Relatively high purchase of ADHD medicine in rural WA. 🧐Is it a good party drug?

The #Newspoll quarterly aggregate federal polling summary (not a new poll) of data from 12 January to 26 March 2026. article: www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/polit... ($) pdf of table: origin.theaustralian.com.au/wp-content/u... #auspol

Who wants to produce a report on Maintaining Confidence in Elections? $30k funding is available. www.electoral-regulation.org/annual-thema...

Here’s a great job for someone — CEO of the Centre for Future Work. Applications due 15 March. www.ethicaljobs.com.au/members/futu...

I’ve taken my 2028 guide to Farrer and updated it for the upcoming by-election which will likely pit Liberal against National and One Nation. Check it out #auspol

Me on the new Liberal leader. insidestory.org.au/will-angus-t...

The equivalent of PM Abbott dumping Credders (which never happened).

Very agree with Ben, but Langer types ostentatiously breaking law number 3 might be problematic. OTOH neither South Australia's House of Assembly's secret ticket system, nor the Senate since 2016 yet seems to have attracted glibertarian silliness, so ... it's at least worth a try.

Interesting point.

Yesterday Elon Musk retweeted "white solidarity is the only way to survive". In our numb overwhelmed media environment it barely made headlines that the world's richest man endorsed blood-curdling white nationalism. My brief writeup for @religiondispatches.org religiondispatches.org/elon-musk-ju...

Everyone is convinced that London is an extremely unsafe place to live - with the sole exception of Londoners.

EU countries increased availability of Electronic Health Records. Still, only 28% of EU citizens access them. Rich people are much more likely to access these records. Also, Germany sits exactly at the position that I would’ve guessed. Source: brnw.ch/21wYPPk

The ABC's election-night computer graphics in 1972, via this recent YouTube upload (full coverage, almost four hours): www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSIh... Most results were shown by pointing a camera at an analogue board.

A beautiful thread

Continued… a thread with the messages of goodwill towards Ahmed outside his closed shop in Sutherland in #Sydney’s south. I was struck by how many kids have done drawings for the man who ran towards danger to save others. Seasons greetings #Australia! Look after one another!

Me yesterday .... "Some political leaders appear able to draw on a deep moral well, at least in public. Kim Beazley, who never became prime minister, was one. Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull as well. Not so Anthony Albanese" insidestory.org.au/when-lowerin...

The latest Electoral Regulation Research Network newsletter, edited by me. Lots of good stuff, including on October's ERRN’s 2-day course on The Regulation of Australian Elections. electoral-regulation.org/s/December-2...

There's a queue of people down two flights of stairs to the front door of the building for the Parramatta blood donation centre. They are booking people in for later appointments one by one, so still worth doing.

This, for no particular reason, from a 2011? draft of something that wasn't published about blogs a decade earlier. True enough @johnquiggin.bsky.social ?

Barnaby Joyce's 'repertoire over two decades in parliament hasn’t included “dog-whistling” of the kind favoured by John Howard in his time and enthusiastically embraced by Peter Dutton.' Fairy nuff statement? insidestory.org.au/exit-stage-r...

Such familiar debate for Strayans. Starmer needs to slash arrival numbers, not by inflicting cruelty on ppl (indefensible) but somehow stop them going to Calais to board boat in 1st place. Take lots more refugees via UNHCR instead. It's true that matching nasty rhetoric is counterproductive.

Ian has a weekly spot on ABC's Late Night Live, yet hasn't picked up on, or doesn't care about, the Australian need to believe we are as important as America and UK. Eg every Oz journo will tell you that US, UK and Australia invaded Iraq. So where is our PM in this formulation eh?

Today I'm looking at some of the facts used to inform the debate around fixed terms. You might hear that the average parliament lasts for 2 years 8 months - that's true over the last 125 years, but doesn't reflect the last 35 years, when parliaments usually run at about their full term. #auspol

Me on the One Nation surge and Related Matters. How many House seats does 18% get you? It depends ... insidestory.org.au/exit-stage-r...

Hmmm makes you think

Anyone got 1984 federal pendulum (ie estimated pre-election margins)? @kevinbonham.bsky.social @benraue.com @pappubahry.com

Omg the first 10 minutes is Cuomo ranting against rando online anti-Israel hypocrites (of which there are many) and Bremmer repeatedly trying to steer the convo to the words of people who actually matter. But Cuomo can’t let go. Chris is one online dude.

The screenshot claims it actually made a profit for the govt, not just the economy. Nothing about that in the link; deets would be nice.

Unsurprisingly he seems more more popular with the grunts than with the brass.

The #Newspoll federal poll was taken between 29 September - 2 October 2025, sample of 1264, online survey. Here is the table graphic as it appears on page 4 of The Australian, 6 October, including voting, leader approval ratings, better Prime Minister, and a question on house prices. #auspol

How expensive should university education be and who should pay for it? The map is taken from this excellent video discussing the future of university education: buff.ly/gjiYZGl

Good on you for spending less time online my dear young people!

Imagine no redistributions from now to next fed election, then a uniform 5.2% primary vote swing from ALP to L/NP (& all other votes remain the same) So national 2pp is 50-50 On pendulum: L/NP gains 14 seats from ALP Also, on crossbench: Grn take Griffith, Brisbane, Richmond, Macnamara from ALP 1/2

Good point. (ChatGPT estimates UK citizens about 17% born o/s; Oz citizens born o/s, yes, at ~30%.)

🚨 NEW: Australian attitudes towards immigration are virtually unchanged from last year, according to a new poll from Essential, with voters divided on whether it is "generally positive" or "generally negative"

Me on One Nation’s recent poll surge, overseas counterparts, and the big fat potential disinformation weakness in our electoral system. insidestory.org.au/one-nations-...

Guy makes fair points, arrest was OTT, but also he does seem to have gone troppo.🤪

Australia pretty much the same as UK. Contrast with all the American “new world” countries, settled/colonised/conquered centuries earlier when Europeans still believed in hobgoblins, burned witches etc.

Australia versus our big neighbour to the north.

On the street, it's got a dozen names. Some call 'em White Devils. Simple, classic. Some cats call 'em The Levelers, 'cause they take you from a 10 on the pain scale down to a zero. Smooths you right out. You call it Tylenol. I call it death.

Trump seems to love Albo immediately after a phone call, so there might be a fair bit of spectacular, private crawling.😼

The #Newspoll quarterly aggregate federal polling summary (not a new poll) of data from 14 July to 11 September 2025. www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/polit... ($) #auspol

68.7% Yes overall. Known as the referendum that ended Apartheid and gave non-whites the vote. But question was rather mundane. "Do you support continuation of the reform process which the State President began on 2 February 1990 and which is aimed at a new Constitution through negotiation?"

“Hunt is long gone, and these days the object of Sheridan’s besottedness seems to be Matt Canavan, the coal-revering Queensland LNP senator” Sez me insidestory.org.au/toxic-emissi...

For amusement only - after a "private investigator" bizarrely presumed to be able to identify my ideology from a single tweet, I asked four AI programs to place various Australian psephologists on a political orientation scale from 0 (extreme left) to 10 (extreme right).

Sadiq Khan has said a record number of Americans have applied for British citizenship following the election of Trump. “It’s also our liberal values that make us stand out – celebrating our diversity in London as a strength, not as a threat to society.” www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

So they’ll probably do it?

Honestly this is not getting as much coverage as it should. Korean auto workers in the US kidnapped by ICE and kept in inhumane conditions for over a week.

The huge differences in income by race and ethnicity in the US remains remarkable. Source: buff.ly/jp5gmlL