Labor Party guru senator John Faulkner has called on the NSW ALP to “front up and apologise” for the corruption that has tainted state politics – and to embrace reforms to prevent it ever happening again…
Has our political system become so adversarial that it is cannibalising our democracy? It’s a tempting conclusion when we think of the recent and current bitter tone in federal politics and look at how…
This is an edited extract of a speech by former WA premier Geoff Gallop at Tuesday night’s launch in Sydney of Open Labor, a national movement for Labor reform and a broader renewal of politics as a more…
It would be a fair observation that the Abbott government hopes that the result of the two royal commissions it has established since taking office will be damaging to the Labor Party. The royal commissions…
Opposition leader Bill Shorten was emphatic in his budget in reply that the Abbott government’s first budget was an “attack” on the Australian way of life. In his speech on the floor of parliament last…
Opposition leader Bill Shorten has vowed to oppose funding cuts to hospitals, schools and higher education in his budget in reply speech, threatening more than A$10 billion in budget savings proposed by…
Bill Shorten has clearly taken Tony Abbott as his role model as opposition leader. Shorten’s refrain of “broken promises” and “no more taxes” has an eerie ring of familiarity to it, and risks turning the…
Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten has outlined his vision for a rejuvenated Labor Party. His speech earlier this week was a call to arms for the reform of federal Labor’s organisational rules. While Shorten’s…
In the wake of the ALP’s poor result in the recent Western Australia Senate election, The Conversation is publishing a series of articles looking at the party’s brand, organisation and future prospects…
The ABC’s four-part series of interviews with Paul Keating, which has just finished airing, displayed the former prime minister and treasurer in all his complexity, both at his best and at his worst. This…
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…
It is a sign of Labor’s crisis that Mark Latham, the party’s former parliamentary leader, has been re-admitted to polite centre-Left company. For his book Not Dead Yet: What Future for Labor?, Latham has…
Why is Australian higher education the way it is today? To answer this we must go back to Labor minister John Dawkins, who initiated a radical suite of reforms a quarter of a century ago. His impact on…
Just when you thought it was safe to forget an otherwise forgettable election, there is one person who won’t let you. Tony Abbott wants to remind you in order to continue defining both the election and…
How can Labor regroup after the trauma of its defeat at the federal election? The best example the past offers is how the party rebuilt after the tumultuous prime ministership of Gough Whitlam in the mid-1970s…
Anthony Albanese has suggested Labor should help pay for its leadership contest by running a forum for business people to hear from the two candidates. Tomorrow Labor’s national executive will discuss…
One of the most depressing and puzzling features of the current election campaign is the lack of emphasis on the costs that environmental risks pose to industry and business. Australian politicians appear…
The shock entry of former Queensland premier Peter Beattie into the federal election campaign as the Labor candidate for Forde was kept a tightly guarded secret - and with good reason. It sends two clear…
The old saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same” is particularly appropriate when describing the Australian Labor Party at the moment. Upon being returned to the federal parliamentary…
Prime minister Kevin Rudd is seeking to improve his chances of re-election by reforming the troubled New South Wales branch of the Labor Party. NSW Labor has been embarrassed in recent years by a series…