About Electrical Connection

Electrical Connection

Overview

Electrical Connection is an Australian trade magazine and news website for electricians and electrical contractors, published quarterly in print and digital editions by Lanella Media of Melbourne. Founded in 1995, it is the electrical title in a family of "Connection" trade magazines — alongside Plumbing Connection and Building Connection — that has been published from Melbourne's south-east since the 1980s. Its editorial formula, set out at its launch and repeated in its anniversary issues, is independent, educational and practical content for working contractors: technical explainers on standards and codes, workplace safety, new products, and advice on running an electrical business.

The magazine turned 30 in 2025, marking the milestone with a retrospective issue, and remains in active publication: its website carried news dated October 2026 when reviewed, and digital editions of Issue 1 and Issue 2, 2026 are published on the site.

History

Electrical Connection began in 1995 in a small office in the Victorian suburb of Carnegie. Its publisher, Jeff Patchell, had founded Patchell Publishing (later Connection Magazines) in 1985 with Plumbing Connection, and added Building Connection for building contractors soon after. The electrical title — first published as The Australian Electrical Contractor Connection — came about at the instigation of the National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA), the peak industry body, whose state-based magazines lacked national scale and which approached Patchell to create a national electrical publication after seeing his plumbing and building titles. Patchell worked closely with NECA's national secretary Peter Glynn in the launch period, and recruited Allan Alderson, an electrical engineer, as founding editor to set the magazine's technical themes.

The magazine went through four names over its first twenty years before settling on Electrical Connection, which it celebrated in a 20th anniversary edition in Winter 2015. Speaking for that anniversary, former NECA national chief executive James Tinslay recalled that Patchell "was determined to take the 'every man' approach he had successfully applied to plumbers and builders and apply it to electrical contractors", and that "there was nothing else like it in the market". The publishing company adopted the name Connection Magazines in June 2000, and in 2019 the business was sold through a management buy-out to Lanella Media Pty Ltd, which has published the titles since; the Electrical Connection colophon in 2019 already named Lanella Media, of Mulgrave in Melbourne, as publisher. Founder Jeff Patchell remains involved as an editorial consultant, and the magazine's 30th anniversary retrospective in 2025 was written by staff writer Casey McGuire with Patchell reflecting on the title's launch philosophy: no advertising on the front cover, and every article required to be relevant to Australian electrical contractors and electricians.

Over the decades the wider group expanded in step with the trades it serves: from the original Plumbing Connection it added Building Connection and Electrical Connection, then further trade titles including Cabling Connection and Business Connection, consumer brands such as BUILD and ManSpace, and research and events divisions that run annual industry forums. That group history, as recorded in the company's published accounts, explains the stable's shared formula — the same independent, standards-focused editorial model applied trade by trade — of which Electrical Connection remains a core title.

Content and Coverage

The magazine's content is built around the working life of contractors. Technical features explain Australian standards, codes and regulations in plain language — long-serving contributors such as standards expert Peter Vandenheuvel and estimating trainer Brian Seymour, whose "Seminars in Print/Estimating" column ran for some twenty years, exemplify the model — and regular coverage spans workplace health and safety, lighting, cabling and communications, industrial automation and switchgear, tools and test equipment, and product news from suppliers. Business content covers estimating and tendering, training and apprenticeships, industry advocacy and the economics of contracting.

In the past decade the centre of gravity has shifted with the trade itself: renewable energy, rooftop solar, battery storage, electric-vehicle charging, smart homes and connected buildings now dominate the feature well. The 30th anniversary coverage dwelt on exactly this transition — electrification, AI-driven energy management and the national shortage of electricians — with commentary from NECA, Clipsal and the magazine's own long-term contributors. The website publishes news on a rolling basis between quarterly issues: recent stories in October 2026 covered electrical waste recycling trials, switchgear and tool launches, clean-energy events and tradie earnings research, alongside magazine features republished online.

Audience and Reach

Electrical Connection is written for Australia's electrical contracting industry: licensed electricians, electrical contractors and their staff, apprentices, and the wholesalers, suppliers and trainers around them. It is distributed nationally to the trade, and the publisher has run bulk distribution programs to extend its reach into training — Connection Magazines announced a program with TAFE NSW under which 50 colleges teaching building, plumbing or electrical services received substantial bulk copies of the three trade magazines on a quarterly basis. Announcing that program, TAFE NSW's industry liaison manager Greg Cheetham said the magazines "provide value that goes beyond the general curricula that is taught", giving teachers access to the latest industry thinking and product developments; the title is likewise listed in Australian TAFE subject guides as a journal for the electrical trades, described there as covering standards, trends and product categories for the contractor market. No audited circulation figure for the title was found in the sources consulted, and none is claimed here; the publisher's group has historically described its titles as among the highest-circulating industry publications per capita in their markets, which is the publisher's own characterisation.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website, electricalconnection.com.au, combines a frequently updated news service with the full text of the quarterly magazine, which is published online as page-turning digital (flipbook) editions: the site hosts the complete run of recent issues, including Issue 1 and Issue 2 of 2026 and the four issues of 2025 and 2024. (The same site is also reachable at the shorter electricalconnection.au address.) The title maintains social channels under the ElectricCXNMag name on Facebook and X (Twitter) and a showcase page on LinkedIn, and the publisher's stable shares a common web platform across its trade titles, each with its own site. The magazine carries the ISSN 1839-2288.

Ownership and Organisation

Electrical Connection is published by Lanella Media Pty Ltd, based at 2/18-22 Lexia Place, Mulgrave, Victoria — Melbourne, as this directory records. Lanella Media acquired the Connection Magazines business in a 2019 management buy-out and publishes the trade stable founded by Jeff Patchell: Plumbing Connection (established 1985), Building Connection and Electrical Connection, among other titles. Patchell, the group's founder, continues as an editorial consultant, working closely with Jeremy Sweet on the development of the titles. Day-to-day editing of the trade magazines sits with Sean Carroll, who joined the business in 2019 and is credited in the group's 2025 mastheads as editor across the trades (and as editor of Plumbing Connection); staff writers have included Casey McGuire and Daniel Williamson. Earlier editors include founding editor Allan Alderson and, through much of the 2010s, Paul Skelton, whose name signed off the magazine's editions of that era. The editorial office works with a panel of industry contributors — technical writers, trainers and association figures — rather than staff reporters alone.

Contact and Availability

Electrical Connection is published quarterly and distributed to the electrical trade throughout Australia; the current issue and back issues can be read free as digital editions at electricalconnection.com.au. Subscriptions are handled by the publisher on 1800 623 214, and Lanella Media's published office number in the magazine's colophon is 03 9542 9000. The publisher's address is Lanella Media Pty Ltd, 2/18-22 Lexia Place, Mulgrave, VIC 3170. The magazine is one of three sister trade titles — with Plumbing Connection (plumbingconnection.com.au) and Building Connection — published from the same Melbourne office.