In a spectacular joint appearance with former Vice President Al Gore, Clive Palmer has announced PUP will vote to repeal the carbon tax but seek to set up a shell emissions trading scheme that could be…
- Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
American ambassador John Berry has said the decision against journalist Peter Greste cannot be allowed to stand and pledged the United States will “remain engaged” in trying to resolve the issue. The US…
Motoring Enthusiast Party senator-elect Ricky Muir has reaffirmed his unity with the Palmer United Party, as Clive Palmer prepares tomorrow to spell out his stands and demands on the government’s carbon…
In deciding to vote against the restoration of fuel excise indexation, the Greens have let the perfect be the enemy of the good. They’ve gone against their own policy, and appeared to be all over the place…
The Australian government will press the Egyptians “at the highest level” to try to free Australian journalist Peter Greste, sentenced to seven years jail after being convicted of supporting the Muslim…
The government is still decisively losing the argument over its budget’s “fairness” although it has reduced Labor’s lead, according to the latest Nielsen poll. As the government faces battles on key budget…
Australians are deeply cynical about both sides’ approach to climate change but especially mistrust Tony Abbott’s attitude, according to polling released by the Climate Institute on the eve of the reintroduction…
If it weren’t for the bad vibes between Greens senator Lee Rhiannon and Attorney-General George Brandis, Australia might not have a diplomatic crisis over how it describes East Jerusalem. The two scrapped…
University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and student Jelisa Apps, standing in for Vice Chancellor Stephen Parker, discuss the week in politics including controversy around the school…
As if it doesn’t have enough trouble with its budget, the government is now bracing for another attempt at selling its plans to water down Labor’s Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) law. Finance Minister…
The High Court has again ruled unconstitutional the federal funding for school chaplains, casting doubt over the future of a program to which the Abbott government is deeply committed. Queensland father…
It was like watching the little kids taunting the big kid in the playground, after the Senate handed the government a trigger for a double dissolution by rejecting for a second time the bill to scrap Labor’s…
It was quite a spectacle, when Liberal backbencher Ian Macdonald gave Mathias Cormann a viva voce in the Senate over the budget’s debt levy legislation – and then bluntly told the Finance Minister he’d…
The government today is set to bow to public and industry pressure to ensure that commissions remain outlawed under its controversial financial advice legislation. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann is expected…
In Canberra the Ides of March has recently come in June, soon after the Press Gallery’s Midwinter Ball and at the end of the parliamentary session. Kevin Rudd was deposed in late June 2010; Julia Gillard…
The chief of the Climate Institute, John Connor, has warned Labor against backtracking on its commitment to a cap-and-trade scheme to curtail carbon emissions. Connor said he was surprised the opposition…
One insider with longtime experience of observing prime ministerial trips says of Tony Abbott’s round-the-worlder: “He hasn’t hit a six, nor has he been bowled.” The PM’s bilateral meetings went well enough…
Professor David Choquenot, Director of the Institute for Applied Ecology at University of Canberra, speaks to Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan about the week in politics including the Prime Minister’s…
On his American trip Tony Abbott has met with Jeb Bush, son of one president, younger brother of another and himself an aspirant to be Republican candidate for the White House. The encounter brought back…
A week after John Howard said Australians wanted their reform to be “fundamentally fair”, Treasurer John Hockey has accused those complaining of the budget’s unfairness of using “1970s class warfare lines…
Major media players continue to dominate online news, current affairs and analysis, despite a proliferation of online news content sources, a government report has found. The internet has given established…
The land of the fair go is disappearing, argues former Liberal leader John Hewson, on the release of a new report on wealth inequality. The report warns inequality is increasing rapidly in Australia, posing…
Tony Abbott is hardly the first Liberal prime minister to face a serious backbench revolt on an issue but the depth of feeling in his own ranks against his paid parental leave scheme is still striking…
The government appears likely to have to drop its plan to tie its proposed indexation of petrol excise to road building if it wants to get the measure through the Senate. The Greens are against the hypothecation…
It didn’t take long for Tony Abbott to back away from his statement earlier this week - after Malcolm Turnbull took on conservative commentator Andrew Bolt - that in any dispute between one of his frontbenchers…
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