Tony Abbott encountered some heavy weather on Monday as he sought to discredit Labor’s goal of having 50% of Australian’s electricity from renewables by 2030, and to conjure up the spectre of a Labor electricity…
The governments’s proposed new labelling system doesn’t allow for clear statements about where food comes from if it’s not Australian.
Cascadian Farm/Flickr
The new country-of-origin labels are supposed to change a confusing system that led to public outrage about hepatitis infections from frozen berries earlier this year. They fall considerably short.
New South Wales Premier Mike Baird is one of the more reasonable and well-performing politicians in the country.
David Moir/AAP
On Sunday, June 28, New South Wales Premier Mike Baird and South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill breakfasted at an Adelaide cafe. Baird had flown to SA for the meeting. Their discussion was about Tony…
Speaker Bronwyn Bishop’s helicopter affair is proving a headache for Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Bronwyn Bishop’s helicopter ride has morphed from a personal embarrassment to a serious issue for the government.
It’s unsurprising that Tony Abbott grabs onto any scrap of Labor’s planned emissions trading policy, but the crudity of the attack insults the public’s intelligence.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Tony Abbott strode down the parliamentary press gallery corridor towards the welcome bank of cameras. A Labor options paper on carbon pricing had appeared in tabloids, under derogatory headlines.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten and Shadow Environment Minister Mark Butler say the ALP supports renewables but haven’t yet decided whether and how to price carbon.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
Labor says it hasn’t yet decided what climate policy to take to the next election, although this week’s leak has bolstered the idea that it will involve carbon pricing – a subject with a long and vexed history for the party.
Speaker Bronwyn Bishop will pay back entitlements for a charter helicopter flight from Melbourne to Geelong, return.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Speaker Bronwyn Bishop has promised to reimburse A$5227 in taxpayers’ money that she spent on a helicopter flight between Melbourne and Geelong to attend a Liberal fundraiser in November.
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?
Never before has Australia had a situation where the leaders of both major parties are so little liked.
AAP/James Alcock
Tony Abbott’s leadership ratings and his standing as preferred prime minister have improved, but only to the point where he is roughly at level pegging with Bill Shorten.
Barnaby Joyce has been outspoken in opposition to a government decision to build a coal mine in his electorate of New England.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Collective responsibility – or cabinet solidarity – is an axiom of political prudence that has mutated into a constitutional convention of how ministers should behave.
Tony Abbott’s ban on frontbenchers appearing on the ABC’s Q&A program remains in place – for now.
AAP/Glenn Hunt
It is difficult to work out Tony Abbott’s strategy in his attacks on the ABC and Q&A. It appears to have been astonishingly cack-handed for a number of reasons.
The ban on government frontbenchers appearing on Q&A will be lifted by the Prime Minister when the program is transferred into the news and current affairs department.
ABC
Tony Abbott on Friday told the ABC that ministers will appear again on Q&A if and when the program is brought under its news and current affairs umbrella.
Bill Shorten has emerged from the royal commission with wounds that are not mortal for his leadership but serious enough to set it back.
AAP/David Moir
Bill Shorten’s appearance at the royal commission has not only damaged him but diverted a good deal of attention from the signs of division and tension at senior levels of the Abbott government.
Malcolm Turnbull has called for a more robust dialogue on national security, where measures are free to be challenged.
AAP/Stefan Postles
The continual use of colourful language when talking about terrorism exaggerates the threat in Australia and could play into the hands of Islamic State’s sophisticated recruitment strategies.
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull is still unsure if he will be able to appear as scheduled on Q&A next Monday.
AAP/Stefan Postles
Has Q&A put some spell of madness over the government and their media mates?
Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten pose for a photograph with Indigenous leaders before a meeting to consider the process for a referendum on Indigenous recognition.
AAP/David Moir
Tony Abbott, Bill Shorten and Indigenous leaders dealt primarily with process rather than substance in their Monday meeting on constitutional recognition of the first Australians. This made it a whole…
Politicians who boycott media organisations with whom they disagree politically rarely come out looking good. UK Labour leader Neil Kinnock tried it with News Corp in Britain 25 years ago, and never won…
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull is unsure if he will be able to appear on Q&A, after Tony Abbott banned ministers from appearing on the program.
AAP/Stefan Postles
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has continued the retribution against Q&A beyond what had seemed agreed within government last week, when it was thought enough had been done.
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce’s argument about same-sex marriage is improbable and even if it were not, it would be irrelevant.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
the battle over same-sex marriage is taking on a strange nature
The Nationals – of whom Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce is deputy leader – have been agitated at the strong power of Coles and Woolworths to beat down prices of suppliers.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Farmers will get some extra help in the battle against the supermarket chains in the government’s long-awaited White Paper on Agricultural Competitiveness released on Saturday.