PP. The result of the election is the one between the two final candidates, whichever party they may belong to. I also think the 2CP/2PP distinction is a bit silly - both counts have two parties (unless an independent finishes in the top two) and two candidates; I know the AEC uses it but does anyone else, really? Our article on two-party-preferred vote treats the two as generally used, widely distinguished terms, but I can't see that the sources really justify that. The "2PP" should really be called "Labor/Coalition count" or vice versa. I also feel that the current way of doing things gives undue prominence to the "2PP" count, which as I said earlier is not part of the official result and is done for information purposes only.

I am not entirely sure of the best way to resolve this issue. The "2PP" count is useful information and I don't want to see it gone altogether. I wonder if it shouldn't be removed from the main table and presented as a separate table, or somehow made smaller. At the very least, it should say "two-party-preferred count" and appear after the "Party hold ... Swing" line. I look forward to reading others' thoughts and suggestions. Frickeg (talk) 07:26, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

I think the point about the naming is dead on and we should totally switch that - and the point about it getting undue prominence is fair. Not fussed either way beyond that: the 2PP count is fundamentally only of interest to nerds (and a small portion at that), but I suspect giving it its own table would be messy and blow page sizes out for little gain. The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:53, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
Agree with you both. It's tricky to do it without giving 2PP more prominence, but it should be possible to move it after with a gap and change the heading. --Canley (talk) 02:11, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
Australian federal election, 2016: Melbourne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Greens Adam Bandt 41,377 43.75 +1.13
Liberal Philip Le Liu 23,878 25.25 +2.42
Labor Sophie Ismail 23,130 24.46 −2.14
Sex Party Lewis Freeman-Harrison 3,265 3.45 +1.53
Animal Justice Miranda Smith 1,742 1.84 +1.10
Drug Law Reform Matt Riley 1,187 1.26 +1.26
Total formal votes 94,579 97.52 +3.47
Informal votes 2,404 2.48 −3.47
Turnout 96,983 86.88 −3.81
Two-candidate-preferred result
Greens Adam Bandt 64,771 68.48 +13.21
Liberal Philip Le Liu 29,808 31.52 +31.52
Greens hold Swing N/A
Two-party-preferred count
Labor Sophie Ismail 62,963 66.57 −2.68
Liberal Philip Le Liu 31,616 33.43 +2.68

That's not bad at all - thanks Canley! I wonder if it might be a good idea to leave out the candidate names in the 2PP as well - maybe? Not sure about that. Frickeg (talk) 02:16, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

I like this - definitely an improvement. Not fussed either way about the candidate names. The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:22, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Merge Hedwig Ross/Weitzel

Sorry I don't know how to do this myself, even after reading the documentation: two pages have been created for the one person and need to merge [[2]] and [[3]]. Once this has been done, and redirects created, the "orphan" tag can be removed from the Hedwig Ross page. Thanks Powertothepeople (talk) 06:56, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

@Powertothepeople: Then this is a good time to learn how to merge! This is a pretty straightforward case, clearly the same person (so not a controversial merge), and one article is well-developed and the other a stub. I would suggest reading through the short one and seeing if it says anything that isn't already in the longer article. If there is something extra, add it to the long article. When you've done that, you need to remove the content from the short article and replace it was a redirection. Now I think you are using the Visual Editor? If so, to do a redirection, you open the short article in the Visual Editor and use the Page Options (the 3 horizontal bars icon on the tool bar) and select "Page setting". On that screen, click on the "redirect this page to" box and then add the name of the long article in the following text box. Then "Apply Changes" and then Save in the normal way. If you need more help, call out! Kerry (talk) 07:49, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
And she's not an orphan any more, I added links from a few other articles to her. Kerry (talk) 08:34, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Rachel Carling-Jenkins - at what point in time do we recognise that an MP has changed party affiliation?

RE: Rachel Carling-Jenkins changing from DLP to Aus Con... at what point in time do/should we recognise that an MP has changed party affiliation and make the appropriate updates to the many various articles? When their parliamentary profile is updated to reflect the change? When the MP updates their website/facebook? At some other point? Timeshift (talk) 02:40, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

I gather she has joined the federal Australian Conservatives as of today, but the party is not registered in Victoria, so I guess she can't sit for them in the Legislative Council until then? State executive of the DLP just met a week ago, and won't meet again until August, but she may resign or be expelled before then. Maybe better wait until the re-member profile is updated. --Canley (talk) 03:32, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Normally I wouldn't be too pedantic about it if it's in the press that they've done it, but most of these articles are pretty clear about saying that she will join, not that she already has. Wait until there's some confirmation that she has. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:20, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
A party's registration status is more of a technicality for elections than anything else. If a parliamentarian joins a party and becomes their sole member in a chamber then clearly they are sitting for them regardless of how organised they are in a particular state. e.g. Gordon Moyes was listed as a Family First NSW MLC from November 2009 despite the party not yet having achieved state registration. Timrollpickering 12:07, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree with Timrollpickering above. As for Carling-Jenkins, it's pretty much a done deal - this article says "has defected", and this one treats this morning as the big date. Defectors often announce things this way, for some reason. I think failing to list her as AC at this point is pretty pointless, and not helpful to the reader. It's hardly accurate to call her a DLP MLC at this point. Both Carling-Jenkins' website and the DLP's, as well as the Conservatives', reflect the change. Frickeg (talk) 12:53, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree, I think it should be changed now. Superegz (talk) 09:41, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
According to AusParlGov WikiEdits, a Parliament of Victoria IP just edited the article! --Canley (talk) 02:22, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Lee Rhiannon

Extra eyes appreciated here. Frickeg (talk) 05:39, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Australian Senate

Please see discussion here. Thanks, Portwalrus (talk) 16:07, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

SA 2018 electorate maps

I have made a full set of SA maps for the 2-18 election. They are in commons:category:Maps of state electoral districts in South Australia, 2018. I have only added them for the six new electorates, not updated all the rest as I believe the current boundaries apply up until the election. A few of hte foothills electorates have a state map and an Adelaide region map as I wasn't sure which would look better. --Scott Davis Talk 15:01, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Cheers, looks great! You've saved me a lot of work! Any chance you can re-do the post-redistribution party allocation ones at South Australian state election, 2018 for Timeshift9 (talk · contribs)? --Canley (talk) 02:40, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
What needs to be redone to them? I can have a go - I'm still learning/relearning how to use QGis, so no promises, but I'm game to try things. I haven't done the label thing yet. --Scott Davis Talk 15:09, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Richard Di Natale photo listed for deletion?

A wikimedia message was left for me indicating missing permission information. I was under the impression for years that Green parliamentarian photos were licensed under creative commons but upon review it seems ambiguous. As late as March 2016, the Greens website stated "This website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License". However, the current Greens website states "This website, excluding trademarked logos and images or content noted otherwise, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia Licence". When it says trademarked logos and images, are they referring to naturally trademarked logos and graphic images, and not photos? Or does the disclaimer read as excluding photos too? I'm pretty sure from memory that the Greens' intent is for their parliamentarian photos to be licensed under creative commons... perhaps those users on here who have at least some sort of informal connection might be able to get the webmaster to explicitly state that parliamentarian photos are counted as licensed under creative commons? Timeshift (talk) 01:09, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's referring to "trademarked logos" and "images or content noted otherwise", as you I don't think you can trademark a photo, and there is no note otherwise on that photo... but that's just my assumption, it would be great to get clarification. If that image does get deleted, there are some explicitly licensed CC images on Flickr (not that one unfortunately). --Canley (talk) 02:44, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
As I understand it, the licensing at the time the photo was downloaded from the Greens website and uploaded onto Commons is key here - if the Greens had released the image under a Wikimedia-friendly tag at that time, then this can't be revoked later. Nick-D (talk) 08:03, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
Let Di Natale's office know? It's the kind of thing they'd probably want to know/get on to. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:22, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Dual citizenship

To lose one senator and deputy leader to Section 44(i) of the Constitution may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness... --Canley (talk) 04:12, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

So, sit back, do not adjust your set, and enjoy this week's episode of Game of Homes? Kerry (talk) 22:10, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Get the popcorn out.[4] Hack (talk) 05:41, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
Indeed! --Canley (talk) 09:43, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
So if Elbonia (or any other real country) grants citizenship to a Federal politician without their permission, they can force them out of parliament. Sounds like a potential for abuse. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:01, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Sounds like a required case of reform. Previously the government could have dismissed the issue as confined to the less professional minor parties, but with such a perfect example case of why reform is required, watch this space! Timeshift (talk) 12:06, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
This hypothetical situation was mentioned by Gerard Brennan in Sykes v Cleary: " To take an extreme example, if a foreign power were mischievously to confer its nationality on members of the Parliament so as to disqualify them all, it would be absurd to recognize the foreign law conferring foreign nationality." --Canley (talk) 01:20, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
Episode 3: "Mamma Mia!" Kerry (talk) 13:19, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
Episode 4: "Two Nations"; Episodes 5 and 6: "The (Dual) Nationals". --Canley (talk) 09:39, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
Is it time for a List of Australian parliamentarians who are currently not referred to the High Court article? It might need a fair amount of editing to stay current. Nick-D (talk) 10:43, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

New Queensland state electorates - what's the timing on updating these?

The Electoral Commission of Queensland has done a redistribution which takes effect at the Next Queensland state election. I see that some of the new electorates are getting Wikipedia articles, e.g. Electoral district of McConnel exists (not sure whether all the new electorates articles exist and/or modified electorates have been updated). OK, there may be work to be done on the electorate articles, but it palls into insignificance compared to the work to do done to check and if necessary update the infobox (and in some cases text) for every town/suburb/locality. What's the appropriate time to do the updating? It's a massive job so I don't think it can be left until the next election is called. The Queensland Globe (a set of Google Earth overlays) is currently providing both the old and new electorates as overlays, so it is possible to start doing it now. But equally I can see issues with not having the current electorate in the infobox. Perhaps we could display both electorates (past and future). I think the best solution may be to have a template with two fields (old electorate and new electorate) which will display the old one for now, but which we switch over to display the new one at the appropriate time (whatever the appropriate time is deemed to be). That has the benefit that the updating can start now and hopefully be complete by whatever the appropriate time is to switch over. How have redistributions been managed before? What is the "best practice" for this? Kerry (talk) 05:45, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

I am half-hoping this task might be automated/semi-automated. One possibility is that the Electoral Commission might have a list of impacted suburbs/localities and just give us the before/after for them. Another possibility is that they release the maps in some form that we can manipulate, then we can compute that list. The current electoral boundaries and the suburbs/localities *are* available as SHP files on the Qld open data portal so if the new electorate maps are released that way, it should be possible to compute the intersection of the old and new electorates and then intersect it with the suburbs and localities and get the list of affected suburbs/localities and their old/new electorate. Towns are more difficult because they are defined solely by a centre point and are not bounded, so we easily determine any electorate change affecting the town centre, but not changes that affect beyond that point and the articles for any larger towns do list a number of state electorates. It may be possible though to exploit the "city" field in the infobox of a suburb/locality to determine if the suburb/locality is considered as part of a town (although this field tends to be used somewhat inconsistently IMHO). Kerry (talk) 05:58, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
The ECQ have published maps for each of the electorates in the new redistribution (one per page) as CC-BY. Would these be worthwhile updating individually to Commons and using in each article? Kerry (talk) 06:22, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
If you mean the lists of localities per district, and the electorates in the infoboxes, I've done this before using my own database for SA, NSW and the last federal redistributions, and using Wikidata for the ACT election. It can depend a bit on what the electoral commissions publish. For SA I used a PostGIS database which geographically matched each locality to its encompassing district. The others I think I either scraped their address lookup databases or for ACT I think they published a before and after Excel file. It's something I want to get into Wikidata anyway... along with LGAs, all the census data, etc. With the maps I can do them any time if there is a GIS file (Shapefile, MapInfo or KML), and there are quite a few other keen mappers working in the WP:AUSPOL space now. --Canley (talk) 06:51, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
However the locality -> district mapping is done or derived, what I do once I have the lookup table is generate a list of wikilinked localities per district (separate lists for full and partial), which I then paste into the relevant section of the article like this. Then I generate a list of localities where their district has changed, and the infobox field(s) for those. I can generally do it myself in a day or two, but I can set up a project page if others want to help. --Canley (talk) 07:05, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
On timing - unfortunately they kind of have to wait until the election. Having the articles is fine as the redistribution is finalised, as long as they make it clear they are "future" electorates. But the new boundaries don't take effect until the election, and the members still represent the old seats until they win (or lose) the new ones. Frickeg (talk) 07:14, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
Exactly, I usually only update them after the parliament is dissolved and the election campaign is underway, unless is it a new one. --Canley (talk) 07:18, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
Just an update on this, I have got the GIS files for the 2008 and 2017 Queensland electoral districts, and the state locality boundaries, so I can analyse these to produce anything we need for this, including the district maps, before-and-after lists, update checklists, import data for Wikidata. --Canley (talk) 13:00, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

"2017 Australian constitutional crisis"

Someone has created this article about the ongoing citizenship fiasco. I think the information is already covered at the Section 44 of the Constitution of Australia article and the "constitutional crisis" descriptor is a bit dubious, so I have nominated it for deletion here. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 12:12, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Backup needed at Arthur Calwell

Per here. Somehow the IP seems dead-set on Arthur Calwell, ALP leader 1960-67, having an infobox image from 1940 rather than 1951 and claims being a federal Labor minister (hundreds) is more noteworthy than being a federal Labor leader (Shorten makes 20)... i'd refer to the fact that all infoboxes put leader above minister but Calwells' infobox doesn't even mention it, let alone come after leader. Timeshift (talk) 14:56, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Which bottom navbox order for PM/Treasurer/Party leader/etc?

Per new Treasurer of Australia navbox, what order should the navboxes be? Prime Minister of Australia/Treasurer of Australia/Leader of x party, coupling "of Australia"/ministry positions together, or Prime Minister of Australia/Leader of x party/Treasurer of Australia positions together, listing by (arguable) significance/noteability? Timeshift (talk) 09:57, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm fine with the third option there (i.e. PM then Leader then Treasurer). I suppose with some like Page there's an argument that Treasurer is more significant even than PM, but they're still going to be best known for the PM-ship/leadership. Frickeg (talk) 12:07, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

William Smith Harvey

I think the SA Parliament website has goofed about this South Australian MPs name - would love a second opinion at Talk:William Smith Harvey. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:52, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Turnbull - which photo? - new talk/vote.

Please add your choice and/or thoughts at Talk:Malcolm Turnbull#Which photo? Sep 2017 - image preference will be used across the dozens of relevant articles. Timeshift (talk) 15:07, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Which party goes where in infobox?

Infoboxes with such a required consideration are for example: Australian federal election, 1903, Australian federal election, 1906, South Australian colonial election, 1893, many others, and in theory, Australian federal election, 2010. This reversion claims first, second, third party should be based on seats and votes. In 1903 fed, they left Protectionist first but had a lower %. In 1893 SA, Kingston as Premier but without any formal party is first. In 2010 fed, what would happen if the Coalition won the 2PP and not Labor, and the WA Nats were part of the Coalition, but Labor still formed a parliamentary majority and therefore government? In my opinion, first party should be who formed government and leader who became PM, second party with three parties should be the crossbench/other party who provided the first party confidence and supply, and third party or second party with only two parties the official opposition and leader who became opposition leader. To base order on vote % has no meaning, to base order on seat % has no meaning, to base on both in reversion has no meaning and doesn't assist in a standard. Thoughts? Timeshift (talk) 16:38, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Clearly in a two-party situation, it's government then opposition, regardless of votes. In three-party cases, I would think Government, main Opposition, third party would make the most sense, and this is also how it's done across other countries. We should not attempt a graphical "crossbench" situation and I think the middle party being the crossbench one would just be too counter-intuitive. (For subsequent parties, it should probably be done on total vote share.) Frickeg (talk) 07:07, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
What if party 1 wins 40% of votes and seats, party 2 wins 35% of votes and seats, and party 3 wins 25% of votes and seats, with party 2 giving confidence and supply to party 1 while party 3 is the official opposition? Do you still think opposition party 3/25% should be second in the infobox, and confidence and supply party 2/35% should be third? Timeshift (talk) 07:24, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Is that not entirely hypothetical? The examples you've linked above all have the government party as the one atypically low, all at least partially for artificial reasons (not running in most seats). If such a situation did occur, I would be fine with ordering by vote percentage (so in your example party 1, then party 2, then party 3). Frickeg (talk) 07:57, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
South Australian state election, 1906 and South Australian colonial election, 1893 to 1899 are other non-clear examples, and would be interested to know if 'minoritygovt1-opposition2-thirdparty3' is and/or should be universal regardless of what the vote/seat %'s are. Timeshift (talk) 08:50, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
The method I've been using when creating election result infoboxes is to have it in order of votes received for each party, with the government parties made in bold. So, just wondering if for example, the 1972 Queensland election, the correct order should be 1. Liberal, 2. Country, 3. Labor? Or 1. Country, 2. Liberal, 3. Labor?

Also, going on a minor tangent here, I was wondering if it would be okay if the infoboxes for South Australian elections could be replaced with the style of election infobox used in most other Australian elections? I've made such infoboxes for the results of SA elections up to 1927 on their results pages. Kirsdarke01 (talk) 11:41, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Propaganda

I'm on a mission. Please help me remove propaganda from our encyclopedia. Our policy is no political propaganda, no political messaging or any kind. - Shiftchange (talk) 11:16, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Unlicensed Paul Keating image - user won't stop reverting - help!

Per my usertalk discussion, the user is repeatedly reverting to an invalid license image - Paul Keating colour 1989 - for over a dozen Paul Keating articles. If absolutely nothing else, won't even follow WP:BRD - status quo during dispute until consensus. Someone please step in, my attempts to educate have gone unheeded. Timeshift (talk) 17:21, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

You've uploaded images with the exact same licence from the same time period; I'm very confident that the image is correctly licensed and suitable for purpose. This is a discussion that should take place at Wikimedia Commons. The insults, personal attacks, and threats were totally unnecessary and reflect poorly on you. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 17:29, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
Again - give http://www.naa.gov.au/copyright/index.aspx and http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs08.aspx more than a skim-read. You acknowledge yourself that the image is Crown Copyright. As the image is nowhere near 50 years old, it is still under copyright. And the CC-att-3.0-au licence applies to native naa.gov.au content - for their images, read below that - "Various copyright conditions apply to content in the National Archives collection, depending on the type of material and its age". As for your single counter-example, i'm not going to take the bait - WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. If nothing else, WP:BRD and status quo remains until consensus. Have repeatedly advised but user simply refuses to acknowledge or follow this, so will keep guidelines correctly followed here until action is taken - user can be banned without further notice. Timeshift (talk) 17:33, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
And despite failing to acknowledge any of this, user admits WP:BRD knowledge at Stanley Bruce and election articles where they are also warring...! Bruce image has no license link/information whatsoever. Furthermore, see talkpage history here for evidence of user also removing my talkpage contributions here - a blatant violation. Many grounds to ban this user on when an admin sees this. Timeshift (talk) 17:44, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
It is with ANI now. Timeshift (talk) 18:22, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't know if its a full moon, but there is another issue occurring at Australian federal election, 2007. An anonymous IP keeps removing the bold from federal election in the lead's first sentence, claiming it is against WP:MOS. My revert was based on 2004 and 2010 and the dozens of other election articles all bolding federal election, so regardless of what is correct, I was more concerned with consistency. IP continues to remove bold only on the 2007 election article. If someone else wants to step in here that would be great... I don't care either way, as long as there is consistency. Timeshift (talk) 18:24, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Former citizenships in politicians' infoboxes

A month or two ago I started including former citizenships in politicans' infoboxes where the relevant years are known (for an example, see Barnaby Joyce). An Australian politician's past and present citizenships seems to me to be a significant fact worthy of inclusion in infobox, especially given all the questions around eligibility under the Constitution. Until now I haven't seen any objection to this practice, but now there have been a couple of reverts by User:Darwinian2974 and User:152.91.9.167 on the Fiona Nash page. Rather than engage in an edit war, wanted to see if anyone else had any opinions about this? Liguer (talk) 04:59, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi Liguer, I'm user User:Darwinian2974 I think the problem with this practice, is it's publishing these matters simply because they are contentious. The fact is, as things currently stand, the High Court has not made a decision regarding whether the individual citizenship circumstances surrounding the 'Citizenship 7' are relevant to their election or not. I think in regards to the questions around eligibility, suggesting a renounced citizenship is relevant to their current political tenure is hearsay. This will not be clear until a decision is handed down, and should the High Court find it is not relevant to a politician's election, then its relevance will be very low. In the spirit of being a neutral and even handed source of information, Wikipedia should not be pre-emting the decisions of the High Court of Australia by assuming constitutional relevance. Further as mentioned by 152.91.9.167, you can not assume her UK citizenship started from birth. There are cases where it take a notification for a citizenship to be activated, and this includes in the UK. If her inquiries in August 2017 were the first time the UK home office was aware of her potential claim to British Citizenship, she would have only been a citizen from that date, and not from birth. Unless you can substantiate the UK home office had been notified of her genealogical background earlier, you have no evidence her citizenship goes back that far. I would argue these rules should be applied universally across all pages relating to the 7 MPs and Senators until the High Court has made its ruling. (talk) 05:18, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think you are already engaging in an edit war looking at that article history and all of you are probably on the borderline of WP:3RR! Given that this issue of other citizenships is the current political football and about to go to the High Court, I think adding in these "former" citizenships can look like that you are trying to score some political point. I am not saying you are, but just that it might seem that way. As we are seeing with this current eligibility crisis, "being a citizen of X" isn't quite as clear-cut as one might have expected, as people can acquire citizenships or eligibility for citizenships without necessarily knowing about it and that actions that people thought renounced a citizenship may or may not have actually had that effect. That's why I would probably be more inclined to tell the story of other citizenships in a narrative form in the body of the article (as clearly there's some elaborate explanation that may have to be given). The danger of putting "simple" values into infoboxes is that it can over-simplify something that is actually complex. Kerry (talk) 05:54, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Not every field in infoboxes should be filled in, and I think, given the WP:POINTy nature of stuff going on here, it would be better to leave these fields blank. Frickeg (talk) 06:59, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Agreed. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:11, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
I also agree Nick-D (talk) 08:12, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Agreed, the information would be best left in the body. Kb.au (talk) 08:18, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

The uncertainty with regard to constitutional law and the current High Court case should not be confused with some sort of uncertainty about the basic fact of politicians' citizenships. For nearly all these politicians, there is no contention around what years they held certain citizenships, and there is a clear source which backs up the relevant years. This includes, by the way, Fiona Nash; her UK citizenship of 1965-2017 is clearly stated in her submission to the High Court (I think Darwinian2974 and I are now agreed on this). I agree it is not always clear-cut or publicly known - in those cases, sure, let's not mention citizenship in the infobox - but for the rest, I don't see why we should shy away from including this sort of basic biographical information in the infobox. Liguer (talk) 10:16, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I winced when I first saw it added, as it kind of feels like making a WP:POINT, however, I can accept them being left there where it is also explained and cited in the text. It would look better if it could be added for other politicians who held foreign citizenship that was renounced before they were elected, so that these seven do not look like they are being treated differently, but I suspect that in many other cases it will not be easily referenced - especially with dates. --Scott Davis Talk 11:24, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
As a matter fact, over the last 2 months I've added former citizenships to loads of politician articles: Bill Shorten, Tony Abbott, Larissa Waters, Penny Wong, Eric Abetz, Nigel Scullion, Josh Wilson (politician), Brian Mitchell (politician), Nick McKim, Maria Vamvakinou, Tony Zappia, Mathias Cormann, Lucy Gichuhi. They all have references (either in the infobox, or in the article body). Although, not all of them necessarily have citizenship mentioned in the article body. Liguer (talk) 11:49, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Party ideology and position

I thought there had been a general consensus not to fill in the ideology and position fields of Australian party infoboxes. 97.92.51.28 (talk · contribs) has recently gone through almost the entire set and added one or both fields. I can see that some thought has gone into what each field is populated with, so have not gone on a mass-revert with a comment along the lines of "consensus is to leave these fields blank". I am not certain I agree with some of the labels assigned, and see little evidence for some of the others, but that might be simply that I choose not to use those kinds of labels, so am not looking for the evidence. I raise it here for an opportunity to centralise any discussion that might be opportune. --Scott Davis Talk 06:45, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I think there are two parts to this issue: policy and process. Wikipedia tends to be better on policy than on process. Starting with policy, "An infobox ... summarizes key features of the page's subject". Combine that with WP:RS and WP:OR and it says to me that nothing should really be in an infobox without it having been presented in the article narrative with citations. (Now I confess to believing that there are some legitimate exceptions to this rule like identifiers without semantics, e.g. postcode of a suburb, reference number in a heritage database, as I can't see any benefit to the reader in saying "Australia Post have assigned the postcode 6543 to Smallville".) But clearly "ideology" isn't like a postcode. I don't think we should say anything about ideology etc in infoboxes unless it has been addressed in the article and it's a non-brainer (because all the reliable sources agree) that the party be described as "socialist" or whatever. I'd be perfectly ok with a consensus to never use those fields because I genuinely think a party's ideology and position are too complicated for one/two work summaries. The second issue is process. We have here an IP who appears to be a new user (although it's hard to tell with IPs). WP:NOBITE suggests we tread carefully in addressing the issue. If we mass-undo a lot of hard work by the IP, we probably lose the chance to cultivate a potentially useful contributor (my quick random check suggests these are good faith edits, despite the canned edit summaries being misleading). It is worth noting that the user did NOT always add ideology and position to political party; the user also removed them too, e.g. this diff. Why did the user remove this one and add the others? The diff shows us why. There's a comment in those fields saying "Do not insert an ideology/position in infobox per consensus on various talk pages". That comment wasn't present on the articles where the IP added ideology/position. This is what I mean by process. If we have consensus, we have to document somewhere other than a discussion like this that ends up in the Talk page archive. We have to document where it matters, where people not part of this conversation will get to see it. If that same comment had been in every Australian political party's infobox, I am guessing the IP would not have added anything. Kerry (talk) 08:19, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
Having said that, how could we move forward? Process-wise, let's put a section high up on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian politics where it's easy to spot (first screen) calling "Consensus Agreements" where we summarise what has been agreed and why, with a link through to the larger conversation that established the consensus (noting this has to be updated after the conversation is archived). Obviously I am talking here about consensus that affects a group of articles, not a discussion about a single article that has no wider implication (the article Talk page is probably the place to document a consensus about that article). Also add comments into articles at the point that the consense relates to, where this is possible. I have added a lot of comments to the "Notable people" sections of many articles saying "Use alphabetic order by surname in this list" and this seems to be working, I see fewer additions in the wrong place. As the wrong place is usually the first of the list or the end of the list, I put the comment both at the top and the bottom of a list. It proves to me that good-faith editors will follow simple instructions if they are put where they will see them. As for the IP, I think we need to talk to them before we mass-revert (assuming that is our consensus decision) to explain what has happened, and in doing so, stress that they have helped us to see the problem in having a consensus that they couldn't have know about and what we are going to do (add those comments into all Australian political party infoboxes, assuming that's what we decide to do). Let's try to do this in a way that retains this person not drives them away. Kerry (talk) 08:19, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks Kerry. My first move towards a fix is to put similar comments in the pro forma template.[5] The editor had clearly seen what they perceived as a problem and attempted to fix it, as some of the wikilinks went to articles that would have taken effort to find. I don't like to undo good faith work either. --Scott Davis Talk 03:27, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Merger proposal - opinions sought

Input would be welcome at Talk:National Party of Australia – Victoria#Merger proposal about whether or not to merge the articles National Party of Australia – Victoria and Victorian Farmers' Union. Timrollpickering 17:38, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Queensland election and electoral redistribution

Thanks to a list generated by User:Canley of towns, suburbs and localites likely to be affected by the Queensland Electoral Redistribution, I have now updated many hundreds of articles with respect to their current state electorate, a frenzy brought on by the now-just announced Queensland state election. I managed to get about half done before the election was called last night and finished the rest today.

As you roam across the vast plains of Queensland Wikipedia articles, you may notice the use of a Template:QldElectoralRedistribution and its shorter redirect Template:QER. These were used prior to the election announcement to load in the new electorate value while retain the old value until the election was called. Since the election has now been called, the template now displays the new electorates. Over time I will remove these templates, leaving just the revised electorates.

However, the job is not over yet. I only fixed the infoboxes of articles thrown up by Canley's algorithm. Due to a number of issues in the underlying data, it may be that the algorithm missed some changes. It is also possible that electorates may be mentioned in the body of an article (generally they are not, but bound to be some). And of course having spent so many hours staring at the screen making the changes, I might have made an error in implementing some of the changes. If you see anything that looks odd in relation to Queensland electorates, let me know. I am using the Qld Globe (official Qld Govt spatial data) on which I can overlay boundaries of suburb and localities with both the old and new electorates at any zoom level, so I am able to decide with a high degree of accuracy what the correct electorates are. This is more accurate than the static maps provided by the Qld Electoral Commission.

One of the things I observed along the way was that often the "old data" wasn't correct in any case and either reflects some even earlier redistribution not being implemented or people just "making it up" as they go along. This points out a systemic failure in relation to the "organic" model of updates we have (that is, we assume that over time enough people will randomly do enough individual updates to articles to eventually complete the task). We have to think of better ways to deal with these "seismics shifts" in our information where the update involved is not purely mechanical. Kerry (talk) 08:27, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks also to User:Kirsdarke01 who created the articles for the new Qld electorates. Kerry (talk) 09:03, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
Well done Kerry. We have had a major redistribution in SA too, but the fixed-term election is not due until March. Did you do the edits by hand, or could AWB help? Perhaps we could do a similar transition template, or decide to reflect electorate moves over time (which should really go further back than just one or two elections). Do you and Canley have a "How-to" document for us to learn from, or "lessons learnt" ("I wouldn't do it like that again")? Thanks again. --Scott Davis Talk 04:20, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm happy to write up some pages on how it was done, some of the issues we have encountered and discussed, some Wikidata ideas, and so on, and get Kerry to add her take. The whole project actually came out of something I did for the SA 2014 election redistribution, and I've already done some work on SA 2018. We've also got the six federal redistributions to look at too, so Kerry's absolutely right—we need to find a better way, and this does not seem to have been tackled holistically or collaboratively in the past, and like the Census figures, relies on random editors updating data where they see it is wrong/outdated. --Canley (talk) 05:58, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
Happy to add my 10ccs to it. I think the smart thing was to generate a list of the towns/suburbs/locality articles that may have been affected by the changes based on computer-tested comparison of the boundaries for overlap (Canley can supply the details of that). With the benefit of hindsight, we should not have tried to eliminate the false positives with a threshold as it turned out that we generated false negatives instead. Better to double-check manually I think. Using Canley's generated data, I created the Template:QldElectoralRedistribution which takes two parameters and initially returned only the first (the old electorate) to use in the stategov[2|3|4] fields of Infobox Australian place, so I could start updating the zillions of town/suburb/localities in advance of the election without displaying the new electorate, and then when the election was called, switch the template to display the 2nd (new) electorate. I doubled-checked these against a map as I went (this was due to certain short-cuts in the Qld electorate boundaries that may or may not affect other states/federally, but demonstrates the importance of deeply understanding your data before you trust it too much). Because we knew I could not entirely trust what was being generated by Canley (due to the underlying data), I manually updated each article, double-checking against the Queensland Globe (the Qld Govt "official" spatial information as I went. One problem that I had when the election was called was "flicking the switch" on the template as there is a lot of lag (can be a day or so) before template change are reflected in the articles that transclude the template. This is something that you can fix with a "purge" on the article, but I didn't know a way to do a "mass purge", so I invented one. As it happened, although I had called my template a long and meaningful name, I didn't want to type that all the time, so I had a redirect from Template:QER as a shorthand. So I used AWB to update every article that transcluded the template to replace the QER with the QldElectoralRedistribution template, which was harmless (as they were the same template) but forced the transclusion to be up-to-date. Being AWB, it meant I could whip through the articles with changes and force the switch to the new display in a matter of a few minutes instead of waiting a day or more. I then used AWB to remove the template, leaving just the new electorate, which involved the most horrible regular expressions, so much so that I decided to use a simple regular expression to remove the common cases, and then a series of slight variations to remove the corner cases. But still a lot less work than manually removing the templates from each article. Assuming one could have trust the generated data, the time-consuming step I did not see a way to easily eliminate was the manual addition of the templates in the first place, but it may be that someone with better knowledge of AWB could have found a way (you need to enable different rules on different articles and I don't know how to do that -- and with the election being called within a day or so -- I'd heard a rumour, time was not on my side to research the AWB solution). Kerry (talk) 05:37, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks Kerry. Do you think the template is still the way to go? The SA equivalent to the Queensland Globe is probably the Property Location Browser, although now the underlying engine and data seem to be used for a few different map-based government sources. It has the 2018 electoral boundaries and the official suburb/town/LOCB boundaries so we can see if they match exactly or only approximately. I interpret you decided that articles should only containt the current electoral district, not the list of previous ones. Was there value in doing the template rename, then later returning to remove it, rather than making just one pass after "the time", and just subst: the template to its post-chaneg value? It sounds like Canley's generated lists are definitely worthwhile as a starting point. Thanks. --Scott Davis Talk 13:21, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
An earlier discussion here about *when* to change the electorates in the place articles was strongly of the view that the electoral changes did not come into effect until the next election was triggered. However, with hundreds (perhaps thousands) of place articles to be updated, leaving it until the next election was actually called would make it unlikely the place articles could be updated in a timely manner. I assume (but may be mistaken) that the public's interest in electorates is likely to be greatest around the time of the calling of the election through to the election itself with much lower levels of interest outside of the election period. These things create a problem of wanting no new electorates showing until the election is called and then wanting everything to be instantly updated. The only way I could see to manage this was a template. The downside of the template was the delay in updating the articles which transclude it, which I resolved with the name change (which was just a way to achieve a mass purge, there might be a better way). Perhaps subst could have been used; I didn't even think about it because almost all of my templating work involves citation templates and subst doesn't work inside ref tag pairs so subst not in my mental tool box. But the removal of the template can be done at your leisure, so how to get rid of it isn't that important. For myself, I think I would have preferred being able to display both the old and the new electorates in advance of calling the election, so that the template generated something like

Old Electorate (New Electorate from next election)

but the infobox is narrow so whether that would fit is a problem.

As to the question of the article containing previous electorates, it wasn't addressed here. The only work done was on the infobox. If the body of a place article is talking about electorates (present or future), then that still has to be manually updated. In Qld place articles, information on electorates is usually just in the infobox. If the Qld election had not been called so early, I might have made more of an effort to track down mentions of electorates within articles. Unfortunately, there are a lots of bits of history in these articles that say something like "The Smallville war memorial was unveiled on 25 April 1922 by Joe Blogs, Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly for SomeElectorate" or have notable residents lists including MLAs etc. Obviously these historic references should remain unchanged so there is no easy way to seek out and fix any current references apart from reading them all (it's slightly easier if they are wikilinked but there is no guarantee that they are). The snap election meant I did not have that luxury of time to do that. I note we will have a similar problem with articles bodies that discuss population data when we do the 2016 census rollout. If we want to address issues like talking about current electorates in place articles, then I think we need to flag those uses with templates, e.g.

Spring Hill is in the state electorate of {{CurrentQldElectorate|Brisbane Central}} and the federal electorate of {{CurrentAusElectorate|Brisbane}}.

which then gets updated to be

Spring Hill is in the state electorate of {{CurrentQldElectorate|McConnel}} and the federal electorate of {{CurrentAusElectorate|Brisbane}}.

so we know that this must be updated in parallel with the infobox, but historic mentions (unveiling the war memorial) are not tagged in this way or are tagged with a HistoricQldElectorate template. Perhaps we need a FutureQldElectorate template too to allow articles to discuss upcoming new electorates at the next election. That way, we could better update things as we would know the precise semantics of a reference to an electorate. But there is no magic bullet that avoids reading the article body to make changes. For example if the Chapel Hill articles says:

Chapel Hill is in the the federal electorate of {{CurrentAusElectorate|Ryan}} which is named after Queensland Premier T.J. Ryan.

then there is no way you can automate the fix for that sentence, as after an electoral boundary change, the automated result would be

Chapel Hill is in the the federal electorate of {{CurrentAusElectorate|Bjelke-Petersen}} which is named after Queensland Premier T.J. Ryan.

There are no magic bullets when it comes to article text, but the use of templates would at least draw attention to information needing to be checked for update. As Wikipedia grows faster than our active editor community, article maintenance poses real challenges. We have to use tools as much as we can, but the use of tools needs "flags" in the text (such as templates as I describe above) to draw attention to narrative likely to be needing to be updated at some time.

I have not mentioned wikidata here, because, while wikidata is likely to have a growing role in our toolkit, wikidata doesn't solve the problem of fixing narrative like my Ryan to Bjelke-Petersen change. Plain old human checking is still needed, but "flags" can help us more quickly identify what needs to be checked. Perhaps projects need to have a template (or similar) for the purpose of noting that article text relates to their project and may be the subject of update. e.g.

{{Responsible|project=AusPolitics|Chapel Hill is in the the federal electorate of {{CurrentAusElectorate|Ryan}} which is named after Queensland Premier T.J. Ryan.}}

That way, projects could know where "their" content exists at a sub-article level (we already have article-level tagging). Of course, it is possible that Chapel Hill's boundaries might change, a geographic matter, so you might need

{{Responsible|project=AusPolitics|project2=AusPlaces|Chapel Hill is in the the federal electorate of {{CurrentAusElectorate|Ryan}} which is named after Queensland Premier T.J. Ryan.}}

From a technical perspective, this can be made to work, but whether it can be made to work with random contributors is another matter. I see occasional contributors removing templates all the time because they can't understand how to do their desired update given the template structure, so they just delete the template and write it in words.

There are days when I really wonder if Wikipedia will die under its own maintenance load. I found lots of Qld place articles that did not have the correct 2008 electorates when I went to update the 2017 electorates. I see 2006 census data all over the place (admittedly the lack of SSC data for low-population places in the 2011 census data release is to blame for some, but not all, of the continued use of 2006 data). This year we had the highest September temperature on record here in Queensland; I have seen a handful of updates of climate data sections to reflect this change, but there are probably over 1000 Queensland articles not updated for that hot September! This is an example where Wikidata probably is the answer, but again we seem to lack the human horsepower and decent tools to do it all. Kerry (talk) 23:51, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

The {{As of}} template might help with some of that, and it might be best to not use "Current" in a template name, unless it has a mandatory year (election or redistribution) parameter. The last few SA place articles I have created have the 2018 state electorate, as I generally use PLB, and when the tool was updated a month or so ago, the new interface only has the 2018 districts, not the older ones, so I'd need to find a different reference just to get it right for a few months. Using Wikidata to feed the electorates automatically to the infoboxes sounds like a fun idea. It would be good to capture a year in the data too, but "since 2018 election" isn't right for places that did not change at the most recent redistribution, so I'm not sure how much value there really is in that. SA has fixed term elections, so we know that the next election will be on 17 March. We just have to decide when the right time is to start switching over electorates, and how to mark them as done. the few I put up (possibly early) I have put "(2018)" after the district name, without checking if they had actually been somewhere else beforehand. If Canley can generate lists, they will be handy to check off progress as the boundary shifts were quite significant (and might highlight interesting places that are still red links, but we are gradually getting fewer of those). --Scott Davis Talk 04:50, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Senator Erich Abetz

--1.136.107.20 (talk) 08:31, 7 November 2017 (UTC)I may be in the wrong place but I wish to complain over the actions of Liguer regarding my changes to the Abetz Wikipedia entry this week.

I took Abetz to the High Court sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns and as such I fel that I have to be considered as an expert in this matter.

I have recently put up an amendment based on my research published on the internet newspaper Tasmanian Times regarding Abetz and his dual citizenship.

Why has this been removed by Liguer when it is both accurate and referenced.

I wish to have the text replaced and ask if Liguer is an employee of the Australian Liberal Party?

I submit under my own name

John Hawkins1.136.107.20 (talk) 08:31, 7 November 2017 (UTC)–—°′

Your assertion needs to be backed up by a reliable source for your information, and failing the presence of such source(s), Liguer was within his/her rights to remove your additions to the article on Eric Abetz. It also helps to assume good faith at Wikipedia and not cast others under clouds of suspicion without reasonable grounds to do so. That's an easy way for conflicts to escalate into much more, especially with finger pointing over the political beliefs or memberships of others, and isn't a good place to begin either. -- Longhair\talk 08:38, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
John, you also need to be aware of Wikipedia's policy on conflict of interest (see WP:COI). It is not appropriate for you to write about yourself and cite your own publication as the source (although I realise you probably didn't know this). This would also have been grounds for removing your additions had your real identity been known. It is acceptable for you to write on the Talk page for the article and request changes, which others may implement if they think appropriate. Note, if you can provide independent sources, then others are much more likely to think your proposed changes are worth implementing. Kerry (talk) 09:52, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

draft article

I have started a draft for Rex Patrick (see Draft:Rex Patrick - Wikipedia also helpfully puts a link at the top of the red link edit page) who is expected to be nominated to replace Nick Xenophon as senator for South Australia by the SA parliament joint sitting. Unless he turns out to already be independently notable, the draft should be deleted if someone else is nominated, or moved to article space when he is (and the categories uncommented etc). --Scott Davis Talk 04:25, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Appointed today so moved to article space. --Canley (talk) 02:44, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Number of Federation electoral divisions

List of Australian electorates contested at every election and what appears to be all the articles on the original divisions (e.g. Division of Barrier) contain the statement "The division was created in 1901 and was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election." While the House of Representatives had 75 seats in the first parliament, South Australia and Tasmania had multi-member divisions of consisting of 7 and 5 seats respectively. So, would there be any objection to me rewording the statement to "65 divisions" (or "75 seats"? Or both?). Does the distinction need to be explained further in the statement, or should I just change the number? --Canley (talk) 05:06, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

I think it needs explaining (after all, you needed to explain it here to us, so I doubt the readers are any better informed). I am not sure it is helpful to talk about "seats" though. I would spell it out by saying:

There were QQ divisions in Qld, NN in NSW, VV im Vic and WW in WA, all of which elected a single representative, with one division for the whole of SA electing 7 representatives and one division for the whole of Tas electing 5 representatives, making a total of 65 divisions and 72 representatives.

I assume the numbers Q, NN, VV, WW are known by someone (but not me!). Kerry (talk) 08:15, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Kerry, I've rewritten the text in the list article, and included a table with the numbers of original divisions by state. The division articles all linked to there so I just changed the number to 65 and if a reader questions that they can follow the link, rather than including the lengthy distinction text in each article. --Canley (talk) 02:05, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

In election results data, what does gain/hold mean?

I'm seeing a number of edits to the electoral results from the 2017 election in Queensland along these lines:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Electoral_district_of_Burdekin&diff=0&oldid=814842259

In this electorate, the sitting member (LNP) retained the seat in the 2017 election. The election results used to finish with "LNP hold +2.2%", it now says "LNP gain from Labor +2.2%". Now I can see that the new version is true if you are only discussing the two-party preferred change (which the two lines above are doing), but shouldn't this last line be the overall outcome of the election which was LNP hold with a 2.2% swing towards them? What is intended to be in this table in this final line? Kerry (talk) 22:02, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

It's because the pre-election redistribution made Burdekin into a marginal Labor seat, notionally held by them with a margin of 1.4%. The LNP member then won the seat back for the LNP on the new boundaries with a 2.2% swing in his favour. I know this is counterintuitive for non-nerds - it's always a bit of a difficult call as to how to represent post-redistribution figures. Would probably be a good idea to have a note explaining this though. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:17, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
Those edits are changing it back to what I originally had, which was a (notional) LNP gain from Labor. It's not surprising someone "corrected" it—as The Drover's Wife says it is highly counterintuitive. The best way to think about it is that what is being represented is the shift in results from the previous election as if the new boundaries were in place then. If you don't do that, then all the vote counts, percentages and swings are meaningless and essentially wrong because although a redistributed electorate may have the same name, it is actually a different entity with different booths, localities and voters. So to allow the swings to more accurately represent the change in elector sentiment in the current district boundary, you need to apply the notional figures and seat status of the previous election. As to what to do about it, I considered a few years ago adding a template for "notional gain" or "notional hold", but that's also pretty meaningless and confusing as well to the average punter I think unless you can link to a broader explanation. Like my Federation divisions query above, it's difficult to find a succinct but comprehensible way of explaining these concepts... --Canley (talk) 22:58, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
It's an IP making the changes but I reverted a couple before I started to wonder if I was missing the point and asked here. I am still not completely sure I understand what that last line should mean (clearly I am a non-nerd in this topic space!). Kerry (talk) 01:03, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
The last line should represent the two-candidate result (party status and swing) at this election compared to what the result would have been at the last election if the new redistributed boundaries had been in place at that election too. This includes where the redistribution has resulted in a margin change, a new district, or a different notional party status, or where an MP has changed party membership. --Canley (talk) 01:26, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
Your query raises a potential problem in how the redistribution figures are obtained. In this sense, we are almost wholly reliant on the ABC's Antony Green who calculates the notional votes and margins which he uses for the ABC TV and web coverage (see Queensland election here), and which are also used on Wikipedia. If Green were to for some reason not produce such a document (I cannot find one for the SA election in March for example), I'm not sure how we could handle this. It's not an issue federally as the AEC produces these figures. Other reliable election analysts such as Raue, Bowe or Bonham may step into the breach? I could also work it out myself, but then there would be original research issues. --Canley (talk) 01:38, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
I've reviewed the IP's edits, they are all correct, however there seems to be a discrepancy between that last line in the district articles and the lists of results, which seems to have originated from me! I'm not sure how that's happened as they were all from the same source. In the Burdekin and Pumicestone articles, the IP was reverting another anon who had changed the seat status. In the results tables for Aspley, Clayfield and Glass House, they were correcting an error from me which was strangely not present in the district articles themselves or the full election results list, but seemed to have made its way into the district results lists. --Canley (talk) 01:55, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

We did discuss this issue here, but I never got around to implementing it. I do support the idea behind it - that we should have "notional hold/gain" as an extra option for these boxes. Frickeg (talk) 04:38, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't remember seeing that discussion, I'm sure I would have weighed in if I had (although my suggestion above is suspiciously similar to yours!). I like Kerry's suggestion there, I think we can leverage and reference AEC's information about notional seat status to add a section to Redistribution (Australia) which covers how this information is produced and I'll see if I can find any other explanations in boundary commission reports. If there is article content which explains the concepts, we could link to that section from the word "notional" in a potential template? --Canley (talk) 05:00, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Possible errors in electoral results?

Can someone double-check the results at Results of the Australian federal election, 1990 (Senate)? Checking against the Australian Parliamentary Library, is it just me or is the Green vote out by about 30,000 votes? The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:46, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

I’m just on my way to the State Library of Victoria, I’ll request the AEC Election Statistics for 1990 and check this. —Canley (talk) 04:36, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks - much appreciated! The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:46, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
OK, I've worked it out, there's a few issues! There is a note at the bottom of the national table about how there was no national Greens party, which then lists various state based entities which are aggregated for a Greens national total. However, if you add up the votes in the note, it adds up to 208,157 but the table says the Greens total is 201,618. The next issue is the Parliamentary Library document is counting the Environmental Independents groups which ran in NSW, Victoria and Queensland in the Greens total, where they are separate here. Total EI vote is 74,668. The next issue is that the EI vote in Queensland is wrong here—it should be 30,967 but is listed as 40,204—it seems two Groups have been merged: EI (Group C) and Grey Power (Group D). So if I correct the total as per the note, and split the Grey Power group out, the total will be 208,157 for the Greens, and 74,668 for EI, which adds up to 282,825 which is what the Parliamentary Library has. --Canley (talk) 06:54, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Ah, hell. I meant to say the *New South Wales* Senate vote - Green Alliance. Parliamentary Library has 96,455. We have 64,583. Percentages similarly out. Every other party seems to be correct. It doesn't seem to be a case of the PL merging parties - none of the others add up. I'm a bit baffled.The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:04, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Ah, I can explain this one: in NSW there are two Greens parties: Green Alliance (64,583 votes) and Greens New South Wales (4,826 votes). The PL is also counting EI (27,046 votes) as Greens, so they have a total of 96,455. --Canley (talk) 08:07, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Ahh, thank you. I checked GA and EI but missed GNSW as well. It makes it so frustrating to check when they mash these groups together - thank you for answering my stupid question. The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:45, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

positions and ideologies

I admit I have no idea what these typically mean, either in isolation or together. I hope that someone who does can review a few of our major party articles please, for edits in the last few days that have gradually changed infoboxes and lead paragraphs over several small changes. The Australian Labor Party, for example, is now ideology Social democracy and Democratic socialism with political position Centre-left and a major centre left party in the lead. Those ideology articles claim they are mutually exclusive. The article seems to have already been in all those categories, but my best interpretation of the prose and references is that it might have been all of those things (and more) at different times over its history, and probably without hard dates to annotate the infobox. Coalition (Australia), Australian Greens, Country Liberal Party, Pauline Hanson's One Nation, Australian Young Labor are others I have noticed with similar recent edits that I have no idea if they are valid, or in fact if the longer-standing prose and categories are valid either. Thank you. --Scott Davis Talk 09:31, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Mystery of the Missing Electorates of the NSW Legislative Council

Now in New South Wales Legislative Council, it tells us that between 1843 and 1851, 24 of the 35 members were elected, and between 1851 and 1856, 36 of the 54 members of the council were elected. When the elected Assembly was introduced in 1856, the Council reverted to fully appointed. In 1933, a quarter of the Council is elected by the Assembly & the Council. It is not until 1978 that the Council becomes directly elected again.

What isn't mentioned in any of this is how these elections were conducted. I know that the 1851 to 1856 elections took palace in individual electorates because some of them were here in Queensland; I'm guessing that was true from 1843 to 1851. I have no clue how the 1933-1978 elections took place; was it from one pool of candidates or where separate pools and how did the candidates get nominated into the pool(s)? I believe that since 1978 it was a state-wide election of multiple representatives without separate electorates (NSW residents may like to confirm this). There's a lot we are NOT told in the article that I think we should explain.

However, my specific interest is in the 1851-1856 electorates as I am trying to expand Richard Jones (1786–1852) and the NSW Former Members website says he was

Member of the NSW Legislative Council 01 Oct 1850 30 Jun 1851 9 mths An Elective Member of the first Legislative Council 1843 - 1856 for the Counties of Gloucester, Macquarie and Stanley

Member of the NSW Legislative Council 01 Sep 1851 06 Nov 1852 1 yr 2 mths 6 days An Elective Member of the first Legislative Council 1843 - 1856 for the Stanley Boroughs viz., North Brisbane, South Brisbane, Kangaroo Point and Ipswich

So where are these electorates on Wikipedia? There's nothing that links from New South Wales Legislative Council.

In the Template:Former electoral districts of New South Wales, the name says nothing about Assembly/Council. However, the title bar of that template says [[Electoral districts of New South Wales#Former districts|Former electoral districts of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly]], so the visible text is quite explicit that these are former electoral districts of the NSW Assembly, and the link is to Electoral districts of New South Wales#Former districts whose title makes no distinction between Assembly/Council and its lede says "The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is elected from 93 single-member electorates called districts." and the "Former districts" section has no introduction, just a list of electorates. Having said that, I recognise some of the Qld *Council* electorates like "Stanley Boroughs" within that list. But when I look at Electoral district of Stanley Boroughs, it says it's 1856-1859 electorate of the *Assembly* with no mention of it being a Council electorate (yet Jones' service tells us it was an Council electorate around 1851-1856).

Now as it happens, there are some articles which I found from "What links here" for Richard Jones (1786–1852), specifically

These articles have a navbox Template:Former electoral districts of New South Wales Legislative Council which reveals that there were quite a lot of electorates, most of which are redlinks. OK, so we have quite a number of unwritten articles, but what really bothers me is that there is no way that someone who doesn't already know about these electorates and their representatives can find them on wikipedia.

Would anyone object if I updated the articles and templates mentioned above so that a reader can actually find these early electorates and their representatives by following links with meaningful anchors? If I struggled to find these electorates that I *knew* existed, I think the average reader has no chance. Kerry (talk) 09:52, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

I think that would be great. I suspect that the pre-Assembly period is not a huge area of interest for most of the regulars and so it's been a little bit neglected, so the clarification/attention in general there would be very useful. More broadly - looking at New South Wales Legislative Council, the explanation of the election-methods over time is absolutely rubbish and really does need some work (the 1933-78 indirect election system doesn't seem to be mentioned at all). The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:38, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
That would be great Kerry, it is definitely an area where we need to expand our coverage. Cheers – Ianblair23 (talk) 23:48, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
As long as these are clearly distinguished from Assembly districts (i.e. separate sub-templates/lists or something), this sounds great. As an aside - were they definitely called "districts"? I know the Tasmanian upper house ones have always been "divisions". Frickeg (talk) 06:10, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Good luck and best wishes Kerry on expanding and properly linking any part of Wikipedia that relates to places, people and events of the colony of New South Wales in the 18th-19th century beyond the present borders of the state of New South Wales. Very little of it is well-written and linked to other appropriate articles to make a coherent story. Citation is equally spotty. I get it easy that there is very little non-Aboriginal SA history before the proclamation of our own province, but it doesn't mean the Wikipedia articles are much better. Back to the topic of this section, I wonder what district/division contained the sliver of New South Wales between Western Australia and South Australia before 1860. I don't recall ever seeing any suggestion that Edward John Eyre's trek to Albany in 1841 included crossing New South Wales! --Scott Davis Talk 11:45, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Major SA federal draft redistribution to be released today Friday 13 April 2018

For those interested, heads-up FYI for today's draft release (AEC SA redistribution website link). Featuring a reduction from 11 to 10 seats, "The Australian Electoral Commission will on Friday release a draft redraw of South Australia’s federal seats..." Advertiser article: 12 April 2018. Timeshift (talk) 15:59, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Evening News (Sydney)

Sydney Evening News is listed as a missing topic, but it exists as Evening News (Sydney). I didn't think that it was correct to edit the missing topics list directly, so I came here instead. Leschnei (talk) 23:41, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

I made a redirect too. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:56, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Party colours

So we somehow seem to have once again ended up with two systems for party colours: the standard Template:Australian politics/party colours and a whole series of "meta" templates (e.g. Template:Australian Labor Party/meta/color). I have no idea what the technical details are here - there do seem to be some situations where one or the other won't work (I tried changing these ones to the standard template but they all returned as white) - but the problem is they almost all have different shades, and in some cases entirely different colours. Is there some way to unify these, ideally in one master template so that if a colour needs to be changed it only needs to be done once? Frickeg (talk) 00:42, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Categorisation of political parties in Australia

Category:Political parties in Australia contains (directly) several pages that are also contained in sub-categories. I removed several pages from the parent category per WP:SUBCAT, on the grounds that they were in a diffusing sub-category, but The Drover's Wife disagreed and reverted my edits. Example: [6][7], or see my edit history at about 2018-05-11 20:41/42 (UTC+8).

Our discussion on the matter is at:

I suggest that:

1 Articles in the sub-categories should not also be directly in Category:Political parties in Australia, because of WP:SUBCAT

or

2 Category:Political parties in Australia should be {{non-diffusing}}, if that is what we want

or, possibly

3 "Federal political parties" category be created as a subcategory of Category:Political parties in Australia, and the parties can be listed in both that federal category as well as the relevant state categories - but not in the Category:Political parties in Australia, which would then be a {{Container category}}, because all political parties are necessarily state or federal or both.

Any comments, suggestions? Mitch Ames (talk) 12:23, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Again, I'll reiterate that you removed the Liberal Democratic Party from the Australian political parties category - which has a Senator from NSW and a state MP in WA - on the basis that it was categorised in the Victorian category (and tried to justify it). You edit in this area and you know better. It is absolutely not okay to see an article in a parent and a child category and instantly assume that it is okay to remove the parent in every situation without thinking and this is a perfect example of the stupid results of that assumption.
There is no reason to touch Category:Political parties in Australia, which contains exactly what it should contain. There is a legitimate question about which parties should be in the state categories. Should they be only for non-federal parties (e.g. Dignity Party in SA), historical state-only major parties (e.g. Liberal Federation in SA) and state branches of the major parties with their own articles? Or should federal parties also be categorised in there in all or some circumstances? The former is definitely simpler, but I'm not sure it makes sense to (for one example) list One Nation NSW (the splinter, not the current state branch) as a NSW party but not the Christian Democratic Party. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:39, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Option 3 for me. Unless there are some "gotchas" I am not seeing at the moment. I see no benefit in dumping everything into one parent category when they can be usefully and informatively completely sub-categorised. Parent dumping to my mind just confuses readers about what is categorised where and why. Aoziwe (talk) 13:48, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
    • But they're (often) also state political parties. It's making an awkward and unnecessary distinction and adds to, not removes, the confusion. If we're creating a specific subcategory for AEC-registered parties, then the case for needing to duplicate the categorisation for state-registered parties becomes a lot more necessary in my book. It's not a case of "dumping everything" into one parent category at the moment - because state-only parties aren't there as it is (that's why the state categories exist!) The Drover's Wife (talk) 02:17, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
The Drover's Wife. Can you please clearly describe when you would and would not put a page into Category:Political parties in Australia, and if you did not put a page into there where you would put it. Sorry but now I am completely confused about what you would currently do under your understanding of the status quo. (It seems to me you are saying that some political parties in Australia are in there and some political parties in Australia are not in there?) Aoziwe (talk) 08:54, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
The category is self-evident: it contains political parties in Australia. A party like the Dignity Party, or the historical Liberal Federation, which only operates in one state, is then correctly subcategorised in "Political parties in South Australia". There is a sensible question over whether some articles should also be in the state categories, but instead we're getting caught up in discussion of these massively unnecessary larger restructures that still don't even address the issue that sparked this (articles being in both categories). The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:57, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Sorry but I am possibly none the wiser. The two parties you give as examples are parties in Australia but they are not in the category by that name. Are you saying that to you the category is Category:Political parties operating across across (in (all of)) Australia? If so then the state(only)s (ie Category:Political parties of Australia by state or territory) should not be subcategories of that category? Aoziwe (talk) 10:24, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
It is a category for political parties in Australia. There is no more appropriate category for a national political party in Australia: they are exactly what it says on the label, and there is no need to get more specific. There will be some articles on political parties, however, that will be more appropriately placed in a subcategory - such as those which may be more suited in Category:Political parties of Australia by state or territory‎, or those which are defunct. If you pointlessly shift all the articles out of the parent category so Mitch won't feel like randomly trying to remove them, you still don't solve the problem that caused this situation: the question of articles being categorised both in the national and state categories. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:06, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

would it makes sense to have;

  • Political parties in Australia
    • Federal Political parties
      • State or regional issue parties
        1. WA first party
        2. Xenophon party
        3. WA National Party
        4. ....
      • Senate only parties
    • State and Territory Political Parties
      • ACT
      • NSW
      • NT
      • QLD
      • SA
      • TAS
      • VIC
      • WA

This would enable where the names can be the same but for different states or purposes Gnangarra 07:39, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

This would just be a colossal mess. "State or regional issue parties" is mashing ideology and geography, "Senate only parties" is not a thing, and "state and territory political parties" doesn't resolve the main existing issue about whether national political parties belong in there. I just don't see the need to drastically overcomplicate something that's pretty basic. The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:57, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Parties that only nominate members in the Australian_Senate, are senate only parties or they could be called minor parties. then we have Liberal Party of Australia - Federal and Liberal Party of Australia (New South Wales Division) State... given that the Federal articles only focus on federal issues despite listing the state leaders they offer nothing else hence the state level articles. We also have Western Australian Liberal Party (1911–17) not affiliated with the current libs, each of the groupings state and federal would also have defunct party sub cats. Maybe just maybe there are some gaps that are still in need filling Gnangarra 10:23, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
The problem isnt the State and Federal articles being in multiple categories and sub cats of each other the problem is that the articles we have trying to be everything both state and federal cover 100 years across seven states, result is its successfully doing a poor job at that. When the reality is that Federal political party articles should be focused on the Federal levels, and that there should be articles at the state level to focus on the state details which are different, thats reason why they dont fit like good little pegs in the right holes. We have that added bonus of not every state has the same government structures as each other and some states have had mergers which which makes them a different species to those found other states. Gnangarra 13:38, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
I completely agree when it comes to the major parties, and I've been quietly filling in some of these blanks recently - e.g. Australian Labor Party (Queensland Branch) and Australian Labor Party (Northern Territory Branch). This still leaves a categorisation problem with parties like the LDP, however. The Drover's Wife (talk) 19:41, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
even then state vs state vs federal politics are different, the minor parties also might also able to be separate articles. The issue is with the categories in that we try force things to fit into nice little packages when they dont, and its not just with these ones so either we create the packages or we accept that some articles will be in more than one category because of it. Gnangarra 01:10, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
What would you put in, for example, Category:Political parties in Western Australia? I'm not quite clear. The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:54, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
subsets, Parties contesting WA state elections, Parties contesting federal elections in WA, defunct parties from WA... Gnangarra 06:18, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Actually we have very clear definition of the difference between state and federal. For federal the party need to be registered with the AEC, for state the relevant state commision. Each has their own requirements. We'd Politics in Australia subsets AEC registered parties, WAEC registered parties because you can also be certain that each state body will be structured as independent entities and each will have a different responsible person. Gnangarra 10:17, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
Worrying about Senate-only parties or anything like that is definitely an unnecessary and unworkable complication. On state and federal, I do really see the dilemma here. I don't mind Gnangarra's proposal in theory, but in practice that will mean minor parties like the LDP, Animal Justice etc. (where they're registered in nearly every state but the state branches aren't distinct enough to be notable) will be in seven or eight categories which seems like major overkill. I actually think the best thing to do is have the parent category as the standard "these are federal parties, many also contest in the states" thing, and then the state categories for either state branches (where relevant) or state-only parties. Frickeg (talk) 10:44, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
That works, Gnangarra 11:04, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
That works for me too. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:56, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Recalibration

I would like to recalibrate this discussion if I may, because it seems to me the current category hierarchy is being used for two different things or at least is perceived to be so.

All other category hierarchies I have seen seem to be using subcategories by state/territory cadastrally.

Here there seems to be some of that, BUT critically the state/territory is being used to indicate the type of operation of the entity, which could cut across boundaries, and to distinguish between a federal operation versus a non-federal operation, which is quite different from any usual (non-overlapping) single cadastral element division.

I think this is one cause of the underlying confusion and different perspectives. Another cause might be the imprecision of some the articles in terms of their oganisational scope (as per Gnangarra's observation).

I do see the merit in Frickeg's suggestion but I do see a major problem in so far as if you do not intimately know how and why things are categorised, ie the parent category as the standard "these are federal parties, many also contest in the states" thing, and then the state categories for either state branches (where relevant) or state-only parties a typical reader, and an average editor, will not have a clue.

It seems to me if the problem we are trying to resolve here is to go away, then the category hierarchy needs to recognise the two aspects above ie:

  • cadastral split if any
  • type of operation if any

So I suggest, ignoring the actual category names at this time, I use longer desciptors below for hopefully clarity:

Political parties in Australia

- List of political parties in Australia
- Contains ALL political parties because next layer down sub cats are mostly fully diffused
  • Australian political parties by ideology
- Fully diffused.
  • Cannabis political parties of Australia‎
  • Centrist parties in Australia‎
  • Christian political parties in Australia‎
  • Conservative parties in Australia‎
  • Far-right political parties in Australia‎
  • Green political parties in Australia‎
  • Liberal parties in Australia‎
  • Australian nationalist parties‎
  • Socialist parties in Australia‎
  • Australian political parties by operating jurisdiction
- Fully diffused.
  • Australian political parties operating at federal level
  • Australian political parties operating at state level
- Fully diffused even for micro low notability parties
  • Political parties of Australia operating in the Queensland state jurisdiction
  • Political parties of Australia operating in the New South Wales state jurisdiction
  • Et cetara
  • Australian political parties operating at local level potentially a later category with its own sub cats
  • Australian political party people
- Fully diffused.
  • Australian politicians by party‎
  • Leaders of political parties in Australia‎
  • Political party factions in Australia‎
  • Defunct political parties in Australia‎
  • Youth wings of political parties in Australia
  • Political party alliances in Australia‎
  • Australian political party Wikipedia work should this be in main space at all - should it not be in the Project space
  • Australia political party stubs‎
  • Australia political party templates
  • Wikipedia categories named after political parties in Australia‎

Aoziwe (talk) 12:15, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

This would be a mess of colossal proportions and I'm utterly opposed to it. There is no reasonable possibility for confusion in the present structure: if you are looking for a political party in Australia, it will be in Category:Political parties in Australia, unless it is a state party or a defunct party, in which case it will be in the clearly-labelled subcategory for those things. This would require individual political parties to be tagged with a string of pointless and confusing category labels ("Political parties of Australia operating in the New South Wales state jurisdiction" is not language anyone uses to refer to state politics?!?) I was potentially open to the idea of categorising national parties in state categories, but these sprawling and chaotic proposals have well and truly convinced me that Frickeg's proposal is simpler, clearer and the only reasonable way forward. The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:58, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
I do not see how my suggestion above is sprawling or chaotic. It actually proposes some structure around the current sprawl and actually suggests a reduction in the main space categorisation.
I said up front my category descriptions were not proposed to be category names. The language I used might be a bit technical but it seems to be accurate ? I would assume we would use better names, and then provide appropriate text descriptions in he category leads.
To me your paraphasing as ..it will be in.. ..unless.. is by definition axiomatically a source of confusion.
I also have a fundamental definitional problem with a subcategory whose contents cannot logically fit into its parent category. This is a contradiction of what subcategories are (supposed to be). Such a category is not a subcategory of its nominated parent.
I really do think the current category hierarchy needs a dose of salts. Aoziwe (talk) 12:02, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
This is just getting completely bizarre. So, now you're claiming that the current subcategories "cannot logically fit into its parent category". How is a political party which operates in one state of Australia (and thus goes in "Political parties in that state") not a political party in Australia? How is a defunct political party in Australia not a political party in Australia? You just seem to fundamentally misunderstand the subject matter and I'm baffled because absolutely nothing about the status quo is complex. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:55, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
Because I thought you and Frickeg are stating that the ones directly listed in the parent cat are to be the national / federal parties and the state cats are state only parties. This means that the parent category is not actually a parent, it is national / federal, which cannot by definition contain state only, and hence cannot contain a subcat containing such. The parent's name does not match its contents by that scheme. Aoziwe (talk) 13:24, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
Defunct parties do fit as long as the parent cat is not restricted to national / federal only. Aoziwe (talk) 13:31, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
This is bizarre. The parent category contains articles which don't need subcategorising because they're best described by the parent category. This is very obvious. This is not something other users have trouble with: see Category:Political parties in the United States The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:34, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
articles which don't need subcategorising because they're best described by the parent category I completely agree. But this is not what I believe you/Frickeg are proposing.
Sub categories are supposed to have the same type of chacterisation as the parent category. A subcategory will split up the characteristic of the parent category, into either finer detail or compartmentalise them using a different characteristic. For example:
  • Waterfalls in Australia
    • Waterfalls by state
      • Waterfalls in Queensland
        • Waterfalls in Far North Queensland
      • Waterfalls in New South Wales
      • etc.
Or for exmaple:
  • Australian writers
    • Australian novelists (a narrower type of writer)
      • Australian women novelists
      • Australian men novelists
    • Australian poets
    • etc.
An article at any level can be put into its parent category without its nature being changed. Its categorisation will lose some of its attributed finer characteristic provided by the subcategory, but its nature does not change.
As far as I can tell your / Frickeg's suggestion will not behave this way.
An entry in the parent category Australian political parties will not mean an Australian political party it will mean an Australian federal/national political party An entry in the state subcats will mean an Australian state only <specific state> political party.
This means that an entry in a subcat has a different characterisation than the entries in the parent cat. It cannot be placed in its subcat's parent cat. To do so would incorrectly change its characterisation, from state only to federal/national. This is completely contrary to how category hierarchy's are supposed to work (as far as I am aware). If the parent cat meant simply parties in Australia, then all would be okay, but it does not. The parent cat should simply mean, only, parties in Australia (exactly as its name says too).
Aoziwe (talk) 11:59, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
This is nonsense. All political parties in Australia fit within the parent category, except that we have entirely sensible subcategories for defunct parties and for parties specific to one state, in which cases those parties belong in the relevant subcategories instead. This is not confusing to anyone else. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:22, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

outdenting

Sorry The Drover's Wife. I still think we are not discussing the same thing. Frickeg above states: is have the parent category as the standard "these are federal parties, many also contest in the states" thing, and then the state categories for either state branches (where relevant) or state-only parties'. My understanding is that by this definition an entry in the parent category is/will be a federal party, not a state only party or a state branch. Is this your understanding? Regards. Aoziwe (talk) 13:31, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Exactly what I just said. Is it a defunct party? Does it only contest in one state? (Thus, is it better subcategorised?) No? It belongs in the parent. The Drover's Wife (talk) 21:36, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
Sorry but your description confirms the problem with that definition of the category hierarchy. You have defined the parent as federal or multi state, which by the way are two different things, and defined the subcats as one state only parties. This means that an entry in the subcat could not also be in the parent cat. This is not compliant with WP:SUBCAT, which states When making one category a subcategory of another, ensure that the members of the subcategory really can be expected (with possibly a few exceptions) to belong to the parent also. A correct hierarchy should have the parent cat simply as all parties, regardless of where they contest elections, and there should be at least separate sub cats for federal and (each) state scopes of operation. Aoziwe (talk) 14:14, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
I'll say it yet again: all parties can go in the parent categories (because they're political parties in Australia!), but in two cases (defunct parties and parties specific to one state), those parties are more effectively placed in subcategories. We have plenty of category structures where they are only partially diffused because emptying the parent purely for the sake of emptying the parent doesn't make categorical or logical sense. The rest of your comments are nonsense: it is perfectly compliant with WP:SUBCAT and your opinion that we should turn a simple and obvious category structure into a pointlessly convoluted mess has so far not found a seconder. The Drover's Wife (talk) 21:18, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
(I do not have a problem with defunct parties (apart from defunct state only ones being a subcat of federal ones), and I am not arguing for full diffusion as a matter of course (although that might be a consequence).)Aoziwe (talk) 23:30, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
Okay. So I cannot explain it to you. Perhaps you can explain your view to me. Above it is stated the parent is are federal parties, many also contest in the states" thing. The parent is not just simply parties in Australia (if it was I would have no problem). When you put a party in a state only subcat, how do you also put it into the parent as per members of the subcategory really can be expected to belong to the parent also because to do so means they are federal. Aoziwe (talk) 23:30, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
We are discussing a category called "Political parties in Australia". We are not discussing a category called "Federal political parties in Australia". It is a partially-diffused category because full diffusion does not make sense and no argument has been advanced to do so beyond emptying the parent for the sake of emptying the parent. As far as I am aware, everyone who has responded has opposed the idea of categorising every party in every state they operate in (unless there is an article on that specific state branch) as being overkill. There is no way to put this in any simpler language. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:37, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

outdent

We are discussing a category called "Political parties in Australia". - agreed

We are not discussing a category called "Federal political parties in Australia". - but we are because the definition provided above for the parent cat is "these are federal parties, many also contest in the states" thing. This is restricting the parent cat and by direct inference defining a subcat, namely federal parties, and therein lies the problem. This needs to be dropped from the definition.

The Drover's Wife. I am sure you have other things you would be rather doing with your wikitime than this discussion, as do I, so if I may, may I suggest a way forward, and before this becomes WP:LAME if we are not already there:

The "instructions" for the parent category should be only something along the lines of:

"State only parties and state branches of parties are fully diffused into their respective state subcats. Any other parties are not diffused. Defunct parties are also fully diffused to their namesake cat".

I am okay for you and others to work with the wording. The key thing for me is that we cannot define what might be left in the parent cat. The parent cat should remain unencumbered, simply as "Political parties in Australia".

Regards. Aoziwe (talk) 14:03, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I have no problem with explicitly stating the obvious for the very easily confused. The Drover's Wife (talk) 15:20, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

The Nationals in Tasmania

Steve Martin's defection gives the Nationals their first federal member in Tasmania since 1928. They may have had a state member in 1969-1972 but it's not too clear. This has led to inevitable talk about the party organising again in the state.

There isn't currently an article on the Nationals/Country Party in Tasmania (one of two states where this is the case; oddly the other is Queensland) so to help if anything gets put together here's a quick overview of their appearances:

In the state parliament, four sitting Nationalists switched to the Country Party in about 1920. One subsequently switched to federal politics, another was defeated but the other two and three others were elected in 1922, led by Ernest Blyth and formed a Coalition with the Nationalists. However the Country Party fell apart in the parliament and by 1925 most of the members had left (to Nationalists, independents or a brief Liberal group based on Walter Lee) with one of the remaining retiring (it's unclear if Blyth had gone over to the Nationalists or went down to defeat for the Country Party - this report suggests he was a Nationalist but its compiler largely focused on the Labor/non-Labor split and says they can't be definitive about party labels).
Federally, the newly formed Country Party MPs recruited sitting Nationalist MHR William McWilliams (Division of Franklin) as an "interim leader" in 1920, though this arrangement wasn't satisfactory. He stood for the party in 1922 but was defeated. Another Nationalist, Llewellyn Atkinson (Division of Wilmot), joined in 1921 and held office in the Bruce ministry but by 1928 he'd returned to the Nationalists. The party also gained a seat in 1922 with Joshua Whitsitt (Division of Darwin), but he retired after one term. In each case Country Party candidatures in a seat stopped completely with the defeat, retirement or defection of the MHR. If a former member stood again, it was either as a Nationalist or as an Independent.
After this, the Country Party pretty much drops off the radar in Tasmania, only rarely popping up in the odd election after that and it's not always clear if this was the same organisation coming out of dormancy or a new attempt. They appeared in 1964, then at the next election in 1969 ex Liberal turned independent Kevin Lyons joined and repackaged them as the Centre Party (Tasmania), winning one term under that banner but the coalition collapses in 1972 and the party doesn't seem to have fought that year's state election. The party appears again in 1996 then in 2014 a group using the name stood but this appears to have been initially supported and subsequently disendorsed by the federal party. At the federal level there were showings in one or more seats in 1934 (both House and Senate), 1974 (Senate only), 1975 (both), and 1996 (both), with 1975 being their most concerted effort but the results were humiliating.

The Companion to Tasmanian History entry has a little further detail but it's not too clear if there's a continuity from the Centre Party collapsing in 1972 and the National Country Party standing in the 1974 & 1975 federal elections. Following on from this it's not really clear if the Centre Party was still affiliated to the federal Country Party (and thus was a forgotten first step in changing the name across the board from "Country Party"). Nor is it clear if the party had any periods that didn't contest elections but existed as a branch that allowed Tasmanians to join & influence the federal party.

Currently the Centre Party article is presenting a new name as a newly formed party but I think there's a bit of scope to fill in the earlier part of the 1960s in that article since it's the same entity and a separate article would be overkill. Otherwise we could have between a single article covering all the incarnations in the state or separate ones for the 1920s & 1960s-1970s (definitely) and later ones. I do think that having standalone articles for 1996 & 2014 might be overkill though. Timrollpickering 22:52, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

This is a difficult one. It'd be really useful to try and track the history of a state party organisation, if any, to try to work out what continuity and linkage there was between the various random candidacies, but I'm not even sure where to start on that. I've got a book or two on Nationals history sitting around so will take a look a bit later today, but I don't like the odds they bothered with Tasmania. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:03, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Also, Trove seems to have some useful stuff regarding some of these later re-emergences (and the Centre Party). The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:38, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
There's a tiny amount in Paul Davey's Ninety Not Out which together with a few other sources has helped to pull together a single article at: National Party of Australia – Tasmania that can be expanded or separated as needs be. One thing does seem clear - the Country/National Country Party standing in the mid 1970s federal elections was still the same body as the state Centre Party. Timrollpickering 14:56, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Trouble at Coalition (Australia)

Can someone please have a look at the last three edits at this article. (I'm crap at the diffs thing.) We have an editor with an intriguing name changing the Ideology, without discussion. I came here after copping an Edit summary saying "so does ur mum". Felt a confrontation coming on, and I'm not here for that.

This editor's contribution list shows that he has been doing the same thing at other articles as well.

All assistance greatly appreciated. HiLo48 (talk) 11:38, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Clive Palmer

It seems that Clive Palmer is trying to divert attention away from something[8] by announcing he is returning to politics with a "United Australia Party" and has recruited Senator Brian Burston to it. My checks (see talk:Palmer United Party#Party has been renamed) show that it is highly unlikely to be registered under that name before the next election. Even if it is, that name is unlikely to usurp the current article at United Australia Party. Should we create a new article for the new group (which is not registered, so fails the usual test) or continue to fix links that inadvertently point to Menzies' party and adjust edits on the Palmer United Party about this new incarnation (noting that both AEC and the ABN register record it as disbanded last year and burston's senate profile says Independent). --Scott Davis Talk 07:38, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

  • I would think that we shouldnt create any new party article until its registered and reaches notability standards beyond WP:NOT#News and one event, for the moment though a hat note directing people to the palmer article is enough. In Burstons article just link to palmer is all thats needed noting his public role in the announcement but neither warrants more than a sentence otherwise it'd getting close to WP:UNDUE Gnangarra 07:49, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

The Nationals in Queensland

Leaders etc

Queensland is now the one state without an article on the state Nationals. It will take a long time to put together.

The party began as candidates sponsored by the Queensland Farmers Union in 1915, basically merged into the Nationalists in the state parliament in 1918, unmerged in 1920 to be the Country Party, merged with the successor to the Nationalists in 1925 as the Country and Progressive National Party, unmerged in 1936, tried another merger in 1941 but failed, renamed itself to the National Party in 1973, then in 2008 merged with the Liberals as the Liberal National Party of Queensland.

Here's what I think is the accurate list of leaders - feel free to amend it:

Leader Date started Date finished
John Appel 13 July 1915 1918
(Merged into Nationalists) 1918 28 July 1920
William Vowles 28 July 1920 27 September 1923
Arthur Edward Moore 27 September 1923 12 May 1925
(Merged into the Country and Progressive National Party) May 1925 March 1936
Arthur Edward Moore March 1936 15 July 1936
Ted Maher 15 July 1936 27 April 1941
(Parliamentary party merged into the Country-National Party) 27 April 1941 1944
Frank Nicklin 1944 17 January 1968
Jack Pizzey 17 January 1968 31 July 1968
Joh Bjelke-Petersen 8 August 1968 26 November 1987
Mike Ahern 26 November 1987 25 September 1989
Russell Cooper 25 September 1989 9 December 1991
Rob Borbidge 10 December 1991 2 March 2001
Mike Horan 2 March 2001 4 February 2003
Lawrence Springborg 4 February 2003 18 September 2006
Jeff Seeney 14 September 2006 29 January 2008
Lawrence Springborg 21 January 2008 9 September 2008
(Merged into the Liberal National Party of Queensland) 9 September 2008 present
  • General - This list default assumes the party leadership changed the same day as the Premiership/Leadership of the Opposition but there may have occasions when there were a few days delay between the two changing over (there certainly was in 1987).
  • 1918-1920 The Queensland Farmers' Union merged into the Nationalists but then merged back out after a couple of years.
  • 1920 - Vowles switched directly from the Nationalists to the Country Party whilst remaining Leader of the Opposition...
  • 1923-1924 - This is complicated as initially after the election Charles Taylor (Queensland politician) of the Queensland United Party (previously the Nationalists) led the opposition but Moore took over the following year. The Vowles/Moore changeover is dated in line with the thesis linked below.
  • 1925 - 1936 - The conservative parties merged as the "Country Progressive Party" in May 1925, renamed to the "Country and Progressive National Party" that December, then after 11 year demerged into separate Country and UAP parties. Moore was CPNP leader throughout its existence.
  • 1941-1945 - Frank Nicklin is listed as "Country-National Party" for the first four years of his leadership. This appears to have initially been an opposition coalition with members of the UAP (also known, confusingly, as "National Party") but within days a Country Party conference rejected fusion. If the source is correct then the state parliamentary party carried on using the "unity" name for four years.
  • 1987 - There were a few days between Ahern becoming leader and Bjelke-Petersen finishing as Premier due to the latter initially resisting being deposed.
  • 2008 - During Sprinborg's second leadership the Nationals merged with the Liberals to form the Liberal National Party of Queensland, which Springborg led until 2 April 2009.

Timrollpickering 21:15, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Text Queensland is probably a good place to start here. There's not a lot of book sources on the history of the Queensland Nats in existence, unfortunately, but there is a lot about early Queensland Labor that has been digitised there, and presumably they mentioned the opposition. However, this could be particularly useful for straightening out your areas of early confusion (I don't have a whole lot of time today or I'd go through it myself). The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:58, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Cheers, looking through it now. Moore became leader in September 1923 - I guess the habit of immediate post election leadership spills wasn't around back then. Timrollpickering 12:59, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Additional. The Country-National Party appears to have primarily been a consolidated parliamentary party, with the wider Country Party organisation maintaining its separate position - see the Australian DNB entry for Arthur Fadden and alsoThe Government of Queensland pages 16-17. Presumably the state United Australia Party also maintained its own organisation. The sources seem pretty clear the fusion was undone in 1944 prior to the election, with the Country Party organisation pulling its parliamentarians out and independent MLA John Beals Chandler taking over the state UAP branch to form the Queensland People's Party. I guess either the list of state leaders of the opposition is wrong or else the parliamentary Country Party was still using the CNP name for another year or so. Frank Nicklin lead them throughout this. Timrollpickering 14:36, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
One thing I've just worked out from a bunch of Trove searches - it wasn't known as the Country-National Party, it was (confusingly) known as the Country-National Organisation. (Was baffled at the nonexistent Trove hits for the party name.) Not so sure about the consolidated parliamentary party - definitely had its own branches. It seems to have stuck around in some capacity to deal with the national Liberal fusion issues and then petered out in about January 1945. Nicklin does not seem to have continued on as a "Country-National" leader - everything after the undoing refers to him as Country Party leader. I'm wondering if the post-election CNO might have been lingerers from the Liberal side who were reluctant to join the QPP. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:41, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Nicklin's ADNB entry uses "Party" not "Organisation" (though Fadden's is the reverse), as does the UWA table that was the source for Australian federal election, 1943 until February this year. (The UWA database is difficult to link to directly for 1943. Try [9]) Here's a report on the party's formation from Trove which uses "Party" at the outset - perhaps this got changed at some point. There also appears to have been a separate "Queensland Country Party" that was against the merger and also pops up on the UWA database. It seems by 1943 at least there was sufficient organisation of the two that they could have delegates to a joint meeting where the QCP agreed to not contest Fadden's seat in the election that year. A glance through various sources suggests the CNO largely picked up the UAP organisation branches. Publications of political organisations in Queensland : held in University of Queensland Libraries says:
COUNTRY-NATIONAL ORGANISATION (1941-1945). Formerly the Queensland Country Party (1936-1941) and the United Australia Party (1936-1943) . Became the Australian Country Party, Queensland (1944-1974). Notes: The United Australia Party and the Parliamentary wing of the Queensland Country Party merged to form this Organisation. However, a minority of Country Party members and the Party organization opposed the merger with the United Australia Party. As a result some members formed a separate Country section of the Party. Later in 1941 a Queensland Country Party conference decided to continue as a separate organization. The western division of the Queensland Country Party (which had been refused affiliation with the Queensland Country Party) also remained separate from the Country National Organization. The United Australia Party wing disintegrated and in 1944 members joined the newly formed Liberal Party of Australia. In 1945 the Country-National Organization was formally dissolved.

It's a bit confused, especially when using the phrase "Queensland Country Party" and also overlooks the Queensland People's Party initially declining to replace itself with the Liberals at the state level even whilst merging federally. But all this may well be the reason why there doesn't seem to be a paper trail for the Australian Country Party (Queensland) for before 1944 and hence the limited histories on them. Timrollpickering 19:33, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that section you quoted from the UQ source pretty much seems to nail down a lot of the confusion, especially regarding the Country side of things, some confusing language aside. I think we're already on the right track about the foundation of the QPP and the issues there to supplement it. How would you feel about creating a Country-National Organisation article? It seems like a gap in the coverage and it'd be great to fill in this period with a coherent explanation of what it was and what happened.
A couple of sourcing points: Trove sources from the period itself universally refer to it as "Organisation" - it's not the first time that we've seen some modern historians overlook those kind of details as unimportant, even though the inaccuracies make further research difficult. A particular word of caution about the UWA site: we've learned from long experience in this WikiProject that the UWA database is an incredibly sloppy source - in any area where things got complicated, they've just thrown together something that feels right and gets them easy statistics, even if the end product on their end has little relation to historical reality. I've had trouble working out what they've done many times because not only are they sloppy about working out candidates and parties, sometimes their math is plain sloppy on top of that. They're by far the worst Auspol source I've ever come across. The Drover's Wife (talk) 21:23, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Also, I just stumbled across Ulrich Ellis' early history of the Country Party from 1963 in an op shop today, so I've now got access to another book that might have answers to some of these questions. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:38, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Election results

A table of the election results. Again feel free to modify this as necessary. Timrollpickering 16:06, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Election Leader Votes % Seats +/– Position Government
1915 none 13,233 5.05
5 / 72
 Increase 5 Increase 3rd Crossbench
1918 Did not contest as separate entity - - - - - -
1920 William Vowles 60,170 17.06
18 / 72
 Increase 18 Steady 2nd Opposition
1923 William Vowles 39,534 10.83
13 / 72
 Decrease 5 Decrease 3rd Opposition
1926 - 1935 Did not contest as separate entity - - - - - -
1938 Ted Maher 120,469 22.65
13 / 62
 Increase 13 Increase 2nd Opposition
1941 Ted Maher 108,604 20.90
14 / 62
 Increase 1 Steady 2nd Opposition
1944 Frank Nicklin 88,608 17.60
12 / 62
 Decrease 2 Steady 2nd Opposition
1947 Frank Nicklin 121,689 19.49
14 / 62
 Increase 2 Steady 2nd Opposition
1950 Frank Nicklin 121,199 19.25
20 / 75
 Increase 6 Steady 2nd Opposition
1953 Frank Nicklin 114,124 18.75
15 / 75
 Decrease 5 Steady 2nd Opposition
1956 Frank Nicklin 126,183 19.27
16 / 75
 Increase 1 Steady 2nd Opposition
1957 Frank Nicklin 139,720 19.99
24 / 75
 Increase 8 Steady 2nd Coalition
1960 Frank Nicklin 144,865 18.80
26 / 78
 Increase 2 Steady 2nd Coalition
1963 Frank Nicklin 156,621 20.31
26 / 78
 Steady 0 Steady 2nd Coalition
1966 Frank Nicklin 154,081 19.28
27 / 78
 Increase 1 Steady 2nd Coalition
1969 Joh Bjelke-Petersen 179,125 21.02
26 / 78
 Decrease 1 Steady 2nd Coalition
1972 Joh Bjelke-Petersen 181,404 20.00
26 / 82
 Steady 0 Steady 2nd Coalition
1974 Joh Bjelke-Petersen 291,088 27.88
21 / 82
 Increase 13 Increase 1st Coalition
1977 Joh Bjelke-Petersen 295,355 27.15
35 / 82
 Decrease 4 Steady 1st Coalition
1980 Joh Bjelke-Petersen 328,262 27.94
35 / 82
 Steady 0 Steady 1st Coalition
1983 Joh Bjelke-Petersen 512,890 38.93
41 / 82
 Increase 6 Steady 1st Minority government
1986 Joh Bjelke-Petersen 553,197 39.64
49 / 89
 Increase 8 Steady 1st Majority government
1989 Russell Cooper 379,364 24.09
27 / 89
 Decrease 22 Decrease 2nd Opposition
1992 Rob Borbidge 413,772 23.71
26 / 89
 Decrease 1 Steady 2nd Opposition
1995 Rob Borbidge 473,497 26.25
29 / 89
 Increase 3 Steady 2nd Opposition
1998 Rob Borbidge 293,839 15.17
23 / 89
 Decrease 6 Steady 2nd Opposition
2001 Rob Borbidge 291,605 14.16
12 / 89
 Decrease 11 Steady 2nd Opposition
2004 Lawrence Springborg 365,005 16.96
15 / 89
 Increase 3 Steady 2nd Opposition
2006 Lawrence Springborg 392,124 17.82
17 / 89
 Increase 2 Steady 2nd Opposition

Article now up

See National Party of Australia – Queensland and feel free to edit it heavily. Timrollpickering 19:45, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

UAP leader during Fadden government?

Our articles are at odds over whether Robert Menzies or Billy Hughes was leader of the UAP during the Fadden government, sometimes even within themselves (compare the infobox with the main text on Hughes's article). The contention seems to be whether Menzies resigned the Prime Ministerhip only in August 1941 with the Coalition parties turning to Fadden instead of other UAP ministers and Menzies only resigned the UAP leadership in October in protest at the party making Fadden the Leader of the Opposition, or whether Menzies resigned both positions in August with Hughes being elected leader and the Coalition then jointly agreeing to install Fadden as Prime Minister. The United Australia Party leadership election, 1941 had multiple candidates suggesting an alternative UAP Prime Minister could have been found if there was the will, supporting the August approach, but that article dates it to October. Did Menzies perchance push forward the claims of Fadden as a stop-gap in the hope of remaining UAP leader and returning later? Timrollpickering 20:45, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Looks like October. Good catch - it is a difficult one and it seems like there was a fair bit of confusion about this in the initial aftermath of his PM resignation, but the clear sources surrounding his October resignation clarify things. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:06, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

State articles update and still needed

As well as National Party of Australia – Queensland I've thrown together Liberal Party of Australia (Queensland Division) as a lot of the sources covered both.

Currently of the modern four largest parties we have articles as follows:

  • Merged Coalition parties - both. (Qld and NT.)

We are missing:

We probably don't need:

Not sure about:

  • Country Party of Australia – Northern Territory - The Country Party held the federal seat and some Legislative Council seats before self-government and the merger with the Liberals, but whether this is a small enough detail to be covered by the CLP article or another article I'm not sure.

Timrollpickering 23:15, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I've got the ALP WA branch on my to-do list (and I own probably the two most useful sources for it). The Liberals will have to be somebody else's problem. I agree about the ACT Nationals (already well-covered in the national article). The NT is always difficult because the NT Legislative Council period is horribly documented and both Labor and the conservative parties were running federal candidates well before they had any formal party structure there. I think a Country Party article could be viable, but it really depends on being able to turn up the sources for it. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:09, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
My inclination would be towards inclusionism (as a goal) here. The ACT Nats ran with a "sitting" MHA as their lead candidate (and they also ran candidates back in 1974 for the federal seats), and the Libs and CP in the NT were separate enough to require a merger. But as The Drover's Wife says, the sources are very obscure (I've never found anything useful on the NT pre-1974, and we don't even have member lists for that), and until someone finds some good ones I think they're fine as redirects and fairly low-priority in the scheme of things. Frickeg (talk) 13:39, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
I've got enough references to complete all the the member lists and election articles/results for the NT Legislative Council from 1947 to 1974, but unfortunately never got around to it. I'll try and make a start and hopefully the redlinks will encourage me to maintain the momentum! --Canley (talk) 10:27, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
That's awesome - where did you find that? Really looking forward to finally seeing that get on here. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:34, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Mostly a 1990 book by Dean Jaensch: The Legislative Council of the Northern Territory: An Electoral History 1947–1974 which I bought at a book sale ages ago. I'll have to find it, but it was very comprehensive and detailed, with maps and full election results. --Canley (talk) 10:52, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Nice find - I've never even heard of it. Trove says there's only three copies in Victoria - all in university libraries and in offsite storage so I can't get them out without being a student/paying to sign up as a community member. Bugger. A book's pretty rare when even the SLV doesn't have it. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:05, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
OK, I've done a member list for the inaugural council: Members of the Northern Territory Legislative Council, 1947–1949. Let me know of any thoughts or suggestions. I'll start rolling these out progressively over the next few months. I've found the Jaensch book and a full list of all elected and appointed members and dates of service, so I've got everything needed to do all these, then I'll start on the election results. --Canley (talk) 03:54, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Looks brilliant! Looking forward to seeing more go up. The Drover's Wife (talk) 06:17, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Liberal Party of Australia (Australian Capital Territory Division) has now been created. This leaves both Labor and Liberals in WA as the main current gaps. Timrollpickering 15:17, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Historic parties

Historic arrangements are another matter altogether. One thing that stood out when assembling the Queensland articles is that the party changes during the First World War played out differently in that state from the federal arrangements and, especially, the election articles don't handle it too well. There doesn't seem to have been a significant Labor split (with T. J. Ryan effectively the leading figure left in Labor Australia-wide) though National Labor are currently shown as standing in Queensland state election, 1920. We're also showing the Nationalist Party as contesting the 1918 & 1920 elections, though some of the sources suggest locally it was actually the National Party, supported by the National Political Council, unifying the old "Liberals" (another source of confusion as the pre war "Ministerial" group is getting labelled as the federal Commonwealth Liberal Party but let's stick to one at a time) and the initial Country Party who then re-emerged in 1920. This appears to be a separate party formed out of a local union to oppose the state Labor government rather than rallying behind the federal Prime Minister.

The parliamentary database is not very good for the era. For example Charles Taylor has an entry listing him as "Leader of Nationalist Party 1925 1929" but showing his party in that period as "UAP 12 May 1923 8 May 1926" (presumably the Queensland United Party) and then "CPNP 8 May 1926 11 May 1935". Timrollpickering 23:15, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

This isn't just a problem in Queensland - it's a problem in nearly every state, and there's a few times in the archives of this page where we've tried to tackle the resulting mess. Both the 1917 and 1931 Labor splits played out quite differently at state level around the country and they're generally appallingly documented because it's complex and many commentators absolutely incorrectly assume it went down the same as it did federally. Several states never had a "Nationalist Party" by that name. South Australia - as with your Queensland situation - also had a "National Party" that was different from and much more marginal than the federal Nationalist Party. It'd be good to get an article on that Qld National Party - and to correct any further (sadly common) errors where the author couldn't be bothered telling state and federal politics apart. One of my long-term aims is to have detailed articles on the splits that map these out, possibly even having "1917 Australian Labor Party split in [state]" articles. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:09, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
Also - I missed the comment about the Commonwealth Liberal Party the first time - this is a much bigger headache and one we've also tried to wrangle with less successfully in the past. Essentially nearly all states had a different situation going on pre-Fusion, most states underwent Fusion in different ways and some didn't really undergo it at all until the fallout of the 1917 Labor split. As you said - one at a time! The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:47, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
That's partly my fault and I apologize. My main aims in putting up the results and pages were to simply put them up and aim to/let someone else tidy them up later, since I was mainly using Colin Hughes and David Black's books as references, which didn't really specify what the exact names of the parties were at the time. I'd be willing to correct future ones if I'm putting up the wrong parties in the election boxes if pointed out though. Kirsdarke01 (talk) 07:06, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
@Kirsdarke01: - sorry, that absolutely wasn't aimed at you! I'm well aware that the problem lies with the sources used (and plenty of others). You, as ever, do brilliant work with what you have. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:43, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
Agreed. Most of the historical parties should have state-level articles as well (although in many cases they will be under entirely different names - TDW correctly notes the Nationalists didn't exist in some states, and neither did the UAP in others). Bless you both for the terrific work you've already done here, by the way. Frickeg (talk) 01:57, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
I agree about the historical state-level articles - I think this would take out a lot of this confusion once and for all. I wonder if it might be an idea to map out timelines of post-WWI (pre-WWI being another nightmare entirely) conservative parties (e.g. SA was Liberal Union (South Australia) -- > Liberal Federation --> Liberal and Country League --> Liberal Party of Australia (South Australian Division) - so we can get a worklist of the ones we still need created. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:43, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
I think this is a great idea and can maybe get us some way towards having a clear idea of where the work needs to be done (and hopefully consolidating good sources if possible). It's also worth noting that there are a number of placeholder stubs floating around (most of which I am responsible for) that were created with a bare minimum of sources and may not necessarily be entirely accurate in name or content (as we know that many of the online sources are far from reliable). I'm thinking things like Liberal Country Party here. There are also many redirects that should be separate articles (taking one from the same time, United Country Party (Australia) is a redirect to Victorian Farmers' Union). Possibly we could get a project subpage going - although we haven't had those for so long I don't even remember how they work. It may also be a good place to note any minor early Labor splits we might not have caught, and down the track could also be a good place for whenever we get around to unravelling the mess of 1980s Green parties as well. Frickeg (talk) 13:32, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
I threw something together for a start at Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian politics/State parties - if people can chip in their own knowledge hopefully we'll be able to get a complete list together. Bonus for whoever can piece together what in blazes happened with Victorian fusion, which still confuses me to this day. The Drover's Wife (talk) 18:49, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
I'll have a go with the Queensland parties - there's a lot of splits, mergers and anti-merger forces in there. The "United Country Party (Australia)" was just the name the Victorian Country Party used from 1930 (when it reabsorbed the Country Progressive Party who broke away a few years earlier) until at least 1943. There used to be a stub article there but it was incredibly unhelpful in that it focused entirely on the 1937 split (over whether federal MPs should sit in Coalition or not) and presented the UCP as merely one of two competing factions in a six year period when it was actually the governing party in the state. (I guess this is another case of trying to map federal problems onto state politics as the UCP federal MPs generally sat outside the Coalition and thus the Country party room, much like Tony Crook in more recent times.) The Vic Nats page will need quite some work to get all the history of the continuing organisation into one place. Timrollpickering 19:08, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
@Timrollpickering: - thanks for that great Queensland list. Do you have any thoughts about which should have their own articles, given all the splits and mergers? The Drover's Wife (talk) 19:32, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
Hmm. Stuff from before the First World War is messy because it seems to be more a system of factions of supporters of ministries and/or personalities rather than a clear party. Beyond that we probably need articles on the "Liberal" party at the start of the war and the "National~whatever" at the end of it which can probably absorb the Queensland United Party - having separate articles for a name change just adds to the confusion. Exactly what label the anti-merger group in 1925 organised under is unclear but it probably best fits in at the end of a National~ article as a coda. A brief state UAP article for 1936-1941 is probably wise. The split over the formation of the CNO is another headache as to just how much the "Queensland Country Party" needs separating from the current Nats article given the opposition of the extra-parliamentary party to the CNO - probably best to keep it in there, similar to the later WA Nats split. The "National Labor Party" in 1920 needs more investigation. Timrollpickering 19:41, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
So far there's very little on National Labor, but what there is is at National Labor Party (Queensland). This leaves the National~whatever as the main gap post 1917. Timrollpickering 23:24, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Another problem - we've got standalone articles for the Liberal and Country Party and the Liberal and Country League (Western Australia). These were not separate parties historically but the Victoria and Western Australia respectively divisions of the Liberals adding "Country" to the name as part of a strategy of fighting the Country Party, both accompanied by some defections. Oddly the Liberal and Country League and (what was now renamed) the Country and Democratic League managed to stay in coalition in WA, whereas in Victoria relations were poor to toxic. Timrollpickering 15:28, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this - I'd be more inclined to merge them if there hadn't been CP defections at the same time, but I see your point. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:09, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@Timrollpickering: - if you're trying to piece together WWI-era Queensland stuff, this old discussion that someone just edited and this digitised book someone there recommended and I promptly forgot about might be useful. The Drover's Wife (talk) 06:55, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Another of more general use is Labor in politics : the state Labor parties in Australia, 1880-1920. Timrollpickering 19:38, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
I actually own that one - it's extraordinarily useful for trying to make sense of early Labor. The Drover's Wife (talk) 21:19, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Okay Queensland up to the First World War is messy to say the least. There's a lot of ambiguity, quite a few personalist factions, "Ministerialist" groups, "Opposition" groups, different names for parliamentary parties and their extra-parliamentary apparatuses, and sources are not very consistent in their use of the word "liberal" however capitalised. And until 1907/8 elections were not directly driving changes in governments. This seems to be the situation:

  • 1880s - Two, primarily parliamentary, parties exist with reasonably strong discipline by the standards of 1880s Australian colonies. The "Nationalists" or "Conservatives", led by Thomas McIlwraith were strongest in the north. The "Liberals", led by Samuel Griffith and supported by the extra parliamentary "Liberal Association", were strongest in the south.
  • 1890 - 1903 - The "Continuous Ministry" coalition of the two, outlasting both leaders. In later years under Robert Philp it was supported by extra-parliamentary "National Liberal Union". Anti-coalition Liberals survived for a while as "the Remnant", one of a number of anti-merger splinter groups that the state has had over the years. Contingent voting was introduced in 1892 to see off vote splitting by Labor; it may also have the effect of delaying the development of a fully coherent organised non-Labor party as the voting system could substitute for candidate selection and candidature haggling.
  • 1903 - 1908 - A rather confused period following the break-up of the Continuous Ministry. A ministry was formed by Arthur Morgan of "liberals" and Labor members, however the official Labor leader of the day did not hold office and instead the leading Laborite in government was William Kidston. Philp led a "Conservative" faction in opposition but it's not clear how developed this was. Kidston became Premier in 1906 and increasingly drifted from the mainstream Labor socialist position; this comes to a head at the March 1907 Labor conference after which Kidston broke away and formed a new party with a pledge of personal loyalty to him, taking the majority of Labor members with him and also most of Morgan's former "Liberal" supporters. So far I cannot find any name for this party other than "Kidston party" or "Kidstonites". Kidston retained power with Labor external support until November 1907 when a disagreement with the state Governor over upper house appointments led to his resignation. Philp formed a ministry, including recent defector from Kidston Digby Denham. The Philp ministry was denied supply and Kidston, supported by Labor, returned in February after an election.
  • 1908 - 1917 - By October 1908 Kidston broke with Labor and opted for fusion with the Philpites; this predated the federal Fusion by over half a year. The fused group is generally called "Liberals" but so far I can't find a formal title for the parliamentary group. The extra-parliamentary apparatus was the "People's Progressive League". Once again a chunk rejected the merger and for a few years afterwards an "Opposition" group floated around, steadily losing numbers. The Liberals retained power until 1915, with Kidston succeeded by Denham in 1911, but in later years rural elements pushed for their own representation and after the 1915 election the Farmers' Union-backed candidates formed the Country Party. In 1917 the two merged under the banner of the "National Party".

(And total speculation, but perhaps Labor in Queensland didn't split during the war not just because of Ryan's determination but also perhaps Kidston had already taken away the sort of member who would have been most likely to defect.) So out of all this we'd need a clear article on "Liberals" 1908-1917, perhaps on the "Kidston Party", but otherwise I'm not sure how much the rest can be separated out clearly. Timrollpickering 18:25, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the useful breakdown - your work on this has been phenomenal and it's really exciting to see it all take shape (particular kudos for redirecting the hundreds and hundreds of links). I think most states pre-WWI are pretty messy and there's always going to be plenty of groupings too amorphous to have their own articles - I agree that the Liberals and Kidstonites are probably the only two here that warrant articles. I think I'd be inclined to stick the Liberals at "Liberal Party" (1700+ Trove hits for that in Queensland in 1915) - the "Liberals" with an extra-parliamentary apparatus and a vaguely-named caucus is also the case in a few other states, but "Liberal Party" seems to be commonly enough used to go by. I think I'd be inclined to go with "Kidstonites" over "Kidston Party" - I've heard the former more often and Google Books turns up similarly (with many of the latter hits being for "Kidston's party" anyway.) I think the Kidstonite article is important because there's a need to explain that unique Queensland-only Labor split. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:25, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
Great summary here - well done! I agree that the Liberals and Kidstonites probably deserve their own articles, while the others are probably too amorphous. I wonder if the solution there - not just in Queensland, but in every state - could be a general article called something like Party politics in Queensland, pre-1903 or whatever the relevant date is, explaining all those loose groupings and shifting alliances in one place. There is a Ministerialists and Oppositionists page for WA as well. Frickeg (talk) 22:49, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
I think that's a great idea. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:09, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
Okay there's now Kidstonites and Liberal Party (Queensland, 1908). The outstanding biggie is technical - the election box templates aren't set up too well for state branches/equivalent parties and so a lot of election results tables are still pointing at federal parties. Does anyone know enough about the templates to be able to help here? Timrollpickering 18:22, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
I know how to add the state-based parties to the colour and link templates, but the fields in the election results tables will still need to be updated. I guess if it's updated in the template it can be updated gradually for state elections and districts and will just point to the federal party until then. --Canley (talk) 07:23, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
It'll take time but AWB can be useful for this sort of thing. The parties needed are as follows: Liberal Party of Australia (Queensland Division) (same colours as federal), National Party of Australia – Queensland (ditto), Australian Labor Party (Queensland Branch) (ditto), Queensland Greens (ditto), United Australia Party – Queensland (ditto), National Labor Party (Queensland) (ditto), National Party (Queensland, 1917) (same colours as Nationalist Party (Australia)), Liberal Party (Queensland, 1908) (same as Commonwealth Liberal Party), and Kidstonites (currently using 8CB4D2). Timrollpickering 18:07, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for updating the templates, sorry, I didn't get a chance. --Canley (talk) 07:39, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Timrollpickering - I've just been doing a bit of Trove research and it looks like the Independent Opposition were actually quite organised as a party - with 12 MPs I wonder if they might be notable for an article after all. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:45, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Certainly there was a chunk who rejected the merger and they held onto four seats in 1909. It's mainly a question of finding the sources. Timrollpickering 18:07, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Queensland Labor Party

The Queensland Labor Party and Democratic Labor Party (historical) articles have created a bit of confusion over the relationship between the two and the articles' scope. My instinct is that the QLP should probably be treated like the Greens Western Australia - a party in one state that initially stayed independent of the equivalent main force in the rest of Australia but performed pretty much the same role in both state & federal elections in that state, then became the state branch of the federal party, and the article & links to it should be aligned accordingly. I'm not to clear what name the QLP used in state elections post 1962 - Trove is unhelpful - though the current article name is probably best regardless. Just wanted to run this by before changing the intro and links. Timrollpickering 22:28, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Yep, sounds good to me. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:39, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Seems a sensible approach.Merphee (talk) 03:55, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

David Leyonjhelm

Can some more people keep an eye on David Leyonhjelm? There is a very determined IP reverting all mention of his Sky News comments (which is what Sarah Hanson-Young is threatening to sue over) and trying to make out like all the fuss was merely over what he said in parliament. The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:22, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm happy to revert those sorts of edits. Looking at the article, seems like he's due for a 'Controversy' section. I just want to see who else has one first, to get more of an idea. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:29, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I generally think controversy sections are a bad idea - just the details staying in there is important when it's probably the most publicity he's received in his career. The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:32, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Agreed. No controversy sections please. They lead to the worst kinds of editing in Wikipedia. But Leyonhjelm's recent antics have got him a lot of publicity, and would seem hard to leave out of the article. HiLo48 (talk) 05:38, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
It's just that the names he calls people and all the trouble he gets himself into are under the section of 'Political views'. If I knew to make a section entitled Controversy I would've done so, but I don't think anyone here would agree that Leyonhjelm telling people to fuck off is a political view. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:06, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Point taken - this should probably be under "Parliament". The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:51, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I think I agree enough with that, so I've moved things there. It seems like an unusual article with a lot of small paragraphs though. Details on the current controversy will probably have to be expanded too. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:09, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
A controversy section is not a great idea I agree.Merphee (talk) 04:15, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Emma Husar

The persistent editing of David Leyonhjelm's article has spread over to the one about Emma Husar, this time with the negative point of view, seemingly in order to level the score by those who think Leyonhjelm's article unjustly includes his debacle with Sarah Hanson-Young. Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:08, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Those? is there more than one? HiLo48 (talk) 02:27, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
What is the point you are making?Merphee (talk) 03:55, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
Certainly more than one on the Leyonhjelm article, I think that's pretty much over now it seems. One to go, I suppose. Editors should definitely notify on this page when this sort of thing happens, I assume most of us don't have every single politician in their watchlist, myself included. Onetwothreeip (talk) 04:42, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

My regular map preference question

Due to the large number of redistributions which have occurred for the next federal election, I think all the maps for the electoral division articles will need to be redone. Once again, there are several options, and as per three years ago, I just wanted to get some consensus on people's preference for a consistent mapping style.

So the options are—the old "traditional" locator map:

And a new option—the scrollable, zoomable slippy map:

{{Division of Bass InteractiveMap}}

I can do either, or both, pretty quickly. Any preference for which one should go in the infobox?

--Canley (talk) 05:24, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

The current style is pretty good and the zoomable map doesn't really have any benefits that I can see apart from making it bigger and smaller. Maybe if it was incorporated with population centres, but it's not necessary. We could easily have both in the articles also. Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:29, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
While I really like the zoomy wikimaps, the thumbnail images don't show up on the Wikipedia page preview nor are indexed by search engines (at the moment). So I would think it would have to be static or both.  NeoGeneric 💬  14:35, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Final Victorian redistribution determination

Names and boundaries of federal electoral divisions in Victoria decided

TLDR:

--Canley (talk) 01:16, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

And a good thing too. More than once I've searched for Batman and ended up in Turkey. HiLo48 (talk) 03:28, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
Is it time yet that we reconsider what's been happening with new articles for divisions that have been renamed? I would think it's more sensible to simply move the division to a different name and keep the history of the entire history of the division together rather than spread over multiple articles. In most all cases an electorate name change only corresponds with the regular minor changes, or no changes at all, to its boundaries. Unless there was some special consensus determined for this, it seems like this just started to happen and nobody bothered to change it. I can't be the only one who thinks it's maddening to have a new split article for the same division but with a name change. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:36, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm not too sure about this. I prefer a name change as a clearer prerequisite for an article split/new article than attempting to establish a threshold of what is a boundary distribution minor enough to warrant only a page move/rename. --Canley (talk) 04:48, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
I'm with Canley on this - although it can seem silly in some situations, it avoids diving down a huge rabbit hole over what is a renaming and what is a new electorate. The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:41, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
Me too, for those cases where new electorates are involved, there should be new articles. When the boundaries are essentially the same though, particularly when there is not an addition of seats, there is no need for a new article. The electoral commissions make it very clear which seats are abolished, created, and those which simply have their name changed. According to all reliable sources, seats with changed names are not new seats. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:53, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
<ec> When a boundary is changed, or a seat renamed if a sitting member is notionally the incumbent then moving the article to the new name makes sense while leaving a redirect behind as it has become that name. Where a seat is removed with a new one created else where and the there is no incumbent member as happened federally when there was a reduction in NSW seats and an increase in WA then a new article should be created and the old one left where it is. Gnangarra 05:53, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
Essentially this would mean the Division of Burt would be a new article for a new seat, while the Division of Batman would be moved to Division of Cooper with a redirect linking the former to the latter. I would envision the opening sentence for that article would be "The Division of Cooper, formerly the Division of Batman, is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of Victoria", and with the table of MPs for the electorate continuing from 1906 to present. While this effectively means following the incumbent, it's still clear which seats are new, abolished or name changed regardless of a continuing incumbent.Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:58, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I think that a name change is a good point to restart the article. For a South Australian example, Division of Wakefield over its life changed a fair bit anyway, especially in the redistribution that abolished Division of Bonython. It will probably be "renamed" to Division of Spence next election, but the boundaries will possibly closer reflect the final disposition of Bonython anyway. The new name gives the future redistribution committees permission to push it even further from where the division with the old name used to be. --Scott Davis Talk 06:21, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
The division of Wakefield has remained the same electorate even though its boundaries have changed. If we were to have a new article for every time a division changes boundaries, we would have multiple pages for the division of Wakefield throughout its existence. It's not as if Australia is no longer the same country because nobody from 1901 is still alive. From what I know of electoral redistributions, the names are irrelevant to the boundaries changed by the commission, as it's the name that changes around that if necessary like for a new electorate. Even then, all electorates change name with little or no boundary changes and it's not ambiguous which is a name change and which is a new electorate. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:34, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
I am opposed to the idea of renaming electorate articles - as The Drover's Wife says above, that gets us into murky territory regarding what counts as a renaming and what doesn't. It's a nice clear, unambiguous line. Frickeg (talk) 07:47, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
@Frickeg: I'd just like to clarify that I'm not talking about new electorates, I'm only talking about renamed ones. There's no ambiguity between what is renamed and what is a new electorate (and abolished ones), it's explicitly stated. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:41, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
The problem is it isn't remotely that simple - it's very common (literally every state redistribution, for one) for a redistribution to shift boundaries of existing electorates, rename some of them, and create other new electorates at the same time. So, for one example I can think off the top of my head, a few years ago, the Electoral district of Little Para was created alongside the abolition of the Electoral district of Elizabeth, which covered similar but not exactly the same territory. It could be treated as a new electorate or it could be treated as a renaming of Elizabeth - and then you're diving right down a rabbit hole of how much boundary alternation is required for a "new electorate" versus still being the same "renamed" electorate. This is not simple even for electoral nerds discussing redistributions. This is why you've got several people here who think having to fuss about this stuff is a waste of time and that the current system is a decent solution. The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:29, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
It's actually explicitly stated which are new electorates and which are renamed, and even on Wikipedia we have made that distinction. We have acknowledged that the Electoral district of Newtown is a new electorates, while we have also acknowledged that the Division of Whitlam is a renaming of Throsby. Electoral district of Elizabeth is clearly a rename of Electoral district of Little Para and since it's been made clear on Wikipedia I'm really at a loss for why people here who I certainly respect think it's complicated. Section seven of the SA Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission's report states "Elizabeth in place of Little Para". Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:30, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
For recent redistributions, it is clear, but for historical ones it will not be easy to find the official reports (and even harder in the 1955-1990s period where we wouldn't have Trove to help). But anyway, electorates are names, rather than physical entities, and we should reflect that. Frickeg (talk) 13:57, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
@Onetwothreeip: Looking at Batman, I see that it replaced an earlier Division of Northern Melbourne. If you don't support a new article for Division of Cooper, would you expect to make a merge proposal to Merge Division of Northern Melbourne into Division of Cooper (after it was renamed from Division of Batman)? --Scott Davis Talk 08:06, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
Yes, though it wouldn't be much of a merger since it's a very small article. The opening sentence for Division of Cooper would simply look something like "The Division of Cooper, formerly the Division of Batman from 1906 to 2018 and the Division of Northern Melbourne from 1901 to 1906, is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of Victoria", or that information could simply be reflected in the background section. It's the same as other places after having their name changed. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:37, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
None of the territory of the Division of Northern Melbourne is actually in the Division of Batman - H. B. Higgins represented zero percent of the same territory as Ged Kearney. This would be lost (or made pointlessly confusing) if we were to merge the articles. This is an example of the kind of oversimplification that's happening here. There isn't even any attempt to reference what Batman looked like in 1906, which would be important if you wanted to make the claim it was just a rename (on top of the other issues). The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:29, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
It's the same issue for many of the electorate articles that currently exist, except that they've had the same name over time. We deal them quite easily by explaining that boundaries change over time, like the Division of Werriwa. Onetwothreeip (talk) 10:28, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
Werriwa is the same electorate, though. A different name and different boundaries is...not actually the same electorate. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:14, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
They were certainly the same electorate in the same way that Bruce in 2016 is the same electorate as Bruce in 2019, and I'm not in favour of different articles for the same electorate after every time its boundaries change. We don't have different articles for Cassius Clay and Muhammad Ali either, though they were certainly different between childhood and older age. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:30, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
People and electorates are clearly not comparable. The Drover's Wife's point is that the division called Northern Melbourne has nothing in common with the division called Cooper, but this proposal would see them in the same article. Frickeg (talk) 13:57, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
Hmm, this is a tricky one. But I think that since Australian electorates tend to be names rather than numbers, I think they should be kept as distinct articles as they are in the UK, Canada and other similar electoral systems. A district might be redistributed, but it still generally covers a similar area even if it vastly changes over time. And if it shifts places completely, that's already differentiated, as it is with the Division of Cook (1906–55) and the Division of Cook. So if a district changes names, a new article should be made, even if there were no changes, as a recent example of Electoral district of Cleveland and Electoral district of Oodgeroo. It is mentioned in both articles what district they replaced and were replaced by, so that should be adequate for readers. Kirsdarke01 (talk) 09:24, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
Cook is of course the name of two separate electorates which happened to have the same name. Batman and Cooper are the same electorate with different names. I'd also just like to add that I very much appreciate the input of everyone that has commented. Onetwothreeip (talk) 10:28, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
That's alright. I would also like to raise attention to districts that have changed names multiple times, such as the case of the Electoral district of Murray-Wellington. I think this should be an exception to what I stated above, in that districts in Western Australia sometimes tend to be named after localities that often change. Establishing separate articles for Murray-Wellington and Murray (Western Australia) would be a case where that would probably be unnecessary. Kirsdarke01 (talk) 11:01, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
The table of MPs for that article is a very good model for how a possible Division of Cooper article would incorporate the MPs for the Northern Melbourne, Batman and Cooper eras, and for all electorates that have the same circumstance. Onetwothreeip (talk) 11:26, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

There may be some individual exceptions but in general the name change is probably the best approach. Following the incumbent is a mess because sometimes a member has multiple seats they can go for (ignoring any internal party rules) and sometimes the name survives but a different seat contains the best bits for more than one member, to say nothing on the internal co-ordination to avoid incumbents going head to head. Look for example at Philip Ruddock's career - in 1977 Parramatta was split with the name going one way and Ruddock followed the Liberal strength into a new seat, then in 1993 Dundas was scattered to three existing neighbouring seats and he went into Berowra, the only one that was Liberal held with an incumbent retiring. Boundary changes can in the long run shift a seat significantly (Bennelong springs to mind - the seat John Howard was defeated in was much further west than the one he was first elected for with only a minority of territory common to both) but these tend to take place over successive redistributions rather than the name completely abandoning an existing area and going to somewhere totally new in one go. Timrollpickering 11:42, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Division of Werriwa was named after the indigenous name of Lake George, because in 1901 the electorate bordered the lake. Just north of Canberra. Now, it's squarely in the western suburbs of Sydney. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 12:25, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
I don't know why they suggested a "follow the incumbent" approach. It's not necessary, we know which electorates are which anyway. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:30, 20 June 2018 (UTC)


Well it would appear from reading this that the de facto consensus of creating new articles in cases such as these has been upheld, Onetwothreeip's very valid points not withstanding. Everyone else seems to be in favour of continuing with The Drover's Wife's approach. Is there any reason then why we can't start creating articles for the four "new" Victorian seats:

They have been "in effect" as it were since the 13 July (see this gazette) and a federal election could well happen before the year is out. Also pinging Canley, Gnangarra, Scott, Frickeg & Timrollpickering. Jono52795 (talk) 10:04, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Beating a dead horse notwithstanding, I can confirm that the AEC and ABC have sorted every electorate into being new (merged/split) or a renamed existing electorate. We already do have the same electorate but with its entire history through previous names in the one article for some state seats and for Division of Ballarat, and this would make it consistent with Canadian, British and Irish constituency pages, simple for them as their's are geographically named. I'm willing to do all the work but if the consensus isn't there then so be it, there's plenty other work to do.
I don't recall how it's been after previous redistributions, but I don't see a need to make the new pages until after the election. However if someone were to make one before then, there wouldn't be a need to delete it. Onetwothreeip (talk) 10:19, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
No reason they can't be created now, although there's no real urgency either. Still strongly opposed to the idea of merging "renamed" seats as discussed previously. Frickeg (talk) 10:48, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
As with Frickeg, though I think it's not a bad idea to get on to the new articles soon lest we have an early election. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:13, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Certainly it is worth creating the articles for the new electorates any time from now that someone has the time and inclination. They will start getting attention once the major parties announce their candidates. I think ALP may be doing preselections in the next few weeks (I think I heard that for the SA electorates, anyway). Division of Spence is new in South Australia, replacing Division of Wakefield as it has moved further south than "traditional" (rural) Wakefield was until the 2004 election. It has been hybrid rural/urban for 14 years and Spence will be almost entirely urban. --Scott Davis Talk 14:57, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Those articles have been created. They feature only a short opening intro and History section which details their location and how they came to be in the 2018 redistribution, which seems all that is required for now. Jono52795 (talk) 04:03, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for doing these. I'll try and produce some maps of the new divisions in the next few days. --Canley (talk) 05:13, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Having had to deal with the Qld state redistribution and a snap early election, I would suggest that writing the new articles is the least of the problem. It's the updating of the electorates for *every* lga, town, suburb, and locality article that mentions its electorate (a standard and widely-field in infobox Australian place that is the massive workoload. And you need to do this now so that the new electorates are in place when the election is called because that is when the interest starts. The easiest way to do this is to create a template with 2 parameters (the current electorate and the new one) and NOW (before any snap elections) go around and update all the articles whose electorate will change using this template. Prior to the call of the election, the template displays the current election. When the election is called, change the template to show the new electorate (someone suggested using "subst" for that step so you get rid of the template as a by-product, which is a clever move, but you want to be *very* sure you get the change right if you use "subst" as it can be a spectacular mess if you get it wrong). As it can take up to a day for templates to update in article, you may need to purge articles to force them to update (I'm not sure if there is any easy way to do this though). Kerry (talk) 06:55, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
Would you like to do so? Nothing is stopping you. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:58, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
@Onetwothreeip: I've proposed an approach to tackle the problem (above). I've sought advice on how to do a mass purge using AutoWikiBrowser to try to address an unknown in the plan. What's your status report? Kerry (talk) 11:23, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
My status report is that people are free to do things that they feel are needed to be done. I don't think you would get very far telling others what to do. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:06, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

side issue

It may be that a mapping person or graphic person create an animated gif for electorates that shows the boundary and name changes like, which would also aid people following the life of an electorate Gnangarra 14:46, 20 June 2018 (UTC) Australia history

I think that'd be a great idea. There's one in the Electoral district of Perth, that'd be very helpful for readers to look at how a district changes over time. It'd take a lot of effort for someone to do though. Kirsdarke01 (talk) 07:21, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Eyes needed at Steve Murray

Another COI issue with a new South Australian Liberal MP - someone copypasting some promo material with some anti-Labor POV and revert-warring to keep it in. The Drover's Wife (talk)

Agreed Aoziwe (talk) 14:53, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association

This article is a bit of a serial problem: it's getting targeted by an ongoing astroturfing effort by SDA supporters, with occasional pushback from IP non-supporters, and could really use some more eyes in general.

The bigger problem is that the article needs a lot of work - although its stances on social issues are reasonably enough sourced, the sourcing relating to their handling of industrial issues is not - there's so much written about the SDA on this stuff going back to the Groupers, and yet basically none of it is in the article.

Is there any chance someone could give it a serious edit? A lot of the problems with the astroturfing-and-anti-astroturfing IP edits could be solved if the underlying content didn't need so much work. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:53, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Results of the Australian federal election, 2007 (New South Wales)

This page could do with some content.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:55, 7 October 2018 (UTC).

@Rich Farmbrough: Thanks for the heads up there! Odd - a new user seems to have started it in a format we don't use (our results pages are organised by house of parliament, not state) and then never really started on the actual content. I've redirected to the results section of the main election article. The Drover's Wife (talk) 21:17, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
In regards to federal HoR results for full elections, I'm gradually getting through those year by year from oldest to newest, currently about to start on the 1940 election. So far I'm not entirely sure if all 150 electorates in modern elections can fit on a single page without errors. The maximum number I've gotten away with so far is 93 for NSW lower house elections, but I suppose we'll know later on. The next test will likely be the 121 seats of the 1949 election. Kirsdarke01 (talk) 07:31, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Oh, and the new user must have taken the format of the 2010 election, where I had the results of each state on a new page since at the time Wikipedia didn't like it if more than 60 results were on a single page. It seems to have been upgraded since then so it can accept more. Kirsdarke01 (talk) 07:34, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Easy enough to go back to splitting alphabetically as you used to do for those cases, IMO. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:17, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
Didn't we settle on going by state for these federal lists some time ago? Allows for more sensible splitting and state-specific result tables, and IMO it's still worth keeping the pages manageably small if there's a logical way to divide them, as there is here. In the long-term this will also allow for more prose content about state-specific issues. Frickeg (talk) 01:44, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
Can't remember that either way. What would that mean for the Senate? The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:56, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
I have wondered for a while whether the Senate results would not be better appended to the state pages, although I'm not convinced either way. If they were to be I imagine there would be one "big" results page that would include national House/Senate figures, and then the links to the relevant subpages. I am glad that the coding no longer means state election pages have to be arbitrarily split, but I just feel that pages with 150 individual election results are just too huge for easy navigation, even if the coding can handle them. I mean, the tables of contents on the state pages are already kind of ridiculous. Frickeg (talk) 02:05, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, I think I agree with Frickeg on this one. I've done the results of the 1954 election and even with 121 feels a little too much. I've looked at how other countries deal with their electoral results, and it varies. There's the Canadian method, the US method and the UK method that I can see so far. If not, I can see something like an overall results breakdown page with links to detailed results for each state, with both lower house and Senate results on each page. As for the lengthy table of contents, perhaps just a simple A-Z list would work rather than making all 88-93 electorates in them? Kirsdarke01 (talk) 09:54, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
I think the table of contents can be set to auto-collapse? I think it's worth retaining as some might use it for navigation but perhaps not have it as the default. Incidentally, I cannot tell you how much I loathe the approaches taken by all three of those alternatives! Our way might be a bit longer, but it is so much easier to understand. (And it's been said before, but Kirsdarke01, you continue to do a simply wonderful job with these lists - thank you!) Frickeg (talk) 12:16, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Infoboxes in by-election articles

Input appreciated here. Frickeg (talk) 01:09, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hollie Hughes (politician)

This AfD of an Australian politician could use more attention. Also the article itself needs significant improvement. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:06, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

State leadership contests

A user has just suggested at Talk:New South Wales state election, 2019 that it might be a good idea to create an article for the forthcoming Daley-Minns Labor leadership contest in NSW. This brings up the broader issue that (to my memory, at least) we've never done state leadership contests before - but not for any particular reason. Now that it's been brought up, I'd like to roll these out more widely. Thoughts? The Drover's Wife (talk) 06:51, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Further question for feedback - I'm not sure that the current format of Template:Leadership spills in Australia, linking every leadership spill from every party in Australian history, is the best way of doing that. It's not really possible to expand it to states and I feel like it's unnecessarily broad - I don't know that someone reading up on leadership elections in the Greens needs links to the leadership spills of the UAP back in the 1940s. What would people think about splitting this up into parties? The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:49, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Featured quality source review RFC

Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --IznoRepeat (talk) 21:51, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Proposed change to election/referendum naming format

I've started an RfC on changing the election/referendum naming format to move the year to the front (so e.g. French presidential election, 2017 becomes 2017 French presidential election). All comments welcome here. Cheers, Number 57 20:48, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

This RfC has been reopened for further comment, including on using a bot to move the articles if it closed in favour of the change: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (government and legislation)#Proposed change to election/referendum naming format. Cheers, Number 57 15:16, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
This RfC has been approved and the naming convention at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government and legislation) has been updated, so expect a lot of moves and link updates to move the year to the beginning of the title. --Canley (talk) 01:18, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Diane Beamer

Can we have some more eyes on Diane Beamer? There's an extremely aggressive new user who's edit warring to include trivia, and now, to remove any mention of the Orange Grove affair, and has refused about fifteen different attempts to get them to explain why they're doing these things. It seems pretty obvious that they're just going to keep reverting and refusing to talk, so it could really use some involvement from people who aren't me. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:14, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I noticed there was some unexpectedly weird personal stuff going on there a while back eg immature “favourite child” banter. She’s been parachuted in as a candidate for federal parliament next election, so campaigners would have good reason to want to edit out controversies. Happy to keep an eye on the page. Locochoko (talk) 03:37, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

This one seems to have calmed down - there was some exceptionally weird editor behaviour going on but they seem to have moved on. Always good to keep eyes on current candidates though. The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:40, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Shadow ministries/cabinets

I've just created Category:Australian shadow cabinets and Category:New South Wales shadow cabinets to house the random group of until-now-uncategorised shadow ministry/shadow cabinet articles we've accumulated over the years. I used "shadow cabinets" because of Category:Shadow cabinets and its use for all the federal shadow cabinets/ministries that we have articles on, but there's really no consistency: all our federal ministries are at (for example) Morrison Ministry, whereas all the opposition articles are at (for example) Shadow Cabinet of Brendan Nelson. This doesn't seem to make much sense. New South Wales seems to be the only state with articles, which use another format entirely: (for example) Shadow Ministry of Luke Foley.

Can we hash out a consensus on a) whether to use shadow ministry or shadow cabinet in these titles, and b) what title format to use? This area has always been a bit of a mess (there were no categories tying these together at all until ten minutes ago) and it'd be great to tidy it all up a bit. The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:40, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Good work with the category - this area has been a total dead zone for a while. For me there's no question when choosing between "Shadow Cabinet" and "Shadow Ministry" - it should be "Shadow Ministry", because the articles (as the Brendan Nelson example illustrates) are not limited to the Shadow Cabinet. As for the title, I would go with "Shadow Ministry of Firstname Lastname", and frankly I tend to think the Ministry articles should probably be at "Xth Ministry of Firstname Lastname" as well. I don't particularly love having the leader in the title of these (it's really more about the party than the leader, especially in the ALP), but I can't think of an alternative unless we go by parliament ("Shadow Ministry of the Xth Australian Parliament") which is pretty inelegant and much less informative. Would love to hear other ideas. Frickeg (talk) 12:08, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
This sounds right. Morrison Ministry should be Ministry of Scott Morrison, and then we would have Shadow Ministry of Bill Shorten. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:11, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
I agree and was also leaning this way. It also solves another problem with the ministry articles - that most of them are very unlikely to be unique (Scott Morrison is probably not the only "Morrison" to lead a Westminister ministry somewhere, John Howard probably not the only "Howard", etc.), so "[surname] Ministry" was not the most useful title to begin with/asking for awkward disambiguations. The Drover's Wife (talk) 21:21, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
I think that the fact that these surnames are not unique and for readers it would therefore seem best and most sensible to instead refer to them as "Ministry of [surname]" rather than [surname] Ministry. Merphee (talk) 21:35, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

While we're on the subject, do we need articles that say First, Second, et cetera? I think it would be a lot simpler to keep all the ministries for one prime minister in one page, especially since they are going to be very similar and some of them are very short. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:56, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm glad you brought that up, because how to divide these articles has always been a royal pain and the different states and territories number their ministries in their own documents completely differently or not at all - not dividing them would solve that problem. I feel like this could make sense in more recent times where it's unusual to be long-serving, but the pages for people like Bjelke-Petersen, Playford and the rest of the 10+ year club would be absolutely colossal. There's also the issue of people who leave office and then return to it, like Menzies or Rudd. I'd love to hear any ideas about this too. The Drover's Wife (talk) 02:39, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
When it comes to Bjelke-Petersen I think it could be appropriate to split it between when there was coalition government and when the Nationals governed alone. Rudd would surely be two different articles, and it would there make sense to call it the Second Ministry of Kevin Rudd. Given that reliable sources (to my knowledge at least) don't separate the ministries as we do, I think it's worth having an article as large as one for all of Playford's premiership if there's no alternative. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:09, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
There are alternatives - at least half the jurisdictions divide ministries in some way, but they're not remotely consistent in how they go about them, which is unhelpful for our purposes. Are there other circumstances in which you'd divide a ministry with the same Premier/CM? e.g. NSW has some funny conventions around how they officially divide Coalition governments. The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:23, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Settling ministry names

I think everyone that has replied so far seems to be on board with moving all ministry and shadow ministry names to the "Ministry of [Firstname] [Lastname]" and "Shadow Ministry of [Firstname] [Lastname]" formats. Does anyone have any more thoughts about this? It'd be good to get this sorted out so that we can start to fill in some of the gaps here. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:40, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I think when it comes to Rudd or Menzies, instead of "Second Ministry of Kevin Rudd" for the 2013 premiership as I previously proposed, it should probably be Ministry of Kevin Rudd (2013) and Ministry of Kevin Rudd (2007-2010) to disambiguate. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:03, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
This makes sense to me. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:14, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Agreeing on a format for ministry articles

This one is trickier, but it'd be great to settle on a consistent structure for ministry articles so they aren't such a mess. After the discussion above, I think I'm on board with Onetwothreeip's suggestion of just having one article for each leader's continuous ministry, unless there is a change in the governing coalition (e.g. the Bjelke-Petersen example). There's no perfect way to organise these articles, but it's probably the simplest and arguably the most common format of doing it. After thinking about it a bit, I think any issues with overwhelmingly long articles could be resolved like we deal with any other overly-long lists - dividing them up on the basis that the list was too long rather than suggesting they're separate topics. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:40, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Factional alignment?

Since Party factions have pages, would it be useful to include politicians' factional alignments on their pages (where info is available)? EDIT: Forgot to sign this the other day, sorry! Locochoko (talk) 09:09, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I think it depends on how solid the sourcing is. For example, it obviously warrants mention in articles of MPs who are factional powerbrokers or people whose faction is well-known (e.g. Tanya Plibersek or Chris Bowen). It becomes more problematic with backbenchers, where often factional affiliation aren't well sourced and then aren't frequently enough reported on that they don't become out of date whenever there's factional movement. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:33, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Most definitely. The more public information we can publish, the better. Faction membership is mostly formal for Labor MPs so it shouldn't be a problem for them, while the Liberals are harder to pin down in the sources but in reality every Liberal member of parliament is in a faction too, with few exceptions. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:36, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Totally disagree. I don't think that's what the sources say onetwothreeip, that the coalition are in factions like the blatantly obvious fact, based on what the reliable sources tell us that the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens are. Any sources to back that personal subjective point of view up please? Also I'm wondering if EMILY's List Australia would be considered a faction? Merphee (talk) 04:22, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
I'm also wondering how fine we splinter these left-wing and socialist factions that are within the ALP and Greens? I mean there are some really extremist organisations that a number of well known ALP poliies are associated with like the Communist Party of Australia (current) and the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist–Leninist) Merphee (talk) 04:32, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
I would definitely support the addition of factions on politicians pages as long as the sources are right. I'm not sure if the politicians themselves would be happy about that. But that's not how Wikipedia rolls. What do you think onetwothreeip? Merphee (talk) 04:35, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Any number of sources, including a recent op-ed by a Liberal senator, discuss members of the Liberal Party being part of factions ([10]). Advocating for the inclusion of this in only left-wing politicians' biographies so that you can claim that they are in "extremist" factions and aligned to the Communists(!) is a pretty good way to get yourself blocked from editing - please do read WP:BLP. More broadly, if you're not interested in editing political articles in an even-handed way, Wikipedia is not the place for you. Nick-D (talk) 05:05, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Oh my mistake, there are no factions in the Liberal Party! Now, jokes aside. EMILY's List Australia isn't a faction (or sub-faction) but we can describe people as associated with it. It's true there are sub-factions within the main factions, and also geographic divisions of factions. And Merphee, if you could tell us more about these Marxist-Leninist ALP politicians, that would be much appreciated. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:05, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Nick-D, I totally agree and I absolutely am editing in an even handed manner bearing in mind this is the talk page. I have noticed many ALP and Greens voters on their home poage mentioning their strong alliance to these political parties which has raised my eyebrow. But I don't normally make bad faith accusations about their comments unless they have come in hard with bad faith assumptions and sarcasm like onetwothreeip has toward me and where i now intend giving it back to them as hard as they served it up to me. Anyway it's just that there are so many sources which talk about the socialist factions, that ALP pollies are involved heavily in. Anyway yes I think we need to put factions on each politicians wikipedia article for readers benefit don't you Nick-D? You didn't state your view on this question, which I'm interested in. Obviously if they are sourced of course. Anything else would be censoring what the sources tell us. Please try not to make assumptions in bad faith though Nick-D. I won't tolerate it and don not think I deserved it because I simply put these Wikipedia article factions in front of to look at. I am just stating the facts. Thank you. Merphee (talk) 06:16, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Oh I'm sure there are factions in the Liberal Party too, just not as obvious as the socialist factions within the ALP. Could you provide some more reliable sources please onetwothreeip? Merphee (talk) 06:18, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Here is a great source from the Australian with a very centrist look at how many factions there actually are within the Liberal Party. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/nsw-liberals-display-factional-disunity-ahead-of-elections/news-story/278fa886f004549a9ebffc5101768cd4 Merphee (talk) 06:31, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
This discussion is getting quite silly. The problem is always sourcing, which is difficult enough for the mostly formal factions of the Labor Party a lot of the time, and practically impossible for informal factions (e.g. the Liberals and the Greens) except in relatively rare cases. Trying to get into it any more than that tends to dive down a rabbit hole of opinion and speculation, a lot of it not grounded in reality or reliable sources. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:17, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Excellent points as usual The Drover's Wife. Guess that's why I placed the Labor Left link and asked the question about EMILY's List Australia. There are no such Wiki articles for the Liberals or Greens factions. Labor factions are quite formalised and even then reliable sources stating which politicians are affiliated are not easily come by. Focusing just on ALP pollies because sources are more readily found would not seem appropriate as Nick-D pointed out. So I agree it is a bit of a rabbit hole. Merphee (talk) 08:36, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks all for your responses! Yes the ALP would perhaps be easiest to find info on as the factions are rather formalised, e.g. "Socialist Left" [the national left], "Centre Unity" [the national right], and "Unaligned", but only with credible sources. Sub-factions are probably not necessary, but do exist, especially on a state-by-state basis, e.g. the Short-Cons (lollll) and the Terrigals. EMILY's List Australia endorses pro-choice woman candidates for elections, but is not a faction. Locochoko (talk) 09:09, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Member lists

So I've started updating the member lists of the individual federal divisions so as to include additional info as well as images of each member (if possible). I've been doing it in order to improve its standards and bring it a little more in line to the member lists you see on say, the US Congressional District pages. So far, these are the pages I have completed (which includes abolished divisions): Ballarat, Batman, Bendigo, Corangamite, Corinella (1901-1906), Corinella (1990-1996), Corio, Fawkner, Grampians, Higgins, Kooyong, Laanecoorie, Lalor, Melbourne, Melbourne Ports, Mernda, Moira, Northern Melbourne, Southern Melbourne, Wannon, and Yarra. Any input, suggestions and feedback would be very much appreciated. --Thescrubbythug (talk) 02:44, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

I think these look good where images are actually available and have been meaning to say as much. (I like your efforts with some of the early ministries (e.g. Watson Ministry) even more.) It's amazing that we can have usable images for every MP in some existent Federation seats. (Thank you also for quickly jumping on those wrongly-licensed images; I had a bit of a freak when I saw the problem on a bunch of images and was relieved it didn't affect too many and was easily dealt with.) I think these work a lot less well where there are quite a few missing images (e.g. Bendigo and Ballarat), though I don't have a particular opinion about whether we should not do it in those cases. The bulky member tables are taking a bit of getting used to, but I do think they're a lot more informative in conveying key details quickly; it may be worth expanding the notes a little considering that there's a lot of space in that column due to the photos. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:03, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for starting this discussion. I like them too, overall, although there are a couple of issues I think it would be good to sort out.
      • What sort of thing should go in the "Notes" column? For me this is a big question that's worth thinking about before these get rolled out any further. At the moment there seems to be a somewhat random collection of information - e.g. adding relations and previous membership of state parliaments, but not ministerial appointments. We have previous and future state and federal seats, but not council seats, mayoralties or occupations. Should every MP have a note of some kind? Do we really need to say "Defeated" or "Retired" - and if we do, should we say why they retired sometimes (to become Ambassador to X, etc.)? Then again there is a vast amount of space there - I'd be hesitant about filling it all up - this is still a summary and we don't want walls of text - but maybe there is some information that is important? I would be really interested to hear others' thoughts. My initial instinct is that this kind of thing would be better explained in a separate prose section and we could maybe do without the notes section entirely, but I am very much open to convincing, and above all we should establish a consistent approach for what goes in and what stays out.
      • This works quite well for single-member seats, but is going to get extremely complicated for multi-member seats at state level, e.g. Electoral district of East Sydney or Division of Bass (state). I think the multi-line format there is absolutely invaluable when it comes to understanding the history of a seat - vastly better than a single line - but it would of course be utterly unworkable with all this new information. But I am hesitant to mark all the multi-member seats as exceptions to this roll-out, especially since some of them went back and forth between single-member and multi-member.
I suggest a pause in rolling these out while these issues are established. I also agree with The Drover's Wife above that our lack of images for a number of more recent MPs is going to result in some weird-looking tables, but I suspect we'll get used to it, and I don't think it does any serious harm - maybe it will even encourage some MPs to look into licensing their images properly. Frickeg (talk) 12:03, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Well, my approach regarding the notes have basically been to keep it as summarised as possible. Up until now I've basically only added the aforementioned previous and future membership of state and federal seats; the manner of their departures (Losing their seat, dying in office, losing preselection or just simply retiring); and if relatives hold the same seat (e.g. Geoffrey and Tony Street in Corangamite - but not if they end up holding different seats, such as the Fairbairns). I'd probably agree with adding ministerial appointments under a template such as "Served as Minister under Fisher" or "Served as Minister under Gorton, McMahon and Fraser" rather than listing every single position they held. Doing so would run the risk of taking up too much space - especially in cases of long-serving Ministers who held a plethora of different portfolios such as Billy McMahon. We could also add ambassador details for those who resigned to take up that job - such as with Richard Casey and Lance Barnard. But council and the rest would be a little difficult.... definitely something worth discussing. As for multi-member divisions, I've been contemplating what to do when the time comes to work on them - such as the Federation-era state divisions for Tasmania and South Australia. One approach that is definitely worth considering is that which is taken on this page - specifically the 1823-1843 section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_3rd_congressional_district --Thescrubbythug (talk) 12:44, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
As for the overall usefulness of the "notes" column - it's a useful way of very succinctly conveying the key things about each MP's time in the seat at a glance without relying on reading either long detailed slabs of prose explanations or content that frequently doesn't exist at all for many seats. I wouldn't have thought to do it that way myself, but it is growing on me. As for its content - I think we should at least have ministerial appointments - in the format Thescrubbythug described, so as not to have bloat for people with many roles. I also think it's important to have "defeated"/"retired" - it's the manner in which they left the seat and someone else came to hold it. Makes sense to me to say why they retired if they retired to go do something else notable/run for the Senate/etc. I am unsure about where to draw the line with council seats/mayoralties/occupation though I do feel like it's better to not dig too deep into biographical stuff and stick to key things relating to their time as MP.
The multi-member seats one might need to be a bigger discussion - I feel like the US article Thescrubbythug linked demonstrates that the images can work for at least smaller multi-member seats (though the notes likely needs to go into prose in these cases - I don't think it adds much there). However, the table on the US article goes way off the screen - as did our current Division of Bass (state), when I went to look at how well it could fit. I think having the tables running off the page looks awful period, and it'd be great to not do that if technically possible, but if we're stuck with them doing that, we may as well do them with images. The Drover's Wife (talk) 19:48, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, that's fair. Though if we can't find a better alternative for the multi-member seats, we may have to settle with that. For now though, I'll wait for @Frickeg: to come on and give his response before we proceed further --Thescrubbythug (talk) 15:18, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
This is a nice idea, a really nice idea, but the images are making the rows too big. It would also be good to retain the previous summary of members for greater convenience as well. When it comes to articles of divisions though, there's no good reason why we make new articles every time a division is renamed, especially when it splits and obscures the history of the divisions as illustrated here. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:38, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
Just wanted to bring up that you don't seem to be following a couple of long-standing conventions in these lists. Firstly, the distinction between resigning (quitting mid-term) and retiring (not nominating at next election): you have Peter Costello retiring in 2009, but this should be a resignation. Secondly, the term end dates of retiring MPs—I think we should follow the Parliamentary Handbook convention for federal MPs (although this is applied inconsistently in the states)—that a retiring member's term ends at the dissolution of the House, so Martin Ferguson's term in Batman ended on 5 August 2013, not the date of the election on 7 September 2013. --Canley (talk) 04:59, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Ooh, good catch - yes, would be great if this could be remedied. The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:08, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Is there any proper basis for a person's term ending at a different time whether or not they contested the election and lost or didn't contest it? Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:01, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, there is. From House of Representatives Practice (7th edition):
  • Dissolution has the following effects on the House of Representatives:
  • Members of the House cease to be Members, although those who renominate continue to receive their allowances up to and including the day prior to the day fixed for the election.
--Canley (talk) 07:45, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
That says members cease to be members when the house dissolves, regardless of being a candidate. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:14, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Being a candidate is what "those who renominate" means. Technically we could end the terms of each MP upon dissolution of the House and resume them if they are re-elected, but as they are still being remunerated under the Parliamentary Allowances Act 1952 this would be pretty silly and APH doesn't do this for that reason. --Canley (talk) 08:34, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
It just says that those who renominate continue getting their allowances, not that they continue being MPs until the election date. This should be treated as something we are inferring rather than something that is official. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:40, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I'm saying. So, are you happy with the dates being set that way or not? --Canley (talk) 21:53, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
With regards to retiring, I labeled cases such as Peter Costello as such because Costello did fully retire from politics and didn't simply resign to go off to an ambassadorship or different non-parliamentary political post, and/or later return to parliamentary politics (a distinction I made with Richard Casey). Nor did he resign due to an issue such as dual citizenship where he had no choice but to step down - as was the case with David Feeney. Fair call on the dates though; I had been copying them from the pages of each parliamentarian and wasn't 100% sure as to whether or not to alter it --Thescrubbythug (talk) 08:11, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
I don't agree. Sometimes the media makes that distinction—incorrectly I believe—that "resignation" is only when an MP is forced to leave or takes up another position, but to bring up House of Representatives Practice again, any case where "a Member may resign his or her seat in the House by writing to the Speaker" is referred to as resignation. The Parliamentary Handbook makes the same distinction for end-of-term reasons: defeated / resigned / retired / died / disqualified. If it triggers a by-election, it's a resignation (or death or disqualification), and I think that's a clearer rule than someone maybe returning to politics later or going to some kind of government-related position. --Canley (talk) 08:51, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Retirement from parliament has a different meaning than the concept of retirement from everything, and that different meaning is commonly used in reliable sources The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:22, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Costello resigned from parliament, but not politics. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:41, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Let's see how the current comment format works then - I have no major issues with it. I think perhaps with ministries particularly prominent ones should be singled out (i.e. Costello "served as Treasurer under Howard"), especially where there aren't a huge number of them - for most of these people this is more significant than who they are related to or whether they served in state parliament. I completely agree with everyone above on the importance of distinguishing between retirement and resignation - they are very different things when it comes to membership of parliament - and end dates of terms (with a technical reading they do cease to be members at each election, but literally every source - including official Parliament records, and those which measure length of service - follow the convention of recording continuous service, for obvious reasons). Frickeg (talk) 21:57, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Just finished editing the seats I've mentioned, putting in modifications which reflect what we've discussed here. If there are any potential errors or anything any of you feel has been left out, then by all means feel free to make the corrections --Thescrubbythug (talk) 14:03, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
I notice the expanded MP lists have appeared in the election results lists for these divisions as well (for example, Electoral results for the Division of Batman). I think they are fine in the division articles themselves, but I'm not so sure about the results lists as these tend to be very long and table-overloaded already and I prefer the succinct list as a quick summary—you have to scroll down quite far to see any actual results. Do others have thoughts on this? --Canley (talk) 04:32, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
I would also prefer that they are left out of the results lists. Having the short-form table allows you to see the electoral history of the seat at a single glance rather than having to scroll through a giant table. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 05:11, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
I would strongly prefer that they be left out of the results pages - the key information in these pages is the results, the member list is in these articles for quick reference, and having to scroll past a long table bloated by images is pointless and gets in the way. The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:09, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
I agree. The results pages can stay at the old format. Frickeg (talk) 10:07, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

WP 1.0 Bot Beta

Hello! Your WikiProject has been selected to participate in the WP 1.0 Bot rewrite beta. This means that, starting in the next few days or weeks, your assessment tables will be updated using code in the new bot, codenamed Lucky. You can read more about this change on the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team page. Thanks! audiodude (talk) 06:48, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

NSW upper house count

We could really use some additional views here. Frickeg (talk) 22:06, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Australian Better Families

Can we please have some more eyes on this article urgently? This new fathers' rights party has been edit warring for weeks trying to list their ideology as "family rights" and have gone into absolute overdrive today (I think on current counting they've reverted 42 times?). No reliable source uses that euphemism, attempts to engage with a couple of the initial self-identified party accounts have gone nowhere and it seems they're just going to edit war for eternity if they don't get what they want. The Drover's Wife (talk) 06:39, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks The Drover's Wife, I will have a look. Merphee (talk) 00:32, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Looks like this has now settled at the article. Thought your post here was from 27 January but it was 17 January. Need my reading glasses on I think. Merphee (talk) 00:37, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
It got semiprotected eventually, as COI IPs reverting their POV in fifty times in half a day is wont to do. Good to see it hasn't restarted immediately upon the semiprotection's expiry. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:46, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Good. Merphee (talk) 01:56, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
I'd like this page to be reviewed again. The edit war has continued over whether "men's rights" and references to the "Australian Brotherhood of Fathers" should be added. These have both been sourced, however, they keep getting reverted by the same person who initiated the first edit war. Catiline52 (talk) 04:20, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Template:Cite re-member

Template:Cite re-member is useful for citing the Vic parliament short biographies for former members. It appears however the vic Parliament has changed their URL parameters & I am not sure how to fix it. I have posted on the talk page but thought posting here might (1) point me in the right direction of finding help & (2) make more people aware that it exists - currently seems to only be used on 226 pages, compared to 1606 pages linking the old re-member url & another 27 to the new re-member url. Find bruce (talk) 05:30, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

I figured out how to fix the template & have also copied it across to Template:cite NSW Parliament which is substantially the same based on the current ID used for the website. Slowly working through the large number of links to the old & dead search parameters. Find bruce (talk) 11:50, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
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