William Bowe
Editor of The Poll Bludger @PollBludger
William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, is one of the most heavily trafficked forums for online discussion of Australian politics, and joined the Crikey stable in 2008.
Voters are responding favourably to tough talk on Iraq and Australia's foreign policy agenda. But sooner or later those pesky domestic issues will come back ...
Would lowering the voting age and installing indigenous-only Senate seats re-engage people disillusioned with Australia's political process? Perhaps, but a conservative government would never allow it.
New Zealand goes to the polls tomorrow, and it is likely to return the Key government. But there are some wildcards.
As Labor falls in line with the Coalition on Iraq, the Greens pick up support among doves.
The "no" vote for Scottish independence leads by a whisker -- and non-traditional voters (i.e. teenagers) are not turning out to be the republicans the "yes" camp had hoped.
There has not been much of a honeymoon period for the Abbott government, with approval for the government and for Abbott dismally low.
Will abandoning its promise to build new submarines in South Australia hurt the Coalition's chances in that state? Probably -- but does it need SA to win at the next election anyway?
Everyone knows News Corp's Newspoll is biased toward the Coalition, right? It's a bit more complicated than that.
Yesterday morning, former Western Australian treasurer Troy Buswell resigned, ending his political career on his own terms. Unfortunately for Labor, the resulting byelection is unlikely to further ruffle the state's already embattled Liberal government.
Labor's Queensland branch has become the latest to reform its procedure for choosing party leaders, after last week's state conference ratified a move to grant a share of the vote to the party membership.
