The eccentricities of the Senate permitting, the government will finally get its legislation repealing the carbon tax through Parliament on Thursday. In an attempt at control, it tried to hassle the Senate…
- Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
It took a High Court case to get the government to admit what it had refused to acknowledge to the Australian public – that it is holding 153 asylum seekers on the high seas. The government has over-reached…
The new “special relationship” between Japan and Australia comes to life today, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has told a joint sitting of federal Parliament. In an address also expressing “sincere…
The High Court has issued a temporary injunction to stop the Australian government transferring more than 150 asylum seekers, who are on a boat unheard of publicly for more than a week, to Sri Lankan authorities…
Ben Oquist is one of the most savvy political advisers in the business. He used to be Bob Brown’s right-hand man and stayed on with Christine Milne when she became Greens leader, until they fell out. Now…
The government’s proposed Medicare co-payment and its increase in the pharmaceutical benefits scheme threshold will send a bigger-than-anticipated price signal, according to a study by Sydney University…
Clive Palmer has widened the budget measures his party will oppose in the Senate to include the government’s attempt to abolish the schoolkids bonus. Appearing at the National Press Club, Palmer also flagged…
As senators prepare for tomorrow’s swearing in, Motoring Enthusiast Party senator Ricky Muir’s strong message to the government is that he’s prepared to help it if it helps him. Muir has a formal alliance…
University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor - Education Professor Nicholas Klomp and Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics including Scott Morrison’s secrecy, Newspoll results…
What is offensive about this government is not that it is pursuing tough policies, but that it is trashing accountability and is so lacking in empathy. The boats did need to be stopped; the budget does…
Precisely who proposed the new members for the panel that advises on appointments to the ABC and SBC boards? We know that Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull had no part in the selection of conservative…
A conservative columnist and a former minister in the Fraser government have been appointed to the panel that advises on nominations to the ABC and SBS boards. Janet Albrechtsen, who writes a column for…
Joe Hockey’s mother-in-law was a victim of the Commonwealth Bank scandal, in which many people lost savings due to rogue financial advisers in part of the CBA group. But Hockey has been keeping his distance…
Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson has said that plans for tax reform must highlight medium-term economic payoffs, avoiding the “zero-sum” focus of recent debates, if they are to be successfully sold…
Has our political system become so adversarial that it is cannibalising our democracy? It’s a tempting conclusion when we think of the recent and current bitter tone in federal politics and look at how…
The chief executive of the left-leaning Australia Institute think tank, Richard Denniss, has urged Labor to do a deal to implement elements of the government’s controversial direct action climate program…
The Abbott government has slumped back to its post-budget low, trailing Labor 45-55% on a two-party basis, in today’s Newspoll. In results that will strengthen the determination of the new Senate – which…
Welfare reform is always a fraught policy area. But releasing the McClure blueprint for sweeping change after a budget that targeted a swathe of government payments guaranteed a lot of negativity. The…
Now that Clive Palmer has declared the government’s “direct action” plan a “waste of money”, is it dead? That would leave Australia without even a fig leaf of a carbon policy to reach its emissions-cut…
Liberal organisers expected their federal council meeting in Melbourne to be a “no surprises” affair. But, as with the Coalition government, it didn’t quite work out that way. Long-planned changes to the…
The Abbott government’s strong preference for limiting the role of Canberra and boosting that of the states is a central thrust in the terms of reference for the white paper on reforming the federation…
Former senior Howard government minister Richard Alston has become the new Liberal federal president, after a vote at the party’s federal council tonight. Alston, who was anointed by Prime Minister Tony…
University of Canberra Vice Chancellor Stephen Parker and Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics including the elaborate showcasing of the Palmer United Party’s stance on the…
Tony Abbott will be in Melbourne this weekend to address the Liberal federal council. The timing is unfortunate. A Newspoll has just shown the Victorian Coalition would lose badly in an election held now…
What on earth was Al Gore, a zealot on climate change, doing celebrating a Palmer carbon policy that’s worse than what Australia has in place, although not as bad as it could have been? That remains a…
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