Category: General

Time for the EOFY edition of the Poll Bludger’s bi-monthly request to the site’s valued readers for contributions, which can be made through the “become a supporter” buttons that you can find at the top of the site and the bottom of each post. This also doubles as an opportunity to relate what the site has been update lately, and will be up to in the months to come.

So far as donations are concerned, this has been a particularly lean period since a helpful little flurry at the time of the Dunkley by-election at the end of April, last month especially having been something approaching an all-time low. While events such as last week’s Northern Tablelands by-election in New South Wales inevitably failed to generate much excitement, getting the live results feature up and running was no less laborious for the fact that very few were interested.

I also had to grapple simultaneously with the thankless task of stitching the site back together after a back-end meltdown caused by an errant WordPress plug-in (the one that results in numbered navigation links appearing at the top and bottom of comments threads). Further labours will be forthcoming in the months ahead to deal with the Northern Territory election on August 24, the Australian Capital Territory election on October 19, and the Queensland election on October 26.

It’s time (past time, actually) for the Poll Bludger’s bi-monthly (in the once every two months sense of that ambiguous term) undignified hustle for donations. After what I must confess was a pretty good month on the donations front in March, thanks to the Dunkley by-election, the month of the Cook by-election proved quite a bit less productive. So if you’re an occasional donor (and with due regard to the fact that I say this quite often), now would be an opportune time to exercise your valued generosity.

These posts are also a good opportunity to call attention to looming electoral events, starting with this Saturday’s periodic Tasmanian Legislative Council elections, which will elect three of that chamber’s 15 members. These are often sedate affairs, but this year’s round is unusually interesting: former Greens leader Cassy O’Connor will seek to win the party’s first ever seat in the chamber for the seat of Hobart, and former Labor leader Bryan Green is on the comeback trail in the seat of Prosser, where he faces competition from the Liberals.

Beyond that, we can start to look at the end of an election drought that was relieved only by the surprise early Tasmanian election on March 24, with the Northern Territory going to the polls on August 24, the Australian Capital Territory doing so on October 19, and then Queensland’s big day a week later on October 26.

Time for the Poll Bludger’s bi-monthly attempt to keep the donations meter ticking over at a tolerable pace, which you can help with through the “become a supporter” buttons that can be found at the top of the page and the bottom of each post. It also allows a chance to highlight the work I will be doing for your donation dollar, of which there is presently a very great deal:

• The Dunkley by-election will be held on Saturday, and this will hands-down be the best place to follow the action. All the proof you need for this can be obtained from any one of my live results pages, which will (I do believe) exclusively feature booth results, in both tabular and mapped (see at the bottom of the page from the above link) form, together with an equally exclusive running probability estimate of the final result, and less exclusive but still highly instructive swing and result projections. You can also see my guide to the by-election here.

• Another fortnight hence comes the turn of Queensland with its two state by-elections, for which see my guides to Inala and Ipswich West, and local government elections including that for Brisbane City Council, the nation’s biggest municipality with its most partisan elections, for both the lord mayoralty and the 26 council wards. My intention is also to provide a live results facility for each (which on top of anything else will prove a useful test run for the October 26 state election), although getting all that in place may be a bit a scramble.

• No sooner will that have been mopped up than we will have, one week later, the Tasmanian state election, my guide for which can be found here. I ran a live results feature for the state’s 2021 election most successfully, which as with the federal jurisdiction was the only place where booth results were published (including, to be clear, the electoral commission) – I am unsure at this stage if that will be true again.

• On the very same day there will be a by-election for the South Australian seat of Dunstan, being vacated by former Liberal Premier Steven Marshall, which will be a very interesting barometer from a state that hasn’t a single opinion poll of any significance since the election in March 2022. There is a guide to the by-election here and there will, you guessed it, be live results on the night.

Time for the Poll Bludger’s bi-monthly appeal for donations, on this occasion coinciding with the lean period of Christmas and New Year, when interest in politics is diminished and potential donors tend to find more pressing demands on their charitable dollar. If that tugs at your heart strings, of if you have perhaps simply enjoyed a good week at the track, donations are as ever gratefully received through the “become a supporter” buttons that can be found at the top of the page and the bottom of each post.

These posts also offer an opportunity to promote what lies on the horizon for the site, which in the coming year will include an end to an electoral drought going back to the New South Wales state election in March. The Brisbane City Council election on March 16 will get the famous Poll Bludger live results treatment, with a Queensland state election scheduled for October 26; the Australian Capital Territory goes to the polls a week earlier on October 19; a Northern Territory election will be held on August 24; and there currently looms a very interested federal by-election in Dunkley and a rather less interesting Queensland state one in Annastacia Palaszczuk’s seat of Inala, both on dates to be determined.

Time to dig deep for the Poll Bludger’s donation drive, in which the site rattles the tin under the collective nose of its faithful readership at the end of every second month. Those wishing to offer their support, either as a one-off or a recurring monthly contribution, can do so through the “become a supporter” buttons that can be found at the top of the page and the bottom of each post.

Time for the Poll Bludger’s bi-monthly* undignified grovel for financial support from its valued readership. The ongoing election drought notwithstanding, the site has a busy two months ahead of it thanks to the October 14 Indigenous Voice referendum, which will be covered here with regular updates and at least some sort of facility on the big night for publishing live results and, if I can think of a plausible way of going about it, projecting results at state level based on the progress totals. If that sounds deserving of a contribution, you can make one through the “become a supporter” buttons that you’ll find at the top of the page and the bottom of each post.

* An ambiguous term that annoyingly lacks a good alternative, but by which I mean once every two months and not twice a month.

Every few months (usually two, but this time it’s been three), the Poll Bludger rattles the proverbial tin can and asks its valued readership for contributions. These can be made through the “become a supporter” buttons that you’ll find at the top of the page and the bottom of each post. Many thanks as always for your support.

On the eve of the Premier State’s big day, now would obviously be an opportune moment to lay on the site’s more-or-less bi-monthly appeal for donations – and while I’m about it, to promote the live results feature that will be in business tomorrow evening and beyond, which will follow the same format as the one for the Victorian election. For election wonks especially, this surpasses all its rivals in offering neatly displayed tables showing results and swings at booth level, together with projections, probability estimates and map displays of booth results updated live at the bottom of each seat page. I should also give one last plug for my state election guide, with its feature-packed pages for all 93 electorates plus overview page and guide to the Legislative Council.