The Rudd-Abbott face-off at the “people’s forum” was a much better contest than the tortured first encounter before a panel of journalists. The two engaged with each other; there was more spontaneity…
- Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
The challenge for the government is this: how does it turn Tony Abbott’s highly generous and potentially popular paid parental scheme into a negative for the Coalition without knocking motherhood? Labor’s…
Oops, another election candidate gone. That’s three so far - two Labor, one Liberal. The latest casualty belonged to Tony Abbott and ran a site called “Mini-Mods”, originally set up for Mini Cooper enthusiasts…
The government will not match the Coalition promise to pay the Better Schools funding to states which have not signed up to the plan, but would be willing to continue negotiating with them if re-elected…
Kevin Rudd today will promise a $250 million investment fund, with the government and private sector contributing half each, to take Australian medical research breakthroughs “from the lab to the patient…
It was not one of Kevin Rudd’s easier days. Amid the pall cast by the poor Newspoll, the Prime Minister was in Lismore campaigning with Janelle Saffin, MP for Page and one of Labor’s more outspoken backbenchers…
Finance Minister Penny Wong has pointedly refused to endorse Kevin Rudd’s declaration that he would like to see company tax drop by one third in the Northern Territory. Asked repeatedly on Sky about the…
Labor’s vote has dropped to its lowest level since Kevin Rudd regained the leadership in today’s Newspoll, as the ALP desperately fights back with a ferocious “spotlight” scare campaign about an Abbott…
As it enters the campaign’s middle week desperately needing to make a big leap forward, Labor is shifting its focus to health and throwing everything into its negative pitch against Tony Abbott. Trying…
Kevin is not the only Rudd chasing votes in Queensland. Brother Greg today set out from Brisbane on a 10-day trip that will take him to Cairns and back, campaigning as an independent candidate for the…
A poll of eight marginal seats in NSW, Queensland and Victoria has found Labor facing the prospect of a rout, including the failure of former Queensland premier Peter Beattie’s attempt to enter federal…
The best way of looking at this election is as a contest between voters’ long standing desire to get rid of the Labor government and their personal warmth towards Kevin Rudd. At the end of Week 2 the first…
Is anybody concerned that policy process is being trashed in this election? Really trashed. Take yesterday. Kevin Rudd wanted to get some big picture vision out. So he arrived in Darwin with a plan to…
Sometimes it’s hard being a sister. Take Christine Forster, the gay sibling of Tony Abbott, who’s promoting same sex marriage, an issue that is giving the Opposition leader grief, while she remains one…
Kevin Rudd has promised to establish a Northern Special Economic Zone and held out the prospect of cutting company tax by about one third for Northern Territory-based businesses. Announcing Labor’s policy…
Preferences are the auxiliary batteries of politics. They give an extra boost to supplement parties’ and candidates’ primary power supplies. Their bestowal or denial can make the difference between political…
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has ruled out concluding any minority government agreements with the Greens or independents but said whether Labor denies the Greens preferences is a matter for the ALP organisation…
Former ministers – those who backed Julia Gillard - are very “former” in this campaign. Some of them, such as Greg Combet and Craig Emerson - are heading for post-parliamentary life. Senator Stephen Conroy…
Tony Abbott is asking a lot of voters who have political memories when he asks them to take at face value his line that “the GST won’t change, full stop”. What immediately springs to mind is John Howard’s…
The Coalition is now under pressure to get out its policy costings, following the release of the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, which shows virtually no change in key figures since the government’s…
There would be no change in the GST under an Abbott government, opposition frontbencher Christopher Pyne said tonight. This was despite the GST being included in a Coalition government’s proposed taxation…
John Howard’s old seat of Bennelong as Australia’s Silicon Valley? That’s the pitch by Labor’s candidate Jason Yat-Sen Li. Labor is mostly in defensive mode in NSW but it is also on the hunt for a couple…
Australian politics is becoming too “presidential”, in the view of participants in our Eden-Monaro focus group. And, they believe, this election has been going on too long. In their first discussion since…
It’s all in the eyes and ears of the beholders and listeners. The popular media saw Kevin Rudd with notes when the debate’s rules of engagement banned them. The gay marriage lobby heard that there would…
Tonight’s debate was not a debate. It was a joint news conference and a dull one at that. There was not the head-to-head exchanges and jousting that a genuine “debate” requires. There was no knock out…
Contact Michelle for
- General
- Media request
- Speaking request
- Consulting / Advising
- Research collaboration
- Research supervision
- Location: Canberra
- Website
- X (formerly Twitter): @michellegrattan
- Article Feed
-
- Joined
