Hi all,

I was wanting to add some information about events currently taking place in state politics, but then realised there's no appropriate page to put them. In federal politics, we have the Albanese government article to list day-to-day events that concern the government, but there is no equivalent timeline for state and territory governments. Is it appropriate for me to make, for example, Allan state government or Minns state government? GraziePrego (talk) 04:51, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Typically I would have thought they would just go on the page of the relevant individual/s (which are often pretty short on detail on what has happened during their term - see Jacinta Allan's article for example). ITBF (talk) 05:15, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

That's true- it does make it tricky to include some things though. If something happens that concerns the entire state government as a whole, rather than just the premier, it might be considered a bit irrelevant to include on specifically just the premier's article. GraziePrego (talk) 05:21, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Rann government is the only such article I know about. I do think this sort of article is viable in general and I support the creation of other such articles. The sources are certainly there. Steelkamp (talk) 05:51, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I have created Allan government. Needs a lot of expansion and integration with existing content about VicPol and the premier, working on those. Any help is greatly appreciated :) GraziePrego (talk) 07:01, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi all,

I'm wondering if there's any set standard for state by-elections not having articles? Specifically in Victoria, I made a couple pages which have been undone (eg 1915 Bendigo East state by-election).

A lot of old Victorian state by-elections don't have pages or even any results (I think they should) and the user who has undone some of this commented "note that if [the results are] (almost) the content of the entire new page, that suggests the new page isn't needed".

NSW seems to have every single one if its by-elections, even in the pre-party era, with pages, and Queensland has a bunch as well - including ones almost entirely made up of the results, like 1905 Ashfield state by-election, 1912 Alexandria state by-election etc

TLDR - wondering if there's a set standard/whether we should set a standard for creating these pages or not? Just before I go ahead and make more of them Totallynotarandomalt69 (talk) 21:04, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree they (state by-elections) should all have articles and I have created plenty—there's no (or shouldn't be a) blanket notability ban on state-level by-elections, but I actually agree with the comment that if the article is just a results table (and maybe some other context such the date and reason for the election), it's probably better to just include those details in the list of results. Trove is a great resource for that era, and you should be able to find additional material around the campaign, the count, any other issues like objections raised or ineligible candidates, but if not, just redirect to the results list for the district and include the contextual detail there. --Canley (talk) 22:28, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

It was me merging the newly created 1915 Bendigo East state by-election back to Electoral results for the district of Bendigo East (my thanks to Totallynotarandomalt69 for starting a discussion here). Note that I'm not questioning the notability of a bielection if there is much to say about it. However, for the Bendigo 1915 page there doesn't seem to be, so I merged for short text and context. A sentence or two, plus a table, seems to work well in the election page. I certainly don't think that Victoria is a special case (COI: I was born in NSW ...); I note WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, and I'd be very happy to see permastubs for other bielections merged to their relevant distict election pages too (even if they were in NSW). Klbrain (talk) 22:56, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah and that's more than fair enough, I can see why you've done that

Unfortunately more than a few of these pages never had the by-elections in the results - often because they are pre-1910 where no results seem to be on here - which is also sorta why I (and I hope some other people do it) are now fixing the electoral result pages to have embedded results and sub-headings for the specific year, not just decade Totallynotarandomalt69 (talk) 23:11, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Democratic Labour Party (Australia, 1980)#Requested move 10 March 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 02:18, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi Australian politics people.

I noticed a number of infoboxes of MPs having shadow ministries removed today (such as this one). Newish in the category - but is this a convention? (Have asked that editor the same question, but figured I'd get more of a sense of what the consensus is here.) MatthewDalhousie (talk) 07:36, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

@ITBF, @Tytrox, I take you've got clear views on this? MatthewDalhousie (talk) 03:33, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'm against inclusion of shadow minister offices in the infobox - it's cluttering and prone to confusion with when the same individuals become actual ministers. Oppoisition leaders and their deputies, whips and business managers are good to include in infoboxes though as they are disparate positions. J2m5 (talk) 03:49, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

It's not a hard and fast rule for me, but I think in most cases it just adds clutter as J2m5 stated. We have so many articles where the infobox is significantly longer than the article itself, and a lot of the time positions are added to the infobox without even being mentioned in the article prose. There is a lot of turnover in shadow minister roles and portfolio names, which means they get out of date quickly, and they are rarely of great significance in a politician's career (especially where the person has previously held actual ministerial posts). I would possibly make exceptions where the shadow portfolio is of clear significance (treasury, defence, foreign affairs) AND the person has not held any other more significant roles in their career. E.g., having Jim Chalmers' role as shadow treasurer in the infobox made sense to me. ITBF (talk) 04:29, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

@J2m5, @ITBF and @Tytrox - yep, this makes complete sense. A lot of info boxes are extremely long, and, in the political category, having a Minister's previous shadow roles compounds the problem. Would be good to have this as an agreed convention somewhere - any suggestions? MatthewDalhousie (talk) 04:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Yep J2m5 and ITBF basically covered my position. Summary of my input for Info box listing is: 1) Own wikipedia article; and/or 2) Significant notability beyond a listing in the "Shadow Ministry under Leader X" page (going hand in hand with point 1), and not just a footnote on the appointed government's ministry page; and 3) Appointment by Governor General where it applies. Beyond those conditions, no info box mention. You just have to look at Michaelia Cash's BLP to see why info boxes can get so ridiculously long, even with actual ministry positions when she was in government, and I made effort on articles such as hers to keep it reasonable length by adding collapsible boxes. -- Tytrox (talk) 06:41, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Seems like a consensus to me. MatthewDalhousie (talk) 02:18, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

A discussion is taking place to determine whether Candidates of the next Australian federal election should be an article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:05, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

An error seems to have crept into a few results page where we are calculating a "swing" between 2PP/2CP counts which feature different parties, e.g. at 2024 Cook by-election and 2018 Fremantle by-election. LIB v ALP and LIB v GRN (for example) are two different metrics, so a swing between them does not make statistical sense. If 60% of people preferred apples to oranges last year, but 70% of people preferred apples to bananas this year, that doesn't mean apples have increased in popularity by 10%. I note the official AEC results pages (here and here for the examples previously mentioned) do not calculate a swing in these instances. I have been reverted a couple of times in fixing this so want to establish consensus here before making any further changes. ITBF (talk) 07:02, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

This makes complete sense. Only makes sense to declare a swing if the two contenders are from parties which were the main two contenders last time around. MatthewDalhousie (talk) 01:01, 23 April 2024 (UTC)