In cases where members are elected to represent single-member wards, or divisions, Queensland councils use the optional preferential voting (OPV) electoral system to elect members. This covers all mayoral elections, as well as council seats in most urban south-east Queensland councils.
Brisbane City’s single-member wards lend themselves to two-party competition, but in recent decades we’ve seen the rise of the Greens, first by just contesting wards that had previously been two-candidate contests, and eventually by winning their first ward and increasing their vote citywide.
I’ve been thinking for a while of publishing a regular newsletter which would have a bit of a different style to my usual blog posts, where I can discuss topics I’ve found interesting recently.
7:22 – The 2PP swing in Mt Eliza Central was actually 0.8% to Labor. The overall swing is down to 4.1%.
7:21 – With ten booths reporting primary votes, the swing to Labor is up to 1.7%. I’m probably at the point where I won’t be reporting each individual booth swing, but Langwarrin North, Frankston South, Skye and Karingal Central have all reported.
Nominations were announced today for the Tasmanian state election, as well as the Dunstan by-election in South Australia.
I will get the full candidate lists up later tonight, but for now I wanted to dwell on some overall numbers showing how much bigger the ballot papers are than in previous elections.
I often compare the City of Brisbane to a small state parliament. With its single-member wards dominated by parties and its large size, it often resembles a state election more so than a local council. But one of the main differences between the City and most state elections is the method of filling vacancies on the council when a seat falls vacant during the term.
The AEC last week officially commenced a redistribution of the Northern Territory’s two federal electorates.
I’ll keep this blog post short and sweet. I won’t bother with a map, since there are only two seats, making the equation simple.
Ben was joined by Stewart Jackson from the University of Sydney and Tasmanian political scientist Mike Lester to preview next month’s Tasmanian state election.
We discuss the widening field of independent candidates, political events in the last term and the issues around the 25-member House that led to the expansion of the Parliament. We also briefly touch on this weekend’s Dunkley by-election.
Nominations will close next Thursday for the Tasmanian state election, and we’ve seen a surge in candidate announcements in the last few days. I’ve just finished updating my candidate lists, and they show that there is a real increase in independent candidates compared to recent elections, pointing towards larger ballot papers than in previous Tasmanian elections.
The Victorian state government last week announced the final ward boundaries for 39 councils for this October’s council elections.
I’ve been compiling those ward boundaries as a shapefile and that’s now finished.