Five days until the Australian election day and things are heating up: TLDR Election 2025
With the fourth and final leader's debate over, we're in the final sprint toward election day on Saturday. More than 2.4 million Australians have already cast their vote, while the leaders try to squeeze in as many visits to electorates as they can. And while the debate was, from the policy side of things, your usual fare, Peter Dutton's comments about welcome to country ceremonies were just one catalyst for a cavalcade of headlines today. Krishani Dhanji explains where things stand at the beginning of this frantic final week
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The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- The Herald Scotland
Inside NYC's voting system to rank candidates
With so many options, New Yorkers will choose their next mayor like they pick ice cream in the summer. The city's ranked choice system allows voters to choose their top five candidates for mayor, plus top picks in other city races. Even if your top choice doesn't make it, you can still get flavors, or candidates, you prefer. Ranked choice "allows for people to vote in a way that expresses how they feel," said Susan Kang, an associate professor of political science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The system aims to give voters more choices in a crowded field of nearly a dozen Democratic and a handful of Republican mayoral hopefuls in closed primaries for both parties. It also hopes to bring up candidates from underrepresented backgrounds, often without access to vast campaign war chests. The system, first approved by voters in 2019, has been used in elections around the country - from Alaska to Maine, and from San Francisco to tiny Woodland Hills, Utah (population 1,571). Other places, including Washington, D.C., more recently adopted it. Australians use the system. Winning New York City's Democratic primary is almost always a ticket to City Hall in a city that's about two-thirds registered Democrats. Primary lessons: Trump rules, Dems are revved. NYC's melee is next. How Cuomo v. Mamdani shows ranked choice voting Andrew Cuomo, New York's longtime governor who resigned in 2021 after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment, had led comfortably in polls. Many voters see Cuomo, 67, as an experienced moderate executive who can fight President Donald Trump. But with ranked choice, state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist calling to freeze rents, has inched ever closer to Cuomo. That's because under ranked choice, a candidate has to get over 50% of votes. While polls have Cuomo ahead, he's unlikely to win most first-round votes. At each round, candidates with the fewest votes get eliminated. Voters who ranked less supported candidates first will have their subsequent choices allocated to their next ranked candidate. New York first used ranked choice voting in 2021. With many candidates vehemently opposed to Cuomo, their supporters' next-round votes can help Mamdani, who is endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive star. The process continues until there are two candidates left. Cuomo is favored to win, though polling has tightened between the former governor and Mamdani. Cross-endorsements, cooperation The city's first time using ranked choice, in 2021, resulted in the narrow, eighth-round victory of Eric Adams, the swaggering, scandal-plagued mayor. (Adams dropped out of the 2025 Democratic primary, opting to seek re-election as an independent.) Back in 2021, Adams' last standing opponent, Kathryn Garcia, received a late endorsement from Andrew Yang, another candidate. Yang supported ranked choice during a failed 2020 presidential run. "The ranked choice voting system enables you to take advantage of being someone's second- or third-place vote," Yang, now a third-party advocate, told USA TODA. "A smart candidate will try and capitalize on that." In 2025, there are more cross-endorsements between Mamdani and other candidates to Cuomo's left, such as city Comptroller Brad Lander and former lawmaker Michael Blake. Ranked choice challenges Under this relatively new system, voters need to know how to correctly rank their choices. In a 2023 study, Lindsey Cormack, an associate professor of quantitative social science at Stevens Institute of Technology, found higher levels of voided ballots in lower income areas and communities with lower educational attainment. There were also issues among people who speak a language other than English. "Anytime you change a system, you make it nominally harder, or at least the capacity for errors goes up, because there's just more boxes to tick," she said. Complicating matters, the primaries use ranked choice, but the general election does not. Nor do state or presidential elections. Only growing beyond June 24 primary election Politicians and experts agree that, with time, voters can get used to their new system. For now, ranked choice appears to continue expanding across cities and states. In November, Washington, D.C., approved ranked choice voting. Christina Henderson, one of the district's at-large representatives and a Brooklyn native, has supported ranked choice to help people dissatisfied with polarized politics. "If provided the right information, they can make the right choice for themselves," Henderson, an independent, said. "Now, the key is providing the right information." New York City's primary is June 24. Early voting is underway. Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Reach him by email at emcuevas1@ or on Signal at emcuevas.01.
Reuters
a day ago
- Reuters
Australia closes Iran embassy citing deteriorating security environment
SYDNEY, June 20 (Reuters) - Australia has suspended operations at its embassy in Tehran due to the deteriorating security environment in Iran and has directed the departure of all Australian officials, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Friday. Australia's ambassador to Iran will remain in the region to support the government's response to the crisis, Wong said. "We are continuing planning to support Australians seeking to depart Iran, and we remain in close contact with other partner countries," Wong said in a statement.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- The Guardian
Fate of NSW Liberal party to be decided at crunch meeting after federal takeover
The fate of the New South Wales Liberal party will be decided at a crunch meeting on Tuesday, where the party's federal executive will weigh up whether to end or extend its control over the division. The federal Liberal party forcibly took over the NSW division in September last year after the NSW branch failed to lodge nominations for 140 candidates in 16 councils before the local government elections. A committee was appointed to replace its state executive for a period of 10 months. On Tuesday, the Liberal party federal executive will decide the next steps for new Liberal leader Sussan Ley's home state division in one of her first major challenges. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email In the lead-up to the meeting, a small NSW-focused committee remaining in control of the state branch has been firming as the most likely outcome. That would mean replacing the three-person committee backed by Peter Dutton and supported by Tony Abbott. The administrative committee – whose term runs out on June 30 – ignited a internal furore after one of the members, Alan Stockdale, said Liberal women were 'sufficiently assertive' and perhaps men needed a leg up. The federal executive is also expected to agree to launch two separate reviews after the party's worst election defeat in its 80-year history – a conventional post-election inquiry and a broader probe into the party. Arthur Sinodinos is expected to be among the senior party figures to lead the campaign review, although Guardian Australia understands the former Liberal minister, staffer and US ambassador has yet to be formally approached for the task. John Howard-era cabinet minister and former rightwing power broker Nick Minchin was another name that was floated. The Queensland senator, James McGrath, is the frontrunner to lead the deeper dive into the party, according to multiple Liberal sources. The federal intervention has rankled all three factions in NSW – the moderates, the centre-right and the right – and all are perturbed with the lack of progress and consultation. A three-person committee made up of Victorian party figures Stockdale and Richard Alston and former NSW state MP Peta Seaton was installed to manage the branch, including reviewing the party's constitution, overhauling the administrative machinery and helping to conduct the federal election campaign. As a decision on the future of the intervention neared, a compromise in which the federal executive agreed to continue with a committee but install more NSW members has garnered a level of support across the factions. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion The most likely shape of the new committee would be an elder statesperson from NSW as the chair – and the three remaining vice-presidents from the NSW state executive. 'It's very much a Speakman-Ley proposal,' said one senior Liberal, referring to Ley and the NSW opposition leader, Mark Speakman. 'They have been working very closely together,' he said. This option would have the advantage of being more acceptable to the NSW party members because local figures would be in control. Ley would not comment before Tuesday's meeting but sources close to the Liberal leader disputed suggestions she was working with any faction on a particular model. The compromise is not certain to succeed as it requires 75% support from the 22-strong federal executive, which is compromised of Ley's federal parliamentary leadership team, state division presidents and federal branch officials. 'We're about two-thirds there,' said one insider, noting that most of the state representatives on the federal executive were instinctively likely to favour more state control. If the vote for either the old or the compromise committee does not achieve 75%, the control of the NSW division will automatically revert to the NSW state executive.
