Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson today mounted a strong case for the government’s proposed $500 million debt ceiling in a Senate committee hearing, where he got a hard time from his former boss Penny…
- Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
Tony Abbott has declared he doesn’t need to apologise for Australian eavesdropping on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and other leading figures, as he tries to deal with Indonesia anger while not giving…
The Australian-Indonesian relationship has plummeted - with Jakarta withdrawing its ambassador because of Australia’s eavesdropping on the Indonesian President and other top figures. The latest very detailed…
The Liberals will have their star candidate Bill Glasson running for them in the by-election for Kevin Rudd’s former seat of Griffith. The 60-year-old eye surgeon substantially trimmed Rudd’s margin at…
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison loves to cast the battle against the boats in military terms. So we might apply that language to assess the continuing struggle between government and media over the…
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called for politicians to take up their “megaphones” to explain policy and argue for reforms. Launching the book Dog Days: Australia After the Boom, by leading…
The spectacular story ran for a nanosecond. Kevin Rudd had allegedly done a deal for daughter Jessica to get preselection for the seat he is vacating. It would have been the ultimate Ruddism. Jess immediately…
Kevin Rudd has bowed out of politics in a tearful farewell to Parliament that drew a heartfelt tribute from Tony Abbott and a highly emotional one from former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull. Ending…
The new Parliament is starting its work on a narky note, as if still suffering a hangover from the old one. The government today quickly asserted its authority by changing the House of Representatives…
Almost all the politicians sworn in today for the new Parliament are much constrained, glued to the parties that put them there. That imposes disciplines at multiple levels. Clive Palmer, as he showed…
Tony Abbott says he hopes Australia will have an Indigenous prime minister “one day, not too far off”. Addressing the Welcome to Country ceremony at Parliament House, Abbott said that Noel Pearson, “a…
The opposition is going into the new parliament with something of the “relentlessly negative” frame of mind that it used to attack in Tony Abbott. It will try to deny the government its way on the three…
Delivering the Remembrance Day address at the Australian War Memorial, Paul Keating has highlighted the protection that unifying Europe gave from the sort of dangers that led to “Armageddon” last century…
With the 44th Parliament opening on Tuesday, the next phase of the Abbott government begins. Already we’re seeing its early modus operandi, including its sometimes losing battle to control and often hide…
Tony Abbott must be thinking: thank goodness for the “honeymoon”. It is helping lessen the public impact of some quite serious early problems his government is having. Abbott is assisted not just by the…
National politics has moved on a long way but it’s the familiar Paul Keating - pugnacious, brooding, reflective, funny - who bursts through in the first of a series of interviews with the ABC’s Kerry O'Brien…
Those in the Abbott government are not great fans of the United Nations or of multilateralism in general. Yet the government has inherited from Labor the two year temporary seat on the Security Council…
The Abbott government has abandoned Labor’s plan for a A$2000 cap on the amount people can claim for self-education expenses. As part of its review of 92 tax and superannuation announcements that have…
The big brothers and sisters in the Prime Minister’s Office have been on the job in vetting the troops’ media appearances – right down to a backbencher on pay TV. Jane Prentice, a Liberal from Queensland…
Joe Hockey is being prodded by Labor to follow his free market instincts over the controversial foreign takeover bid for agri-giant GrainCorp, while the Nationals continue their assault on the proposal…
When Deputy PM Warren Truss today drew a line in the sand against the takeover bid for the agri-giant GrainCorp, it was a big reminder that the government has serious internal differences which will test…
AusAID on Friday formally became part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, with the road ahead including a drastic shrinking of the planned aid budget, redundancies, jostling for jobs, and cultural…
After Labor today decided to dig in on carbon pricing, it now seems almost certain that Tony Abbott will have to wait until the new Senate arrives next July to get his repeal legislation through. In opting…
Sometimes you wonder about our priorities. Compare the vast attention on politicians’ misuse of entitlements with the limited discussion, as most Australian troops prepare to depart, about the rights and…
The Australian Electoral Commission, which should be above controversy, finds itself at the centre of a perfect storm. In recent weeks Clive Palmer, albeit without evidence, has blackened its name at every…
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