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Election 2013 – Articles, Analysis, Comment

Displaying 76 - 100 of 205 articles

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott (centre) speaks to the media as Professor Patrick McGorry (right) and Senator Connie Fierravanti Wells look on during a press conference to launch the Liberal-National Party coalition plan for mental health. LISA MAREE WILLIAMS/AAP

Mental health is largely missing from the election campaign

Launching the Coalition’s policy for Efficient Mental Health Research and Services late last week, Tony Abbott said he wished all his policy statements attracted such media attention. Given the Australian…
Do the math. Higher education is important to Australian voters. University image from www.shutterstock.com

Is higher education a vote changer?

There are no votes in higher education, right? One former cabinet minister would refer to universities as “the dogs” - because if you kick ‘em, they just roll over. Conventional wisdom has long told us…
Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott will both appear on ABC TV show Kitchen Cabinet in the final week of the campaign. But who is more advantaged by the reality TV and the politics of cooking? AAP/ABC

Kevin’s Kitchen Nightmare: Rudd, Abbott and the politics of cooking

The penultimate act in this year’s election drama will be … a cook-off. This campaign has largely steered away from “entertaining politics”, but at the last hurdle, Messrs Rudd and Abbott have fallen for…
No matter who wins the federal election on Saturday, they will need to look beyond just the challenges at home in their term in office. AAP/Auspic

Election 2013 Essays: Australia and the world

Election 2013 Essays: As the federal election campaign draws to a close, The Conversation asked eminent thinkers to reflect on the state of the nation and the challenges Australia - and whichever party…
Due to its small population, WA has only 15 federal electorates, or 11% of the total. Twodogz photography

State of the states: Western Australia

STATE OF THE STATES: a snapshot of the key issues affecting each state and territory in the lead up to Saturday’s election. During Tony Abbott’s recent campaign visit to Western Australia, the state’s…
Liberal candidate for Greenway Jaymes Diaz has made international headlines for his gaffe-prone campaign - but he may yet wrest the seat from Labor. Channel 10

Greenway, or the place which Jaymes Diaz is trying to represent

The ultra-marginal seat of Greenway in Sydney’s western suburbs has recently drawn international scrutiny after the embarrassing media performance of the Liberal candidate Jaymes Diaz, who faltered when…
Cuts to Australia’s clean energy programs don’t make the promised savings, and threaten our low-carbon future. AAP Image/Penny Bradfield

Coalition climate figures don’t add up

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey and shadow Minister for Finance, Andrew Robb, have announced A$7.5 billion in planned budget savings from scrapping key elements of the Government’s Clean Energy Future package…
Tony Abbott is prepared for the final stretch of the election campaign. AAP/Alan Porritt

Rudd goes backwards as Labor continues to fight on jobs

Kevin Rudd would have to dramatically change the game in this last campaign week to alter a result that the latest Newspoll suggests is now virtually determined. The poll in The Australian shows Labor’s…
Australians see the NT as a place of red sand, Uluru and Aborigines but this is an incomplete picture. Image from shutterstock.com

State of the states: Northern Territory

STATE OF THE STATES: a snapshot of the key issues affecting each state and territory in the lead up to Saturday’s election. The Northern Territory is, in effect, a self-governing territory of the Commonwealth…
An overlapping dissatisfaction with minority governments in Canberra and Tasmania could see Labor lose its four seats. Charles Haynes

State of the states: Tasmania

STATE OF THE STATES: a snapshot of the key issues affecting each state and territory in the lead up to Saturday’s election. Leading up to the September 7 federal election, one of the multiple three-word…
Prime minister Kevin Rudd has tried to use social media to his advantage during the election campaign - but it has also been used against him, too. How powerful is it? @KRuddMP

Can social media swing votes in this election campaign?

As journalism professor David Maguire noted at the start of this campaign, prime minister Kevin Rudd has had such limited time in which to develop a social media strategy that he has “parachuted” in some…
Kevin Rudd has seemed to lack a specific focus, this week. AAP/Lukas Coch

Grattan on Friday: The battle over big and bad numbers

It’s hard to imagine how things could have looked much worse for Labor this week. Kevin Rudd’s attack on Tony Abbott’s paid parental leave scheme might be working – and how funny is that? – and the undecided…
Boothby MP Andrew Southcott will likely ride the wave of a national swing towards to the Liberals to return him to parliament in the Coalition’s most marginal electorate. AAP/Alan Porritt

Boothby not yet a likely proposition for Labor

Boothby, the most marginal Liberal-held seat in this election, is a demographically solid part of middle-class Australia. Held by the Liberal Party since 1949, it is only since 2004 that Boothby has slipped…
The LNP wants to scrap CSG legislation. AAP Image/Dan Peled

Putting coal seam gas clashes on the election map

Coal seam gas (CSG) is fundamentally divisive. Proponents of short-term profits are pitted against those whose priority is to preserve the sustainable resources of agricultural land and scarce water. As…
The mining boom is over but our political leaders have refused to acknowledge that bad times may be coming. Image from shutterstock.com

Election 2013 Issues: How we make our money

Welcome to the The Conversation’s Election 2013 State of the Nation essays. These articles by leading experts in their field provide an in-depth look at the key policy challenges affecting Australia as…
Smile, it’s time for our fourth election podcast - a special edition straight from Queensland. AAP/Lukas Coch

Election 2013 Podcast: Tracey Arklay, John Harrison

Welcome to the fourth of The Conversation’s Election 2013 podcasts. Each week The Conversation will be sitting down with Australia’s top political minds to discuss all things election as we gear up for…
Health care is one of the top three issues of concern for Australian voters, but it has received little attention in this election campaign. Esther Simpson

Absence of health issues on election agenda bodes ill for much-needed reform

So far in this election campaign, the Coalition has provided dollar promises for worthy projects but no new health policy initiatives. The government has mentioned one policy of note – to remove family…
Many of the issues women face are the result of the broken work patterns that stem from juggling work and child rearing. Image from shutterstock.com

Applying a gender lens to the 2013 election campaign

Most Australians are aware of the Coalition’s signature policy on paid parental leave. But how are the parties addressing the other issues that concern Australian women in this election? A recent survey…
Former ALP politician Barry Jones says political discourse during the federal election is on ‘to be even worse’ than in previous years. AAP/Alan Porritt

Barry Jones: the 2013 election and the death of rationality

As somebody with a lifelong, but not very happy, involvement in politics, I must declare an interest, as a life member of the ALP. Nevertheless, I think I can be objective in describing the decay of our…
It wasn’t Rudd or Abbott who won the final televised debate of the election campaign - it was the ‘old media’ form of television, proving its power. AAP/Alan Porritt

People’s forum: the winner is … television

I’ve written about Ian: the ordinary bloke who stole the show at the final people’s forum by flustering Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd, and enraging the watching audience all at the same time. At face value…