Unemployment among Australian young people has risen to an “alarming” 12.2% in the year to January, compared with 8.8% in 2008, the Brotherhood of St Laurence says, launching a national campaign to get…
- Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
“What goes around, comes around,” cabinet minister Kevin Andrews said, when defending government attacks on the ABC’s reporting of allegations the Navy mistreated asylum seekers. Indeed it does, as Scott…
The Australian Election Study has found that Tony Abbott is the most unpopular leader to win an election since the ANU began to track public opinion in 1987. The study, done after each election, confirmed…
The Australian Electoral Commissioner, Ed Killesteyn, has resigned a day after confirmation that Western Australians will go to a fresh Senate poll caused by the AEC losing 1370 votes. The government has…
This week the government’s new “freedom commissioner”, Tim Wilson, fresh from the Institute of Public Affairs, started at the Human Rights Commission, with the central task of promoting free speech and…
The Abbott government, so scathing in opposition of Labor’s administration lapses, is now coping with the fallout of two serious foul ups in its asylum seeker operations, as well as the Manus Island disaster…
Australian Industry Group chief Innes Willox has called on the Abbott government to “put beyond doubt” an employer’s right to propose to workers changes in their enterprise agreement to meet new conditions…
Manus Island is a wretched place for those incarcerated and now it has become a national shame – Australia’s shame – with an Iranian asylum seeker’s death and many serious injuries in Monday night’s riot…
Western Australian voters are set to face an unprecedented fresh Senate election after the High Court signalled it would strike down the result of the September poll because 1370 ballot papers were lost…
After five months of the Abbott government, no finality has been reached with Papua New Guinea about what sort of life Manus Island detainees found to be refugees will get. The government’s response to…
The head of the Abbott government’s new renewable target review says he is going into the inquiry with “a very open mind”, despite his scepticism about humans’ contribution to global warming. Former Reserve…
Finance ministers from the G20 countries gather in Sydney this weekend, a crucial step on the way to November’s Leaders meeting, which will be the most important gathering of world leaders Australia has…
Michelle Grattan: Australia will host the G20 leaders meeting late this year. It will be the most important international conference we have ever had in this country. This week, the G20 finance ministers…
There have been so many declarations of good intentions followed by minimal progress that it is hard to dare hope real advancement might be made in Aboriginal affairs in the next few years. Yet, we have…
Overreach seems to be endemic in this government. One would think that, after Tony Abbott laid it on far too thick about workers’ conditions at SPC Ardmona and received a tongue lashing from one of his…
Tony Abbott will outline limited and mixed progress on targets for addressing indigenous disadvantage in a report to federal parliament on “closing the gap”. No progress has been made against the target…
Bill Shorten’s blaming of the Abbott government for the death of the car industry and condemning the royal commission into union corruption were entirely predictable positions. But they also highlight…
If there was ever a symbol of the trauma industry restructuring brings - to the national psyche as well as affected workers - the impending death of Australian car manufacturing is it. “This decision will…
The result in Saturday’s Griffith byelection has something for both sides: Labor has saved the seat and the Liberals have got a swing towards them. It is more than usually complicated to identify the role…
Labor has held on to the federal seat of Griffith, but the byelection has seen a small swing against the ALP in Kevin Rudd’s former electorate. The Liberal National Party refused to concede tonight, as…
What’s happening in the debate over asylum seeker allegations of mistreatment by naval personnel is extraordinary and alarming, both for public accountability and for journalism. It’s also hard to credit…
A former colleague of Tony Abbott says John Howard would never have flatly denied SPC Ardmona the $25 million in assistance. “He’d have given $15 million with conditions,” said the man, who was praising…
Paul Howes wanted to create a splash with his radical proposal for a business-unions-government “grand compact” to create a less adversarial industrial relations system, but the union leader is jumping…
The chief of the Australian Workers’ Union, Paul Howes, has called for a “grand compact” between business, unions and government to reduce conflict and pitch Australia’s industrial relations towards the…
The ABC has admitted the wording in its initial reporting of asylum seekers’ claims that the Australian Navy mistreated them should have been “more precise” and conceded it could have been misleading…
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