Australian Politics Intelligence System
A living political intelligence tracker for Australian federal, state, and territory politics — built as a structured markdown library you can browse, search, and maintain over time.
What this is
Most people follow politics through news feeds: reactive, fragmented, and hard to compare across states. This project takes a different approach:
- Structured context — jurisdictions, parties, politicians, policies, elections, finance, media, and networks in one place
- Disciplined updates — a weekly event log plus tiered reviews, so the system stays current without becoming a full-time job
- Explicit scope — we track what matters for understanding power and policy; we do not try to catalogue every councillor or press release
The active tracker lives under Tracker in the navigation (dashboard, dossiers, pendulums, policies). The Guide section explains the Australian political system and how this project is designed and built.
What we are doing (May 2026)
This site is a first working build of the architecture described in the project specifications:
| Phase | Focus | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | MkDocs site, nine jurisdiction hubs, federal parties & priority dossiers | Foundation and gap-layer stubs |
| 2 | State rollout — parties, politicians, policies, councils, history starters | 24 state party shells; SA/VIC priority dossiers |
| 3 | Electoral depth — AEC federal pendulum, SA ECSA data, Senate/crossbench | Verified 2025 federal margins; expanded crossbench |
| 4 | Full coverage — 150 HoR + 76 Senate shells, state pendulums, deferred councils/history | ~376 markdown files in the tracker |
Specifications and build decisions are kept in the repository under documents/specifications/ and documents/audit/ (audit trail is for builders, not day-to-day reading).
Where to start
!!! tip "Recommended path" 1. Primer — scale of Australian democracy, institutions, states, parties, media (read first if you are new to the system or need scope) 2. Electoral glossary — 2PP, 2CP, swing, pendulum, Hare-Clark (read before marginals tables) 3. System design — three layers, dossier format, maintenance cadence, folder architecture 4. Build approach — how this repository was implemented phase by phase 5. Tracker dashboard — live matrix, coverage counts, current watch list
If you already know Australian politics and only want data: go straight to the dashboard or pick a jurisdiction from the Tracker tab.
Repository layout (for contributors)
| Path | Role |
|---|---|
docs/ |
This website — changing political content |
documents/specifications/ |
Blueprints: primer, tracking system, gaps analysis |
documents/audit/ |
Build history and decisions (001–005) |
scripts/ |
Generators (pendulums, dossiers, indexes) |
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
mkdocs serve
Principles
- People and power are tracked with dossiers (YAML frontmatter for queries); policy and electoral layers explain what is contested and where seats move.
- Weekly changes go to the event log only; dossiers update on a monthly/quarterly cadence unless something trajectory-changing happens.
- Local government is filtered (~12 high-value councils), not comprehensive.