Talk:Candidates of the 2007 Australian federal election

Hajnal Ban

I've decided to remove the anonymous addition of Hajnal Ban. Despite lengthy profiles from both the SMH [1] and AJN [2], she's not yet the endorsed National candidate for Forde. Preselection is in December. Dlw22 08:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

In fact she was endorsed only a week or so after I posted this. [3] Re-added, belatedly. Dlw22 12:34, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Lib vs Nats in SA

I thought Libs and Nats federally were not to challenge each other because they are in a coalition. If that is occuring in SA, will Libs has candidates in Nat-held seats in other states 203.213.97.55 11:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It is rather curious. But the answer to your question is no. It seems that even though it's a federal election, the Coalition agreement starts and ends at state borders. At the last federal election, the Nationals stood candidates against Wilson Tuckey [4] and Patrick Secker [5]. Because the SA & WA Nationals have no MPs in need of protection, they're apparently free to challenge sitting Liberals. Note too that in South Australia, the sole National MHA is a cabinet minister in the state Labor govt. Dlw22 16:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Parkes

What is happening in Parkes? A different National candidate (Mark Coulton) is indicated in the article, but nothing is said about any retirement of sitting MP John Cobb. Frickeg 06:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Don't worry! Frickeg 06:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Ken Aldred

I notice there has been a mini edit war over Ken Aldred's candidacy for Holt. Just to settle the matter: Aldred is NOT the endorsed Liberal candidate for Holt. He was disendorsed within a week of winning preselection. This has been documented in the Former Candidates section. Dlw22 15:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Greg Pargeter

Could someone who knows how to change the table please add Greg Pargeter as the Labor candidate for La trobe. http://www.starnewsgroup.com.au/story/37583. Thanks Crested Penguin 23:59, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. Dlw22 02:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Intending Independent Candidates

For those of us who are intending on running as independents, whats the policy for adding names? Purserj 09:11, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Do not do so, firstly you have a conflict of interest and secondly you would need to provide an independent source which names you has having become a candidate for the election. In fact I presume that is not possible to register as a candidate at this point, therefore it is impossible to be an independent candidate at this point, the only way you could qualify would be to be endorsed by a political party or to be a sitting independent who has announced an intention to recontest the seat... Maybe if someone high profile announced they were going to run... but otherwise it's just speculation and/or posturing. Cheers, Alec ✉_{﹌ }^۞ 14:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This is where it gets tricky, the AEC tracks all electoral donations from the time of the announcement of intention to run, yet as you say, independents cannot register as candidates until the election is actually called. Purserj 22:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I would personally appreciate independent candidates putting up some very basic information here on this talk page, in preparation for the official announcement so that the information is on hand to transfer to the article. The basic information would include:

• Name
• State / Electorate intention
• Link to campaign website
• Links to newspaper articles and other publically available reference material

I'm of the distinct impression that this sort of "work in progress" is within wiki policy to post on the talk page, as long as it does not include self-promoting statements such as political platform.
Matthew 1130 14:54, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Citations needed

Congratulations to Western Australia for having all candidates verified by sources, I have marked the candidates that need a source backing them up. Otherwise this is just random people adding names any one of which could be vandalism for all we know, it's a MUCH better article if it is as it was a little while ago with all candidates backed up with sources. I propose that when the election is actually called that all unverified candidates be removed until the electoral commission releases an official list of candidates. Cheers, Alec ✉_{﹌ }^۞ 14:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Articles about election candidates are speedily deleted!

I have created two articles about election candidates, but they have both been "speedily deleted", because they did not satisfy the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable.

Apparently, references to three news articles and candidacy in an upcoming election is not sufficient to make them "notable"!!! How can we gather information about these candidates so that we and others may know who we are voting for?

My next idea was to use my userpage, and link to my userpage for each of the "non-notable" candidates on the Candidates of the Australian general election, 2007, but I suspect that would also be against some wikipedia policy.

My best idea now is to create a MSN Group with pages for each of the "non-notable" candidates, and link directly there from Candidates of the Australian general election, 2007. Does anyone have a better idea?

Matthew 1130 13:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Here's another idea ... how about I create a section for "Information About New Candidates" at the bottom of Candidates of the Australian general election, 2007? That way we can link from the Candidates of the Australian general election, 2007#Senate down to that section, without fear of the information getting "speedily deleted" because they are not notable enough.

Matthew 1130 14:34, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you need to look at WP:Bio - you will see that candidates for an election do not meet the criteria for notability for politicians automatically. Without looking at which articles were deleted being a candidate for a seat in a federal election does not in my mind (or it seems in the mind of other wikipedians) make you notable even if thatinformation is verified in the newspapers. If that is all the newspaper articles are talking about then it idoesn'tamtter that the information is verified it doesn't pass thenotability threshhold.

I am not sure why you wish to create candidate articles since they are not inherently notable and thus do not fit within the scope of the encyclopaedia project. They seem to be a magnet for promotion as others also do not realise that wikipedia is not a soapbox. The aim of Wikipedia is to produce a neutral, verifiable encyclopedia that is not a primary publisher - how does adding non-notable political biographies contribute to that aim?

There are a very few candidates that are notable - Michael Towke (no longer a candidate) for the amount of controversy he has caused and Maxine McKew for example in challenging the PM in Bennelong. She is currently the lead story in the Bulletin. She was a notable journalist in her own right beforehand.

For a candidate's article to stay they need to have a verifiable claim to notability beyond candidature. I don't much like the idea of creating a monster article as the principle of not writing biographies on candidates applies whther they are in their own article or part of a larger one. I would suggest that once the election is declared you will find it difficult to keep the content to a reasonable standard. The references on this page should be sufficient links for people who want to know more - wikipedia isn't a news paper or a source of truth on all candidates in the Australian federal election ... There are other sites. --Golden Wattle ^talk 19:01, 8 August 2007 (UTC)