After the 2010 election, independent crossbenchers negotiated for 17 days with Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to decide who to support.

On Sunday in Hobart over 6,000 people protested against the harmful practices of foreign owned salmon industry in Tasmania. The Australia Institute’s Tasmanian director, Eloise Carr, spoke to rally participants about recent changes to national nature laws and how the Institute has raised this issue with the UN. Seventeen civil society organisations have written to

Election campaigns come and go, but some go faster than others.

Climate and nature crises won’t pause while politics plays out.

Football, meat pies, kangaroos and gambling – there’s nothing more Australian.

Last election, independent Kylea Tink won the seat of North Sydney on a primary vote of 25%.

Australians are rightfully proud of compulsory voting, which ensures widespread participation in elections.

Complaints about the brevity of three-year parliamentary terms are common in Australia.

A cornerstone of the Australian election experience is tucking into a democracy sausage after casting your ballot on election day.

Every Australian parliament – federal, state and territory – has had a speaker from a party other than the one in government at some point.

Sky News says community independent MP Allegra Spender supports more Coalition motions than Greens motions. But They Vote for You says Spender votes with Greens MPs more often than Coalition MPs. That both those claims are made about the same person is proof that voting comparisons are fraught. It is just as confusing when it

For many journalists, the past – specifically the past before 1945 – is a foreign country. Election coverage is replete with references to “firsts” or “milestones” that assume that Australian history began in the post-war period. But a longer view would help us better understand the political processes around us. Journalists described the 2010 federal

The housing crisis continues to grip Australia and it’s a central part of this election campaign. Unfortunately, while both major parties have made housing policies key parts of their election platforms their policies mostly tinker around the edges and fail in four key ways. They do not address Australia’s distortionary, expensive, and regressive tax concessions

How is it that in Australia, one of the richest countries in the world, we feel poor? 

It is not just elections that decide who forms government.

Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs As Australia’s federal election campaign has finally begun, opposition leader Peter Dutton’s proposal to spend hundreds of billions in public money to build seven nuclear power plants across the country has been carefully scrutinized. The technological unfeasibility, staggering cost, and scant detail of the Coalition’s nuclear proposal have

In the 2022 election, the count in the seat of Brisbane was on a knife edge.

It’s not often I agree with Peter Dutton, but I can admit when he’s right and he’s right about two things.

Today the AEC promised “bingo cages, blindfolds and balls” – in other words, they finalised the candidates for the upcoming federal election, and randomly decided which order they will be displayed on the ballot paper.

Australia is one of the world’s largest gas exporters. We send around 80% of our gas overseas. More than half of the gas we export doesn’t even earn royalties or resources rent tax. We are literally giving away our gas resources.

Have you received a postal vote application form in the mail? 

Did you wonder why it was bundled with material promoting a political party? 

Or why the return address was a political party HQ, not the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC)?

Independent MPs are not new to Australian politics.

It’s funny that we call single-party government “majority” government, because no one party or coalition has won a majority of the first-preference or primary vote since 1975.

In the 2025 Australian election there will be about 120,000 registered voters per elected MP.

Robust debate is better than mealy-mouthed bipartisanship. Televised leaders’ debates can be a good thing if they illustrate the choices facing voters.

Sometimes parties part ways with their candidates.

A competitive and diverse news industry is key to a democratic society, keeping institutions accountable and transparent. But the ability of Australia’s Fourth Estate to perform that role is increasingly in doubt. Australia was once labelled the “land of the newspaper” by British visitors, with a flourishing and diverse news industry, but for over a

Labor says it will push to double the number of senators for the ACT if re-elected. Finance Minister Katy Gallagher told ABC Canberra: “it’s certainly something we all support”.

Full preferential voting is a proud Coalition reform – one that benefits every political persuasion Compulsory voting and full preferential voting make up the backbone of Australian democracy, and protect us from voter suppression and disengagement seen in other countries. We owe both to the parties of the centre-right, what would become the Liberal–National Coalition.

At the National Press Club today, Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor was asked about how few women the Liberal Party is nominating as candidates.