Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics

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

text: 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)
replies: text: 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 There is a lot of turnover in shadow minister roles and portfolio names, which means they get out of date quickly, and they are rarely of great significance in a politician's career (especially where the person has previously held actual ministerial posts).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)
replies: text: @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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Seems like a consensus to me. MatthewDalhousie (talk) 02:18, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shadowy question 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Nomination of [[Candidates of the next Australian federal election]] for deletion 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  2PP to 2CP swings 

message: Opponents are currently using Peter Cain (politician) to add dirt with a new "Controversy" section that occupies half the article (added 18 April 2024). I know nothing about the topic and am hoping people here will work out whether the material is WP:DUE and has WP:RS. I noticed this at AN. Johnuniq (talk) 02:43, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we can agree that RiotAct is not an especially reliable source for an encyclopaedia, though all the Canberra Times sources are okay. There's also an issue with using primary documents (statements from the ACT government, rather than from a a news source). But the real problem is, as you say @Johnuniq, the ridiculous weight put on controversies. They don't even merit their own section, no more than a mention in my view, especially as these are simply accusations from those on the opposite benches. No investigative journalist has established any of it. Needs a solid trim. MatthewDalhousie (talk) 03:07, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peter Cain (politician) 

message: 2024 Dunkley by-election gives the swing as -3.57 for Labor and +3.57 for the Liberals.  Not being familiar with the term, I consulted Swing (Australian politics) and was left confused — none of this appears to be relevant.  (Eventually I found the 2022 election results from the AEC and discovered that the Liberals' two-party-preferred result was 3.57% higher than in 2022, and the reverse for Labor.)  Does the Swing (Australian politics) article cover this topic at all, in a way that I didn't understand?  If I'm understanding correctly, the Dunkley by-election article uses it to mean merely "change in these parties' TPP results from the previous election", and this meaning is absent from the Swing article.  Nyttend (talk) 20:47, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Swing (Australian politics)]] and an example 

message: Dear Australian Politics people. Keen to have input in this discussion. It's about whether the time has come to gather an article on recent years of what some have called China's campaign of coercion. MatthewDalhousie (talk) 13:49, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  China coercion article