Malcolm Turnbull has unveiled changes to question time to give government backbenchers a new opportunity to pitch to their local audiences. It’s quite a clever tactic.
Bronwyn Bishop resigned as Speaker following a controversy that brought the public’s trust in her office into question.
AAP/Daniel Munoz
What can the new Speaker do to restore the Australian public’s faith in the office – and in MPs more broadly – after Bronwyn Bishop’s resignation due to a series of lavish entitlement claims?
The speakership has become so politicised in Australia that we’ve been blinded to the possibilities that having a truly independent Speaker might open up.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
By making the speakership a political gift of the party in power, Australia is missing a major opportunity for democratic renewal of its parliament.
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron outside Number 10 Downing Street, where he’ll be able to remain should there be a hung parliament.
EPA/Facundo Arrizabalaga
Britain looks set for another hung parliament after the May 7 election – a prospect that gets people surprisingly muddled. Australia could teach Britain’s leaders a lesson in caretaker governments.
The Abbott government’s expedited passage of national security laws in 2014 demonstrated an underlying disrespect for the legislative process.
AAP/Nikki Short
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has made two key pledges in recent weeks – to begin “good government” and to no longer give “the benefit of doubt” to people suspected of planning terrorist activities in Australia…
Queensland Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk said on Sunday that she’s ‘optimistic’ of forming a majority government, but it may be days before that’s clear.
AAP/Dan Peled
While counting continues in the Queensland election, one possibility is a hung parliament with neither major party holding a majority. Prior to the election, both party leaders indicated that they would…
He’s been about to say something for more than three years.
David Cheskin/PA Wire
Barely 30 MPs showed up to the parliamentary debate on the delay of the Chilcot inquiry’s report. Yet, as I have explained before, there is much riding on the publication of this report on the UK’s involvement…
It’s not often that parliamentary procedure hits the headlines so the debate (if you can call it that) in the House of Commons about whether the UK would opt in to various parts of European legislation…
Scotland gave the whole UK shortbread – and a constitutional headache.
The Foodie Gift Hunter
An article of faith in the Scottish independence debate has – quite rightly – been that it was for Scotland, and only Scotland, to decide whether it should remain part of the UK. But it is equally clear…
Separating power is not so easy.
Owen Humphreys/PA Wire
The vote, in the end, was decisive, with the Better Together campaign winning with 55% of ballots cast. As a Glaswegian living in Southampton, I’ve watched from afar, saddened not to be in my home nation…
Australian Federal Police officers outside Parliament House in Canberra today. The AFP is set to take over Parliament House security after ‘chatter’ about a possible terrorist attack.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
Liberal senator Bill Heffernan has had the last laugh on the serious question of security at Australia’s Parliament. Earlier this year, security was slackened in a bid to save A$400,000. MPs’ staff and…
Speaker Bercow is in a pickle over his choice of clerk.
PA/PA Wire/Press Association Images
As the Chief Officer of the House of Commons, the speaker is well used to being in the spotlight. But in recent weeks, John Bercow has dominated the airwaves more than at any point since his election in…
Couple risk getting caught by the tide.
Vicki & Chuck Rogers
Your common-law wife and husband do not exist. Next month will see the latest stage in the latest attempt to improve the legal standing for people that live together but choose not to marry. With nearly…
Newly sworn in Clive Palmer declares “I’m a politician now. I’m not in business.”
AAP Image/Daniel Munoz
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…
Environment minister Greg Hunt and prime minister Tiny Abbott are keen to repeal the carbon tax as soon as parliament sits - but it may prove harder than they thought.
AAP/Alan Porritt
The Coalition will introduce its draft bill to repeal the Clean Energy Act into parliament next week. The bill would effectively remove the current carbon tax and its planned replacement, an emissions…
The PUP bloc will only be able to act on issues the major parties disagree on.
AAP Image/Paul Miller
If you believe the recent media reports about the composition of the Senate from July 1 next year, you’d think we were facing three years of the Clive Palmer’s Palmer United Party (PUP) “bloc” holding…
What is life like inside the office of MPs who hold the balance of power, such as retiring independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor?
AAP/Alan Porritt
With the end of each parliament there inevitably comes a series of announcements that particular parliamentarians will not be contesting the next election. Usually, these decisions are justified by the…
The federal government has suspended debate on a number of bills in the final parliamentary sitting week before the election.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The federal government has announced that it will gag debate on 53 bills in the Senate next week. One of them, the proposed constitutional amendment on the recognition of local government, is to be limited…
Opposition leader Tony Abbott plans to move a motion of no confidence in the government - but he faces constitutional and conventional hurdles in his attempts to hold an early election.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Opposition leader Tony Abbott has confirmed he plans to move a motion of no confidence against Julia Gillard’s government in the next two parliamentary sitting weeks. But in the event a no confidence motion…