One chart that didn't make it in the final paper was looking at party membership more recently. The result is steady decline for all parties except for brief flash-in-the-pan bursts around successful elections (further complicated by NSW Labor's strange habit of offering three-year memberships)

One chart that didn't make it in the final paper was looking at party membership more recently. The result is steady decline for all parties except for brief flash-in-the-pan bursts around successful elections (further complicated by NSW Labor's strange habit of offering three-year memberships)

I’m honoured to be featured alongside some of Australia’s biggest names in wonkdom in the summer issue of Inflection Points. My paper is the culmination of 4 years work on declining civic participation — and why other researchers into the phenomenon have a blind spot for political parties.

I realised today is my six month anniversary of being unemployed (a handful of freelance contracts notwithstanding).

ATTN the rusty kurrajong are in bloom at Sherwood Arboretum. You have been warned.

Graham Richardson’s career was the paradox of neoliberalism: he was actually an incredibly effective and innovative figure for *governance*, in that he had vast skills in making the State, his Party, unions, all work together. But those acts were at the expense of *politics* in our democracy. >

I’ve been looking into comparative total representation and broadly Australia is pretty underrepresented (ie has more residents per elected rep) than most comparable countries. Except the US. Who have infinity elected positions but the ones that matter are so big to out of reach of any insurgent.

damn i wish australia had mayors

Housing in Australia is both too scarce and too expensive. Yet our major cities are among the least dense of their size in the world. Our latest Grattan report show how we can reform our urban planning rules to allow for more homes and better cities. 🧵

How soon can we get @dropout.tv to a million Australian subscribers so they're forced to do an Amazing Race to Australia Gamechanger ep.

I'll obviously write a more fulsome submission with my colleagues at @abundanthousing.org.au but I'm gonna also write a personal submission responding to (e) with my Most Annoying Opinion Yet: The Electoral Systems Theory of Political NIMBYism: how single member districts make NIMBYs kingmakers

I got all hopped up to write an oped about Brisbane City Council for its 100th birthday only to find I got beaten to the punch two years ago by the very outlet I was pitching to! A great article but in a classic journalist move doesn't actually explore any reform pathways.

Brisbane City Councillors now have 3 FTE staff - the same as a Queensland state MP - a direct repercussion of Brisbane City Council shrinking from 28 ward to 26 wards in the 1970s despite workload and complexity in governing both increasing exponentially.

Fun fact: By 2044, three councillors of Brisbane City Council will represent more people in it than the entirety of Redland City Council, the next council east, which has 10 full time councillors and a Lord Mayor.

One of the few upsides of slogging through rewriting your CV is getting to reflect on your working life and realising just how much impact you really had. When you work in knowledge jobs without $$$ deliverables, you can feel like you're just shovelling words into a void while you're doing it.

Toasted marshmallow crispy treats with dark chocolate chunks. And boy I have so much of it.

Today I’m backwards engineering rice crispy treats from memory. I will NEVER check a recipe.

I can’t believe I’m gonna get a Letterboxd

I’m running my next council campaign on one pillar and one pillar only: more ice creameries for Brisbane. We cannot fall behind Melbourne in the Ice Cream Race.

Updated tonight with confirmation from LGBTI Legal Service of new action in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal on discrimination and human rights grounds.

This is genuinely noteworthy. There is now a substantial chunk of Australia's population - around 90,000 people - that aren't unrepresented by a conservative party at any level. This might be the first time in living memory where that's the case.

I spend more time writing my To Write list than actually writing the damn things.

Bit of a front rolling in. It’s Summer.

[sobbing, breaking down, throwing up] I need to update my LinkedIn.

How’s your Friday? I’m at an old skool community meeting at Fitzroy Town Hall about decisions to close down community GP, counselling and pharmacy services in Fitzroy, Collingwood and Kensington. Huge attack healthcare for the most vulnerable in my neighbourhood. Overflowing.

Love 2 be quoted in the paper. Hate 2 be photographed for the paper.

As of May 2025 it's unlawful in NSW for a landlord or agent to advertise that pets will not be permitted in a rental property. When you search for a rental in Sydney on realestate.com.au, 1019 rental properties return. If you tick the 'pets considered' filter option, it drops to 125 properties.

A few years ago I argued (alongside @grugstan.bsky.social + @drwaus.bsky.social) that some RentTech platforms were doing regulatory evasion by design. For example, online application platforms that have an editable rent amount field circumvent existing prohibitions on soliciting rent bids

any renters out there who have been pushed to use an AI chatbot as part of your rental experience, I'd love to chat with you for my PhD research! I'm looking at the ways that tech in the private rental sector is impacting renters + housing justice and this seems...troubling

Some very interesting #auspol results on contributors to the housing crisis & policy preferences from the MQ Housing and Urban Research Centre that show a strong partisan split Results are also filtered by age, housing tenure & property investment in the report www.mq.edu.au/__data/asset...

It's going to get up to 40° in Sydney today. Summer hasn't even started yet. If you're baking in your rental home, join our Renter Lab to help us make sure renters don't have to suffer through another unbearable summer: bit.ly/renter-lab-S...

Calling myself a genAI thoughtleader on my resume because I tell everyone at the office it's shit, unsecure and they're not allowed to use it.

So many of Victoria's problems can be solved with one easy trick: abolish the City of Yarra.

Ah yes, the Eureka Stockade, famously opposed to disruptive protests

Nothing makes me feel more in the mind of the American (derogatory) than trying to write a CV. I'm physically cringing every time I try to write something positive about myself. I want to throw up.

I'm currently looking to talk with renters who have used a digital portal / app to conduct their own routine rental inspection without the real estate agent coming to your house. This is sometimes called a 'Remote Inspection' If this is you, please get in touch!

Truly impressive how I’ve only read six of the ABC’s 100 best books of the 21st century — and four of those are children’s books.

I painted my nails for the first time in years and age has not improved an already shaky hand. I think my finger skin is more polish than not.

I’ve got this Theory that political aesthetics are relational and often based on the affect of your closest network and that network effect embeds that aesthetic as central to your social identity — which results in the archetype of an aesthetic radical, political conservative.

"Perhaps the single most effective democratic reform open to this Parliament is a large increase in the number of parliamentarians." "More MPs would mean more local concerns are better represented." Australia Institute researcher Skye Predevac @skyelark.bsky.social #auspol

But it’s not a PARTY conference. It’s just a conference for organising a political movement with elected representatives with an almost perfect whip discipline headlining.

This would only come as a surprise to anyone not in the market. Listing sites are flooded with fake listings for AI companies that barely exist. Gov postings either never get filled or are flooded with senior talent facing redundancies in their agency. Temp and consulting contracts have dried up.

Disgusting comments from the Deputy Premier just days after kids died from tainted pills. Victoria, NSW and ACT are all exploring pill testing because it’s a proven and safe harm minimisation programme that saves hundreds of young people’s lives.

New study from Melbourne finds reducing residential speed limits from 50km/h to 30 km/h on local roads would protect cyclists from danger, make riding less stressful and get more people cycling while not causing traffic delays for cars.

I'm back again telling everyone who'll listen and a lot of people who won't that we need more politicians! Today, the ACT Assembly's inquiry into the 2024 election published a submission from @francismarkham.bsky.social and myself arguing it's time to make the Assembly bigger... again.

Last night I made an absolute banger pasta with leftovers from the fridge. Browned two pork and fennel sausages, added diced head of fennel and an onion, deglazed with half a cup of brandy, added a cup of cream and garden herbs, finished with pecorino. Closest to a restaurant meal I’ve made at him.

Authors aren’t funny enough anymore.

Banning AirBnB is a case where the “abundance” framing is useful. I get the desire to prioritize residents over visitors in a housing emergency. But shouldn’t the bigger long-term goal be more housing *and* more hotels? Rather than just managing scarcity?