Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics/Archive 3

Genius image

Political parties in government since 1945.

  Labor

  Liberal

  National/Country

  Other Coalition

  Other

  No government

Whoever created this image is a genius. Two requests, can it be updated to include 2007 (there aren't any more state elections this year are there?) and can a new image be created which has two maps next to each other going through the years, with the second map showing the federal government colours changing over the years? It would be perfect for the Politics of Australia article and maybe even Australia#Politics. Thanks, WikiTownsvillian 12:51, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

STATE LIBERAL LEADER COLIN BARNETT WAS SWORN IN AS PREMIER OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA 23/09/08 AFTER WINNING THE 2008 STATE ELECTION. THE WA LIBERALS FORMED A MINORITY GOVERNMENT WITH THE NATIONALS.

Also when SA is two different colours does that indicate which party has control of local government in Adelaide? If so might it be considered that the same thing can be done for Brisbane which is also a partisan city council... ... ... and possibly, dare I ask it, Townsville too. Thanks, WikiTownsvillian 12:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

User:Astrokey44 is the user you need to talk to. —Moondyne 13:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the colour of the border showing the colour of the (federal) prime minister already? I don't see what you mean by SA in two different colours. JPD (talk) 15:31, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe he means that it's an in between colour? This was because the party in power was the LCL, which was a fusion of the Liberal and Country parties. As for local government, as most states do not allow parties in local government (a handy smokescreen for the fact they're actually there but just silently so), it's not clear what purpose this would serve. Orderinchaos 16:27, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I definitely wouldn't include local government. It would just complicate an image that is already conveying a lot of information. "Most states do not allow parties in local government" sounds like a very loose statement, though. JPD (talk) 16:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

One that's generally true though - as far as I know NSW and QLD are the only states which *do* - WA, SA, NT, TAS do not have them at all, VIC do but they are not political parties but more groupings (eg Melbourne Living). ACT don't have local councils. QLD seem to be inconsistent in their application - BCC have them, Pine Rivers and Redlands don't. Orderinchaos 17:22, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not about the application of the rules in Queensland, it's just that some councils/councillors are open about their affiliations and some aren't, but something that might be of interest to you guys is that if they do run as endorsed candidates for a political party and they resign in the 12 month lead up to a local gov election than the nominee of that political party gets the council seat until the election, similar to the rules for the Aust. Senate. This is happening at the moment in Townsville, the deputy mayor has resigned and she is being replaced by the ALP nominee until next year's election.[1][2] With SA, I'm not saying it is an in between coalition colour, at several points Adelaide turns a completely different colour to the rest of SA. Thanks, WikiTownsvillian 00:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I see what JPD's saying now and I was confusing the national colour for Adelaide because of the shape of the coast line in SA, my apologies. WikiTownsvillian 00:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it would be better to have two maps next to each other with one for federal like you said before - it doesnt seem obvious that is what the coastline is - I didn't know how else to show it. If you wanted to expand it back further pre-1945 and made a series of maps, I could put them together in an animation --Astrokey44 02:34, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd just put the explanation in the caption personally. Orderinchaos 04:09, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Doing that would be ok, but I would also suggest making the border at least three times thicker, at first I didn't even notice the rest of the border changing colour except where it gets complex in SA. Thanks, WikiTownsvillian 05:08, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Ha, that's brilliant. I agree that the Federal status needs to be clearer. Perhaps the picture could be a touch larger if possible? Recurring dreams 00:04, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant resized when placed in an article. Also, perhaps some explanation of the variant colours? Recurring dreams 00:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I've added a legend to the thumb above.--cj | talk 01:53, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Notability of student factions

Hi all, could some of you take a look at the latest discussion at Talk:Australian Liberal Students' Federation it would be great to get the opinion of some of you as to whether these student politics faction articles meet the standard needed for notability, my impression at the moment is that they do not and should be marked for deletion. Thanks, WikiTownsvillian 13:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I tend to share your opinion - they only become notable through their ex-members' later political activity, usually, and can be referenced in those members' articles (perhaps a category would do the trick). My problem with these kinds of articles is very few of them satisfy WP:V and WP:RS. Orderinchaos 16:00, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Please note things have become more hostile at Talk:Australian Liberal Students' Federation with accusations of conflicts of interest and personal attacks, I still feel all these articles should be deleted. Thanks, WikiTownsvillian 06:13, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Electoral Maps

Many of the current electoral maps (i.e. [3]) will be out of date come the federal election. Does anyone know how they were originally produced, so that a new set could be generated? --Aioth 05:23, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they are all from [4]. He has also made new ones, but I'm not sure if they're in the public domain. Frickeg 07:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Adam was a long-time Wikipedia editor, so it probably can't hurt to contact him at his website and ask if they are. Rebecca 07:42, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Referendum CD 1906-1999 from AEC

Does anyone happen to have a copy of this? I'm told it contains historic electoral maps so I was considering doing maps for historic federal elections. Timeshift 05:56, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

There's a copy in our library. I could get it tomorrow, rip the data and send it over. Recurring dreams 06:00, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Assuming nobody here already has a copy which would make it easier, absolutely! Thankyou. Timeshift 06:16, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Just had a look, it's about 94 meg. Would be easier to get the AEC in your state to send one to you for free (they do that, that's how I got mine.) Orderinchaos 07:04, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Federal elections - improvements?

I got a copy of the CD as per above, but unfortunately only contains electorate maps as they were when referendums were held, so I don't want to use them for electorate maps on federal election pages. Does anyone know where else historic maps can be found electronically? I'm also looking to see if there are ways to further improve federal election pages, can anyone think of other worthwhile inclusions for federal election pages? Timeshift 04:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Two party preferred figures differ slightly for some earlier elections such as the 1954 election where http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/Australian_Electoral_History/House_of_Representative_1949_Present.htm has Labor on 50.7% whereas http://australianpolitics.com/elections/two-party/2-party-preferred.shtml has Labor on 50.5%, sourced by the AEC... suggestions? Timeshift 17:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind 2PP figures for elections were pretty meaningless back then as most seats had only 2 contestants (not always Lib/Nat vs ALP either) and quite a few had only 1, and it was not required for electoral authorities to count preferences if one party had got over 50%. The electoral situation changed markedly from 1972 onwards, when both parties started facing each other as a matter of course, and especially from 1984 with the new boundaries, but the first election I have a *full* preference count for is in fact 1990. I've talked to AEC officials about this and even *they* don't have these figures, not even in a library or whatnot - they were quite willing for me to come in and look at what they had, too. :/ Orderinchaos 21:43, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Just as a point of clarification, as per the updates on the fed pages, the last election where uncontested seats existed was the 1955 election. Timeshift 23:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

ACOTF: Local government in Australia

Australian literature was Australian collaboration from 13 May 2007 to 27 May 2007

• 6 contributors made 10 edits
• The article increased from 8,927 bytes to 9,162 bytes
• See [http://en.wikipedia.org/w%

Nick Bolkus

This article is particularly poor, offering serious NPOV problems by focusing almost exclusively on a single scandal out of somebody's 25-year career in public service. It really needs somebody's attention. Can somebody please add a bit more? Phil Sandifer 15:31, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Gary Nairn

Further to my note on AWNB about the need to watch articles in the lead up to the Federal election, I found that Gary Nairn (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) suffers a bit from bias with some additions about woodchipping. The article history suggests single issue editing from Fuscipes (talk · contribs) who edited only on 2 February 2007 to add the woodchipping info. Unfortunately I have not the time to redress the balance at this stage (which would not in my view consist of removing the material) - perhaps others might like to have a look. Regards --Golden Wattle ^talk 00:45, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Committees & Patrons

Hello all, I would like to raise a matter for discussion regarding committees & Patroned organisations. I was intending to start working on NSW Central Coast MPs however my first effort has met some objection. I feel that the committees an MP chooses to stand on or the local community group he or she lends their name to as patron show a longer term commitment and may give a better indication of that person than media announcements released by their office or speeches they have written. One of these items has been removed from the Ken Ticehurst article with a recommendation on the talk page for the other to be removed. Would appreciate other opinions please before I work on any others. AusBrian 13:19, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Will leave others to comment on the rest, but with patronage of community organisations that very often comes with the job, rather than being a personal choice of the MP concerned, so I'm not sure how relevant it would be to the MP's article. Orderinchaos 13:48, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, on reflection I take your point here. Would still like to see some comments on committees though. AusBrian 14:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I support listing parliamentary committee interests--Golden Wattle ^talk 09:01, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Steve Bracks

Just flagging for attention - the article Steve Bracks, while comprehensive in some areas, lacks clear flow in parts and in others expresses a decidedly (although very generally) pro-Liberal bias. Might be an idea if some of our editors were to look at this given a lot of people will be viewing it in the coming days. Orderinchaos 15:54, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Party colours for older parties?

Following the brilliant Image:Australian states political.gif and the timeline used for PMs, I thought it might be handy to have something to show the changes in political power for the PM and the states/territories since 1901 all at once. It is located here and is still a work in progress. Did the earlier political parties have colours? If so, that might help with the image (and with some other things that i was planning to do). The only artistic licence that I have taken so far with the timeline is to have the predecessors to the Liberal Party in varying shades of blue (except for the Comm. Liberals - i ran out of shades). - 52 Pickup 20:22, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, an editor was requesting suggestions for older party colours here. It would be good to keep them consistent.--cj | talk 00:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. A certain level of consistency may be possible, but for the purpose of the timeline (see below) it is necessary to have some sort of contrast - the colours shown below are still not fixed. A tricky part is in the first decades where there are liberal governments (but not in the sense of the modern Libs), so for the moment I've just named that "old liberal". Any feedback would be appreciated - 52 Pickup 19:53, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

{{Timeline Australian leaders}}

EMILY's list Australia

Hi all, just flaging that EMILY's List Australia was deleted today for not being notable enough, I would have thought this organisation was substantial enough to be notable but didn't see the discussion on it. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 07:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The log says "tagged as spam, deleted as non-notable group". Google cache shows it wasnt a brilliant article, but it was linked to from pages Julia Gillard, Penny Wong, Rosy Buchanan, Lindy Nelson-Carr and EMILY's List. In my opinion it is notable enough. John Vandenberg 08:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to note my possible conflict of interest I wrote the Lindy Nelson-Carr article last night which included a link to this article, my reviewing it today and finding a red link was what brought this deletion to my attention. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 08:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

He had also deleted EXIT (Australia), the major national pro-euthanasia organisation run by Philip Nitschke. Both of these organisations are not remotely questionable - they're among our larger and more significant political organisations, and are positively swimming in reliable sources. As such, I've briefly unleashed Beczilla and told the deleting admin to be more careful in future. Rebecca 08:22, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Rebecca!

(edit conflict) There is no time like the present to fix the article; 61 google news archive results should be plenty to write a decent article. This ABC report indicates that as of 2005, the list was nine years old which is in conflict with the deleted article which stated that it was started in 1994. John Vandenberg 08:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, these organisations are swimming in sources - books, newspaper articles, television programs, journal articles. They could do with an expansion, yes, but I'm not particularly in the mood, and I'm not very fond of someone demanding I clean up a specific perfectly notable article because some idiot from the States decided to delete it. If I speedy deleted National Organization for Women, I'd expect to be roundly hung, drawn and quartered. It's a shame some can't show us the same courtesy. Rebecca 08:37, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh how I would like to quarter people sometimes! Anyway, a small fraction of the sources you elude to are now on the article, and 1996 is now the recorded year of establishment. Case closed, and time for dinner me thinks. John Vandenberg 10:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Bob McMullan

There is an anon editor updating the article on Bob McMullan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and accusing myself and another registered editor of ALP bias. Appreciate if somebody else could join the happy throng. Thanks --Golden Wattle ^talk 00:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Considering that user's only other contribution to wikipedia is vandalism[5] I don't think this anon is worth engaging with, they’re just silly accusations. Thanks, WikiTownsvillian 01:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe that all of the recent IP based edits are the one person - the Climate Change edit is probably somebody else given its timing of some months ago. That anon editor has made some statements about other editors suggesting we are biassed. I think he is wrong but ... hence I am asking for another set of eyes.--Golden Wattle ^talk 04:53, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted this anonymous editor's latest contribution and removed the personal attack on the article's talk page. I think your judgement is good. Gimboid13 06:46, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Rt Hon/Hon

Can we develop some consistency with these titles? Random people who don't frequent auspolitics are adding and removing and linking hon and rt hon here there and everywhere. Timeshift 04:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

This explanation might help http://www.efa.org.au/Campaigns/modes.html. Gimboid13 06:57, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Please tell me how Kevin Rudd is a Rt Hon? And the fact that there have been disputes in the past over whether to include this title AT ALL except for the lead intro of their article. Timeshift 08:49, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Seems highly unlikely that he is. See also The Right Honourable. Gimboid13 10:21, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

That's my issue. See recent edits to JH and KR. Timeshift 10:26, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The official blurb (quoted from the Australian Government style manual, 1978 edition) is:

A. "The Right Honourable"-- 1. Members of the Privy Council, appointed for life; 2. The Lord Mayors of Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney during their term of office.

B. "The Honourable"-- 1. Executive Councillors 2. President of the Senate 3. Speaker of the House of Representatives 4. Members of the Commonwealth Judiciary and also
5. Ministers of State Governments; 6. Presidents and Members of Legislative Councils; 7. Speakers of Legislative Assemblies; 8. Chief Justices and Puisne Judges of State Supreme Courts; 9. President and Judges of the NSW Court of Appeal.
Retention of titles-- By virtue of their membership of the Federal Executive Council, Commonwealth ministers and assistant ministers are entitled to be styled The Honourable for life. It is also customary for ministers of the State Government of Victoria to retain the title after leaving office.
The following may be recommended to the Queen for approval to retain the title on retirement: 1. Ministers of state governments who have served at least one year as premier or three years as minister; 2. Presidents of the Senate and State Legislative Councils, and Speakers of the House of Representatives and State Legislative Assemblies, who have served three years in office; 3. Members of Legislative Councils with continuous service of not less than ten years; 4. Members of the Commonwealth and State Judiciaries.

Cheers Bjenks 11:52, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Simple question - is Rudd a Rt Hon? Timeshift 11:54, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

He isn't. Neither is Howard, I'm fairly sure - or any Prime Minister since what, Menzies, Holt, someone like that? Rebecca 12:00, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Fraser IIRC. Timeshift 12:02, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what you're specifically referring to, but Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)#Honorific prefixes may apply.--cj | talk 07:49, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Weird, as I can find a lot of refs to Paul Keating as "Rt Hon". However, it seems to have fallen from favour, the Parliament House website marks any current or former ministers and the speaker as the Honourable, with no Right Honourables. Kevin Rudd is at present Kevin Rudd MP according to the site. Orderinchaos 18:04, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject Australian Politics userbox

To those who have a wikiproject australian politics userbox to indicate participation, 52 Pickup has created a rather nice userbox.

Userbox: {{User WP AUP}}

This user is a member of
WikiProject
Australian politics.

To add or replace, simply copy the User WP AUP text including the {{}} above the userbox on the right and paste in to your user page coding. It also means you get added to Category:WikiProject Australian politics members (see bottom of User:Timeshift9). Timeshift 07:23, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

copyright ok images

Can anyone tell me why Image:RuddFamily.JPG should be deleted when kevin07.com copyright allows images to be used for things like this? Timeshift 18:14, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

See image talk page. I concur with reponse from reponse from Garion96. The copyright release is not free enough - it needs to be GFDL or Creative Commons - free of encumbrances. It isn't [6]! Note he is stated to support Open Source [7] so perhaps he is prepared to alter the copyright. --Golden Wattle ^talk 21:34, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Candidates for the 2007 Federal election

A question has been posed at Talk:Candidates of the Australian general election, 2007#Articles about election candidates are speedily deleted!. I have provided an answer based on my reading of WP:Bio. Others might want to comment also.--Golden Wattle ^talk 20:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Troy Williams

Troy Williams (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is a candidate for the Division of Fraser. I am not sure if he is notable enough notwithstanding Rebecca's assertion back in February that if he is in Who's Who and therefore not a candidate for deletion[8]. Inclusion in Who's Who does not to my mind get over the threshhold of notability - it might help because iinclusion is by invitation - ie you have got to the attention of the editors, but essentially it is akin to vanity publishing - you do after all provide your own entry. I would not think that every one who is in Who's Who meets WP:Bio standards. As mentioned on the article talk page, his peers, ie CEOs of similar organisations do not have entries. Nor do we have entries on any building industry group- why not have an article on the building industry bodies before having an article on their CEOs. The article history reveals I think an attempt to use Wikipedia for political purposes rather than creating an encyclopaedia article. Most of the contributers have only contributed to this article. All references are close to Williams, ie newsletters of institutions for which he has worked. I don't think meet the criteria for reliable independant secondary sources. I think assertions about

• the substantial contribution he has made to Australian Standards and technical codes associated with reduced global warming and ozone depleting gases used by the fire protection industry and
• Under his leadership FPA Australia became a Registered Training Organisation, the first independent organisation in Australia to offer training in portable fire equipment serving and training and
• During his time at CTIQ the organisation doubled in size and became a considerable influence in body corporate law reform

are really tendentious when backed up by the references they are. If several independant sources supported the claim, that would be OK but ... Any thoughts? --Golden Wattle ^talk 20:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Templates

I can't figure out how to get in to the PMs of Australia template to revert it - it's causing issues as can be seen at the bottom of Billy Hughes. Personally I don't see any need to change tables, and on the contrary a lot of newbies wouldn't know to click show to reveal what's in the box. Timeshift 21:30, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't actually see what the problem is but I have reverted a recent change [9]. Does that help? --Golden Wattle ^talk 21:40, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Prime Ministers of Australia - ta, fixed. Timeshift 23:20, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Who likes games?

Who wants to play match the face? I've started adding names to the captions for (image at right)

, if anyone else is familiar or is good at matching someone from historical Labor MP photos we have on here to those in the picture... that would be great :-) Members of the Australian House of Representatives, 1901-1903 was of some help. Timeshift 11:12, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Is that Joseph Cook on the right of Andrew Fisher? JRG 05:34, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Cook changed from Labour to Free Trade in 1894 - the photo is dated 1901. Timeshift 08:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

You might want to use this image of the Labor members elected to the third parliament. That image is pretty low-res but there are closeups of each person available in this set. --bainer (talk) 05:43, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm having a bugger of a time with this, I think I need a couple of Panadeine now. I'm using Members of the Australian House of Representatives, 1901-1903 and using your link and also some searching, and i've added some, but a couple names I've added i'm a bit iffy on, and the rest are stumping me, they could be one they could be the other. A group effort would be great if anyone else out there wants to help as well. Timeshift 08:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Is the picture of all the Labor MPs elected or those who stood as candidates, because the page on the election says 14 MPs were elected, and there are more than that in the photo. Recurring dreams 08:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Elected. I'll remind you again of the specific term I used - MPs - as in, members of parliament. Parliament is more than just the house of reps ;-) Timeshift 08:23, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, of course! There's no page yet for the members of the senate; is a list available somewhere? Recurring dreams 08:32, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Try this page and subpages. --bainer (talk) 12:31, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I've added the ministries of First Fisher Ministry, Second Fisher Ministry and Third Fisher Ministry, but i'm still having troubles picking them apart. Anyone else? Timeshift 05:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi people. This page happily gives the details of who is who in the photo. --Roisterer 02:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Electoral box results

Forgive me if I don't see it, but in the tables with the results for each electoral district, how are the candidates ordered. For example, I would think the top candidate would be the one with the most votes. Can someone explain the pattern to me? Joe 09:24 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Read this Timeshift 21:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I understand that, but wouldn't it make sense to put the results in order of most votes to least? For example in the UK and US the ballots are ordered differently but they don't go and make the electoral results in that order. Joe 10:53 16 August 2007 (UTC)

For anyone wondering, this discussion is continuing here. Frickeg 03:12, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Party Infoboxes

In an attempt to remove labels such as "centre left/right, liberal/social conservative/democracy" out of the intro but remain prominent, I noticed Labour Party (UK) and it has it all in the infobox... I tried adding "position = Centre-Left|" to Labor's infobox but it didn't add it... am I missing something? Timeshift 03:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The Aussie version of the template doesn't have the "position" field. I guess it could be added. - 52 Pickup 06:48, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

How can I do that? Timeshift 07:12, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Just did it :) - 52 Pickup 07:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Very nice, Thanks :-) Timeshift 07:30, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I await the bunch of sensitive folk who whinge about the FFP and Green pages, and perhaps the Democrats page. Timeshift 07:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

You never know :) although what you have put for those entries is perfectly valid. I've also added a "deputy" field for the deputy leader. Now I'm working on adapting the template so it can also be used for defunct parties. - 52 Pickup 07:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm whinging. As I said as Talk:Australian Democrats, how can you possibly class the Democrats as "centrist" if Labor are "Centre Left", i.e. by what measure are the Democrats right of the ALP? Peter Ballard 00:56, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Depends on which part of the Democrats you look at. Some bits of it are/were very right wing on anything which isn't social policy. Orderinchaos 06:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Re United Australia Party, as well as the successor I believe a predecessor section would be good. Timeshift 08:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

You beat me to the punch there :) Yeah I'm using United Australia Party as a test page for using the template for defunct parties. A predecessor section makes sense (so long as only the immediate predecessors are used). I'll give it a go. - 52 Pickup 08:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC) Done. - 52 Pickup 08:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't all Parties have Parliamentary Leaders and Party Leaders? can Australian Parliamentary Leader be added as a field? WikiTownsvillian 08:12, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Party leader, as it is used at the moment, refers to the parliamentary leader, not the party president - is that the difference you are referring to? If so, that can be done. - 52 Pickup 08:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes sorry I mean Parliamentary Leader and Party President. If it is an article on the political party and not just the parliamentary component of the party than the Party President should have a very predominant position as the head/figure head of the organisation. WikiTownsvillian 09:11, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I've given it a go and you can see its use on the ALP entry. Not sure about the ordering - maybe the president should go after the leader(s), I'm not sure. - 52 Pickup 09:34, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I think this position field is distinctly unhelpful. It is un-necessary to state a party's ideology and immediately follow it with a supposed position on in the 'political spectrum', which cannot always be determined accurately. In the case of the Democrats (whose article, as an aside, is even shoddier than I remember), it should be sufficient to state "social liberal".--cj | talk 13:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, especially when such a definition can't be achieved by consulting reliable sources, and some may find it non neutral. Especially nowadays that most parties have wings - the "wet" Liberals would object to being classified as conservatives while the right of the ALP would object to being labelled lefties of any colour, and the Democrats, Nationals and Family First are simply too hard to classify. In some cases a definition can be obtained from the party's membership of various international organisations. Orderinchaos 06:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, good point. Even though other countries use this field, I guess it is not mandatory. If you don't want to use it, then it can be disabled. - 52 Pickup 08:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I've seen numerous international news pages refer to the ALP as centre-left and Libs as centre-right, and relatively, they are. I've removed centre-left from the Dems, i feel small-l liberalism with a focus on social progressivism is a good description in the ideology field. Timeshift 17:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I've changed the Dems ideology to social liberalism. Small-l-liberalism is a neologism, not an ideology, and social progressivism falls under social liberalism. Back to the template's functions, could the international affiliation field be made optional so it shows only when specified? It simply wastes space to have it there for unaffiliated parties.--cj | talk 15:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Fixed the optional section so it actually works. The problem is that many of the pages have "No affiliation" hardcoded into them, so that needs to be fixed. Orderinchaos 15:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm wondering whether the see also section should be removed. It's not particularly relevant or even useful, and is there for no other reason than because it was in the British template I modified it from. Thoughts?--cj | talk 15:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I've managed to make the affiliation field invisible if "no affiliation" is even. I'm glad someone else feels this way about this last section. During my recent edits to the template, I considered deleting this part. Just because other countries use this format, it doesn't mean we need to. In fact, if we can come up with something better, it may become the standard for other countries. What further suggestions does anyone have? - 52 Pickup 19:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

new source of images of politicians

Does this and this pass the test? if so can the pic of Beattie be cropped or does that breach this type of copyright? Thanks, WikiTownsvillian 08:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Images under that license are fine, and can be cropped (if they couldnt' be cropped, then the license wouldn't be free enough for Wikipedia). However, I don't think the Beattie picture actually has been released under a CC license. The flickr page says "all rights reserved". JPD (talk) 12:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Gough Whitlam

The Image of Whitlam has been deleted. WikiTownsvillian 09:57, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I've replaced it with a cropped version of a freely licensed image.--cj | talk 11:39, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Is there an image floating round of November 11, 1975, of Gough standing on the steps of Old Parliament House? That photo is so iconic to Australian history that it would surely qualify as fair use. (Note I'm not saying that we should use this for the infobox, just an additional photo). JRG 00:57, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The National Library has stack of photos of that moment. I've uploaded this one of Gough on the steps, although we might want one of him standing powerfully behind David Smith.--cj | talk 13:11, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I was having a look through the Gough Whitlam article and it seems to have acquired some cobwebs, repetition and disjointed/listish prose in parts. I'm happy to put in a bit to try and get it back up to FA status, I'd be thrilled if others (especially those with access to resources which I might not, being in WA) would be able to help. Orderinchaos 16:14, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it has a lot to be desired before it can be a Featured Article again... he's probably an ALP supporter's most liked ex-PM, especially by the left, for all the reforms he carried through, which means he has many people who dislike him too. A lot of people edit the article and continue to change it, being unaware the quality is slowly dropping as those edits increase, and eventually it's no longer worthy of FA. I'd love the article to be a quality FA, it would be very pleasing. I just don't know how long it would hold up for. Timeshift 23:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It's funny how he's a hero of the Left now, but back then, they came within about two votes of having him expelled from the party. I guess some can't realise the good in front of them, except in retrospect. It'd be good to see this article restored, if not to FA status, then at least to a decent standard.--cj | talk 01:22, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course it's 20/20. Don't you remember all the cries of gloom and doom and we were all told we'd rue the day that Rudd took over from Beazley, just cause he managed to breathe above water on a 51% 2pp cause of workchoices but a 30% preferred pm deficit? Timeshift 01:47, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Andrew Fisher for GA

I've just nominated Andrew Fisher, 5th Prime Minister of Australia as a Good Article and would appreciate a few peer reviews. Also, are the rationales for the photos not good enough? Thanks for any comments/help provided. Timeshift 02:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

IMHO there's something a little excessive about irrelevant photos of kids, etc (Aren't there any dogs and cats to go in? (:-) Also there is excessive unwarranted capitalisation. This is (with some folk) a contentious fad of style, so I won't jump into making the changes, but I'd prefer the top bit to read:

Andrew Fisher (29 August 1862 – 22 October 1928), Australian politician and fifth prime minister of Australia. Fisher's 1910-13 ministry completed a vast legislative programme that makes him, with protectionist Alfred Deakin, the founder of the statutory structure of the new nation. According to D. J. Murphy, his contemporaries saw him as honest and trustworthy, but surpassed by Billy Hughes in wit, oratory and brilliance. Fisher's record however reveals a legacy of reforms and national development which lasted beyond the divisions that Hughes left in the Labor Party and in Australia. Fisher's second prime ministership in 1910 saw Australia's (and the world's) first majority labour party government.

One thing I have done with PMs is made an effort to include a picture of their wife. And if it has the PM in it too, all the better. And if it has their kids in the same picture, or even the dog, why not IMHO - it's all the one picture. Timeshift 07:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Vic Park By-election

Do you guys think that the 2006 Victoria Park by-election would pass notability, ive drafted one here just going to ask here, if it would pass. Please reply on my talk page.Twenty Years 04:09, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it would pass - I thought it interesting, referenced and sufficiently notable Regards--Golden Wattle ^talk 00:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Rising vandalism

"My sort of recollection of Wikipedia sites is they are a bit, sort of, a bit anti-government, they are sort of a bit negative about people in the government," Mr Downer said today. "They seem to have a system where there is actually some editorial control over Wikipedia, so it's not quite what it appears. "It's a bit misleading because Wikipedia itself has its own editorial policy so what is edited in, it could be anyone in the public in cyberspace, can be edited out by the Wikipedia editorial board so it seems to me to a little misleading." govt article edit news articles. I wonder if this gains some legs as the election draws closer. Can we all please make a concerted attempt to keep vandalism at bay, I've already noticed a sharp increase in vandalism today since the articles on the extent of the govt editing wikipedia were released, albiet most likely from readers. If we all keep an eye on the various pages (721 pages on my watchlist, mostly Aus politics) then we should be able to keep on top of it without letting things slip past. Timeshift 07:10, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

A few PMC ones I found while idling around:

[10]

[11] Immigration to Australia (minor edit)

[12] Immigration to Australia (minor edit)

[13] (User talk:CJ) (interestingly notes "I'm on a different computer so will have a different IP address today")

[14] Mandatory detention in Australia (a terribly spelt effort to fix a POV rant with opposite POV)

[15] Andrew Bolt (removing a note that someone hadn't had an arts grant since 1985)

[16] Peter Costello (removing "Captain Smirk")

Thankfully it seems this may be a storm in a teacup. Orderinchaos 11:09, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I was on recent changes patrol a little while ago, and it seems there was quite heavy vandalism from Australian IP addresses. I'm sure it will settle down soon. Recurring dreams 11:18, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Mind you the level of coverage from the abc and the print media today will probably increase the idle fingers over this weekend - the howard vandalism of a few minutes ago to give any indication - good luck to anyone monitoring the heavy traffic and dealing with it SatuSuro 11:24, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I did a data dump of articles from Category:WikiProject Australian politics articles to form a project watchlist, which we can monitor through the related changes tool. We might want to either limit the watchlist to prominent articles or regularly update it with all articles as the category grows. --cj | talk 14:05, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I might keep a look out for any vandalism on Government related articles. Lonelygirl16 08:03, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Articles affected:

• John Howard
• Alexander Downer
• Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (Australia)
• Peter Costello
• Morris Iemma

Some of these have given way to recentism. Editorial oversight would be appreciated.--cj | talk 11:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Howard Government

I have decided to be bold and create the Howard Government article to resolve the BLP issues with the John Howard article and so there is a good article which gives an overview of the Howard Administration, a pretty significant period of continuous Government in Australia. I have not put any significant content into the article because I figured what ever I put in there would be considered POV by one editor or the other and that would be a distraction from the main game. I'd be happy to contribute to this article but I figured I'd leave the initial contributions to others to get the feel of how the article will pan out. I would suggest however that it take a very broad overview approach, whenever a certain section starts getting overly detailed it can be branched out to its own article, or content moved to a more appropriate article. Keeping with WP:NPOV the article should concentrate fairly evenly between what are considered to be the 'achievements' of the Howard Government and what are considered to be the 'controversies' of the administration. Would welcome all those who would like to contribute! Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 09:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This seems like an excellent idea to me. Good work :) Orderinchaos 10:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Great work. May I suggest a summary of each link on that article, so it reads less like a directory? Recurring dreams 11:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment Recurring dreams. RE more content, that's the idea :) it is currently the skeleton of an article, but I don't want to do a heaps of work on it and then have it torn to shreds, so I've just done the structure, the content should be a collaboration of all the editors who contribute regularly to the political articles. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 11:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm a bit cautious about this. I think there is a great potential for this to become an unwieldy, contentious mess, with little encyclopædic value. That's not a reason not to pursue it, I realise, but I think it ought to inform how we shape it. There seems little in the way of a precedent for such an article, the most similar I can find being Presidency of George W. Bush, Premiership of Tony Blair and (infelicitously) Stephen Harper as Prime Minister of Canada. I'm not particularly fond of the latter two articles as I think they inaccurately over-emphasise the 'presidentialisation' of Westminster systems (which, admittedly, is more pronounced in Australia than anywhere else), and my alternate suggestion would be to discuss the Howard Government in a unified Howard Ministry article, but I do think it beneficial do follow existing templates. How does this sound?--cj | talk 13:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

hi CJ, not that I mind, but I would have thought that that the title "Premiership of John Howard" would be more presidential then Howard Government, I like Premiership as well but the reason I used Howard Government was because that is the common title given in Australia. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 12:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I agree. I lamented that in my initial comment. I just think it's prudent, however, to follow the precedent we have in this case (even though, as aforementioned, I'd prefer it to be approached differently).--cj | talk 12:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, looking at the precedents I think the UK ones are the most close to what we're looking at, although I was looking for a article which I would consider to be a bit more broad (less focusing on Howard and his decisions and more focussing on the Cabinet as a whole and the Government in Parliament as a whole) but whatever works, this is why I didn't want to get too far into it without discussion. looking at the Canadian article you used as an example; that looks more like a sub-article of the bio article, so even though political system wise Australia is very similar to Canada, I don't think that would be a good addition, although the John Howard article does emphasis a huge amount on his premiership and might benefit from some sub articles. I propose that further discussion take place on the article's talk page. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 13:04, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea - separating Howard the man (a biographical entry of a man who does and says things and personally interacts with others) from the government he leads (an entry about the politics, policies, laws passed and political climate, as well as the elections) is a fundamentally sound idea. Orderinchaos 04:33, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

While I'm not yet convinced of the idea of splitting the articles, I'll hold my judgment till I see the Howard article without all the Government stuff. My feeling is there won't be enough to hold a substantial article - and the Howard Prime Ministership article is awful at present, essentially just being a lead with links to each Howard ministry. What I'm not happy about is the "Premiership of John Howard" title. "Premiership"???? - as titles in WP are meant to conform to common usage, this definitely does not have my vote. No one in their right mind in Australia would use such a term, even if it is technically correct. Besides the dodgy name, the title is also way too Presidential, and could be seen as too hagiographic. JRG 12:25, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree that the name is dodgy. Also, this article is not meant to be *about* the man, or his prime ministership - that is for the John Howard article. Most of the stuff we'll be commenting on actually will be stuff his ministers did, or things which he didn't even instigate which affected politics in the term. That is inherently going to involve stuff which he did or said to some extent, but only to the extent that it affects the topics raised in the article. I sort of see it with a similar scope to the "Political Chronicle" series in the Journal of Politics and History, though with the Wikipedia policy and guidelines firmly enforced on them to avoid speculation, biased political crap or the like creeping in. Orderinchaos 12:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Alec. You do lots of good work for Wikipedia. I'm not sure I understand your reasoning for separating the articles. I'm not sure what WP:BLP issues would be solved by the separation. It's my understanding of BLP that the main concern is libel, rather than controversy. So if the subject has had a controversial life, those issues can be mentioned in a bio, provided it is balanced. But if some Wiki text is libelous, then it doesn't matter where it is located in Wikipedia, it is still libelous. Re Content: In 1988, Howard made comments about Asian people. Would that go in the bio or the premiership article? It was his opinion before he was Prime Minister. In 1996, as PM, Howard said "the best thing you could ever do in your life was to start up a business with nothing, work your insides out." Which section would that go? It's his personal opinion, but he was in office. My impression of the Howard Prime Ministership is that he was the government. He called all the shots. The rest of the executive were following orders. It's hard to separate Howard and his personal views from the government. cheers,Lester2 13:06, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

How about doing the split by government terms, e.g. "Australian Federal Government 2004-2007". The reason I like this split is that, for all pre-2004 stuff, we have reasonable historical perspective and we can make a reasonable article. If you look at the John Howard article, you will see (or at least I see) that pre-2004 it's pretty good, but after 2004 the important and the petty issues are all mixed in, because the editors (like everyone else) don't have a good idea of what is long-term important and what is not. Peter Ballard 13:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I may be missing the point; but can't the content that this article was made to hold (issues about Howard government what don't belong in his article) just go into the Howard ministry articles; these are just lists where they could actually be used to discuss all sorts of relevant things about the policy of the government at the time. Premiership of John Howard - where this now resides - is a rather pointless list - but might be useful as a navigation template on the JH article.--Peta 00:46, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

This would be my preference. Or, as I suggested above, a unified Howard Ministry article (I really don't see the reason for separating successive ministries — it's not done by the Brits or Canucks).--cj | talk 01:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I can see the usefulness of having first and second ministry etc, if these articles were expanded beyond lists.--Peta 01:26, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Addressing each of your comments:
JRG - the idea would not be to remove the sections relating to his term in government from the John Howard article but to keep the John Howard article to things that he has directly done as Prime Minister as well as what he has done in all the other periods of his life. I think there will be more than enough to keep the John Howard article going even if some of the more detailed content was moved to the Howard Government article, but can we also keep in mind that the John Howard article is only rated B, it might have been significantly edited over time and it might have had attention from a lot of editors (and even more vandals) but the general quality of the article is not very high and it does focus way too much on material sourced from news-sources when in reality there is a good quantity of high quality works published about the man. As I said above it is my instinct also that Premiership of John Howard is too presidential for the system of government in Australia, additionally there are confusions which are not present in the UK because Australia has States and the heads of those governments are titled Premier.
Orderinchaos - you hit the nail on the head, this is not an article about what John Howard did while he was Prime Minister, it is a broad historical overview of a defined period of our political history, while of course it is summarised as the period John Howard was at the helm, but my vision for the article was that it would be bigger than any one particular office holder, that it be about a period of our history which has changed Australia. Political crap aside it is something that would be worth while collaborating on in order to build an interesting article.
Lester2 - Thanks for the compliment, the BLP issue is the fundamental problem you are having on the John Howard article, it is not an article about the Howard Government, it is a biography of a person, while Prime Minister is of course the most powerful position, and the PM is put up as the symbol of the Government as a whole, in reality this is not necessarily the case, government is extremely complex and there is barely Ministerial accountability any more, let alone Prime Ministerial accountability the Government of the last ten years is not exclusively Howard as the leader. Howard's comments in 1988 would not be relevant to this article as they were made a long time before he became PM, they may be relevant to the bio page but that is not the issue for discussion here. As for not being able to separate the personal and the Government, I respectfully disagree. I don't know where that particular comment about pulling yourself up by your boot straps would go, if anywhere. Unless it is highly relevant or significant quotes probably shouldn't be in an encyclopaedic article in the first place, it is obvious that John Howard and his Government are economic free marketers, that can be easily demonstrated by their policies and legislation rather than individual quotes that are used to sell (or criticise) them.. My criteria would be that (unless they are very broad, feature length, all-encompassing articles) thing that are found in the day to day news would not have enough historical perspective (notability) to make it into an article this broad. Yet again I’m not commenting on the bio dispute.
Peter Ballard - I agree with your reasoning but not your conclusion. The Government has been one continuous entity with broadly similar policies the whole way through (Centre-Right), the fact that the more recent stuff is more challenging should not be a deterrent to doing it, it just means as you said that it needs to be monitored. We would have the same problem with anything that is current, the article would never be finished but it can be brought to a very good standard whether the Government is still a current one or a past government. Think of it this way, if it wasn't a present Government, if we were discussing the Hawke Government would you say the same thing, that it should be divided into terms? Having said all that I'm very willing to get into it if we decide to go ahead with this but the way you have proposed by doing it in terms with four separate articles.
Peta/PDH - regarding your points about separating it out into the current Ministry articles, I would say the same as I've just said in response to Peter Ballard, I think it would be a more complete and interesting article as one whole, but if it is the will of the consensus then I'm happy to separate it into terms of office. It is currently a pointless list because it is only the skeleton of the article, the idea of course would be to add content into each section, the election sections would be summaries of the election articles and the terms would be overviews of the historical Governmental achievements and controversies during that period.
Thanks, WikiTownsvillian 06:13, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Your skeleton format seems to anticipate it being divided into terms anyway, but with an overview article on top to hold it together. Orderinchaos 03:27, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

The line "Decisions of the Executive are made either by the Cabinet or by the appropriate Minister." could be debated. There has been much written and much commentary that says the Howard government, more than any previous government, is run out of Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Some have described it like an autocracy. Howard makes the major policy decisions.Also, would it be better to have an article segmented into the policy headings, rather than a timeline? Lester2 00:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Often due to the need for WP:RS we find ourselves talking about what should be, rather than what is, as only some level of insider knowledge can determine compliance to principle. There are also many examples in this term alone where ministers have made decisions which have gone straight to media. Orderinchaos 04:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

In every Government the Prime Minister or Premier makes the major policy decisions (technically backed up by the Cabinet), however the decision making process in Government is obviously vast. Minister's have much discretion in their own rights under legislation covered by their portfolio. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 10:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Well this doesn't seem to have gone anywhere... I'll self-nominate for AfD unless anyone has an objection. WikiTownsvillian 14:20, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Pages created

Is there a way to tell how many or which pages i've started/created over my time on wikipedia? Thanks in advance. Timeshift 23:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The newpages log here only seems to record recent new page creations. I guess you could look through your 7 thousand odd edits and find all the pages you've created :) Recurring dreams 00:21, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Victorian general election, 2010

You can't be serious... Timeshift 00:24, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

A little early? Recurring dreams 00:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

the article has been prodded. WP:CRYSTAL clearly applies.--Golden Wattle ^talk 00:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The PROD tag has been removed :-( --Golden Wattle ^talk 01:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

See, this is why wikipedia continues to astound me in its intricate yet incredible inconsistency. The 2010 SA election was deleted as it was too early, yet the Victorian one is allowed? Nice work... Timeshift 01:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The Victorian election is not "allowed" - the editor who deprodded has not read WP:Crystal carefully and now it will need to go to AfD :-( I don't have time to set the AfD up but would support it.--Golden Wattle ^talk 01:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Anyone, even an IP, can remove a PROD. That doesn't mean it's allowed though... and by the looks of the present AfD, I doubt it'll last long. Orderinchaos 04:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

So nominated to AfD. --Bduke 02:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:CRYSTAL, "Individual scheduled or expected future events should only be included if the event is notable and almost certain to take place." I do not believe this article violates WP:CRYSTAL in any way, although the 2007 by-elections are not relevant to this article and should be moved. The one that should be deleted is Victorian legislative election, 2010 as it is not part of the Victorian elections template and contains unsourced original research. I have prod'd that one. The 2010 South Australian election article was deleted because nobody contested the prod. Dbromage [Talk] 05:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Anyone with a stub fetish?

Only just came across this page, it looks like a very old page. Seems it may have slipped through the cracks... Timeshift 02:57, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

It's quite a useful page and I often use it to disambiguate MPs & Senators' pages. Adam Carr compiled it some years ago and in a month or so someone will need to update it with about 30 or so new names. --Roisterer 07:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

The reverting of non-user talk pages

Referring to here as a generic example, as many do it, not just BTL, I must put fourth my disagreement in this practice. I do not believe that talk pages should at any time be reverted, cleaned, or scrubbed (only archived), except in a case of obvious blatant vandalism. My 2c. Timeshift 15:09, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Disagreed - we're often required to do it in cases of BLP violation, certain cases involving tendentious debating (although would not be common as a situation and would usually be done by an admin after taking consultation with others). Also see the list at this section. That being said, in general, it's bad manners to refactor others comments on non-user talk pages without permission and it should most definitely not be attempted by a party in a dispute. Orderinchaos 15:16, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I also disagree as per my recent edit to the talk page of the Kevin Andrews article--Golden Wattle ^talk 00:42, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Is it time to cut this article down by 70%?

Joestella decided to delete the vast majority of the It's Time article and is now digging his heals in, if anyone has any opinion feel free to join the talk page discussion. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 14:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I noticed Joe decided to begin editing wikipedia several weeks ago, and was wondering how long it would take before he couldn't resist and started editing political pages again. I suspect it will be times like this that make me appreciate when wiki politics is quiet and dosile. Timeshift 14:19, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The Daily Grind and Talk:The Daily Grind. Comments appreciated. Timeshift 09:55, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

WA more conservative than the average state?

I've always considered WA and QLD to be more conservative than the average state, as they have more of a tendancy to reject referenda and have a higher (~5% more) liberal vote in 2pp terms and has more or less been so forever and a day. Trying to settle a debate here. Timeshift 14:09, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The debate was with me for the record - I argued that Labor vote does not necessarily equal progressive vote, as many strong Labor areas are poor areas (especially in cities), and WA isn't exactly a state of poverty right now (we've been in a near-permanent boom with no signs of subsiding since the early 1960s) - so you'd expect a more middle-of-the-road vote with newer areas tending Liberal, which is exactly what has happened. As for since federation, ALP were historically a federalist party, being welcomed in the goldfields of Kalgoorlie and the north by mostly expatriate miners who'd moved here from Victoria, but treated with great suspicion by Perth people and those from the southwest. One might observe, too, that at state level in Western Australia, the ALP have been in government for about half of the years since its firm establishment as a party in the early 1900s, compared with just under a third federally, and that many of those years of Labor government in WA coincide with higher Liberal votes in federal elections - for example during the Whitlam election when only Perth, Swan, Fremantle and Kalgoorlie were won by Labor and Forrest and Stirling were actually lost to the Liberals, WA had a Labor government and in the 1974 state election, 57% of metropolitan Perth people placed a vote for Labor. I can't think of a single referendum which was rejected by WA that wasn't also rejected by every other state as well, and many of them could be classified as centralising - something WA has always resisted strongly. I find it hard to see how any of these makes WA less progressive, and it probably goes to show to some extent why voting patterns are unreliable in this area - Tasmania, a *far* more conservative state, has a history of Labor domination. Orderinchaos 14:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Democratic Labor Party

Would someone be so kind as to give this party article an infobox and a colour? I'd like to utilise the colour template feature in Victorian state by-elections, 2007, but the DLP link only exists for the old DLP... Thanks! —Nightstallion 19:12, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The best thing to use here would be an election box, which are a lot easier to use than wikitables. Use the party name "Democratic Labor" for the current DLP and "DLP" for the old one. The colour template is currently a simple white (as for most minor parties) but you can change this by editing the Template:Australian politics/party colours/Democratic Labor. Hope this helps. Frickeg 21:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd love to, but what *is* the official colour of the current DLP? —Nightstallion 00:50, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Australian political parties tend not to have official colours. We just have to go on the basis of what's commonly used in the media or, for some minor parties, make an arbitrary selection.--cj | talk 01:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

nods Fair enough -- so what *is* usually used for the current DLP? —Nightstallion 09:56, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Antony Green on ABC Elections uses grey in common with many other minor parties. The party's official site has a funny wheat-colour, but I'm not sure that this is the official colour. I would either pick one arbitrarily or have a look at Division of Banks which includes the currently used colour for the old DLP. Good luck! Frickeg 00:06, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

existing National Library of Australia images

If you happen to come across an NLA-sourced image using a fair-use template, please add Usage of out of copyright or NLA-copyright-owned pictures on Wikipedia to the rationale such as the one here. Thankyou. Timeshift 03:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Why? This doesn't change anything - they're either in-copyright (in which case we can't use them without a fair use explanation), or they're out of copyright, in which case we can use them. In either case, the position of the NLA is irrelevant. I also think the paragraph in the NLA article should be removed - it's unnecessary and a blatant self-reference. Rebecca 04:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes - it's mainly for the in-copyright images such as this and this which as a result now have a far more solid rationale against them, freshly editted and out the oven. Isn't that what wikipedia and this whole rationale thing is all about? I've done as they asked for Paul Keating's source by crediting the author, and shown that the NLA is aware of their images being used with the vast majority being ok with them as they are cited as belonging to the NLA with a link. I'm only trying to please the image nazis. Timeshift 04:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I realise that, but I still don't think it changes anything. I'm not sure where you got the idea of them being okay with copyrighted images being used as long as there was a link back - my reading of that email simply suggested that the information as to whether it was copyrighted or non-copyrighted was available if one clicked on the link to the image for more detailed source information. Rebecca 05:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate this effort, but IMO these changes should be reverted. Wikipedia specific legal advice re use of NLA images should be in the Wikipedia: namespace; I cant see how it is of importance to all of our readers of the NLA article. John Vandenberg 05:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok I will move it to the discussion pages. Timeshift 05:03, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Done - and the six images i've associated with that section have had their link changed. It's about as solid as a rationale is going to get Rebecca. Timeshift 05:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! John Vandenberg 05:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to note that all but one Labor Prime Minister now has an out of copyright image :-) Timeshift 05:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for showing my ignorance, but since it is absolutely impossible to get a copyright free image of a politician while they are speaking in/in the Parliament, wouldn't that fit the criteria for fair use that there are so many problems with because as living people it in theory is easy to get a photo of them??? Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 06:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you'll find my latest image edits have solved a lot of issues - new Fraser, Whitlam, Keating, Sneddon, Peacock and Hewson copyright-free images for all! Take note of the permissions section for their images. I think that's pretty damn solid. Timeshift 06:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes but an additional (and not necessarily in the infobox) "action shot" of each of them in parliament would GREATLY improve all the articles to my mind, after all other than local members most Australians would only know MPs and Senators in the context of them being in Parliament. WikiTownsvillian 06:36, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Theres no reason why you couldn't, assuming you follow the same rule of rationale that I have in the image edits i've done. Make sure its NLA and it doesn't have an access condition slapped on it (again see rationale detail here), and you're home safe! :D Timeshift 06:48, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I really don't see how this adds anything to any rationales. Either the image is PD, it is released under a free license, or it is not free. If it is PD, it doesn't matter what the NLA say. If copyright subsists in the image, then we should say who the copyright holder is, but whether it is the NLA or not doesn't make a difference. What makes a difference is whether the copyright owner has released it under a free license. If they have, we need that information, if they haven't, we need a fair use rationale.

Statements such as "Compared with this it is not in copyright (no access conditions)" make no sense at all. The reply from the NLA does not tell us that images on their site are out of copyright unless they are mentioned in an access conditions field. In fact, the reply is confused. Apart from the fact that it implies that JRG was working for them when he uploaded the Menzies image, it isn't talking about their site, but explaining how images work on Wikipedia! It says that clicking on the image gives a larger version of the image together with copyright information. That description applies to Wikipedia images, but not the NLA site.

Even if the email did tell us anything about the copyright status of NLA images, it definitely doesn't give us anything to shore up fair use rationales. Even if the copyright is owned by the NLA, unless they release it undre a free license, we still need a normal rationale. The weak points of the rationales remain the (repeated) claims that the photo itself is historically significant and discussed in the article, has no monetary value, and the slightly more likely, if not obvious, claim that there are no free alternatives (note that it is free alternatives that are relevant, not copyleft alternatives). Nothing the NLA has said shores up any of these claims. (Note also that the mention of WP as a non-profit encyclopedia in the rationales is slightly missing the point.) JPD (talk) 09:21, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

See this. One link shows an image with "Access conditions - Copyright restrictions may apply". The ones i've uploaded/updated do not. If we were infringing copyright, they certainly didn't make any mention of it. This is absolutely perfectly fine to use with a non-free fair use template and a solid rationale such as all (but Gorton and McEwen) Prime Ministers of Australia now. I'm sorry, one simply cannot do better than that. EDIT - having read the rest of what you said (only read the last para), i'm not asking for free or PD. I'm arguing it's a completely process to gain PM pictures from these sources using the non-free fair-use rationales I have used. My point is to stop them from being deleted or have their copyvio status questioned. What a bizarre answer for them to give if there was an issue. Timeshift 09:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is a bizarre answer, and it possibly suggests that they do not have an issue with it, but that is not enough. The fact is that nothibng they have said adds to the fair use rationales (which at the moment are full of stuff that isn't solid at all). As I said, we have not been told that only the images which says "Copyright restrictions may apply" have current copyright. If we did know that, then we wouldn't even need a fair use rationale for the other ones! The more likely situation is that the NLA does own the copyright, but they do not object to our use as fair use. However, our policy for images requires a fair bit more than the copyright owner not objecting, so this (circumstantial) evidence does nothing to stop their copyio status being questioned. We still need the same solid rationale that we would need if the photos came from another source. Unfortunately, it doesn't really matter whether one cannot do better than that or not - the question is whether that is enough. JPD (talk) 09:48, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

No admin would be anal enough to delete the newly updated images. Timeshift 09:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

It would probably help if you stopped worrying about whether admins are "anal" or "nazis", and tried to understand the policy. A lot of the things you have written on the image description pages are so wrong and irrelevant that it probably makes the images more likely to be deleted, not less! This reply from the NLA definitely doesn't help. JPD (talk) 10:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Election results infoboxes

I've been trawling through the various discussions on infoboxes used for federal elections and it's not really clear to me. Is there a reason that the state elections use Template:Infobox Election Result, while the the federal ones all seem to use a very ungainly-looking wikitable. Is there a reason for this and, if not, are there any objections to me going around and changing them? Frickeg 03:03, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I take objection, as i'm the one that created the election pages for federal and SA state. I put this to you - find me a design that holds all the information the current results tables hold, keeping it in the current small-as-possible form factor that it's in - and i'll consider changing my view. Timeshift 04:19, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the best solution would incorporate:

• leader name and details per present federal articles
• a summary of the results that properly accounts for key parties.

The more detailed breakdown of results probably belongs further down the article. On looking at the federal articles, the bar up the top linking to previous and next is also a good idea. Orderinchaos 04:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

No objections here. I think what you've just found is the debris from an ugly war about 6 months ago with each side having staked a claim on different parts of the encyclopaedia, but it's ancient history now. What I would strongly suggest though (being a strong believer in templates) is if possible to create a new standard template and then implement that consistently - that way if there's a new election then you or someone else just has to do a copy-paste and change a few figures to get the infobox into another article. Orderinchaos 03:59, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, now that I look, the template is only used in a single article (NSW 2007). Orderinchaos 04:12, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

PictureAustralia

http://www.pictureaustralia.org has been around for a year or so now, planned to be the biggest image search engine for historical resources, and IMHO is. They've just done a few upgrades to the site, and I especially liked one bit so much I thought i'd share it - http://www.pictureaustralia.org/apps/pictureaustralia/ - you can search and show images from all contributors, or specific ones from the dozens they use such as Flickr, to state libraries, to the National Library and National Archives. A very good image resource. In terms of permissions, anything over 50 years use the PD-Australia image template, and for those under, check the specific photo's copyright status at their website, don't rely on the generic pictureaustralia one. Timeshift 06:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

To be on the safe side, I'd only use PD-Australia for images from 1945 or earlier, unless you want to eventually end up in a confusing argument about bizarre US laws. Annoyingly, the US doesn't apply the principle that works that are PD in the country of origin are PD anywhere. JPD (talk) 10:06, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Satisfactory image rationale?

Is this satisfactory, is the "OTRS" system viewable by people, and if not what is to stop somebody uploading all MPs with this rationale? Timeshift 07:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that means the National Party of Australia (Victorian division) has consented for the image to be used on Wikipedia using GFDL - a rare event in this country - and they have emailed the OTRS people at Wikipedia with a disclosure which covers this image. What is to stop it is that at least two people who read this page have OTRS access and can easily check. I honestly wish more political parties and offices would do things this way, it would mean we'd have free images to use for living politicians. Orderinchaos 08:46, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone asked other parties to do the same? Timeshift 08:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yep. Orderinchaos 12:24, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, have they released the image under GFDL as OIC says, or into the public domain, as the uploader said? We can use it either way, but we should be honest about its status. JPD (talk) 10:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I may have got it a bit wrong - I don't have OTRS access myself so can't check. Orderinchaos 12:24, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I checked earlier but I couldn't find it. The license isn't really legit until someone from OTRS puts the ticket number on the page and acknowledges an email releasing the image was received. I searched under a few different parameters but couldn't find it and then I had to leave as I was going out for dinner. I will have another look for it tomorrow, if no one else has in the meanwhile. Sarah 12:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this - and disappointing that it turned out not to be true. I must admit I was hoping it was true so that we could maybe get some of the other parties/states to follow suit. :/ Orderinchaos 06:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Timeshift, thanks for picking up on the problem and bringing it to attention. I have spent ages trying to find the OTRS email but was unable to find any emails relating to any of these pictures, the editor who uploaded them or even the National Party and so I asked another admin with OTRS access to double-check but she was unsuccessful as well. The only conclusion we can reach is that no email has been sent and the licensing is incorrect. I really hope that is not the case and have asked the user to explain the situation, but his earlier blanking of questions about the images isn't very encouraging. The images can be restored if the permission is provided, but unfortunately, in the meanwhile we've had to delete all those images and remove the links from the articles. Sarah 19:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I suspected as much (for quite a while too, but certain people were taking the permission as legitimate for granted). Timeshift 23:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Good pickup. :) Orderinchaos 06:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the user has sent an email to OTRS now and we received it this morning, so I've restored the images tentatively while the ticket is processed and checked. Sarah 02:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Founding of Country/National Party

Our article on the National Party of Australia states that the party was founded in 1922, however in the article I am writing on William McWilliams, the party's inaugural leader, sources (including the Australian Dictionary of Biography article on McWilliams) state that he was leader of the Country Party from the party's formation in 1920 until April 1921, when Earle Page succeeded him as leader. My move would be to change the date of formation for the National party to 1920 but if anyone has information disputing the 1920 formation date, I'd be pleased to hear it. --Roisterer 02:58, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The way I understand it, McWilliams started it in some shape or form in 1920. See here. As to whether "The Country Party" was formed in some special way in 1922, i'm not sure. Timeshift 03:03, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, the Page Foundation [www.page.org.au/res/File/PDFs/memorial_trust.pdf claims] that Page was the first leader. Perhaps the answer can be found in the fact that McWilliams quit the Country Party to become an independent and current Nationals would rather just airbrush him out of their history. I will make the changes to the Nationals page and people can deal with it as they wish. --Roisterer 03:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Didn't you know? :-) Timeshift 03:18, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

edit war at Children Overboard Affair

More users should have a look at the edit war going on here. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 11:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletions (WP:PROD)

• 22 September 2007 - expires 27 September
  • Senator On-Line (PROD by User:Fabrictramp; PROD nominator states: "Political party "approved" three weeks ago. 29 non-wiki ghits, none of which show notability." Excerpt: "The party was formally approved on 31 August, 2007 by the Australian Electoral Commission as a political party able to participate in federal elections.") --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

• The only fact in the article is confirmed here but no assertion of notability is made and it sounds like a screed rather than an encyclopaedic article. I'm going to be bold and just speedy it per A7. Orderinchaos 02:09, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

New article

I just started a stub at Queensland Local Government Area amalgamation plebiscites, 2007, you might be interested in fleshing it out. —Nightstallion 15:17, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Political family/dynasty pages on WP

Category:Political families of Australia articles have been tagged for deletion, yet entries in Category:Political families of the United States are fine? Discussion/comments welcome (see articles in first link). Thanks. Timeshift 21:39, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I have no opinion on either but have added to Australian delsort to bring the Australian Wikipedians into it. Orderinchaos 22:04, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

The best way to write these "family" articles is in the context of the head of the family. De Valera family, Pearse family, and Redmond family are examples of these. However, valid "family" articles also include prose type articles, such as Nehru-Gandhi Family, Martyn, Chigi-Albani family, and Quaranta. List of political families in the United Kingdom appears to meet purpose of lists. The Australian political family efforts were all wrong and, as a result, do not meet Wikipedia article standards. Category:Political families of the United States is large and I have only gone through a few. In the mean time, if you think any articles in Category:Political families of the United States should be listed at AfD, please let me know which ones and I will be happy to list them as well. Mustering the troups through an inappropriate implication of bias is not productive. -- Jreferee t/c 16:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Fantastic to see everyone's knocking back your deletion listings :-) Timeshift 23:17, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It goes without saying that stub status is not a criteria for deletion in and of itself, otherwise we'd have to nuke about 90% of Wikipedia's articles. So long as they pass the bar set by CSD A1 and A3, which these ones seem to, there is no problem. Orderinchaos 23:39, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Fantastic. Now to wait for these silly afd's to disappear. Timeshift 23:57, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

They were raised in good faith, I just happen to disagree with them on policy grounds, also in good faith. Orderinchaos 23:59, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Good faith is overrated. He's an admin so he should know afd rules and criteria a bit better. Timeshift 00:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Assuming good faith is about accepting that someone else might have seen the situation in a different manner and trying to understand their argument. There aren't AfD "rules and criteria", just good arguments and bad arguments. Thinking there is no point to an article is a good enough reason to nominate it for deletion, and I can see why someone might think this about these articles (with the possible exception of the Downers and Playfords). Some of us will disagree with this, and think that these articles have room for expansion, are appropriate for retention as small lists, or should be merged to form a list like the UK one. However, we should explain why we think this, rather than resorting to "other stuff exists", which is just as bad as wanting deletion because they are short or badly written. JPD (talk) 10:48, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

It actually started over Downer and Playford. Timeshift 10:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

That's simply not true. It started with the Court family. Anyway, while the Downer and Playford articles to my mind do make their point more evident than the others, Jrefereee's arguments still apply to them, and need to be responded to. The real issue here is not what information is included, but how is it structured. JPD (talk) 11:55, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

It simply is true in the way I meant it. The catagory for aus pol families had one article only - Playford family. I decided a catagory is better with two articles and not one, and created Downer family. They were the only two in the catagory. And then more articles were added (unsure when the articles themselves were created) and the AfDs began, and I originally thought it was only Downer and Playford - then I saw the others and their AfDs. Timeshift 12:15, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that the creation of the articles started with the Downers and Playfords? That's fine, but doesn't really have anything to do with whether it was appropriate to nominate them, especially if we are talking about the nominator's good faith. JPD (talk) 14:11, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Why are the Anthonys not included in this list? Three members (Larry Anthony, Doug Anthony, Hubert Lawrence Anthony) all who served in the House of Reps I would think would be substantial enough to warrant a separate article. JRG 11:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

True. Maybe it's the NSW bias, but they were pretty much the only Australian political family I was aware of. Recurring dreams 11:45, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

WA 1970s-1980s

I'm doing a drive to improve (or in many cases create from scratch) articles on this period in WA's history. If anyone has any resources, ideas, or even just wants to review articles once completed, please let me know. Thanks :) Orderinchaos 23:21, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Page seriously needs an update

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorkChoices#Removing_the_.22No_Disadvantage_Test.22_for_agreements - eh? Added a line on the fairness test because this section is clearly out of date by months and months. Does anyone have a good knowledge of all the workings of WorkChoices who is prepared to give the articles text an overhaul before the election? Timeshift 07:03, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps for this reason, the page could also do with an unblocking, for the time being at least. Timeshift 07:03, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

It's only semi-protected - any legitimate user can edit it. Orderinchaos 07:43, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

IPs are (sometimes) legitimate users too. Timeshift 07:54, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Kim Beazley

Is any admin likely to delete this image at any stage in the future? I know how strict some can be about the non-commercial portion of creative commons licenses, however as per the license, the author can waive any portion of the license, which the author has done for Wikipedia and it's associated mirrors, including the incidentally commercial ones. Timeshift 08:36, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Afaik, the correspondence will need to be recorded in OTRS; without knowing the details of the correspondence ... the "noncommercial" can not be waived for just one site or its mirrors. The copyright owner can not know where a person obtained an image from and the CC licenses do not cater for only permitting an image within one set of (wiki)text (i.e. only to be used for one work). John Vandenberg 08:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Added query here. Timeshift 08:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

PD-self considered for deletion

I advise everyone to throw their support behind the motion to keep this template at PD-self deletion debate. AFAIK almost all of Adam Carr's images use this template. Their issue is the wording ambiguity as to who created the image. I advised keep - fix the issue rather than get rid of the template entirely. Timeshift 09:15, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I'd already seen it and voted accordingly. The simplest reason to keep it is that there's absolutely no good reason to delete it, and it's clear and unambiguous. Orderinchaos 15:38, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

title of election articles

(moved from Talk:Australian general election, 2007 as suggested.

Any reason why this and other past Australian federal election articles are called "general election" in the article name and not "federal elections" as they are almost universally refered to? I don't think i've ever seen it called a 'general' election. Articles in other federal systems use 'federal election'; i.e Canadian federal election, 2006 and German federal election, 2005. Perhaps the Canadian article presents a good comprimise? (see its first sentence) Cheers. 58.106.28.119 12:47, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with you as do the vast majority of us. Unfortunately a purposely troublesome user by the name of Joestella takes delight in arguing stupid points like this just because they may be technically right. WP:IAR doesn't exist when he's around it seems. Timeshift 14:10, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

From recollection the various election articles were at "Australian legislative election, year" but a lot of people found this deeply confusing for a parliamentary government system. "General election" is the term used in the UK and I think the term got transferred to other countries' articles. A glance at Category:2007 elections, without looking at every individual article, suggests that "general election" is the common standard except for where the election explicitly decides a single tier/organ of government.

One absolute priority must be that this article has the same format as its fellows. And that may be trickier than it seems - Australia is unusual as there are four different types of elections that are the fellows to this one - House, House & 1/2 Senate, 1/2 Senate alone or Double Dissolution. This set-up is rare - usally either the upper house isn't directly elected or its elections are clearly separated from the lower house. And I think the most notable point will be who forms the government - i.e. who wins the lower house (the Dismissal aside) - and so having names that change on the basis of how much of the Senate was elected at the same time would just confuse readers. Timrollpickering 21:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

If the "general election" terminology does have a British origin, then it should be deprecated as soon as possible. Britain has a very different constitutional structure, being a unitary state and not a federal one.

"Federal" would be more appropriate. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:43, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I would support the change, but Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Australian_politics is the place to discuss a question like this which impacts many articles. You can see it discussed in the archive at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Australian_politics/Archive_2#Renaming_of_.5B.2Fgeneral_election.2F.5D_to_.5B.2Ffederal.2F.5D_and_.5B.2Fstate_election.2F.5D, in particular a post by Orderinchaos which surveyed the usage by all electoral commissions in Australia. I think the consensus was to get rid of "general", but no one cared enough to change it. Peter Ballard 12:15, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Appreciate that this isn't the appropriately place to discuss it, but since no other avenue is open I'll say it here anyway. It's interesting that even the AEC refers to this election as the '2007 federal election' - I'm guessing because that's what everybody thinks of it as. [17]. Perhaps somebody could rekindle the discussion held earlier in the year before the election is actually held, as this article will almost certainly make the front page 'news' section of wikipedia come post-election day (as most other notable elections do) and federal would make much more sense to the casual reader. Just my thinking. GreenGopher 11:21, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I personally think "federal election" is the most appropriate name, as it is very difficult to define a "general election" in Australian terms, especially historically. In WA for instance LC and LA elections had completely different timetables until electoral reforms in the 1970s. It also introduces confusion for international readers of SA and WA state election articles to have the same descriptor as federal elections due to the word "Australian". The consensus was established to change it but the proposal kind of lapsed for various reasons. Orderinchaos 18:01, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with OIC. JPD (talk) 20:48, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I also agree federal election is appropriate for the article name --Golden Wattle ^talk 21:10, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Further agreed GreenGopher 08:37, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Gah, please don't move these again. This would be a really bad idea. It'd create issues as to what to do with the state and territory elections, and it's really pretty unnecessary. It's a general election - we get the point. Rebecca 23:32, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

We can leave them, the previous consensus related primarily to federal elections. At that time we decided to leave the state/territory naming for another time. At present, "Western Australian general election, 2001" and "Australian general election, 2001" would look to an international observer without a complete understanding of Australia's federal structure to be talking about the same thing. Orderinchaos 23:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

That convention would be pretty inconsistent, and I still don't think it is warranted. "Western Australian general election" pretty clearly refers to an election of the Western Australian parliament; Australian general election pretty clearly refers to an election of the Australian parliament. It hasn't been an issue in most other countries. Rebecca 23:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with Rebecca here that it would mean an awful lot of work (all the election boxes in the federal divisions would need to be renamed, plus an a lot of links) for not much reward. I think everyone gets the idea with "general" - it's the official term, anyway. I don't think there's much confusion here. Frickeg 00:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

AWB makes light work of it. I wouldn't have made the suggestion if I wasn't happy to volunteer to assist with its implementation. Orderinchaos 21:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

That's already the situation. Prior to 'general', it was legislative. There's many links still floating around that have legislative rather than general in the link, which is why legislative has a redirect on it, much like general would have if such a change were to occur. So it won't break anything. Timeshift 05:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Although I see the sense in both options, I think it's best to leave what we have for the moment. Maybe do a redirect of "Australian federal election, XXXX" to the existing page? I think we should leave the half-senate elections as "Australian senate election, XXXX" though. JRG 07:51, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with Australian federal election, XXXX and Australian senate election, XXXX (For the half senate elections). It is overwhelmingly the most common terminology. Even the AEC uses 'federal election'. Not so sure about what to do with the state elections though. Probally could leave them for now. Rafy 08:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

State ones are weird, especially in Tasmania where they have separate LC and LA elections, and WA where they did until the 1980s (we haven't written the latter ones yet though). At least if we fix federal, the confusion related to WA/SA elections is gone so it postpones the need to deal with the issue coming up to the 2007 election. Orderinchaos 21:09, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Certainly not "Australian senate election" -- "Australian Senate election" is great, though. —Nightstallion 19:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed - Senate is a title. Orderinchaos 21:09, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Apologies to those of you with extensive watchlists, I know it's a pain. :P After spending a fair portion of last night on AWB and then this morning on my own account:

• All "general" articles for federal elections have been moved to "federal"
• All "legislative" redirects point to federal
• No double redirects
• All links to general/legislative replaced with federal.

Orderinchaos 05:40, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Why did you move these while the discussion was ongoing? You'd had three objections to the move in the previous two days, and it was far from resolved. Rebecca 23:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I saw only one right-out oppose - one was a fairly non-committal oppose and the other was more on the basis of how much work it would take to do. Also the consensus was established 6 months ago to move but we never acted on it, and with the election upcoming I felt the most appropriate course of action was to fix it. (Also, I notice every one of the articles commences "Federal elections..." so the title and the preamble now match.) The previous change had been rather incomplete - there was almost as many legislative as general links and they were sometimes even scattered through the same articles. Orderinchaos 00:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

That's stretching it a bit. We now have a rushed convention which makes no sense, and which was pushed through without consensus. Lovely. Rebecca 05:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I support Orderinchaos's move. Reverting all of those would be an enormous amount of work and who refers to it as the 'general' election? In the UK it is, but here it's the 'federal' election. Auroranorth 12:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I also support the move -- it makes sense since these elections are more often referred to as "federal" than "general", as far as I'm aware. —Nightstallion 16:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• I continue to support the move (as I did above along with two others). As per Nightstallion, the elections are most commonly called federal elections in my experience. Wikipedia:Naming conventions states Generally, article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. - if you look at the redirects - except for the date order, they mostly refer to federal election , not general election. The move thus seems to be in line with this policy. Under Wikipedia:Consensus note that When consensus is referred to in Wikipedia discussion, it always means 'within the framework of established policy and practice'. Even a majority of a limited group of editors will almost never outweigh community consensus on a wider scale, as documented within policies. Further although there was no clear cut agreement, of the few people who have participated in the discussion there seems a majority in favour of the move. I believe the move made sense. --Golden Wattle ^talk 22:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Just to document the views expressed on the topic:
    • For the change:
      1. 58.106.28.119 12:47, 14 September 2007
      2. Timeshift 14:10, 14 September 2007
      3. Peter Ballard 12:15, 17 September 2007
      4. GreenGopher 11:21, 21 September 2007 and again 08:37, 7 October 2007
      5. Orderinchaos 18:01, 6 October 2007
      6. JPD 20:48, 6 October 2007
      7. Golden Wattle 21:10, 6 October 2007
      8. User:Jmount|Rafy 08:12, 8 October 2007
      9. Auroranorth 12:17, 11 October 2007
      10. Nightstallion 16:07, 11 October 2007
    • Comment - apparently neither for or against
      1. Timrollpickering 21:11, 14 September 2007
    • Against
      1. Rebecca 23:32, 7 October 2007
      2. Frickeg 00:08, 8 October 2007 (though apparently against because of the work involved rather than any other matter of principle)
      3. JRG 07:51, 8 October 2007 (apparently preferring status quo than any strong matter of principle)

I think it unfair to suggest that it was pushed through without concensus - the debate had been around for a while and there was general support with only one person objecting to the principle.--Golden Wattle ^talk 07:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

If you want to include me as an "against", I'll state now that I'm not opposed to the change. I just thought that since it was correct, although not the common usage, I didn't think there was any need to change. Now that it's been done I'm not particularly in favour of changing it back. JRG 07:14, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with JRG that now that it's been done there is no point changing it back. Frickeg 07:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

image crop

Hi all, can someone with the correct software please crop this image for me, the billboard is too small as is. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 10:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Assessments

I am interested in assessing article on Australia, but different subprojects have different ideas of importance. I get suggestions on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Australia/Assessment/Requests. I could not find any assessment criteria for deciding how important article on Australian politics are. And I found few examples. I would assume that the importance is supposed to indicate how likely a reader will want to find the article. It would also be used for deciding on which article to put effort, or to include on a CD. Does someone care to write some guidelines for this project? Or give some good examples of each level of importance (low mid high top)? Graeme Bartlett 03:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

First of all, unfortunately that page seems to be defunct now (see discussion above). The category containing unassessed articles for Australia is at Category:Unassessed Australia articles (it's huge, but you can change "Australia" in the category name to another project like "Australian politics" or "Canberra" to shrink the list). As for the grading system this is what we've been using. Unfortunately this only covers the top level project and not the subprojects.

Looking at the categories I can come to some rough conclusions:

• Any past or present Prime Minister is Top ( | importance=Mid | politics-importance=Top )
• All present Premiers/Chief Ministers and Steve Bracks are Top.
• Government ministers, shadow ministers and past premiers are High ( | importance=Mid | politics-importance=High )
• Some Australian elections are High
• All other Australian elections are Mid ( | importance=Low | politics-importance=Mid )
• Parties, past ministers, Federal MPs, some state ministers are Mid
• Non-parliamentary parties, electoral divisions/districts and anything else not listed above is Low ( | importance=Low | politics-importance=Low )

This seems a little inconsistent but it's what is there now and should be enough to get going on while the AUSPOL project hammers out guidelines as to what should be where. Orderinchaos 03:38, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response, I may come accross cases that are inconsistent above, but it helps with those I am evaluating. Are you going to add the conclusions to the project page? Graeme Bartlett 04:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Not yet - they seem a bit ad hoc to me and I'd like to see them discussed before they're placed anywhere as such things tend to end up being regarded as set in stone. In particular the past/present issue and the seemingly random divide in the middle of the elections are a bit odd, although the past/present issue may have a solid rationale that I'm unaware of, as it's interesting that with only a couple of exceptions it is consistent throughout. Orderinchaos 10:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

2004 Australian Greens candidates

I'm struggling to see the encyclopaedic value of this list, it seems to fail WP:NOT#IINFO, but I'm not so convinced as to send it straight to AfD without asking further opinion here. Orderinchaos 11:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

It would be good if there was a page like Candidates of the Australian general election, 2007 for the 2004 election. Is there one? Recurring dreams 11:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

No there's not, but I agree there should be. Frickeg 05:47, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

There is now. The Greens article should be deleted. Frickeg 08:58, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Da man

For all you fans out there, and I know you all are, here he is, the big man himself in your face as always :-D WikiTownsvillian 12:17, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

What's with the hat? Were they afraid the reflection from the hair might be a road hazard? :D Timeshift 19:47, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The new Joestella

Prester John is at it again @ Australian federal election, 2007, assistance would be appreciated. Timeshift 04:22, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The article is in need of a watchful eye - there's been 23 changes either by Prester John or in response to him, but only scant talk page discussion. One or two of the changes are valid, the others don't even pretend to be NPOV (see [18] for example). Orderinchaos 05:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Joestella and his sockpuppets, as far as I know, have been blocked - so I don't think it's him (or do you mean that PJ acts in the same way as JS?). While no discussion and all editing is a terrible way to edit, having done a diff on the page before he started and now and looked through it, most of the changes seem acceptable, though the omission of Howard's gaffe on interest rates is not warranted. Someone needs to add it back. The discussion also about Labor being able to hold government with only 15 seats by making one of the independents speaker is also acceptable as political commentators have said it before - this should also be put back. The rest should stay. JRG 07:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I meant they act the same way. And I would suggest to read the individual edits, not the diff from now to before all this started. I am more or less satisfied with the current revision. Timeshift 07:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Peter Tinley

Someone wish to fix this article into encyclopaedic shape? Wouldn't be difficult but I don't have the time to look into it. Once done should probably be linked into High profile candidates on Australian federal election, 2007. Orderinchaos 17:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

DLP

Re their senate campaign in a number of states - any reliable media on it? [19] Orderinchaos 21:55, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Comparison of Australian parties policy

I am not entirely sure this article is a great idea but I will defer to the opinion of those here. Cheers, Mattinbgn\^talk 20:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

It's a work in very early construction but I suggest a redirect/merge to the issues section of Australian federal election, 2007. The editing on this page suggests potential problems with over-simplification and a non-neutral POV, and the case has not been made for this last-minute content fork which so far includes nothing other than the opinion of votenuclearfree.net on other parties nuclear energy views. Euryalus 21:51, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The idea of a separate table-based page has merit, as it is easy to then scan down the issues quickly. It probably works well if the issue is a "yes" or "no" issue. However, it may be more difficult to incorporate subtle differences in policy.--Lester 22:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The table format is easy to read, but on any contetious issue it will miss the subtleties and risk becoming just partisan bickering. On a side note an article on nuclear energy policy in Australia would be interesting if properly put together. Obviously this would be a challenge prior to polling day, but given the poorly-based claims and counter-claims that election campaigns throw up it seems better to let the dust settle. After the election there could perhaps be an expansion of this or a standalone article bringing together the Jervis Bay plan, 3-mines policy, response to French nuclear tests and the Switkowski report, among other issues. Euryalus 23:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

"The editing on this page suggests potential problems with over-simplification and a non-neutral POV" - agree totally. But it does have merit, so i'm only leaning toward a weak delete but not really fussed either way. More discussion by other wikipedians would be of use. Timeshift 23:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Partisan editing ? at Gary Nairn

I have been accused of partisan editing at Gary Nairn (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). I would appreciate at least one other person having a look. See talk page discussion and article edit history. Thanks--Golden Wattle ^talk 04:44, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry too much. He's just a POV pusher trying to get the Labor Party's talking points against Nairn into the article when they're just not relevant for our purposes. Rebecca 04:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Get yer priorities straight

First sentence of Michael Jeffery:

"Major General Philip Michael Jeffery AC, CVO, MC (born 12 December 1937) is the Chief Scout of Australia and also 24th Governor-General of Australia."

 :-D Hesperian 23:21, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

well it is important to some of us! The only times I have met him is in his scouting capacity :-) However I note that he is in that capacity becuase he is GG - hmmm must check --Golden Wattle ^talk 23:43, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Assistance appreciated at Talk:Paul_Keating#Micro.2C_not_macro

Apollo is insisting and revert warring over the fact that he believes the floating of the dollar and reductions of tariffs are microeconomic reforms rather than macroeconomic reforms. Assistance to set the record straight would be most appreciated. Thanks. Timeshift 06:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that it would be macroeconomic. I'll drop by the talk page.--Lester 09:56, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Scott Ludlam

The above article has been tagged for concerns about notability. Normally, I would list at AfD mere candidates not otherwise notable, but as he is claimed to be the lead Greens candidate, there is a likelihood that he will be a Senator. With that in mind, I defer to the thoughts of this project. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 22:35, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

He is the lead Green candidate in Western Australia. He was thought for a long time to be pretty much a near-certainty to be elected - as Rachel Siewert won easily in 2004 despite the extremely hostile preference flows around the country. I've heard reports lately that he's looking in trouble, with hostile preference arrangements and polling perhaps not quite as good as in 2004, but he's still very much in contention. With that in mind, I'd definitely keep the article around, at least until after the election. Rebecca 23:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I think a good rule of thumb is that unsuccessful candidates do not get articles, unless they are notable for other reasons. Because we need to take the long term view - an unsuccessful candidate, even one considered a good chance of winning a seat, will be utterly non-notable soon after the election. The other problem I have is that some of these candidates' articles (like Scott Ludlam and Sarah Hanson-Young) are little more than publicity pieces. So either delete it or give it a serious trim for NPOV, and certainly delete if unsuccessful. p.s. in case I'm accused of selectivity, I've no problems with the Andrea Mason article being deleted too. Peter Ballard 00:14, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with this view - after all, we deleted Gavin Priestley's article... Orderinchaos 06:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I would say with 8 days to go, who cares? There are many wikipedia pages now that contain 2007 candidates that havent been put on AfD, and to start to do so now really is pointless. Let sleeping dogs lie and delete it in 9 days. Timeshift 09:44, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• I concur, I would sugges prodding non-notable unsuccessful candidates articles once the results are known - emphasis on ohterwise non-notable. Obviously anybody who has been an MP or Sentaor is kept and anybody who meets notability criteria in any other way. I suspect the prods will otherwise be uncontested after next Saturday. Any consequent redlinks should also be removed - ie delinked refs to the person would remain after successful deletion.--Golden Wattle ^talk 00:06, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

This is just silly. Please hold off for a couple of weeks. Having a PROD tag on someone who, on current polling, is likely to become a Senator-elect within days just makes us look bad. Rebecca (talk) 00:17, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

hmm but it is really awful to use wikipedia as a spoapbox with unadulterated guff about new babies notwithstanding a cite from the Advertiser. Ludlum however was deleted before as a result of an AfD so therefore CSD is appropriate - and the guff before let alone that mugshot was appalling.--Golden Wattle ^talk 00:20, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Mason notable as Mason became the first-ever Indigenous Australian woman to lead an Australian political party,--Golden Wattle ^talk 00:22, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but on the others: please use a bit of common sense. Whacking a speedy deletion tag on a candidate who, on current polling, is a strong chance to be elected in six days is completely pointless. If the article is POV, then chop it out. Rebecca (talk) 00:50, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Joe de Bruyn article

I request some opinions on the article, Joe de Bruyn (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). A biography on a union leader (and ALP executive) who's famous for his social conservatism, and his opposition to same-sex marriage and IVF for single women and lesbians. He was heckled at the ALP National Conference, due to his stance on these issues, and the ruckus received widespread national media coverage.

These issues of the ALP heckling and lesbians barred from IVF all existed the article long ago, but an IP address deleted them in October for unknown reason. Today, I re-added the lines about the conference heckling and IVF, but within minutes, someone else deleted them again.

Is it really that controversial? Was mention of the ALP conference heckling NPOV? What do others think? Here's the diff on recent changes. It's not a frequently visited article, so other opinions would be appreciated. Thanks, Lester 03:24, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I had a look. I didn't think it was controversial either way - either to include or to not include. His conservatism is apparent from the article as it stands now. Lots of people get heckled ... not worth really reinstating, worth expanding the article in other ways perhaps.--Golden Wattle ^talk 03:56, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment, Golden Wattle. --Lester 04:06, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Being heckled at a National ALP conference is not notable. Everyone speaking on behalf of either faction gets heckled by the other side regardless of the content of their speech. The lesbian IVF issue is more significant. It was a 'wedge' issue announced by Howard during an ALP National Conference with the apparent intention of drawing attention away from Beazley and diverting ALP policy debate away from education, health et al. It worked a treat, with de Bruyn and his allies on one side and Carmen Lawrence and hers on the other. Beazley's moderate platform was drowned out, the conference spent days debating an issue affecting almost no one (noting that lesbian IVF is regulated by the States not the Commonwealth) and Howard went on to win further elections while the ALP chased its own tail.

In short, the lesbian IVF issue is worth including as it was significant on a national political level and de Bruyn was a leader of the debate. The heckling is par for the course for a political leader and doesn't deserve a mention in a short article such as this. Euryalus (talk) 04:35, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Hehehe! I didn't know it was standard practice for every speaker to be heckled at the ALP National Conference. Anyway, his comments (as reported in the Adelaide Advertiser) about demeaning marriage were interesting, regardless of the heckling. Regarding his stance on IVF, would it be best to say he opposes IVF for single mothers and lesbians, or go with the changed edit that he is a supporter of John Howard's policy to allowing Australian states to limit IVF treatment to married couples? (Two ways of saying the same thing).--Lester 06:57, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

He certainly supported Howard's legislation, which didn't actually ban lesbian IVF despite the PR at the time. I suspect it would be more accurate to say de Bruyn opposes IVF for single mothers and lesbians, but it would need a reliable source. Also, his opposition is only really of significance in the context of supporting a Coalition policy at odds with his own leader during a national conference. If the Howard legislation isn't mentioned there is too little context for de Bruyn's IVF views. Euryalus (talk) 09:02, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Gough Whitlam said: "Joe de Bruyn is a Dutchman who hates dykes." >>link<< (skim down to 3rd last line in SMH article)].--Lester 11:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Goodbye Jerusalem

Even though it is made clear that they were false, I am uncomfortable that the infamous "Goodbye Jerusalem" allegations by Bob Ellis are on the Tony Abbott page. And I find it curious that they get more space at Abbott's page than Ellis', and they get nothing at all at Peter Costello. It seems to be included at Abbott to make a point, and there have been quite a lot of negative edits to the Abbott page lately. My opinion is that it should be on the Bob Ellis page only. Any opinions? Peter Ballard (talk) 23:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree up to a point except I don't think the allegations should be repeated - they were found in a defamation action to be untrue.--Matilda formerly known as Golden Wattle ^talk 00:42, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Keeping it cool

• It was with some trepidation that I noticed this article in The Age titled "Online federal election battle hots up". Wikipedia does indeed get a mention but only so as to state: None of the six Facebook accounts provides information about either candidate. You have to go to Wikipedia, the open access online encyclopedia, for that At the end the article links to the wikipedia pages for Rudd and Howard. I thought it was good that editing on wikipedia during the course of the election was not thought to be newsworthy - or perhaps he is an unobservant journalist ... --Matilda formerly known as User:Golden Wattle ^talk 23:54, 20 November 2007 (UTC)