It is obviously important to protect the institutional integrity and independence of the judiciary – but the judiciary and judicial decisions should not be immune from criticism.
Eating disorders are among the leading causes of hospitalisation for mental-health-related issues in Australia.
from shutterstock.com
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has asked the Medicare review taskforce to consider increasing the number of subsidised mental health sessions for those with eating disorders. Why is that necessary?
Greg Hunt has been appointed to the health ministry after the resignation of Sussan Ley last week.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Sussan Ley launched a series of major reviews of health spending programs. The proposals from these reviews are now on the table, and Greg Hunt will have a series of difficult tasks in implementation.
Incoming Innovation Minister Greg Hunt must help Malcolm Turnbull resurrect the innovation agenda.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Political engagement in Australia has changed enormously over the past decade. New organisations such as GetUp! have taken the lead in channelling citizen voice into politics.
CSIRO has the know-how to develop commercial-scale green energy, with a clear plan and enough money.
CSIRO
The Coalition has asked CSIRO to develop a "roadmap" towards commercialised clean energy. It's a good idea as long as the plan is clear, and there's enough money behind it.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull must put some substance behind their climate rhetoric.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP
It was all a bit much for me to see Environment Minister Greg Hunt wallowing in the signing of the Paris Agreement on emissions reduction in New York this week. His commitment to its ratification by year…
The Paris climate agreement will be open for signing at the UN’s New York headquarters for the next year, starting tomorrow.
Yero/Wikimedia Commons
Australia will be one of more than 160 nations formally signing the Paris climate agreement in New York this week. But delivering on those promises is what really counts.
The new assistant minister for cities, Angus Taylor, has expressed a ‘deep belief that consultation and proper public debate gets to wise outcomes’.
flickr/Crawford Forum
Effective development planning must anticipate where growth might occur and its wider impacts. So, if the federal government is serious about cities policy, it needs a proper settlements plan.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (right) on the summit’s opening day.
Reuters/Christian Hartmann
Australia has made several climate-themed announcements since the start of the Paris talks, but nothing that cuts to the heart of the climate issue.
Bernie Fraser, Greg Hunt and Clive Palmer announce the Climate Change Authority’s emissions trading review last year, after Palmer prevented the authority being abolished.
AAP/Alan Porritt
The Climate Change Authority, rocked by this week's resignation of its chairman Bernie Fraser but saved last year by the Senate, will continue reviewing climate policy - even if its advice is ignored.
Bernie Fraser has resigned as chair of the Climate Change Authority.
Lukas Coch/AAP
The chairman of the Climate Change Authority, Bernie Fraser, has quit – apparently after a long period of bad relations with Environment Minister Greg Hunt.
Attorney General George Brandis believes a recent court decision backing an environmental group is an illegitimate use of the law. Is he right?
AAP/Lukas Coch
The federal government want to stop green groups from using "lawfare". But proposed changes threaten to seriously curtail public interest litigation in Australia.
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has dismissed Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s same-sex marriage plebiscite idea.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Tony Abbott is burnishing his lines for a popular vote on same-sex marriage in the next term, if he wins one. Abbott told parliament on Wednesday: “Going into the next election there will be two parties…
John Howard is a role model for the Abbott government, but the world remembers his hardline climate tactics in 1997 less fondly.
AAP Photo/ Bluey Thomson
Australia's government boasts of being one of the few nations to hit its Kyoto emissions target. But is it any wonder, when the Howard government successfully lobbied to make it almost unmissably easy?
Solar thermal technology is still an outside bet - and not the kind of investment the CEFC was set up to make.
WorleyParsons/AAP Image
Environment minister Greg Hunt wants the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to focus on new technologies, not wind and solar. But that's not what it was set up to do, and Australia already has an agency for that.
In a Fairfax newspapers opinion piece, Mr Hunt said the carbon tax cost just over $1300 a tonne for the emissions reduced.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
The carbon tax was not a cost or "slug" on the economy -- it raised revenue that could be used elsewhere in the economy for public infrastructure or to allow cuts to more economically harmful taxes.
Has any other country achieved a greater reduction than Australia in the intensity of their emissions per unit of GDP over between 1990 and now?
AAP Image/Dan Peled
Recent comments by Federal Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, implied that Australia is leading the world in reduction of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP. Is that right?
How much money has Greg Hunt been given for Australia’s environmental programs?
AAP Image/Dan Peled
Environment minister Greg Hunt hasn't asked for any more money for the Emissions Reduction Fund. So what is actually in the budget, as far as climate change is concerned?
Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt at last year’s Green Army launch. Funding for the initiative has been slimmed down but is still more than A$700 million.
AAP Image/Britta Campion
The Federal Budget 2015 makes little mention of emissions reductions or renewable energy, but does feature funding boosts for drought assistance and the Great Barrier Reef. What else is in?
