Queensland redistribution prospects

In addition to New South Wales losing a seat, Queensland will be gaining one. For the purpose of analysis, I broke up the state's 29 districts into six regions. Because 29 is a prime number, one of the six regions has four seats instead...

NSW redistribution prospects

There will be a redistribution this year which should see NSW lose its 49th seat to Queensland, which will require one seat to be abolished and the state distributed into 48 districts. Using the enrolment statistics of 28 November this year, I have done some...

Gordon Brown coming back in the UK

Gordon Brown had a pretty awful year, with losses of safe seats in by-elections and massive poll leads for David Cameron's Conservatives. But since the beginning of the global financial crisis, Brown's seemingly successful attempts to get his plans adopted by other western countries,...

NSW state Newspoll: ALP vote collapses

The latest Newspoll on NSW state politics has the Labor Party collapsing to levels even lower than seen in the last century. With the Coalition on 43%, Labor on 26%, the Greens on 14% and Others on 17%. The 2PP figures are at 59-41...

First Dog on the Moon takes on Labor-Green tensions

I'm hoping to write some analysis of the consequences of Rudd's climate change announcement tomorrow, but I thought you'd enjoy today's First Dog on the Moon cartoon (subscription required) from Crikey. Sometimes you have a piece of satire that captures the truth perfectly. PS. I...

How do we elect our leaders? Part two

Yesterday I laid out how leaders are elected in Canada and the UK, where party members play a central role in deciding leaders, as opposed to New Zealand and Australia, where leaders are elected by members of Parliament. So what are the merits of the...

How do we elect our leaders? Part one

After the events of the last few weeks further demonstrated the inability of Stephane Dion to remain as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Dion announced last Monday that he would resign as soon as the party chose an interim leader. Dion had...

The Daily Show does Canada

It's been a while since I've posted Daily Show clips, so I thought I'd put up Monday night's Daily Show coverage of the Canadian constitutional crisis, I particularly enjoyed the second segment's meandering into the republic debate.

US Congress update

Over the last few days most of the remaining undecided seats have been decided. In CA-04 the Republican has held on, while the Democrat was elected in OH-15. In the Louisiana delayed elections last week, it appears that the Democrats could be on track...

Quebec election: Liberals regain majority

I don't know enough about Canadian politics to do in-depth coverage of provincial elections, but I thought I'd do a wrap-up of yesterday's provincial election in Quebec. Liberal Party premier Jean Charest was re-elected as Premier. Charest was a minister in Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative...