Talk:2022 Australian federal election

Katter's Australian Party leader

Since Robbie Katter doesn't even sit in Federal parliament, it seems odd to claim that he is the federal leader for KAP, even though he is considered the "national leader" of the party as a whole. Additionally, Bob Katter is the only federal representative for KAP, so it makes sense for him to be considered the federal leader. I don't quite understand whether "leader" has some prescribed meaning we're trying to adhere to, or we're just going with vaguely what the party have explicitly stated about themselves and what RS (news articles) have to say about the handover. RS (e.g. 1, e.g. 2) don't seem to mention that Katter is still the federal leader because they aren't reporting about that, and it should be obvious given he's the only federal representative. I can't find any news article which refers to Bob Katter since he stepped down as national leader. DpEpsilon ( talk | contribs ) 08:47, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

This article has undue weight given to the single-seat parties in the infobox. Why are the Greens on the top line? Why aren't the Nationals (15 seats) represented? Why aren't the independents there? They each have 1 seat too. --Surturz (talk) 00:13, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

The Nationals are represented, under the "Liberal/National coalition". If the Nationals were split off, the Liberal Nationals & Country Liberals would also need to, and that'd be too complicated for a Coalition that hasn't split since 1944. The criteria for minor parties for inclusion should be standardised, sometimes independents and minor parties are included, but sometimes not. Catiline52 (talk) 10:11, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

It's not complicated at all. We have boxes for the Greens, Katter, and Central Alliance, we can easily add the component parties of the Coalition, rather than hide them. Either that, or we are talking about Coalition vs ALP in terms of who can form government, so we should only have two boxes, for the two groups that are included in the two-party-preferred counting. The current infobox gives undue weight to the non-Coalition parties. --Surturz (talk) 00:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Describing the inclusion of minor parties in election infoboxes as undue weight is pretty laughable considering it's almost universal practice, including in other Westminster two-party systems such as New Zealand, the UK, and Canada. That said, I think it would be great to put this whole thing to bed by removing KAP and Centre Alliance and simply including the Coalition, Labor, and Greens in a single neat row. Simple, easy, pleasing. I don't think anyone would dispute that the KAP and CA, on the federal level, are now one-man and one-woman shows respectively. Unless there's a hung parliament, they're not substantial enough to be worth including. I don't think it's undue weight, but it is unnecessary fluff. What might actually qualify as undue weight is portraying the Greens as equally insubstantial as the other two by arbitrarily placing them on the same row when the Greens win 10% of the national primary vote and have the potential to win multiple seats (not to mention their Senate presence). Erinthecute (talk) 07:21, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I am not saying that the minor parties should be excluded from the infobox, but rather that they have undue weight because they are included, but the National Party is not. The underlying problem is that the infobox tries to show both the two-party-preferred contest AND show the party-based contest. They are incompatible views of the election. We should choose one or the other, and I support showing ALL parties with a lower-house presence. --Surturz (talk) 02:50, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

The National Party is included in the infobox, as part of the Liberal-National Coalition. The precedent in all the other Australian election pages is to group all Coalition parties under one entry in the infobox as long as they are contesting the election as a coalition. Look at the pages for 2019, 2016, 2013... 220.244.147.170 (talk) 04:41, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Polling Info in Infobox

An unknown editor has added polling info into the infobox. I have reversed this as I believe that information should not be there for a number of reasons, and that if it is to be placed there it should be following discussion. The reasons I believe that it shouldn't be included is that; a) it is not the norm in upcoming election infoboxes sitewide, b) the inclusion of a TPP figure requires either simply taking the TPP figure from the most recent poll, which might not be representative of the trend in polling and thus give the public a false impression, or the use of an aggregator, which, while not original research, is not entirely reliable vis-à-vis updating quickly and would require consultation about which aggregator to use, c) the inclusion of the preferred PM metric is one heavily biased to the incumbent (http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2020/04/why-better-prime-ministerpremier-scores.html) and in foregrounding it it can create a false impression in the reader as it implies an importance the metric doesn't have, and d) there is a very obvious link to the opinion polls in the infobox that, imo, removes the need to place polling information in the infobox, in addition to that link providing more information, that might be ignored if the headline figures are included in the infobox. Of course if the consensus is against me I will not stand in the way of including this information --Not Another NPC (talk) 01:16, 04 April 2021 (UTC)

I support not including polling information in the infobox, for the reasons above. --Canley (talk) 09:14, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

I strongly agree. Frickeg (talk) 00:34, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

While we are on the topic of giving a false impression, please can we move The Greens to the second row in the infobox, with the other single seat parties? The infobox uses a Two-party-preferred vote structure to omit the Nationals, and to be consistent with that, the minor parties should be grouped together on the second row as 'Others'. --Surturz (talk) 06:41, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Very happy with moving the Greens to the second row. While having parties with elected lower-house representation in the infoboxes is good, distinguishing those that have a genuine chance at government is good too. Frickeg (talk) 08:12, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Do we believe this should be done for the previous elections that put the Greens in the top row (2010-2019)? I support such a move, for the reasons above and for consistency. --Not Another NPC (talk) 12:25, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

It should be immediately obvious to anyone looking at the seat and vote tallies that the Greens are not a major party. The presence of the TPP sections already singles out the two major parties as special anyway. Also, the Coalition is displayed as a single force because that's how both the AEC and media report it, and they operate as a unit in both elections and in parliament. It doesn't have so much to do with the infobox using a "TPP structure" as much as with reflecting political reality. In any case, relegating the minor parties to the second row has very little impact on how people actually take the information in, and to be frank, looks awful. There's a big white gap on the top row. This debate has always baffled me. Which row the minor parties placed on is such a strange technicality to fight over. No other country, nor even any other Australian federal or state election infobox, reserves the top row for major parties only. There is no tangible benefit to doing it. It just looks odd. Erinthecute (talk) 11:39, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Next Australian federal election

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Next Australian federal election's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "AEC1":

• From Division of Fraser (Victoria): "Names and boundaries of federal electoral divisions in Victoria decided". Australian Electoral Commission. 20 June 2018.
• From Electoral system of Australia: AEC, Enrol to vote
• From Division of Bean: "Map: Division of Bean" (PDF). Australian Electoral Commission.
• From 2010 Australian federal election: "First Preference by Party". Australian Electoral Commission. Archived from the original on 23 August 2010. Retrieved 21 August 2010.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 23:55, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Andrews and Laming

I appreciate that losing party endorsement is usually a retirement in all but name. But not always, as we saw with Laming's attempt to get re-endorsed. And there have been other cases where a member who formerly represented a party went on to continue as an independent, or tried to. So, we need to make a distinction. Disendorsement is a decision of the party; retirement is a decision of the member. All we're saying about Andrews and Laming at the moment is that they've been disendorsed. Have they made any statements about not contesting the election? If so, I think the dates of those statements are more relevant than the dates of their disendorsements. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:16, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Andrews and Laming has not stated they will contest as independents and can be assumed to be retiring from federal politics. Contesting as independents would see their memberships revoked which is usually not preferred. Therefore, it can be assumed that their disendorsements are equivalent to not contesting the election, unless they announce otherwise. Marcnut1996 (talk) 06:08, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Generally we have required a specific announcement that a person is not contesting the next election before listing them - losing preselection is not enough, as it is far from unknown for the person in question to run as an independent in those circumstances. Sometimes the person never "formally" announces they're not running, they just don't nominate, so the preselection loss is all we have (Bronwyn Bishop for example). I do think the date of preselection loss is relevant, but needs to be accompanied by a retirement announcement. I disagree with "assuming" their disendorsements are equivalent to retirements, as that is simply not the case. Frickeg (talk) 06:45, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

That makes sense. Tony (talk) 07:34, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with assuming disendorsements are retirements, but the distinction should be written. I don't think an additional subsection is necessary or desirable. We should only assume a member who has lost preselection is retiring if they haven't announced they will contest the election as an independent or for a different party. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:36, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Following on from this conversation I can see this info was removed today "(Disendorsed on 12 April 2021 after refusal to withdraw preselection nomination)" regarding Laming. My reading from above is that this disendorsement was relevant because it indicates there was some attempt to continue to run for the seen after the official retirement announcement, especially as the link for the official retirement announcement is a third party saying they would resign. However I thought I would get consensus here before restoring the information. Dauwenkust (talk) 00:40, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

I have restored it already before I saw this message, but I definitely agree. Marcnut1996 (talk) 02:13, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

As the one who removed it, I don't love it - these lists are very much meant to be bare bones and are not the place for the full story (where does it stop?). Given the strageness of this particular case (particularly given that it occurs after the date we are giving for a retirement announcement) a little extra is fair enough though. The text that was re-added was further expanded so I have reduced it back to its original form. Frickeg (talk) 06:29, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

References

Weird ...

Just weird, having this pic of Robbie Katter as one of four at the top. He's not even a member of federal Parliament, and is virtually unknown. This formula for displaying pics at the top urgently needs to be modified. Tony (talk) 13:21, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Now this one I actually agree with. If Bob Katter is not referred to as the leader (and it seems he isn't), it should simply be "no federal leader" as it is with CA. Frickeg (talk) 21:19, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Better than nothing. Let's agree that this article should be readily understood by foreigners – that would be a good benchmark, no? In that vein:

The structure of the lower house – Labor, Liberals, Nationals, one Green, and independents – seems likely to pertain for the foreseeable future. A reasonable compromise would be that a party should have a minimum of five seats for their "leader" to be pictured at the top. I note, also, the arbitrary decision not to feature the Nats separately; I don't mind, but it's arbitrary. So there's no perfect way to do this – just worse ways and better ways.

Two other issues concern the display of a percentage after the number of seats. It looks at first as though "77 seats" comprise "41.44%" of the total seats, though attentive readers might work out quickly that it's not the case. We don't help them by keeping it a secret that the "41.44%" is the proportion of first preference votes (suddenly important a while ago among journalists and some party folk pushing their own agenda, and strangely the LP and NP first prefs were never expressed separately, when they stand against each other in some seats). Then TPP percentages (all that really matters in the end) are buried at the bottom with an acronym for "two-party preferred" that most foreigners (even Australians) will need to go elsewhere to distinguish from the unexplained percentages that appear above. We confuse by presenting too much complex information where it can't be explained.

I query the need to display each leader's seat and state in an infobox, which should be rationed to the most important information for a bird's-eye view.

What are the poor readers to make of Adam Bandt's "1 seat, 10.40%" ... does that mean he somehow won his seat with that percentage of the vote?

At the top: "On or before 21 May 2022 (half-Senate)/On or before 3 September 2022 (House of Representatives)" will cause stomach cramps for most Australian readers, let alone foreigners. Then we have, row by row, a noun group, a grammatical sentence, and a noun group: "All 151 seats in the House of Representatives/76 seats are needed for a majority/40 (of the 76) seats in the Senate." Really?

Why is there a gaping hole above "Centre Alliance" (which again creates problems by distinguishing between independents who form a "party" and those who don't)? It makes zip difference in the larger scheme. Why not list all members who are not members of parties with five or more seats at the bottom, without pics? Bandt and Katter would go there.

Incumbent Prime Minister is stuck right down the bottom (and is "incumbent" not redundant?).

We should discuss how to fix this messy and unhelpful infobox. It's in marked contrast with the rest of the article, which is very good. Tony (talk) 03:50, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

If we aren't going to take a party-based approach (i.e. include the Nationals), I say we just remove everyone except the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition. --Surturz (talk) 05:30, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

So, a few things here. First, pretty much everyone wanted to include the Nationals, but no one was able to come up with a sensible way of doing so. The problem here is the LNP and to a lesser degree the CLP, who complicate matters enormously. Either you have to (a) treat the LNP as a third Coalition party and give them their own box, despite them having no separate federal identity (yet), (b) include LNP totals and vote figures entirely within the Liberal totals given they are registered with the AEC as a Liberal branch, notwithstanding the fact that many LNP members are prominent Nationals and in the past have been Nationals leaders, or (c) divide the LNP vote between Liberals and Nationals based on the LNP agreement, despite the fact that not a single source does this. Much, much more discussion on this point can be found here. Including the Coalition as a single box was the least worst option - but if someone now can come up with something better, let's hear it!

Many of Tony's other points I more or less agree with, but I would argue they need to be discussed more broadly than merely here at the Australian project. The seats/percentages thing, the leaders' seats, the text at the top - these are all encyclopedia-wide standards. I'm not one for unthinking consistency, but I think here an international reader could well be more confused if they come to Australian pages having seen certain standards apply for every other country's elections and we're just doing our own thing.

I continue to oppose the exclusion of non-major parties from the infobox. I could see a way to supporting an adjusted set of criteria, but "more than 5 seats" certainly isn't it (assuming that means House seats). Exactly two non-major parties in Australian history (Nats, Lang Labor) would qualify under that definition. In fact, to my mind the single biggest problem with the infobox is that it includes no useful information whatever about the Senate. If a way could be found to include the Senate, I would strongly support a reconsideration of inclusion criteria (potentially excluding e.g. KAP, CA), as obviously we would need to include the DLP and the Democrats (excluded under current criteria) for elections where they won seats. Frickeg (talk) 07:30, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

It is indefensibly misleading to include a picture of Robbie Katter, who is not even in parliament, and exclude the National Party from the infobox. If we get rid of the photos entirely, that would give us space to do use a table (something like in Next United Kingdom general election) and include ALL parties. We could possibly have a background or thick border around the Coalition parties. --Surturz (talk) 04:14, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd be in favour of including the National Party if a way could be found to style it within this infobox structure, because Suturz makes a fair point. I'm not opposed to something like that UK table in principle, but I don't see the point of having completely different tables on pending elections to those used on past elections, which still leaves the issue live in every past election. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:37, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

On the question of how to include the Senate, I would suggest a system similar to that used for Italian elections (see 2018 Italian general election) . YttriumShrew (talk) 19:03, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I've temporarily boldly made Bob Katter the parliamentary leader in the infobox, with a note stating that the official party leader isn't within parliament and isn't contesting the election (based on what the 'Parties and leaders' section stated). I do agree with other editors that the inclusion criteria needs to be refined. Rebekha Sharkie is treated similar to the independents (who are not included in the infobox) in the media and even is labelled as an 'independent'.[1][2] Maybe the inclusion criteria could be having official parliamentary party status (More than 5 members in either chamber)? This could be a way to include historically significant parties like the Australian Democrats in the infobox. Catiline52 (talk) 01:07, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

I would agree with some criteria like this, maybe three seats in the whole parliament. We shouldn't give Centre Alliance and Katter's Australian Party similar prominence in the infobox as the major parties or the Greens. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:38, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I've reinstated Bob by undoing an edit made that put it back to Robbie yesterday. The only comments I can see on this talk page all seem to agree that Bob's photo is more appropriate than Robbie's, though it seems both discussions quickly change topic and get side-tracked. I can't see anyone who has made an argument against showing Bob in this context (unless I've missed it), so accordingly have restored Catiline52's approach. Rob.au (talk) 10:40, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Katter's Australian Party says "In February 2020, Bob Katter handed the leadership of the party to his son Robbie Katter", indicating that Robbie is the leader. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:40, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

But how does that work in practice? When Bob K wants to ask one of his incomprehensible questions, does he have to seek the concurrence of his son? Really, I think we should regard the February 2020 declaration as a private matter, and regard the KAP as having a sole federal parliamentary representative without any formal leader. Leader in this context means "parliamentary leader", and someone who isn't a member of the parliament can't be a parliamentary leader of anything, by definition. Yes, I know we had Campbell Newman leading the Qld Lib-Nats before he entered parliament, but that was widely considered weird at the time, and still is. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:32, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Exactly - for a one-person presence in the parliament, any "leader" title is notional semantics. His son has no formal significance at all in the context of the election. Rob.au (talk) 10:10, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Weird 2.0

The simplest way out of the unsatisfactory distortions in the infobox is to have pics of the prime minister and the leader of the opposition only. Tony (talk) 02:34, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Suggest edit to include information for this election not last election

The subsection parties and leaders under candidates has a graph that shows the parties and leaders for the previous election (which is already included at the top of the article for some reason)

I edited it to include all the parties and leaders as it seems strange to have the parties who won seats in the 2019 election listed as the only parties contesting the 2022 election

Thought I would bring it up here suggesting removing graph and replacing with parties contesting the 2022 election Politically Minded Stoner (talk) 08:27, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

The inclusion of only parliamentary parties in the 'parties and leaders' section is common amongst most Wikipedia elections internationally, as the most relevant parties are the ones elected at the previous election as they tend to be the only ones elected. Every other party is listed at the Candidates of the next Australian federal election page. Not including every single minor party, parties which are notable for being a party but not notable (by Wiki's standards) in relation to the election, makes the page far more readable. Catiline52 (talk) 12:38, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

leaving aside that its apparently the normal thing to do on wikipedia it was misleading before it said these are the parties of the 46th parliament, now its just irrelevant to the article, it makes about as much sense to list the parties who won the 1993 election. the section is parties and leaders, the article is the 2022 election, would the most relevant parties to put under the section parties and leaders on the article 2022 australian federal election not be the parties contesting the 2022 Australian federal election. if your worried about a list of parties somehow being less readable than an graph (i would argue a graph is harder to interpret than a list, particularly when the graph draws no relevance to the rest of the article) i would then suggest removing the graph and leaving the link to the registered parties article Politically Minded Stoner (talk) 06:32, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Double dissolution note b

Just wondering if note b in the third paragraph referring to a double dissolution should be removed, as a double dissolution is basically impossible now:

"That means that any double dissolution of the 46th Parliament will have to be granted by 1 January 2022. Allowing for the same stages indicated above, the last possible date for a double dissolution election would be 5 March 2022.[35] This can only occur if a bill that passes the House of Representatives is rejected by the Senate twice, at least three months apart." Jacsam2 (talk)

updated map?

I'd like to suggest the creation of an updated house electorates SVG image to use as a template. this is due to the removal of an electorate in WA and a new electorate in VIC. other minor changes have occurred such as the seat of Pearce getting considerably smaller. 2001:8003:9446:DA00:680E:1C6C:ED79:650D (talk) 10:42, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I will update the maps soon to incorporate the redistributions. --Canley (talk) 12:05, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

thanks 2001:8003:9446:DA00:680E:1C6C:ED79:650D (talk) 13:35, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Weird 3.0

See my earlier posts. Sorry to be a pest, but it's not only the infobox (which says inter alia that Katter needs another 75 seats to form government ... so important and informative); it's things like the second table, in which we're told that the Liberal party's ideology is liberal conservatism (read that article opening to see why it's a misleading link), and the National party's ideology is agrarianism (I had the impression that its donors and benefactors are chiefly the extraction industry, not food producers). I'm not sure Labor's link is accurate, either.

Whatever is in this article, it should not mislead foreigners who consult it for reliable information. What I see now contains significant faults. Can we at least decide on fixes for after the election? Tony (talk) 04:39, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

On the subject of Weird, why don't you mention two of the most wonderful things about our electoral system, which I consider to be one of the best in the world.

The first is how to avoid a fine if you fail to vote. (Remember I support compulsory voting.) What you do when you are sent a please explain is to reply that it was against your religion, as the act says that such an answer must be accepted as conclusive, and no further action will be taken.

The second is how to cast a valid vote whilst denying anyone the public funding associated with that vote. The senate is easy. Look to the ungrouped candidates at the right of the paper and select one at random. He gets your 1. Then vote as you wish. Reps is harder, depending on your seat.  Hopefully you will have a few independents, and use you judgement as to who is least likely to get 4% of the vote. A small number of candidates can make it very tricky. Unsurprisingly, my suggestion for solving the campaign funding and expenditure problems has never been taken seriously. I believe the problem can be solved by providing that only candidates can spend money on getting elected, and the only money they can spend is money raised by putting their daughters on the streets.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Plerdsus (talk • contribs) 09:13, 22 April 2022 (UTC) 

Date of election

I think the Senate date and the House of Reps dates have been mixed up.

House of reps has to be march, 3 years from last election. Senate could conceivably be delayed till September, but very unlikely. 2001:8003:6D47:D01:21C4:483D:1BEF:2DD2 (talk) 00:30, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

@2001:8003:6D47:D01:21C4:483D:1BEF:2DD2: No, the Senate election must be held by May (allowing for counting time) as the term expires in July. There is nothing in legislation that suggest house of reps election must be 3 years from the last election, but it must be held at the very latest, 3 years + a number of days since the first sitting of this term of parliament (which was in July 2019), so the latest the house of reps election can be held is in September. Marcnut1996 (talk) 00:52, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

In any event, the last election was in May, not March. But the timing of this one is, as Marcnut says, not as simple as "date of last election + 3 years". It can be held as late as September 2022, as our article explains in detail. That's for the H of R. The Senate election has to be held by May, and it would be silly to have a Senate election in May and a H of R election a few months later. That's why both elections will be in May. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:15, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

2-seat or 3-seat majority?

@Canley: How did the Coalition have a 3-seat majority in 2019, if the minimum for majority is 76 and the Coalition won 77? Marcnut1996 (talk) 01:54, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

It's stupid term, but it think it works like this:

The gov has 77 seats, and all other parties have 151-77=74 seats.

77 gov seats - 74 everyone else seats = 3 seat majority Micmicm (talk) 07:42, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that was it: Government seats minus all other seats (opposition + crossbench) so 77−74 = 3. 2019 Australian federal election says three-seat majority. I raised it at Talk:2019 Australian federal election#Majority in 2020 after several "corrections" to "two-seat" but there were no responses one way or the other – my preference was we should defer to the expertise of election analysts (e.g. Antony Green) and statisticians. There's also a BBC article that explains the formula, although that is slightly different: subtract half the number of seats in the chamber from the number of seats won by the government and then double it, so 77−(151/2) = 77−75.5 = 1.5, 1.5 * 2 = 3. --Canley (talk) 09:06, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

So if the ALP or L/NP gets 76 seats at this election, your view is that such an outcome should not be characterised as a "one-seat majority"? Because if it happens, that is how every journalist and Aussie punter will describe it. Global-Cityzen (talk) 10:22, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

No, of course not, because if you bothered to work it out, it would be a one-seat majority under that formula: 76 − 75 = 1. With an odd number of seats and a party getting a bare majority like that, both methods would give the same result. --Canley (talk) 11:14, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Senate

Where does a reader go to find out how many senators from each party are up for election, and how many are not? Tony (talk) 12:20, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

I put it in Candidates of the 2022 Australian federal election in the Senate section. --Canley (talk) 12:42, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Why is this article only "Low-importance"?

Considering how often this article will be looked at in the next few weeks, why is the importance not something higher? Micmicm (talk) 13:48, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Map has many inaccuracies

Something is up with how the electoral boundaries map is produced.

Looking at Sydney in particular, the boundaries of Berowra, Bradfield, Chifley, Cunningham, Hughes, Hume, Lindsay, Macarthur, Macquarie, McMahon, and Parramatta are all distorted. The Division of Macarthur especially looks nothing like the AEC boundaries. Meowxr (talk) 12:31, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

I will ping @Eric0892: who made the map. Marcnut1996 (talk) 01:12, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing these issues out. Seeing as there was no redistribution in New South Wales, all N.S.W. electoral divisions' shapes were copied over from 2019's map, so it's odd that there are inaccuracies! I'll look into it and try and fix the issues. — Eric0892 (talk) 01:20, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Sorry that I'm late to this but the inaccuracies pointed out here also exist at the 2019 election map made by DrRandomFactor – currently working on reimporting the divisions back in from the ABS. —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 14:14, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done – before and after —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 03:01, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Some of the issues have been fixed, but there are still many inaccuracies on the map.

I've taken a look at the shapefile from the ABS which @Twotwofourtysix linked above, and I can see what the problem is. I've observed this before in maps on the ABS QuickStats pages for electoral divisions. The ABS in its presentation of electoral boundaries aligns the electoral boundaries to meshblock boundaries. I can confirm this having loaded both the shapefile linked above and the meshblock shapefile for NSW into QGIS, and indeed this accounts for all the inaccuracies in this map. Electoral boundary data should not be sourced from the ABS. Meowxr (talk) 07:52, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I was looking for a shapefile from the ABS because the divisions in the AEC shapefile inconsistently includes the ocean in states like QLD but not in states like VIC, so I originally looked for the shapefile of Australia's coastline in general so I could clip it with the one from the AEC. If you could find a better source, I would appreciate it. As for the inaccuracies, it seems to just be minor tweaks like in Barker and Lindsay. Maybe I can fix this, but I have off-wiki things going on —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 08:48, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Another source you could use is Geoscape Admin Boundaries. It has the latest electorate data, and you can do a spatial intersection with the state boundary shapefiles. Let me know if you're too busy and I can try and fix it up. --Canley (talk) 15:43, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Even if I weren't busy, my device wouldn't be able to handle gigabytes of data from there :) —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 00:41, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Hello, sorry I’m a bit late…yes, I’ve also noticed several inaccuracies with the ABS’ shape file, notably Barker and Gorton, that’s why I choose to go with the AEC’s shape files initially; however, as @Twotwofourtysix pointed out, the coast line is better with the ABS’ map. I’ll try Geoscape Admin Boundaries’ shape-file, and will upload it as soon as possible. Please let me know if inaccuracies persists. — Eric0892 (talk) 06:26, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

All right, I've updated the map by remaking it from the Australian Electoral Commission's shapefile of divisions, then clipping it with the Australian Bureau of Statistics' shapefile of the coastline of Australia. Again, please let me know if there are still inaccuracies. :) – Eric0892 (talk) 22:32, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Looks perfect, nice work! :) Meowxr (talk) 07:13, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! — Eric0892 (talk) 01:35, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

@Eric0892: It appears that Casey has been mistyped as "Cassey" on the map :) —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 01:18, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for pointing it out! I have fixed the typo. Eric0892 (talk) 01:36, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Forde is shown as a Labor gain on the map; this is a mistake. Meowxr (talk) 05:01, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 06:42, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

"COVID" or "Covid"

I recently noticed that a use of "Covid" was edited to "COVID".

Do we have a reason to prefer one over the other?

I personally prefer the lowercase version. Micmicm (talk) 13:27, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

The article COVID-19 makes clear it is all caps. WWGB (talk) 13:51, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Campaign "launches" long after the campaign began

The Liberal Party held what they called their Campaign Launch at the weekend, well after many people have already voted. We have rightly reported that fact, but the language seems weird to me. I feel that we should have some sort of an explanation of how a party can launch its campaign so long after it obviously launched its campaign. (Which, realistically, was about six months ago.) Does anyone know the explanation? With a source, of course. HiLo48 (talk) 04:36, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

It's not just the Liberals holding its campaign launch this late into the campaign by the way, the Greens are holding theirs this evening. —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 05:05, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

I think part of the problem is that there isn't really a good answer. I can find articles criticising the decision (https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/more-than-1-2m-australians-vote-early-before-pm-launches-campaign-20220513-p5al23.html) but nothing that really explains it, other then the parties seem to think it might help them some how. Dauwenkust (talk) 06:26, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

References

This has been a bugbear of mine for decades. Announce whatever you like, whenever you like, but calling an event held so close to the end of the campaign a "launch" is just stupid. Just like the Brisbane Ekka, which was always officially opened on Day 4 of 5, until an intelligent person in the 1970s (?) decided this was simply ridiculous, and ever since then the official opening has been held much closer to the start of the event. Time for our political parties to do likewise. </rant> -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:33, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

'Teal' Independents

I have an objection to the following phrase about the so called 'Teal' Independents.

"Climate 200 is contributing funds to several independent candidates running in this federal election under the name of 'Teal' Independents".

None of the 'Teal' Independents are running "under the name of 'Teal' Independents". the source used as reference (https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/a-secret-party-immoral-explaining-who-the-teal-independents-really-are-20220505-p5aio4.html) nor these other sources https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-20/teal-independents-who-are-candidates-what-electorates/101000412 and https://theconversation.com/why-teal-independents-are-seeking-liberal-voters-and-spooking-liberal-mps-182133 claim they are running under the name of 'Teal' Independents.

@Pa2chant.bis

P.S. looks like someone else has already fixed this on the page. Micmicm (talk) 08:23, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

That's right, "referred to as "teal independents"" or "referred as" is more appropriate. --Pa2chant.bis (talk) 08:28, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Infobox

Sorry to bang on again about the messy inclusiveness of infobox photos, but ... if a swag of independents are elected will the infobox be stretching down through half the article? And is the distinction between independents who have a "party" (Katter) and those who do not a rationale one in the design of the infobox here? I'm concerned not least about potential that foreign readers—as well as many Australian readers—might take away a distorted view. Tony (talk) 13:15, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

We could always do something like Next United Kingdom general election and omit the photos. WWGB (talk) 14:25, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Newspaper Endorsements

As someone who doesn't immediately recognize which newspapers are owned by News Corp, I was wondering if we could set up the table to specify if it's owned by News Corp or not? Micmicm (talk) 01:42, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea, considering that all the Murdoch papers listed have endorsed Morrison and all the non-Murdoch papers have endorsed Albanese it's plainly a relevant distinction. Though the random opinion from Kevin Rudd in that section needs to go. Have Nine/Fairfax endorsed anyone this election? It's odd/unusual that they're missing from the table. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:49, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

The Age, SMH and Fin Review are there now, all nine/Fairfax papers. HiLo48 (talk) 06:46, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done. WWGB (talk) 05:17, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Talking about the table for newspaper endorsements, is the table sorted in any way? It seems to be sorted alphabetically at the start, just like how it should be, similar to 2019 Australian federal election#Newspaper endorsements but then it falls apart at the end. —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 06:31, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Not sure why this "owners" column keeps appearing ... it doesn't occur on the earlier election pages. When "The Drover's Wife" says "all the Murdoch papers listed have endorsed Morrison" she is wrong. But even if that was true, as I think it might have been in 2013, why is that important? Are these editors' pieces to be disregarded without being read? The table is a high level summary only, if someone wants to claim one or more media company owners are determining endorsements centrally, then they can write their own article on Medium or something. Thank you DHKanga (talk) 10:50, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

You're the only one suggesting that they disregarded, or making claims that they're being centrally determined. The table just provides the context, in our very centralised media market, of which companies own which newspapers, which is a really common factor people take in assessing the value of a particular endorsement given that there's a very overt split between major companies (how that came to be is a matter for opinion and not relevant here). We've had a relatively centralised media market for a long time, so it's something that would be historically useful as well. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:10, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Congratulations on joining Wikipedia two days ago. Why would you seek to hide that the fact that News Corp are serial supporters of the Coalition? The inclusion of ownership "does no harm", and allows casual readers to consider a link between newspaper stables and endorsements. WWGB (talk) 11:13, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

This section is not going to expose or cover up any "serial" supporters of a given party among the press; it is a point-in-time view. Offering casual readers opportunities to "consider a link" that only you can perceive is not the purpose of this section either. If you're worried about media bias or something like that, that's something to fight with your choices at the newsstand rather than on an encyclopaedia. Thank you 123.208.162.123 (talk) 11:52, 20 May 2022 (UTC) SORRY that was me 11:53, 20 May 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DHKanga (talk • contribs)

Last-minute campaign section trimming

(Courtesy ping) @Onetwothreeip: I understand the apparent need for trimming the list, while the previous election's article doesn't even include a section on campaign events at all. But this edit seems kind-of random in what is regarded as important and what isn't. Like, some policy announcements are removed, but not all, and some campaign mishaps are removed, but not all. Also, I tried to include criticisms from the other side on policy announcements but some are removed and another isn't. I've said that there should be a standard for how notable events should be for its inclusion but it's been fuzzy so far. —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 01:26, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

It's quite hard to know during the campaign itself what will be considered to be meaningful in hindsight and what will be forgotten about as a one-day news story. I generally agree with Onetwothreeip's pruning, except possibly for Morrison's apology for his disability comments (which was genuinely controversial and an actual story) - everything else just wasn't necessary. (I also feel like the currently unmentioned Morrison-accidentally-tackling-the-primary-school-kid incident warrants probably mentioning as a gaffe that's likely to be remembered for a longer period.) The Drover's Wife (talk) 02:15, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to discussion and I accept that there is a degree of subjective judgement that can be made here without doing a thorough media analysis. I thought that the bill by Claire Chandler was not a campaign issue, whereas Katherine Deves' candidacy was. I wanted to remove non-notable answers to journalist questions and non-notable commentary. I also retained a commitment to hold a royal commission but removed something similar for an inquiry, as the former is a more substantial matter. Looking back, I think we should probably include Morrison's "blessed" comment as part of the Sky News debate entry. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:55, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

The choice of which events are noteworthy is very subjective and there is no way to address the issue noted by twotwofourtysix above (it's a type of sorites paradox). We had a similar problem on the article Opinion polling for the 2022 Australian federal election, when some contributors tried to include events that seemed to wield influence on the polling trends--but what constitutes one for sure?-- so we've chosen to go by the custom on Wikipedia to exclude all political events (but not historical ones, such as the lockdown). The buzzing news can be detailed extensively in articles such as 2022 in Australia. This is where I moved the campaign section, where it fits perfectly: no events had been added during the campaign. Kahlores (talk) 20:59, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

@Kahlores: In that case, I should probably note that the list of campaign events are available in the 2013 and 2016 election articles. Meanwhile, in the 2007 election article, campaign events are available in prose, instead of a list. I think that should be a gold standard for how we should proceed. Moving events to the 2022 in Australia article would have perhaps even more subjective standards since it would include intricate little details that are unnecessary when taking a broader look at the year as a whole. Also, the previous years don't include this sort of thing and including it over there, instead of this article, especially without linking to it means that readers interested in the election would miss out and readers only interested in the whole year would read, say, policy proposals that aren't relevant for the whole year. —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 23:21, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

I have restored the timeline. Onetwothreeip (talk) 10:04, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Infobox seat numbers

Leaving this message here for KyleDJF34 and others on what the party's seat numbers in the infobox should be. At the last election, Coalition won 77 and Labor won 68. This does includes the Coalition seat of Stirling which was abolished, and does not include the Labor seat of Hawke which was added in a subsequent redistribution. At dissolution, the Coalition had 75 seats and Labor had 67. With no seats changing from by-elections, MPs Craig Kelly and George Christensen left the Coalition and Labor MP Nick Champion resigned from parliament before the dissolution. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:42, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

I was really confused about your earlier comment that Stirling shouldn't be included in the pre-election totals - is that not your position? The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:51, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Stirling was still a seat at the last election and before dissolution. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:06, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Slightly off topic, but can you explain why the infobox only lists the L-N coalition as holding 50 seats (and needing 26) when they held 75 at the time of dissolution? I'm genuinely confused. The Kip (talk) 05:18, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Nevermind, article's been updated. The Kip (talk) 05:19, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Liberal/National seat totals?

Genuine question as I’m unaware; why does the info box list the L-N coalition as holding 50 seats and needing 26 for a majority, when at the dissolution of parliament they held 75 seats? I can’t seem to find any sources on them somehow losing 25 members before the election. The Kip (talk) 17:18, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Section order

There's a discussion at "In the news" whether to post the outcome of the election on the WP homepage and one objection is regarding the weird section order. And indeed, the body should begin with the "Background" section and subsequent sections should roughly represent a chronological order. It’s unusual (and somewhat illogical) to have the "Results" section first. Schwede66 18:19, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't know how others feel (maybe we'll see, now the Results have been moved to the bottom of the page), but I really dislike the chronological ordering of sections. I know it's how every other country does it for their elections, I know a results summary can be in the infobox (although they've just been removed as someone thinks they must be final first), but I disagree it's "illogical" to have the results up front after the lede – the results are the most important part of the article that readers will want to see and quickly check, and now they have to scroll through pages and pages of waffle about the election date and so on. Anyway, if the consensus locally and globally is to do that I won't fight it, but I don't like it. --Canley (talk) 04:37, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Who called whom to concede?

The current text contains:

"After the bulk of the votes had been counted, Morrison called Albanese to concede and then announced his intention to resign as the Liberal Party leader."

I find it hard to believe, hearing that Albanese's party seems to winning, that Morrison would call him to concede.Redav (talk) 18:25, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't see what's not to get. Typically the losing party concedes. Steelkamp (talk) 18:36, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

I believe "called" means telephoned – not as in encouraged (i.e., Morrison phoned Albanese to concede). — Eric0892 (talk) 20:27, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

I have removed the apparent ambiguity. HiLo48 (talk) 22:02, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm amazed some woke person hasn't changed it to "Morrison reached out to Albanese to concede". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:09, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

There's no indication Morrison ever sought Albanese to concede. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:32, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Bouquets

There's a little way to go, but already I think we can thank the editors for their excellent work. Tony (talk) 05:29, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Poor decision on what voter numbers to list under the seat count

Can we please at least include the two party preferred vote under seat counts or even better replace the single party pre-transfer vote with the two party preferred vote? The TPP is what determines seat allocation and it can confuse international readers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:2004:230:45F6:5787:9D81:7A7B (talk) 00:36, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Removing KAP and CA from the infobox

Clearly time to revisit the infobox inclusion issue given the unusual results of the election, which our usual infobox criteria doesn't anticipate. Including Katter's Australian Party and Centre Alliance in the infobox with their one MP each who are independents in all but name is no longer tenable with the election of many independents. This creates an undue focus on KAP and CA which will be confusing for readers, particularly international readers. Onetwothreeip (talk) 04:10, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

I completely agree with this, even without the results of this election. There is no reason that Katter or Centre Alliance should be more important than independents. They have no chance of forming government, as they are not contesting at least 76 seats. Steelkamp (talk) 06:31, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

I've supported the larger infobox in the past, but in the wake of this election I completely agree. CA is effectively defunct given that its incumbent Senator ran on a separate ticket and apart from Sharkie not ditching the branding the party didn't contest the federal election, and KAP (having run much wider and harder in previous years) did much the same and seems to now only be a party outside the Katters at state level. There's no logical reason that I can see to treat Sharkie and Katter any differently from the other independents. That said, I wouldn't be so keen on applying this retrospectively (especially for CA during the Xenophon years). The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:35, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

To be Devil's Advocate and play the Contrarian, i think it can be reasonable to still include KAP and CA in the infobox if the Greens remain being represented still aswell. The Greens, whilst having a significantly bigger share of votes, only have so-far claimed 3 seats in the House of Representatives. That is more on par with KAP/CA than the bigger league that the Liberal and Labor parties operate at, yet is still included despite this discussion's conclusion that the election's surprise amount of elected independents makes it redundant to include smaller parties. It would also keep it consistent with every Australian Federal Election Wikipedia Page since the 2013 Election, that includes KAP/CA. Although i agree it introduces less clutter and makes it easier for international readers. 2001:8003:7C88:3700:E10A:E6C8:8475:597D (talk) 16:14, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

The difference the Greens have is that they run in every seat.

I personally would include every party with at least 1 seat in the house of reps that runs in more than half of the seats.

This way you see parties with national support who have enough support in concentrated areas to get representation. Micmicm (talk) 01:13, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I think this is a better general rule and much better deals with cases like CA/KAP than what we have in the past. It might be a problem if a regional party like CA or KAP actually won more than one seat, but that's a hypothetical for now. The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:09, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

The difference is that the Greens exceed 10% of the national popular vote. Onetwothreeip (talk) 10:39, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate to include KAP and CA followed by a filler that noted ten independents? While independents are not a party, of course, since the goal of an infobox is to summarize an election (per MOS:INFOBOX), it seem odd to hide the fact that many independents were elected. Particularly when a minority or a weak majority government might mean that they have outsized influence.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 00:16, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

This is also a problem for 2020 Irish general election, where 19 out 160 elected members were independent. We would need to see an example of including independents in the infobox for that to be considered. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:55, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

From this we ought remove the Greens if we remove Katter.

It seems wholly arbitrary to say "Well they get 20% of the vote" or "They run in all seats", For the senate we literally show every single independent. That won a seat. Obviously I see issues with having that but for formalised political parties we should be showing this information to readers. Especially groups like Katters Party do have electoral significance in the country, sometimes more so than the greens. DirectorDirectorDirector (talk) 11:21, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Include comment from French foreign minister in the international reactions?

Looks like there's been some disagreement on this, judging by the revision history. I figure I might as well take responsibility for starting a discussion here as I am the person who made the addition in the first place! So, I put this (or something like it anyway, copyedits notwithstanding) at the end of the International Reactions section:

At a May 21 press conference, then-outgoing French foreign affairs minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said "I can't stop myself from saying that the defeat of Morrison suits me very well", in reference to Australia's cancellation of a French-Australian submarine deal under the Morrison government.

I'm not particularly attached to it being included or anything but I figure it's relevant anyway, being an international reaction from, though not a world leader, the leader of foreign relations of a country which Australia has had some interesting relations with in the past. Also it's a bit more interesting than the typical "leader of x country sends their congratulations" but I'll admit that's not meant to be a relevant factor. I do want to get consensus on this before touching anything, though, considering what's happened already. Paging @Benjaminhunt135 and Micmicm, evidently you have opinions on this matter if you want to discuss here - not that you have to or anything! twotwos (talk) 06:15, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

It's as relevant as any international reaction can be and should absolutely be included. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:30, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:36, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

My perspective here is that including all the highly predictable, totally standard, congratulatory "reactions" in the article is quite pointless, but this French one stands out from the crowd. This is the one that SHOULD be there. HiLo48 (talk) 10:42, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Okay, considering the response here I've gone ahead and put it back, thanks everyone. Side note, if anybody is confident enough to re-order the list (or maybe even give it nice formatting like on the 2019 federal election article) I think that would be good? I don't trust myself with these things :) twotwos (talk) 04:13, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done, please do let me know if there are any objections to this. —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 06:54, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

References

AEC roasts Wikipedia

https://twitter.com/AusElectoralCom/status/1528569405353111552?s=20&t=AjCTdzWOMeI0Y9P-HCbeBw

"Far out. The popular vote means nothing in Australia - unclear why Wikipedia's even including it!

Government is based on the number of seats won in the House. Any other measure is irrelevant."

– Steelkamp (talk) 06:39, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

If anyone from the AEC is reading this, most countries do not rely on the national popular votes for their elections either. We include these figures because reliable media sources report them, such as the AEC itself which is reporting the national popular votes of the two-party-preferred on the front of their results page. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:26, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

More to the point, political parties use these figures in their arguments: "You may have won more seats than us, but more people voted for our side than for yours, so we won a moral victory". The same thing applies in the USA, where who becomes president is determined by the votes of the Electoral College, but people everywhere talk about the raw national numbers for each candidate. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:32, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Is there any precedent for wikipedia including some disclaimer or easy-to-see way of accessing further information as to how the electoral process works, so that those unfamiliar with a specific electoral process can be informed? The infobox, while helpful to those already aware of how the system works, is also making it easy for bad actors to misrepresent the facts.

StrongPencil (talk) 01:25, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps a brief mention in the Background that we use Instant-runoff voting in the Reps and Single transferable vote in the Senate. I think those are the correct articles! WWGB (talk) 01:52, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

That does sound like a good idea, explaining the types of elections / voting systems. The addition of the 2PP numbers there seems like a good idea, it makes it clearer to an unfamiliar passerby that "some process" beyond the first preferences is occurring. StrongPencil (talk) 13:27, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

"Seats changing hands" is a misleading section title

It apparently excludes seats that have a new member from the same party. HiLo48 (talk) 08:19, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

That's correct, "hands" refers to the party holding them. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:27, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Who says so? Surely we could we come up with a better title. Hands are things people have, not parties. HiLo48 (talk) 10:35, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

The ABC uses "changing seats", which makes sense to me. I would disagree with changing it to include seats that haven't changed parties though. The Drover's Wife (talk)

Two points there. Parties aren't officially part of our election process. They aren't mentioned in the constitution. And with an increasing number of independents, parties are again becoming less relevant. What will we do if the voters in a seat replaces one independent with another? HiLo48 (talk) 23:34, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Apparently, the answer to that question is that it isn't included. See 2019 Australian federal election#Seats changing hands, where Helen Haines succeeded Cathy McGowan as an independent. —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 00:16, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

@HiLo48 Parties are absolutely officially part of our election process, and are explicitly mentioned in the Australian Constitution. Section 15 of Part 2 governing casual vacancies "Where a vacancy has at any time occurred in the place of a senator chosen by the people of a State and, at the time when he was so chosen, he was publicly recognized by a particular political party as being an endorsed candidate of that party and publicly represented himself to be such a candidate, a person chosen or appointed under this section in consequence of that vacancy, or in consequence of that vacancy and a subsequent vacancy or vacancies, shall, unless there is no member of that party available to be chosen or appointed, be a member of that party." The AEC also has pretty strict rules governing party registration and identification, and includes party names and symbols on the ballot, making them still very much an integral part of the process. Dauwenkust (talk) 00:34, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

References

Wasn't aware of that. Thanks. We still have to deal with the tsunami of independents. HiLo48 (talk) 02:19, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

It was mentioned above that when Helen Haines succeeded Cathy McGowan, both the ABC and Wikipedia's Seats changing hands section treated independents as a party for this purpose, and the same happened when Alex Greenwich succeeded Clover Moore for the state seat of Sydney, though in both of those candidates the retiring members had made it clear that the independent elected was their successor. I think at least for this election as it is how most news sources I have seen report it, and the wave of independents doesn't break that, because they will all be treated as seats changing hands under this definition so won't get missed. If we start seeing at the next election a lot of independents being replaced by independents, we could review it then. But it is a section heading we have had in most of our Australian election articles, and I don't see the need to change it yet. Dauwenkust (talk) 02:55, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Labelling & Counting Teal Independents

Teal independents are worthy of a line and colour of their own: they campaigned together, their victories are analyzed as part of one group, and they are to wield parliamentary influence together. They even have a brand name and a Wikipedia article.

Yet none of this is apparent in the summaries, which are supposed to make sense of the results. Consequently, some numbers are missing. Most of the dozen "Independents" that were elected were Teals, and some were not. Likewise for the first preferences. We are left to wonder what are the numbers for both subsets.

Technically speaking, specifying "Teal" association is no different than for some 18th or 19th century elections, when political parties were not always formalized. Strict legalism here is a constraint on sharing useful knowledge.

Kahlores (talk) 04:44, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

The problem is primarily in determining who is a part of them. Are Andrew Wilkie, Helen Haines and Rebekha Sharkie Teal independents? One of them Rebekha Sharkie is actually registered to another party.

Also, most people don't care about whether or not the results of those 18th or 19th century results are precisely accurate, they don't have much effect on out modern understanding.

Meanwhile, treating the teals like a party in 2022 might give people the wrong idea and could influence what happens when these same candidates run for election next time. Micmicm (talk) 05:54, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

It would give people the wrong idea? which one exactly? the wrong idea that Teals are a political party when they are not one, legally speaking? this is easily dealt with by keeping the word independent in the cell, for instance:

• "Teal independent", or
• "Independent (Teal)"

In the particular the case of MP Sharkie, a simple † or footnote (using template:efn) can be added instead to avoid the confusion while providing the information.

Kahlores (talk) 08:04, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm strongly opposed to this. They're not a party, it's a fundamental breach of WP:NPOV (that the original post uses "Independents" with scare quotes says it all), and raises other issues already noted. The suggestion that they're going to "wield influence together" in the manner in which you're implying is just opinion. We also usually don't group 18th or 19th century independents for similar reasons because it basically winds up being a matter of Wikipedian opinion. The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:39, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Agree. WWGB (talk) 11:32, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

 Disagree "says it all" -- please don't assume bad faith. My only intent here is to make the summaries more intelligible to the reader in the present and in the future. Teal independents, the article says, received common funding. They obviously operate as a network of candidates. As for their expected behavior in the 47th Parliament, I'm just reading through the punditry, but even if that prediction turns out to be incorrect, it doesn't alter the fact that the "Teal" label has been a factor in the election that needs to be shown somewhere, somehow. Kahlores (talk) 23:31, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

We don't "read through the punditry", and we don't make predictions. (They also received some common funding.) The correct place to discuss the "Teal" label is in prose and campaign section. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:49, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm not making predictions, I'm talking about this past election. Was the Teal label a factor? Yes. Kahlores (talk) 08:40, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

They are widely reported as independent, so should be considered independent. Their association with "teal" or Climate 200 are as relevant as them being female, which are all worthy encyclopaedic content but can't be used to categorise them. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:58, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

That's disingenuous: the relevancy of Climate 200 (Simon Holmes a Court) is about $12 million in the campaign. I'm not necessarily advocating for a category, but at least some form of recognition in the results that they are unlike other independents. Kahlores (talk) 08:40, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

What's disingenuous is implying that they aren't independents. They were not elected as "teal independents" or Climate 200, they were elected as independent. What is the change to the article that you are advocating for? Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:49, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Something to that effect: User:Kahlores/Sandbox/Australia. Other ideas are welcome. Kahlores (talk) 09:05, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

They both appeared on the ballot and will sit in parliament as independents without caveats. Your desire to "recognise" "that they aren't like other independents" is a matter of your point of view and certainly does not belong here. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:28, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

You keep assuming bad faith (WP:GF). Your userpage recounts that you suffered yourself from this type of attitude here. It doesn't help when one puts aside an argument by calling it a "desire". I am completely selfless here. I want to make a logical point:

1. summaries aren't supposed to cling to the official ballot, and can also incorporate recognized labels (see 1890 South Australian colonial election: only "independents" were elected, but no one was fooled as to who was who).
2. in the case of Teals, if being part of this specific network of independent candidates has mattered, then that information should be provided. Of course I never said they were affiliated to a party on the ballot paper and I'm asking for better suggestions as to how to dispel confusion while providing the information.

Kahlores (talk) 12:45, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

"Independents" were not elected in the 1890 South Australian colonial election. Onetwothreeip (talk) 04:29, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

The example on your sandbox, at time of this comment, is applying a non-party political affiliation to the independent candidate, which is far too much information in an infobox or election summary. It would be information that is due in the prose of articles. Including it as you have done would be like attributing other candidates to the faction alignments within their respective parties. Onetwothreeip (talk) 04:34, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

The "teals" are a political news branding, they're not a political party. They're independents who have the single common similarity of believing climate change exists, and a a few of them have reportedly very different views on economic policy. It's similar to how the US has the hype around The Squad (United States Congress). It's not a political organisation, it's just a group of people who have some overlap in policy, and a substantial coverage for being different to the mainstream. Catiline52 (talk) 11:43, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

And if you add to this, the fact that they received funding from the same group, you've just made a good case in favor of labelling them in some way, even with an asterisk, so that we can distinguish them from other independents. (P.S.: on the other hand, the first time the "Squad" was named was in a post by AOC on Instagram, a few days after the midterms [3][4]) Kahlores (talk) 12:45, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

No, I haven't - literally no one else is labelled in election results by their donors alone. There's nothing to distinguish. The "Squad" isn't listed as such in election results either. This attempt to put your own spin on election results really isn't going anywhere. The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:18, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Yesterday it was a "desire", now it's a "spin", you seem to have me in your crosshairs, although I've always tried to be polite and well-reasoned. So far, you have made one counter-argument, saying it's like the "Squad", which indicates that you haven't read my previous message: I just gave links as why the two cases are not equivalent ("Teals" were known, and by that name, before the elections). Kahlores (talk) 14:56, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Wait -- who is who? I responded to Catiline52 and The Drover's Wife said "No, I haven't". Eerie... Kahlores (talk) 15:03, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Removal of Current election message?

Now that primary media coverage has largely subsided, should the "Current event" header be removed, or should we wait for counts to get to 100%? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DimensionalFusion (talk • contribs) 15:35, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

I would say wait until all votes have been counted. Only at that point is the template no longer relevant. Gust Justice (talk) 18:02, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Party Rank order in results box

It seems parties are listed according to their popular vote rather than seat count in the results box. I've noticed this is the case for most other Australian election pages, but it doesn't make much sense. Given that this is an IRV election the popular vote is not that relevant; it would make more sense just to list by seats. 2601:247:447F:5770:C105:20B8:B0EB:45AA (talk) 20:18, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. It's an election, the point is winning seats. We should list according to seats won (and split ties by popular vote). We've had this discussion on other (non-Australian) articles and agreed to go by seat count. Bondegezou (talk) 20:36, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Where did this happen? The vast majority of pages are by votes count, which doesn't lead to problems with several parties having the same number of seats. --Aréat (talk) 09:48, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Indepedents in infobox

Should independents really be listed under their own heading in the infobox? Doesn't it give the wrong impression that they belong to a single party or are affiliated with each other rather than being, well, indepdendent? RoadSmasher420 (talk) 22:55, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

The current infobox reports a net loss of 10 seats. We need some mention of their destination, as they did not fall into a black hole. And a one-person "party" (like Katter) is basically an independent. WWGB (talk) 01:27, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

The difference is a political party is in some way beholden to something other than themselves, have a platform, are registered as a political party ETC. DirectorDirectorDirector (talk) 11:15, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Ex LNP members losing their seats

Should Craig Kelly and George Christensen be added to the Seats Changing Hands table? I think it should be added because even though they were elected in 2019 as Liberal and LNP members respectively, they both left their parties and in the case of Craig, eventually changed parties. The 2013 Australian federal election for example features the then members for Dobell and Fisher losing their seats after leaving their respective parties in the Seats Changing Hands table. Your Next Kid

I think Kelly yes. Christensen is more complicated because he held the seat as an LNP member through to the calling of the election, then did an 11th-hour Senate run for One Nation, so I would be inclined to say that's not a seat changing hands (because it never left the LNP). The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:57, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Christensen left the LNP before the House of Representatives was dissolved and the election was called. He joined One Nation afterwards the dissolution.

As for the 2013 election, the seat of Fisher did not change hands, but Dobell changed from Labor to Liberal. Onetwothreeip (talk) 10:46, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Inconsistency between seat change in infobox and seats listed as 'changing hands'

The infobox seat change figures are currently calculated relative to party totals at dissolution (i.e. less Spence for the ALP; less Hughes and Dawson for the Coalition), yielding change numbers of +10 and -17. A casual observer might have trouble reconciling those figures with the seats listed as switches under 'changing hands.' Obviously makes zero sense to include Spence in this list; feel like Hughes and Dawson are more debatable but would err on the side of not counting them as gains, consistent with precedent in previous election articles.

With that in mind, seems more sensible for the infobox to indicate seat change relative to the previous election (or by-election switches where they've happened, but that's obviously moot in this case). So +9 for the ALP and -20 for the Coalition. Either way I don't see a case against consistent logic for both infobox and change table.

I realise this ground has been covered glancingly in previous discussions, but can't see a conclusion. Happy to be corrected. Bob-in-1945 (talk • contribs) 07:50, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Comparing seats with the previous election is what's usually done on election pages. It make more sense as we compare votes to the previous elections. That only hold for election in which all the house is renewed, though.--Aréat (talk) 14:58, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

My point exactly. The current infobox changes are calculated relative to totals at dissolution, not the previous election, which seems bizarre. Bob-in-1945 (talk • contribs) 09:28, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

first preference vote count identical?!?

Why is the first preference vote numbers for both Coalition and Labour the same at 4,788,921 ? These seems more like a mistake than a coincidence? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.150.81.190 (talk) 08:37, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

 Fixed by someone. WWGB (talk) 10:06, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

The house of reps graph

On the current page the graph for the seat distribution is the rectangular form, can someone change that to the arch like it is on all the other election results bar 1943 ( which also needs fixing cause it’s the only Australian election page without this system) the graph already exists on the page for the house of reps results but I personally think it would have the greens in the cross bench because they are as of yet not a major party (but that’s my preference)AnAustralianHistoryBuff (talk) 12:27, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Pearce

There seems to be an error on the first preference results map which shows the liberal party winning the first preference vote in Pearce when in reality labor won that metric by a large amount. 2001:8003:9446:DA00:ADD3:3CC9:ECE5:E519 (talk) 10:38, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

 Fixed —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 06:34, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Map Barker Minuscule Mistake

In the map of electorate results in the city of Adelaide has the outskirts of Barker labelled as no. 28 (which is Leichhardt) when it should be no. 27. Not sure if this is the same for the other electoral maps (primary vote and 2pp) but worth having a look at 124.169.243.159 (talk) 03:21, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Hello, thanks for pointing out the mistake! I will fix the error and upload a new version soon. — Eric0892 (talk) 04:22, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Changes in and differences between percentage values are percentage points

My corrections in the main text have been reverted by someone called HiLo48. I wonder why s/he was quite content beforehand to have six instances of "pp" (one in the first results table for the House, and five staring out at us in the infobox). "pp" is correctly used in those six instances. And all other instances in tables correctly omit "%", which is OK.

A "10%" swing to Labor in WA would be, for example, from 45% last time to 49.5%; a 10-point swing would be from 45% to 55%. I don't have the actual figures—these are an example.

I'm going to reinstate "percentage points" (or "points" for short) tomorrow, unless someone can give a very good reason why this article should have wrong information. Tony (talk) 11:11, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Can you point me at a formal definition for percentage points meaning what you claim it to mean? I have seen other usages. I teach maths. I have never seen it described in a high school maths curriculum. I just find it a confusing, ambiguous term. HiLo48 (talk) 11:18, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

See the article linked to in the heading above. Tony (talk) 02:29, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree with HiLo48. I've never seen this interpretation in Australian political context before. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:33, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

We've had this discussion before in 2010, and my argument there was that either is correct, which was backed up by Antony Green's 2010 Election Q&A: "Either is correct. The argument comes about because a change in interest rates from 5% to 6% would always be described as a one percentage-point change. So using simlar terminology, if the Labor vote in a seat went from 50% to 53%, this would be a three percentage point swing. However, the number of voters shifting to creating this swing would also correspond to three percent of the electorate as a whole, so to say there has been a three percent swing is also valid because this is the percentage of the electorate to change." Also, the AEC itself uses the heading "Swing %" in their result tables. You also have to look at the context and common usage, why would you ever need to use an actual percentage change of an electoral margin (which, by the way, in your example would be 49.5% not 50.5%)? Lastly I find using just "points" for short far more ambiguous than using "percent swing", but I'm fine with "percentage point swing" although it's a little long. --Canley (talk) 00:55, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm surprised that anyone would find "10-point swing" (or margin) ambiguous. Antony Green's failure on this matter is the only disapointment in his otherwise superlative research and presentations. I suppose he dislikes saying "two point six point swing", which I concede is ungainly in oral mode (but perfectly fine in a written WP article: "2.6-point swing"). For a long time, Nine News (The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age normally use "percentage points" or "points", as does Guardian Australia (e.g. this random sample, and ["with a share of 15.7 per cent, but the result represents a drop of 3.2 percentage points (from 18.9) in the previous survey." (SMH). "Indeed I know that a directive on the difference between "percentage" and "(percentage) point" from the SMH's editor in chief went to all journalists and subeditors 15 years ago. In the US, "point" is universal, whether in news reports or in cinema and TV political dramas. And recall the use of "basis points" in finance, which is directly derived from "point" ("Reserve Bank hikes official interest rate by 50 basis points to 0.85% to curb inflation" (a headline). Add to this the fact that "pp" already appeared and remains in the article overleaf, as I wrote yesterday. Tony (talk) 02:28, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

I note that none of the examples above relate to the subject being discussed here. We are not in the US, and this usage is definitely not universal here, and particularly in a political context. The Drover's Wife (talk) 02:35, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Why is there already usage in the article, then? Tony (talk) 06:00, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Because some people use imprecise, ambiguous language as having more precise meaning than it actually does? Anyway, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS tells us that it doesn't count for much. HiLo48 (talk) 06:31, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

A swing from 50% to 60% is a 10% swing, as 60 is 10 more than 50. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:08, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

No, that's a 20% change. 20% of 50% is 10%. That's the way percentages are used. Tony (talk) 00:51, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Tony, as a Maths teacher, I totally disagree. It's confusing territory. I tell students to use a few more words when expressing such situations, i.e. explicitly say that someone's vote went from 50% to 60%. It's not too much of a strain and avoids ambiguity. HiLo48 (talk) 03:16, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

You're taking 10% of the original 50% but that's a rate of growth, not a swing. A 10% swing means 10% of the total vote. The difference between 60% of the vote and 50% of the vote is 10% of the vote, and the swing of the vote is 10%. In no universe is a 10% swing (moving from 50% to 60%) a 20% swing. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:17, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Guardian Australia, this morning, opens with: ""Anthony Albanese is experiencing a post-election boost not seen since Kevin Rudd was elected in 2007, with the prime minister’s net approval rating up 40 points since Labor’s victory last month." link. And lower down: "Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott both recorded a jump of between 10 and 15 percentage points while Malcolm Turnbull went backwards by 11 points." On a related issue, why do editors not care that the article here already used "pp", correctly, in a few places, and is now internally inconsistent? BTW, HiLo, being a maths teacher (note lowercase "m") doesn't give you a monopoly on logic, sadly. Tony (talk) 22:57, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

What on earth is a point? That's poor journalism from The Guardian. My key contribution here as a maths teacher is that I have never seen percentage points mentioned in the maths curriculum, nor in any textbook. And the most common use of the word "point" is as a decimal point, presumably not what The Guardian is talking about. I will continue to argue strongly against the use of poorly defined and ambiguous language. HiLo48 (talk) 23:18, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

I have no problem with "pp" being used correctly, and I'm not sure what you are suggesting would be the reason for editors to have such problem. There is nothing in the Guardian Australia article that indicates it is incorrect that percentage-swing is the difference of the previous vote proportion and the current vote proportion. A change from 50% to 60% remains a 10% swing, and an editor would have to disprove that basic fact to make a successful argument. Onetwothreeip (talk) 10:56, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

But what IS the correct usage and meaning of percentage point, and who says so? Is there total agreement on that defintion? HiLo48 (talk) 11:46, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

The expression percentage point is widely used in statistics to avoid the confusion between growth difference and growth factor. But I doubt the abbreviation "pp" is widely known. Kahlores (talk) 12:54, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Unless there is a broadly recognised, unarguable definition outside that specialist field, it doesn't really avoid confusion at all. HiLo48 (talk) 21:29, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Why is it "specialist" or "ambiguous" if newspapers such as Guardian Australia are using it at the head of articles—without feeling the need to gloss it? And why should comparisons and differences between percentages apply only to some areas (e.g. interest rates) but not others? Yes, you've announced you'll continue to try to block more-precise terminology, on the basis that not using percentage points is not ambiguous. It is ambiguous, whereas points are perfectly clear to our readers (except for you). Tony (talk) 05:47, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

The Guardian DID NOT use it. They just used points, not percentage points! See, even you are being sloppy in your usage. HiLo48 (talk) 06:28, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

• I don't understand the problem here, nor why you accuse me of being "sloppy". The fact that Guardian Australia didn't even bother to use the full form suggests that they trust their readers to understand the shorter form "point(s)" without spelling it out in full. Often writers will use the full form first and then the short form. It's very simple. Tony (talk) 12:59, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

"Point" obviously has many meanings. HiLo48 (talk) 23:14, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

"Percentage" obviously has many meanings, like many English words. e.g.: "• any proportion or share in relation to a whole: only a tiny percentage of the day trippers are aware of the village's gastronomic distinction. • an amount, such as an allowance or commission, that is a proportion of a larger sum of money: I hope to be on a percentage. • [mass noun] informal personal benefit or advantage: I don't see the percentage in selling perfectly good furniture." [Encarta dictionary]. It's obviously in the context, like "Labor had a 10-point swing in WA". Tony (talk) 00:46, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

That's precisely the language I'm unhappy with. Why not simply say "Labor's vote increased from x% to y%"? HiLo48 (talk) 03:49, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

The more common usage would be to say that Labor had a 10% swing in Western Australia, and we should use that consistently. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:36, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

I prefer precision where it's easily doable, and it is here. HiLo48 (talk) 08:54, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

It's a real problem that you're teaching maths to children and can't work out that the percentage-points–percent distinction IS the only precise way. Tony (talk) 14:06, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Please drop the insults. I have never seen percentage points mentioned in the Australian Maths curriculum. HiLo48 (talk) 23:16, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

So something has to appear in the Australian Maths curriculum for it to be allowed on the English Wikipedia? Really? Tony (talk) 08:56, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

I think with that we can close the discussion. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:57, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

And leave the article inconsistent? Some use of percentage points, but mostly not? Tony (talk) 08:55, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

How is the article inconsistent, and how does this article use percentage points? If you want to continue the overall discussion, it would be constructive to apologise to HiLo48 for lying about what they have said. Personal attacks are bad enough, we shouldn't allow people's talk page discussion comments to be lied about. Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:36, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

• Red alert: The Conversation (Australian edition) two days ago: "On every occasion, the government’s two-party vote went backwards. In the 1950s and in the 1970s and 1980s this loss of votes wasn’t particularly large: 0.3 percentage points (1951), 1.0 (1974), 0.9 (1977) and 1.4 (1984) – an average of 0.9. But since the late 1990s, the loss of votes has been greater: 4.6 percentage points (1998), 2.6 (2010) and 3.1 (2016) – an average of 3.4." And throughout the article. Tony (talk) 10:54, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

It's simply a poor choice of words when there are universally acceptable, more precise choices available. HiLo48 (talk) 22:45, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

The Conversation is not incorrect in using that style, but we have no obligation to copy the style of one or two sources. Saying that there was a 5% swing means the same thing as a 5 percentage-point swing, but the former is much more preferable for use in this article as it is more concise and more common. Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:39, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree with @Tony1 that "pp" (percentage points) is the correct terminology here. When we say "% change", we often mean relative change, calculated by using this formula:

Let $x$ be the initial value, and $y$ be the final value.

$${\text{Relative change}}={\frac {y-x}{x}}\times 100$$

——

Percentage point, on the other hand, is a simple arithmetic difference, i.e.:

Let $x$ be the initial value, and $y$ be the final value.

$${\text{Parentage point}}=y-x$$

So, let's suppose a party won 50% of the vote last election, and 60% this election. Using the formula for relative change, the party's vote increased by 20%. Using the pp formula, the party's vote increased by 10 (percentage) points. :)

— Eric0892 (talk) 05:32, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Nobody is saying "% change". What is used consistently in Australian political discourse is "% swing", which has nothing to do with relative change. A party winning 60% of the vote in one election and 50% of the vote in the previous elected has gained a swing of 10%, as what is being referred to is 10% of the original 100%. "Percentage point" is technically correct but redundant, as it is more confusing, less concise and less used than "swing". A candidate's vote changing from 50% to 60% will always and forever be a 10% swing, regardless of relative change or percentage points. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:24, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

References

Movements between percentages should be expressed in terms of percentage points. Tony is totally correct. ITBF (talk) 00:29, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Who says so? HiLo48 (talk) 03:46, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

• Today's Daily Mail': "A new poll last night gave Labour an 11-point lead in the polls. But the survey by Savanta ComRes was carried out before this week's crippling rail strikes brought Britain to a halt." Just thought you'd like to know, since the article needs to be comprehesible globally. Tony (talk) 09:54, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Have a look at the Revision history for this Talk page. Beside your edit it says "Tag: use of deprecated (unreliable) source". The Daily Mail is populist, tabloid, British garbage. Not a good place to look for excellent usage of English. HiLo48 (talk) 10:15, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Guardian Australia, today: "more than half of Guardian Essential respondents (56%) continued to approve of the prime minister’s performance (down three points since June), while 24% disapproved (up six points in a month)." Tony (talk) 22:06, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

"Points" alone is worse than "percentage points". Very slangy. My mechanic son-in-law fixed the points on my old car at the weekend. HiLo48 (talk) 23:42, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

They used "percentage points" initially in the article. It is common practice to subsequently abbreviate to "points". But of course, we're not allowed to use this because your maths curriculum doesn't contain it. I presume since you're reduced to bagging the full vs abbreviated versions that you no longer rail against the wide use of "points/percentage points". At least that's some progress. Tony (talk) 05:49, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

You don't understand "worse than"? My position hasn't changed. And no, I don't own the national curriculum. HiLo48 (talk) 07:08, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Did I say you owned some children's curriculum? No. Get it right. You seem to think you own this article. Tony (talk) 09:46, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

• Today's offering, from Guardian Australia: " 'Meanwhile profits have accounted for 2.5 percentage points of the increase in the GDP deflator (about 60 percent of the total)', the Australia Institute said." But the kiddies' maths curriculum doesn't refer to percentage points, so we're not allowed to use it. Tony (talk) 22:57, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Your comments are moving further and further away from encouraging mature, respectful discussion. HiLo48 (talk) 00:03, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

If you don't want mention of your precious maths curriculum, why did you raise it in the first place? Tony (talk) 05:17, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Your use there of the word precious moves the discussion even further away from encouraging mature, respectful discussion. HiLo48 (talk) 05:26, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

And your edit-summary "Grow up" encourages "mature, respectful discussion"? Tony (talk) 05:57, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

That's MY goal. Yours? HiLo48 (talk) 06:04, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Come on, knock it off you two. Quit the petty sniping and get back to improving the article. Thanks, WWGB (talk) 06:08, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

I have made quite a number of comments in that vein. They have been mocked. My other comments were simply in response to the mocking. Had the mocking not been there, I would not have made my other comments. At this stage I have no more to add to the constructive comments I have made. HiLo48 (talk) 06:14, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

• For a change, here's the SMH today, wrongly using percentage points: "In the near-term Russia’s finessing of its gas supplies into Europe is going to damage the European economies – it is estimated that a complete cut-off would wipe about 1.5 percentage points off the EU’s GDP – and force governments to make invidious choices between households and industries." (My underlining) There's no excuse for that; I believe the SMH editor send around a memo to all journalists in 2004 instructing them to use "percentage" and "percentage point" (or just "point") properly in their articles. Tony (talk) 04:02, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
• Another morsel of the many each week. This time Nine's (SMH's) political correspondent David Crowe in an article titled Post-election surge in support for Anthony Albanese’s new Labor government: "While the Coalition held a lead of 10 percentage points on economic management in the final Resolve survey before the election, Labor now leads by 9 percentage points on the same issue." Tony (talk) 11:17, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
• Another political journalist in the SMH today: "But the Labor governments of the Howard era were more likely to take power with a primary vote about 10 points lower than their predecessors in the 1970s and 80s. For instance, the gap between Neville Wran’s NSW Labor breakthrough in 1976 and Bob Carr’s in 1995 was 8.5 points – 49.8 per cent compared with 41.3 per cent." Tony (talk) 00:23, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
• This week's morsel: calculator showing differences between percentages and percentage points. Tony (talk) 00:53, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
• Today's morsel is from The Age: "[Victorian] Labor’s primary vote is at 42 per cent, just 1 percentage point lower than it was at the “Danslide” victory of four years ago, while the Liberals’ primary has plummeted to a new low of 28 per cent, down seven percentage points since 2018 when the Coalition lost a swag of blue-ribbon seats." Tony (talk) 02:18, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Not sure I get the point of these "weekly morsels" hammering this point, given that these very same outlets are just as likely to refer to a percent swing, per cent swing, a swing of n per cent, or a primary vote ... increased by n per cent as they are to "percentage points" or "points". It's not like the Nine papers have some inviolable style guide (or editor's memo) mandating the use of "percentage points", and clearly consider either term to be correct and comprehensible, as they seem to use either with about equal frequency. --Canley (talk) 09:03, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, some journalists get it wrong. In particular, Anthony Green doesn't like saying it, because of the repetition: e.g., "twelve point six point margin". Well, that's too bad. Here we're in written mode, not oral mode, and we aspire to conceptual and linguistic precision. Like finding downcased versions of capped items in article titles out there, the guideline is that that is enough to downcase on WP. Except here it's not a matter of typographical niceties: it's a matter of avoiding misleading our readers. Sometimes the meaning is indeed misleading if % is used instead of point. That's sufficient to use it systemically on WP. Tony (talk) 11:48, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

• If you're tired of examples from the Nine press, here's one today in The Guardian: "As if to ram this home, Labour’s poll lead has advanced to 17 points." Tony (talk)
• Another in the Guardian Australia today: "Bolsonaro finished five percentage points behind the leftist former leader Lula." If I read news more widely I'm sure there'd be a cascade of examples here. And if I were to cite examples from non-political topics (like interest rates). Tony (talk) 01:49, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

coalition name appearing twice in result tables

I noticed someone added "Liberal/National Coalition" and "Coalition total" in the result tables. It seem a needless repetition to me. The lower one is enough.--Aréat (talk) 04:58, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Are you talking about the Senate table where it says "Liberal/National joint ticket" and "Liberal/National Coalition"? That's correct – in some states (like NSW and Victoria) the Liberal and National parties run on a joint ticket, and in other states they don't (no Nationals in SA, Tasmania and no joint ticket in WA), so it's necessary to split the joint tickets from the lone party tickets within the Coalition. --Canley (talk) 05:12, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

No, I got this one, thanks. I was talking about this version. I went ahead with the change since then, what do you think?--Aréat (talk) 05:57, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Ah I see, yes, that's better. --Canley (talk) 06:10, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Post-election pendulum

Could we get a post-election pendulum up? Antony Green has published one here: https://antonygreen.com.au/2022-post-federal-election-pendulum/ Meowxr (talk) 03:56, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

There's one at Post-election pendulum for the 2022 Australian federal election, it might need updating though. --Canley (talk) 04:51, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Based on Green's first sentence about the number of members NOT associated with the majors, is it really valid to even call this a pendulum these days? HiLo48 (talk) 05:45, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

A pendulum is a pendulum, but it's utility is reduced when there are more non-traditional contests. It's still interesting nonetheless. Meowxr (talk) 06:17, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Do you know what a pendulum actually is, outside politics? HiLo48 (talk) 12:12, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

@Meowxr May I suggest we use the updated pendulum format created by Kevin Bonham which is designed to accommodate more non classic contests? I believe it is the most recent post on his blog if you would like to take a look. MostlyAO (talk) 12:58, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

@MostlyAO I wouldn't mind that. Meowxr (talk) 13:02, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Inconsistent senate table

The Senate results table is a mess. Legalise Cannabis, Liberal Democrats are there and then all of a sudden it jumps to Reason, Indigenous-Aboriginal and Democrats, parties which didn't contest the election in all states. Even though other parties like Animal Justice got more votes than Reason and contested in all states. Consolidate all of the minor parties that didn't win/lose a seat into the others section (i.e. every party after UAP that did not win or lose a seat) or list all of them. Also the seat change counter adds up to +1. There needs to be a reduction of one in the 'Other' category to account for the other Nick Xenophon Team seat being lost. 61.68.96.201 (talk) 12:06, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, same with the House of Representatives. Previous examples were inclusion if: a) they receive/lose a member, or b) they get around 3-4% of the national vote. No idea why microparties such as the Democrats and Australian Federation Party are there, despite getting less than some non-included parties. Catiline52 (talk) 00:37, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

I think it's the complication of using the section/excerpt system, which is probably not necessary now the results are final and static. I've replaced the Senate table with a static wikitable removing any parties which didn't win or lose a seat, and including Griff in the Other row as losing a seat. I'll do the House of Reps table now too. --Canley (talk) 01:20, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Move Results to first section

Most election articles put the results summary near the top of the page as it is likely to be the thing most people are visiting the article to see. this article places it all the way down at number 12. should we move it? I'll do it myself if people are ok with it IAmSeamonkey2 (talk) 13:02, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. HiLo48 (talk) 23:11, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I like the idea. Micmicm (talk) 03:20, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

@Yilku1 appears to have reverted the move, and I am not sure that is because they are unaware of the conversation here. For my part I think I prefer it in a more events order since top line results are in the info box, and the detailed results make sense to me after discussing the events of the election, but I am not to fussed. Dauwenkust (talk) 04:40, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this is how it's done in all election articles. Yilku1 (talk) 16:14, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I am not actually sure it is consistent across all election articles though. All the recent NSW state elections have results first, and Victorian State elections seem to go back and forth. Queensland state elections also seem to list results or key dates then results first. So at least across Australia's three biggest states Results first appears to be more common but not universal. It doesn't appear Australian elections are using a standard template that I can see. Dauwenkust (talk) 02:56, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

The value of the first preferences only map?

What is the value of having a map which records 'results by first preferences' when it has the potential to be used as misinformation that the Coalition were more popular than the ALP at the election? Trying to measure the results of Australian elections by first-past-the-post thinking is, in my view, not useful to readers, especially those less familiar with the nature of STV. I would like to hear what others think. J2m5 (talk) 08:35, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Use of 'horseshoe' graphic

In the results section, why is a consensus style parliamentary diagram used, as well as the adversarial? We have a Westminster system and the horseshoe isn't relevant for us us it? James.au (talk) 10:40, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Incorrect number of representatives

In the electoral system section it says that senators are elected in state wide six member districts, when in actuality they are twelve member districts. R.Windu (talk) 09:06, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

two candidate preferred contest by electorate incorrect

This map has numerous factual errors such as Ryan being a Labor vs Green contest and labeling one of the Labor vs Green contests in Melbourne as Coalition vs Independent. The seat of Forrest is also just left blank. MostlyAO (talk) 13:50, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Info Box Arguments

It seems clear from all the previous arguments that people are quite split on if KAP should be represented anymore than the greens should.

There seems to have been a constant attack by people trying to make the info box appear more American or something? We have to make sure we are are not giving the same undue weight to the greens and look at this from an unbiased lense.

So the way I see it the options current are either we:

1: Show just the two major party groups.

2: Include only formalised parties and groupings like on other Wikipedia pages such as the Irish elections etc, and only show the letter representation if the leader of the party is not in parliament.

3: Start a new trend of also representing Independents as a separate grouping represented with "IND" as they show up in news articles etc, and expect readers to understand that independents are not a united group that always work together. We can even hammer it home by having "NA" for "Seats to form government" DirectorDirectorDirector (talk) 11:58, 19 January 2024 (UTC)