Pat Dodson, the father of reconciliation, is set to become a Labor senator for Western Australia following Joe Bullock’s surprise announcement that he is quitting.
Five months into his prime ministership, it is difficult to know what Malcolm Turnbull really stands for, and his government risks paralysis as a result.
Politicians and policymakers are at last grappling with the urgent need to generate new ideas and fresh ways of doing things. But in the race to the top, Australia has barely reached base camp.
If Anthony Albanese becomes Labor leader, Australians will have the strongest ideological and stylistic contrast in major party leaders since Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke 33 years before.
A Shorten government would further substantially increase the excise on tobacco, taking the price of a packet of 25 cigarettes to nearly A$41 by 2020 and boosting revenue by $47.7 billion over a decade.
Bill Shorten can heave a sigh of relief at the statement from the royal commission into union corruption that he didn’t do anything illegal in the activities it examined in his Australian Workers’ Union…
There is a growing canyon now separating politics as understood and practiced by political authorities from the political practices of everyday people.
Malcolm Turnbull has widened already huge leads over Bill Shorten on satisfaction and better prime minister ratings while the Coalition leads on the two-party vote in Newspoll.
The government has opened a decisive 53-47% two-party lead in the Fairfax-Ipsos poll, with two-thirds of voters opting for Malcolm Turnbull as preferred prime minister.
Bill Shorten has elevated two more women to his shadow cabinet, giving Labor a total of seven compared with the Turnbull cabinet’s five, in a minor reshuffle of his frontbench.
Faction Man is a product of Black Inc. From their perspective, Bill Shorten – and his fascination with grimy Labor machine politics – is an alien figure.
Stephen Parker and Michelle Grattan discuss Bill Shorten’s second anniversary as opposition leader, the next election, the possibility of a Labor frontbench reshuffle and the safety of his leadership.
Senior Lecturer in Political Science: Research Fellow at the Cairns Institute; Research Associate for Centre for Policy Futures, University of Queensland, James Cook University