NSW 2019 – the race on the North Coast

There are eight seats covering the north coast of New South Wales, stretching from Myall Lakes to Tweed. Seven of these seats are held by the Nationals, while the eighth seat was won off the Nationals by the Greens in 2015. This is one of the...

NSW 2019 – not the same old contests

NSW state politics appears to be shifting away from a conventional Labor-Coalition contest, with different kinds of contests dominating in different regions. While there has been a general trend in Australian politics away from conventional Labor-Coalition contests and towards races which feature an independent or...

NSW 2019 – the race in Western Sydney

Over the next few weeks I will be running regular blog posts analysing various parts of the NSW state election. This will include summaries of the race in six geographic regions, starting today with the western half of Sydney. Western Sydney has become a cliche...

New dataset – NSW 2011

I've added a new dataset to my data repository, as an exclusive for website donors, with the results of the 2011 NSW state election. This dataset covers both the lower house and upper house, including the full list of polling places (with latitudes, longitudes and...

Podcast #18 – Rural seats and election funding in NSW

Ben was joined by Macquarie University's Ben Spies-Butcher and the Guardian's Gabrielle Chan to discuss the rural contest in the NSW state election and the impact of the recent High Court decision on election funding laws. We discussed Gabi's new book Rusted Off. Thanks to 2SER radio...

Candidate list update – NSW and federal

We're now less than five weeks away from the NSW state election, and I have just finished updating the candidate lists for my NSW state election guide, as well as updating the equivalent lists on my federal election guide. As usual I have shared these...

ACT redistribution – submissions open

The redistribution of ACT Legislative Assembly boundaries for the 2020 election has now commenced, with submissions opening last Monday and open until Monday 4 March. The electoral map was radically drawn prior to the 2016 election, with the Assembly expanding from 17 to 25 seats,...

Podcast #17 – Independents and NSW election

Ben is joined by ABC election analyst Antony Green and the ANU's Jill Sheppard in the first episode of 2019 to discuss the New South Wales state election - in particular the rule of optional preferential voting and the increasing popularity of pre-poll voting...

Two by-elections in South Australia

There will be two by-elections for the safe Labor seats of Cheltenham and Enfield on February 9. I have prepared guides for both of these seats which are now open for your comments. I don't expect any surprise result in either seat. The Liberal Party is...

NSW election – final seat guide and candidate list

The state election in New South Wales is just over two months away, and my complete guide to the election is now published here. The guide includes profiles of all 93 seats, as well as a guide to the Legislative Council election. I can now also...