Auspol Explained

November 1975: Australia was in a crisis. The Whitlam Government had passed a supply bill in the House of Representatives but the Coalition, led by Malcolm Fraser, was blocking its passage in the Senate. The Senate had never impeded the Government like this before and by the end of November the money the Government could spend would run out. Public servants would not be paid unless the impasse was resolved. The Coalition wanted an early election. Whitlam wanted the Senate to capitulate and accept the mandate of the Labor Government that had been elected in 1972 and re-elected in 1974 and let it continue to govern.On 11th November 1975, Gough Whitlam drove to Government House in Yarralumla to advise the Governor-General John Kerr to hold a half-Senate election. Whitlam believed that if the Senate was stopping supply from passing then they should be the ones to face the judgment of the people. However, Kerr had a different resolution to the crisis in mind. Kerr exercised the reserve powers, dismissed Whitlam and appointed Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister. Fraser called for a double dissolution election and Whitlam, despite a majority in the House of Representatives, went to the election as the Leader of the Opposition instead of Prime Minister. This event has gone down in history known simply as "the dismissal." It's steeped in controversy, speculation, and even to this day as some mystery as not everything in the National Archives relating to Kerr has been released.But we do know plenty more than we used to thanks to Professor Jenny Hocking, a historian and author who went to the High Court to secure access to the Palace Letters (communication between Kerr and the Palace while he was Governor-General). She's written multiple books about the life of Gough Whitlam so I decided to interview her about her views on the history of the dismissal and the events that led up to it.Support the channel on patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/AuspolExplainedFollow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/auspolexplained.bsky.social Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/auspolexplained/ Like Auspol Explained on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Auspol-Explained-107892180702388Auspol Explained would like to acknowledge the Whadjuk Nyoongar people and their Elders as the owners and custodians of the Land that the episode was recorded and edited on. This Land was stolen and never ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.

Prime Ministers! Australia has had 31 of them. 23 are dead (as of recording) which means there's a bunch of ways they've been memorialised - plaques, statues, suburbs in Canberra and of course the good old classic tombstone. but not all graves are equally as interesting.

So, as a post-election treat, I decided to rank the graves of former Australian prime ministers based off how interesting the quotes on their graves are. Enjoy!Support the channel on patreon here:   / auspolexplained  Follow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/auspolexplai... Follow me on Instagram:   / auspolexplained   Like Auspol Explained on Facebook:   / auspol-explained-107892180702388  Auspol Explained would like to acknowledge the Whadjuk Nyoongar people and their Elders as the owners and custodians of the Land that the episode was recorded and edited on. This Land was stolen and never ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) runs federal elections and referendums. But what else? Every election there are complaints to the AEC about candidates saying un-truths and misleading things but it actually has no power to regulate what candidates say and for a good reason - it's there to independently and apolitically run elections. But that doesn't mean the commission has no role outside of simply printing off a ballot paper and then counting the votes at the end of it - so I decided to sit down with someone from the AEC to ask them about the AEC's role, what it does, and also what it doesn't do.Of course, visit the AEC website to learn more about how elections are run in Australia: https://aec.gov.au/Support the channel on patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/AuspolExplainedFollow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/auspolexplained.bsky.social Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/auspolexplained/ Like Auspol Explained on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Auspol-Explained-107892180702388Auspol Explained would like to acknowledge the Whadjuk Nyoongar people and their Elders as the owners and custodians of the Land that the episode was recorded and edited on. This Land was stolen and never ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.

What's the BIGGEST election victory in Australian history? It's not for the federal Parliament - it's for a state or territory. So here's a list of the largest government majorities for each Australian state and territory parliament going all the way back to federation!Listen to my previous episode on biggest federal election victories here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3hOoyJsEjclECmrhmK04Xb?si=GsAZugzeTeWVWcLbb4E7rQSupport the channel on patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/AuspolExplainedFollow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/auspolexplained.bsky.social Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/auspolexplained/ Like Auspol Explained on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Auspol-Explained-107892180702388Auspol Explained would like to acknowledge the Whadjuk Nyoongar people and their Elders as the owners and custodians of the Land that the episode was recorded and edited on. This Land was stolen and never ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.

Recently Labor under Anthony Albanese won a whopping 94 out of 150 seats in the House of Representatives - but is that the biggest federal election victory in Australian history? How about the historic loss for the Liberal/National Coalition? How does that compare to other election losses? Well, here's TWO top 10 lists of the biggest government margins and smallest opposition victories in Australian federal history.Support the channel on patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/AuspolExplained

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Like Auspol Explained on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Auspol-Explained-107892180702388Auspol Explained would like to acknowledge the Whadjuk Nyoongar people and their Elders as the owners and custodians of the Land that the episode was recorded and edited on. This Land was stolen and never ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.

Election misinformation! I saw my fair share of it while making episodes about the 2025 federal election and oh boy, there are some classic repeat claims as well as some new and bizarre ones that are making the rounds. Here's a handy explainer of some of the false, misleading and outdated claims I saw and how they're wrong.The myths/episode chapters are:0:00 Intro2:04 Voting machines switched votes7:47 Pencils are used so votes can be erased10:53 Immigrants were "imported" to rig the election14:52 Preferential voting ensures major parties win21:03 Parties choose preferences25:56 OutroSide note: I point out in the immigration myth that to vote you need to be an Australian citizen. This is technically not strictly true, as British subjects enrolled to vote before 25th January 1984 who are still enrolled to vote also can/must vote. (https://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/British_subjects.htm) That is a small group of people though. It also is not relevant to the myth about immigration that I was busting because the myth clearly is about new immigrants (who can't vote and thus can't have any impact on the election outcome) and has nothing to do with that quirk of history from over 40 years ago.Support the channel on patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/AuspolExplainedFollow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/auspolexplained.bsky.social Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/auspolexplained/

Like Auspol Explained on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Auspol-Explained-107892180702388Auspol Explained would like to acknowledge the Whadjuk Nyoongar people and their Elders as the owners and custodians of the Land that the episode was recorded and edited on. This Land was stolen and never ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.

It's time for parties to choose new leaders! Especially because some of them got voted out of Parliament. So how does that process work? Well, here's a brief overview of how there isn't a one-size fits all approach to party leadership rules in Australia but there is a general vibe to how it works. In this I'll cover how Labor, Liberals, Greens and Nationals decide who their leader should be as well as how the rules for leadership challenges have changed to make them less frequent.Support the channel on patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/AuspolExplained

Follow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/auspolexplained.bsky.social

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/auspolexplained/

Like Auspol Explained on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Auspol-Explained-107892180702388Auspol Explained would like to acknowledge the Whadjuk Nyoongar people and their Elders as the owners and custodians of the Land that the episode was recorded and edited on. This Land was stolen and never ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.

Every election there'll be someone unhappy with the results and someone claiming it was rigged. But in Australia that kind of claim just doesn't stack up. There is a LOT of scrutiny on Australian elections! They're also run by independent electoral commissions. So, if you doubt their validity or if you're just curious about all the levels of details, security, scrutiny and transparency that goes into ensuring that elections are fair and conducted impartially then here's an episode explaining just how hard it is to do anything dodgy. This may also help you provide rebuttals to anyone claiming in your life "it was rigged!" simply because they don't like a result.Learn more about elections and voting in Australia at: https://aec.gov.au/ You can get a copy of the script with citations here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wKgiSj9llxqeID746WS532mhOZR65gp1/view?usp=drive_linkSupport the channel on patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/AuspolExplainedLike Auspol Explained on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Auspol-Explained-107892180702388Auspol Explained would like to acknowledge the Whadjuk Nyoongar people and their Elders as the owners and custodians of the Land that the episode was recorded and edited on. This Land was stolen and never ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.

The 2025 Australian election was called after about 2.5 hours - yet days afterwards they're still counting votes so how is it that we know the election result without it being officially declared? Well, in this episode I explain the basics of how the news uses statistical trends to make predictions even though it'll still be weeks before the official declaration of results from the AEC.Support the channel on patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/AuspolExplainedLike Auspol Explained on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Auspol-Explained-107892180702388Auspol Explained would like to acknowledge the Whadjuk Nyoongar people and their Elders as the owners and custodians of the Land that the episode was recorded and edited on. This Land was stolen and never ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.

How does preference counting work for the Australian Senate? How do they figure out who wins the Senate seats? To win, a candidate needs a quota - but a quota is different depending on how many seats there are and how many votes there are overall. Once candidates achieve a quota they're elected but then if they have surplus votes those are transferred at a reduced rate to the next preferences on the ballot. If that sounds complicated to you then good thing here's a whole episode dedicated to explaining how that works!If you want to read more about it you can on the AEC website: https://www.aec.gov.au/voting/counting/senate_count.htmFor an explanation about how preferential voting in the House of Representatives works here's an episode I prepared earlier: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3cEFXUNwMc0E22jChjDMNv?si=6zaCWBWeS8uvN-4VJI6SPA Support the channel on patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/AuspolExplainedLike Auspol Explained on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Auspol-Explained-107892180702388Auspol Explained would like to acknowledge the Whadjuk Nyoongar people and their Elders as the owners and custodians of the Land that the episode was recorded and edited on. This Land was stolen and never ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.