The Tally Room

A friend of mine who is a former Democrats member has forwarded to me this email sent out to former Democrats members as part of their "rebuilding" effort. I post it below the fold without comment: Dear , As a former member of the Australian Democrats,...

Imre Saluzinsky, the Australian's NSW politics reporter, wrote in today's Australian about the Mayor of Leichhardt, Jamie Parker, and his prospective candidacy for the state seat of Balmain for the Greens. Most of the article is fairly reasonable analysis of the Balmain race and...

Bizzarely, a regional Labor MP in the WA Parliament, Vince Catania, last night resigned from the Labor Party in order to join the WA Nationals, who are in a governing coalition with the Liberal Party. Catania is a young MP who was first elected...

I know, I know. I'd forgotten there was any Democrats MPs left too, but David Winderlich is the sole remaining Democrat MP, holding a seat in South Australia's Legislative Council after taking over from Sandra Kanck last November. The party appears to be effectively dead,...

South Australia's Premier, Mike Rann, yesterday announced the details of a referendum to be held alongside next March's state election, which, if passed, would see the number of seats in the Legislative Council cut from 22 to 16, with all MLCs elected for a...

At the bottom of each post and page on my blog I have now replaced my Google ads with an ad from Amazon.com. If anyone is planning to buy any books through Amazon, you might consider clicking through from those ads. If you buy...

There will be a by-election in the Tasmanian Legislative Council electorate of Pembroke on August 1. Pembroke covers the eastern shore of the Derwent River, and is one of the seats covering the Hobart area. The seat was held by Labor MLC Alison Ritchie...

There's two interesting by-elections taking place in coming weeks, one in the UK in the House of Commons seat of Norwich North on 23 July, and the other in the Tasmanian Legislative Council seat of Pembroke on 1 August. The Norwich North by-election was triggered...

In an unsurprising move, the Greens have chosen Adam Bandt as the candidate for the federal seat of Melbourne. Bandt is the Convenor of the Australian Greens, and was  candidate for Melbourne in 2007 and Lord Mayoral candidate in 2008. Bandt is a former...

Japan's Prime Minister, Taro Aso, has called an election which will likely bring the ruling Liberal Democratic Party government down. Yesterday's local elections in Tokyo saw the defeat of the LDP, who have dominated the prefectural assembly since 1965. In the aftermath, Aso has...