The goal of ausPH is to retrieve data from the Parliamentary Handbook of the
Commonwealth of Australia and return ready-to-analyse data,
formatted as a tibble. The package relies on the data from
the Handbook site, which is subject to change and improvement. Functions
that query the Handbook’s API return NULL, with a message,
if the API cannot be reached.
At present, the package contains the following functions:
get2CP (Data on two candidate preferred results since
1919)1getCommitteeMembers (Data on committee memberships
since 1901)getElections (Data on elections since 1901)2getElectorates (Data on electorates since 1901)getIndividuals (Data on individuals and biographical
information since 1901)getParlService (data on parliamentary tenures of MPs
and senators since 1901)getParliaments (Data on Parliamentary terms since
1901)getMinisters (Data on Ministers since 1901)getShadowMinisters (Data on Shadow Ministers since
1901)getParties (Data on Parties since 1901)getPartyService (Data on Party Service of MPs and
Senators since
1901)getMinistries (Data on Ministries and Governing Parties
since
1901)getOccupations (Data on all pre-parliamentary
occupations listed since 1901)getQualifications (Data on all listed
qualifications)getSchools (Data on all listed secondary schools)getSittingDates (Data on all parliamentary sitting
dates since
1901)getErrata (Known errors in the Handbook, with
corrections)How the tables returned by ausPH link together. Hansard speeches are in development.
The diagram is drawn from data-raw/data_map.tex.
The Handbook is an excellent source, but it contains some errors.
ausPH returns the Handbook’s data as it is by default, and marks rows
with a known problem in a handbook_flag column, for example
terms that overlap the member’s previous term, or sittings recorded for
a chamber that did not sit.
The flag column is returned by getParlService(),
getPartyService(), getSittingDates() and
getElections(). Where the correct value is known, it is
listed with its evidence in getErrata(), and passing
apply_errata = TRUE to these functions uses the corrected
value instead (no corrections are listed yet for
getPartyService()):
getParlService(chamber = "house", apply_errata = TRUE)If you find another error, please open an issue.
Some tables would take many requests to retrieve from the Handbook in full, so the package stores a copy and, by default, brings it up to date when you call the function:
| Function | By default | Requests |
|---|---|---|
getParlService() |
retrieves the whole table from the Handbook | 1 |
getElections() |
adds elections listed since the stored copy | 2 |
get2CP() |
adds results for elections since the stored copy | about 3, plus 1 per new election |
getSittingDates() |
adds sitting dates after the stored copy | 1 per year |
getPartyService() |
stored copy only; update = TRUE re-fetches everyone who
has served since (about 250 requests, two to three minutes) |
0 |
Use update = FALSE to work from the stored copy alone,
e.g. offline or for reproducibility. If the Handbook cannot be reached,
these functions return the stored copy with a message. The date of the
stored copy is in the scraped attribute and the date of any
update in the updated attribute,
e.g. attr(getElections("all"), "updated").
You can install the development version of ausPH from GitHub with:
# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("palesl/ausPH")Please cite this package as the following:
Leslie, Pat. 2026. “ausPH: An R Package to Retrieve Data from the Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia.” R package version 1.0.1. https://github.com/palesl/ausPH.
Bibtex format entry:
@misc{leslie_ausph_2026,
title = {{ausPH}: {An} {R} package to retrieve data from the {Parliamentary} {Handbook} of the {Commonwealth} of {Australia}.},
url = {https://github.com/palesl/ausPH},
author = {Leslie, Pat},
year = {2026},
note = {R package version 1.0.1},
}These examples show some simple functionality of the package:
library(ausPH)
## get elections
getElections(chamber = "all", byelections = T)
#> All federal elections excluding elections for casual vacancies in the Senate
#> # A tibble: 218 × 12
#> Id HandbookId Division DateElection Year FullSenateElection Parliament
#> <dbl> <dbl> <chr> <date> <dbl> <lgl> <chr>
#> 1 202 202 Federal 1901-03-29 1901 TRUE P1
#> 2 306 306 Darling Do… 1901-09-14 1901 FALSE P1
#> 3 378 378 Tasmania 1902-03-06 1902 FALSE P1
#> 4 312 312 East Sydney 1903-09-04 1903 FALSE P1
#> 5 203 203 Federal 1903-12-16 1903 FALSE P2
#> 6 394 394 Wilmot 1904-02-26 1904 FALSE P2
#> 7 356 356 Melbourne 1904-03-30 1904 FALSE P2
#> 8 371 371 Riverina 1904-05-18 1904 FALSE P2
#> 9 204 204 Federal 1906-12-12 1906 FALSE P3
#> 10 309 309 Echuca 1907-07-10 1907 FALSE P3
#> # ℹ 208 more rows
#> # ℹ 5 more variables: Reps <lgl>, Senate <lgl>, Byelection <lgl>,
#> # SupplementaryElection <lgl>, handbook_flag <chr>
## get a list of parliaments
getParliaments()
#> # A tibble: 48 × 9
#> PID Name DateElection DateOpening DateDissolution ParliamentEnd
#> <dbl> <chr> <date> <date> <date> <date>
#> 1 1 First Parliament 1901-03-29 1901-05-09 1903-11-23 1903-12-15
#> 2 2 Second Parliame… 1903-12-16 1904-03-02 1906-11-05 1906-12-11
#> 3 3 Third Parliament 1906-12-12 1907-02-20 1910-02-19 1910-04-12
#> 4 4 Fourth Parliame… 1910-04-13 1910-07-01 1913-04-23 1913-05-30
#> 5 5 Fifth Parliament 1913-05-31 1913-07-09 1914-07-30 1914-09-04
#> 6 6 Sixth Parliament 1914-09-05 1914-10-08 1917-03-26 1917-05-04
#> 7 7 Seventh Parliam… 1917-05-05 1917-06-14 1919-11-03 1919-12-12
#> 8 8 Eighth Parliame… 1919-12-13 1920-02-26 1922-11-06 1922-12-15
#> 9 9 Ninth Parliament 1922-12-16 1923-02-28 1925-10-03 1925-11-13
#> 10 10 Tenth Parliament 1925-11-14 1926-01-13 1928-10-09 1928-11-16
#> # ℹ 38 more rows
#> # ℹ 3 more variables: ParliamentNext <dbl>, ParliamentOrdinal <chr>,
#> # FQName <chr>
## get two candidate preferred since 1919
get2CP()
#> Notes contain information on results missing from the parliamentary handbook
#> # A tibble: 9,746 × 15
#> Id Name State Year ElectionID Candidate Party pID votes_2cp margin_2cp
#> <dbl> <chr> <chr> <dbl> <dbl> <chr> <chr> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1 19855 Adel… SA 1919 209 Yates, E… Aust… 1 10184 -339
#> 2 19855 Adel… SA 1919 209 Blundell… Nati… NA 10523 339
#> 3 19839 Angas SA 1919 209 Gabb, Mo… Aust… 1 9468 251
#> 4 19839 Angas SA 1919 209 Glynn, P… Nati… NA 9217 -251
#> 5 19840 Bala… Vic 1919 209 Smith, P… Aust… 1 11495 -9760
#> 6 19840 Bala… Vic 1919 209 Watt, Wi… Nati… NA 21255 9760
#> 7 19841 Ball… Vic 1919 209 McGrath,… Aust… 1 13568 -1
#> 8 19841 Ball… Vic 1919 209 Kerby, E… Nati… NA 13569 1
#> 9 19842 Bark… SA 1919 209 Davies, … Aust… 1 7923 -6223
#> 10 19842 Bark… SA 1919 209 Livingst… Nati… NA 14146 6223
#> # ℹ 9,736 more rows
#> # ℹ 5 more variables: margin_percentage_2cp <dbl>, swing_2cp <dbl>,
#> # Status <chr>, Note <chr>, source <chr>
## known errors in the Handbook
getErrata()
#> # A tibble: 14 × 9
#> table key field handbook_value corrected_value issue evidence source
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 parl_service BV8|… Date… 1946-06-28 1946-09-28 over… Term st… https…
#> 2 parl_service RG4|… Date… 1975-05-18 1974-05-18 over… Term en… https…
#> 3 parl_service L08|… Date… 1940-08-21 1940-09-21 over… Term st… https…
#> 4 parl_service JXQ|… Date… 1977-11-10 1977-12-10 over… Term st… https…
#> 5 parl_service KDT|… Date… 1972-11-02 1972-12-02 over… Term st… https…
#> 6 sitting_dat… 1928… Sena… TRUE FALSE cham… Only th… https…
#> 7 sitting_dat… 1997… Sena… TRUE FALSE cham… Canberr… https…
#> 8 sitting_dat… 2008… Reps… TRUE FALSE cham… The 42n… https…
#> 9 elections 378 Date… 1902-03-06 1902-03-26 date… The Han… https…
#> 10 elections 343 Date… 1910-08-29 1910-08-24 date… The Han… https…
#> 11 elections 341 Date… 1940-11-10 1940-11-16 date… The Han… https…
#> 12 elections 9004 Date… 1945-10-18 1945-08-18 date… The Han… https…
#> 13 elections 315 Date… 1963-06-01 1963-09-28 date… The Han… https…
#> 14 elections 327 Date… 1963-09-28 1963-06-01 date… The Han… https…
#> # ℹ 1 more variable: date_added <chr>Last updated: 26 October 2026. See NEWS.md for
changes.
Hex image icon: Canberra Parliament House by Anna Hatzisavas from Noun Project
get2CP() returns a stored copy of the
Handbook’s results, with any elections held since added from the
Handbook (see below). Where the Handbook has no result for a division, a
result from another source is used instead, documented in the
Note and source variables.↩︎
Two elections the Handbook does not list (the Wide Bay
by-election of 1928 and the Dickson supplementary election of 1993) are
added, with the package’s own identifiers and flagged
not_in_handbook. HandbookId gives the
Handbook’s own identifier for every other election.↩︎