What this is
A factual, fully-sourced reference on Australian politicians and candidates — the federal Parliament, all eight state and territory parliaments, and announced candidates for upcoming elections. The goal is to help voters make informed decisions by gathering publicly available, verifiable information about where candidates stand, with a source link attached to every claim. This is an information resource, not a scorecard.
Editorial rules
- Every claim needs a source. Nothing is published without a citation — Hansard, an AEC disclosure, a party platform, or an on-the-record public statement that was actually retrieved. Entries lacking a confirmed source are omitted rather than guessed.
- Positions are recorded, never graded. We summarise what a person has said or done and link the source. No ideological score, no endorsement, no ranking. Readers draw their own conclusions.
- Public record only. Public statements, conduct, and sourced biographical facts — early life, education and pre-politics career, as stated by the cited source (typically the person's Wikipedia article). No ethnicity labels are applied and private belief is never inferred — faith appears only where someone has publicly self-identified it.
- Citizenship = constitutional eligibility. The citizenship field records Section 44 eligibility only (a genuine legal matter), never heritage or origin.
- No inference from party. A member's position is recorded from their own vote or statement, not assumed from their party. Where a federal party platform is shown as a fallback it is clearly labelled as the party's position, not the member's.
What's tracked
Sourced positions across 24 issues: five federal issues (immigration, faith, economic nationalism, foreign policy & aid, s44 citizenship eligibility) and nineteen state issues — conscience matters that produce named parliamentary divisions (abortion, voluntary assisted dying, gender & LGBTQ+ policy, religious freedom, drugs & law and order, gambling, hunting, sex work, First Nations & treaty, integrity) and core state policy areas (forestry, nuclear, housing, health, education, transport, energy, environment & water, animal welfare). Plus disclosed political donations, both to individual members and to parties, with a donor-information registry describing who each identifiable donor organisation actually is.
Where the data comes from
| Data | Source |
|---|---|
| Federal roster | AEC Tally Room (House) and OpenAustralia.org (Senate) |
| State/territory rosters | Parliamentary member lists, each roster carrying its own citation (shown on every card as “roster source”) |
| Election candidates | Party preselection pages, electoral commissions and reputable media — every candidate carries a “candidacy source” link |
| Positions | Hansard division records and Votes & Proceedings, committee reports, members' own statements, reputable media — cited per entry |
| Donations | AEC Transparency Register (member returns and party detailed receipts) |
| Portraits | Wikimedia Commons via each member's Wikipedia article, with OpenAustralia.org backfill; every portrait links to its source page |
Coverage — and honest gaps
Coverage is partial by design. A position appears only where it is concretely stated and backed by a retrieved source. Issues decided by named conscience-vote divisions (abortion, voluntary assisted dying, sex work, treaty, nuclear) have deep per-person coverage; executive-driven policy areas mostly surface ministers with sourced records. Newly elected members often have little public record yet — their cards fill in as they build one. Per-member donor data covers only donations made directly to a member; most political money flows through party returns, which are shown separately, and the AEC publishes itemised member receipts for House members only.
Reported vs. verified. Political-finance links that have been reported but do not yet appear in a published AEC return — for example donations or in-kind support from the most recent financial year, whose detailed receipts the AEC releases roughly eight months after year-end — are shown in a separate, amber-marked “reported · pending AEC disclosure” note on the relevant member and party views, never mixed into the verified donation totals. Each is clearly flagged as not yet verified and is checked against the primary AEC record once that return is published.
Corrections
Corrections backed by a stronger source always win. The full editing workflow is documented in CONTRIBUTING.md.
Contact us
Questions, corrections backed by a source, media or business enquiries: AusPollieWatch@burnsleaoakmont.com. Follow @AusPollieWatch on X for new articles and updates.
Map boundaries
Electoral boundaries on the Map tab are © Commonwealth of Australia (AEC federal divisions; ABS State Electoral Divisions), used under CC BY 4.0 and simplified for the web. Districts are coloured by the sitting member's party family — an identification aid, not a rating.
Privacy
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