With the looming threat of a federal election in Australia, a new application that provides detailed demographics for each electorate could become an integral tool in the campaigning frenzy.

Although the tool has been designed for those working in electoral campaign offices, the app also offers interesting information for the casual user or anyone interested in learning a bit more about the characteristics of a neighbourhood.

The application is based on data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006 census.

The user selects the electorate they wish to examine and then picks a category from a list of themes, such as citizenship, age, religion and family income, to map. The application can be drilled down to individual street level.

The user can also view a full range of census data while in a specific screen and change base maps and administrative boundaries.

The mashup is based on NuMaps’ DemographicDrapes service.