This background note is designed to answer some of those frequently asked questions about who was the first, youngest, oldest, most often, etc. in Australian federal politics.

The focus is on records for the Federal Parliament although a few significant records relate to members of State parliaments. The information is current as at October 2010 and has been compiled from sources including the Parliamentary Handbook, Hansard, the Australian Dictionary of Biography and State parliamentary handbooks. A key to the political party abbreviations can be found at the end of this publication.