In the end, the disabled outsmarted the politicians. Julia Gillard will bring legislation to the current parliament for her tax increase to contribute to the cost of the national disability insurance scheme…
- Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
The proposed national disability insurance scheme, a rare policy on which Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott agree, has become the object of shameless and unfortunate politicking by both. When she announced…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced a 0.5% increase in the Medicare levy to help fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) - but Labor will not bring in legislation for the higher tax…
The levy being planned by the government to part pay for the national disability insurance scheme is not in itself a bad option. It wasn’t the preferred choice of the Productivity Commission, which thought…
Julia Gillard has thrown a heavy punch as the Government continues its pre-budget softening up process. But where the blow will land remains to be seen. Gillard described the budget’s revenue problem…
The estimate of budget tax revenue collection for 2012-13 has been further slashed, with the Treasury now saying it will be $12 billion less than forecast in October. The revision is another blow to a…
Labor has been anxious to sharpen the abortion issue against Tony Abbott in the election run up and now it has a way of doing so. The government has signalled that it wants to put the abortion drug RU486…
The government will produce its 2013 Defence White Paper in the coming fortnight - a document that in ambition will be a shadow of its 2009 predecessor. In focus, its eyes will be on the region. In diplomacy…
Barry O'Farrell’s signing up to the Gillard offer on schools funding could be the tipping point for the federal government to get a deal with most states. But the other key conservative states – Victoria…
The argument that the government has muddied its education message by cutting university funding as part of its package to boost schools spending has been reinforced by polling today from Essential Research…
Former Defence Chief Peter Cosgrove is likely to be at the top of the short list for the next governor-general if Tony Abbott becomes prime minister. The Coalition is concerned that the Gillard government…
As the economic debate sharpens just weeks before the budget, Tony Abbott is pushing Kevin Rudd’s 2007 mantra – “the reckless spending must stop”. Contemplating the reality that in a few months he is likely…
Predictably, Julia Gillard did not get a single state to sign up to her school funding reforms at the Council of Australian Government’s meeting. The much talked-up meeting has been a staging post at best…
Tony Abbott has made an important shift in the Liberal position on gay marriage. In another step on the road to a likely eventual change in the Australian law, Abbott now says the policy on the issue will…
So much for Julia Gillard’s hope that the carbon tax debate would fade once the scheme was bedded down in the middle of last year. The issue has erupted again, hitting the government where it hurts at…
Political focus group research shows people want to hear “plans” for the country. So the government talks plans. Tony Abbott flourishes a 50-page booklet about “Our Plan”. But for ambition, the “plan…
“In him I see a future prime minister of Australia”, Kevin Rudd said of Chris Bowen, one of his key backers, the day after last month’s leadership fiasco. Bowen had just resigned from the ministry, a very…
Public servants should have greater scope to speak out publicly about long-term issues, the former head of the Prime Minister’s department Terry Moran has said. Moran also urges bureaucrats to make more…
Given that come September Tony Abbott is likely to be PM and Christopher Pyne the education minister, the opposition’s policy on the schools funding plan is crucial, as the outcome of the federal-state…
The Gillard government has two immediate problems with the politics of its A$14.5 billion education funding plan. First, and most seriously, the six-year blueprint, which requires the states to pay one…
The states are being asked to pay for one third of the ambitious Gonski school funding program, which would inject a total of $14.5 billion extra across the public and private school sectors over the next…
The higher education sector is to take heavy budget cuts to help pay for the government’s Gonski school funding plan, a key measure in Julia Gillard’s bid for re-election. About A$2.3 billion will be saved…
Having decisively seen off Kevin Rudd’s last hope of returning to his old job, Julia Gillard has put the knife in again with a China visit widely hailed for its big advances in this vital relationship…
Former defence chief Peter Cosgrove has proposed Australia enter an economic union with Pacific countries, saying this would promote stability in the region. General Cosgrove said that while this perhaps…
As the opinion polls point solidly to a likely Liberal win in September, one industry is already set for a big structural adjustment. Who’s up and who’s down among the lobbyists depends substantially on…
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