Professor David Choquenot, Director of the Institute for Applied Ecology at University of Canberra, speaks to Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan about the week in politics including the Prime Minister’s…
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has clashed with 2GB presenter Alan Jones, accusing him of “promoting the impression that I’m after Tony Abbott’s job” and declaring the controversial broadcaster…
Cabinet minister Malcolm Turnbull has made an extraordinary attack on conservative News Corp writer Andrew Bolt, describing his column today as bordering “on the demented”. Turnbull told reporters that…
It looks like there’s a new Clive Palmer in town. At Monday’s Queensland Media Club lunch in Brisbane, where the Palmer United Party (PUP) leader talked down the federal budget and spruiked his own ideas…
The Australian iron ore industry is no place for the faint hearted. On April 11, Padbury Mining spectacularly announced billions in funding (reportedly backed by Chinese investors) to develop the Oakajee…
The news that the three “rebel” Indigenous members of the NT Legislative Assembly had joined the Palmer United Party (PUP) has created national interest as well as a considerable stir in the Northern Territory…
When you ask Australians what proportion of climate scientists agree on the reality of human-caused global warming, the average answer is around 58%, despite evidence that the true size of the consensus…
The Palmer United Party has threatened to block the Abbott government’s Direct Action climate policy in the Senate. Last week, there was even speculation about it sparking a constitutional crisis. But…
The issue of political party spending featured prominently during the Western Australian Senate re-election in a manner that we are rarely, if at all, accustomed to in Australian politics. This time, it…
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…
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) will officially declare the result of the full recount of the Western Australian Senate vote today. Scott Ludlam from the Australian Greens and Wayne Dropulich…
The recent demands of business leaders for prime minister Tony Abbott to immediately reform the industrial relations system, rather than wait three years, should serve as yet another reminder of why corporate…
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…
The 2013 Senate election was a triumph for new minor parties as complex preference deals catapulted them from obscurity and into federal parliament. While all these small party senators - in addition to…
Tony Abbott was today sworn in as Australia’s 28th prime minister. The election results, however, are yet to be formally declared, with some controversy surrounding the counting of votes in the electorate…
A funny thing happened at the polls in Queensland over the weekend. To great surprise, the two right-of-centre minor parties - Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) and the recently-established Palmer United…
Here’s a sentence you probably won’t hear again for a while: when I lived in the UK, I couldn’t get over how constructive and intelligent British politics was. Having come from Australia, where Question…
The vexed issue of asylum seekers arriving by boat on Australian shores has dominated our political psyche for over a decade. Prime minister Kevin Rudd’s announcement shortly after returning to office…
“Our senior citizens and our disability pensioners are paid less than newly arrived asylum seekers.” - Clive Palmer, founder of the Palmer United Party, National Press Club, 26 August. Clive Palmer’s claim…
Queensland has a habit of raising the eyebrows of our southern cousins when it comes to politics “our way”. Visits to friends and family down south always have required explanations about Joh Bjelke-Petersen…