Labor’s Melissa Parke probably won’t be too popular with rightwing powerbrokers like Paul Howes with her view that the Greens are a fellow progressive party rather than an insidious enemy to be confronted…
Has the time come for Paul Keating to put the geo-political cue in the rack?
AAP Image/Guy Wilmot
In charting how Australia has influence in its foreign policy, the figure of Paul John Keating rightly looms large. Yet his recent speech is less effective as a call for greater independence from the USA…
Julia Gillard meets the govenor general after winning the 2010 election. Can she repeat the trick next year?
AAP/David Foote
From the time the carbon tax policy was unveiled in February 2011 until its implementation on July 1, the unchallenged consensus of the Canberra press gallery was that a Tony Abbott prime ministership…
Maxine McKew arrives to vote in the 2010 federal election.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
The Rudd government came to power in 2007 with the reforming zeal of Gough Whitlam’s team more than three decades before, but was ultimately betrayed by a self-serving and brutal ALP machine according…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard in parliament - has the Slipper resignation cost her political momentum?
AAP/Alan Porritt
The Gillard government could have been forgiven for believing an electoral renaissance was underway. But just as it appeared the prime minister was going to cruise to the end of the year, the government…
Tony Abbott greets Liberal MP Kelly O'Dwyer before an event in Melbourne. Does the Opposition Leader have an issue with women?
AAP/David Crosling
In a discussion with ABC journalist Emma Alberici on Lateline last week, Liberal MP Kelly O’Dwyer defended Tony Abbott from attacks by Labor ministers who criticised his attitudes towards women. In the…
Broadcaster Alan Jones has been embroiled in a controversy over remarks he made on Julia Gillard’s late father.
AAP/Warren Clarke
The interesting part about this weekend’s kerfuffle over Alan Jones’ comments about the late John Gillard is not what Jones said. After all, we’ve known about his combative - some would say offensive…
Is Tony Abbott’s blokey personality at risk of costing him votes among women?
AAP
The Labor government appears to have a spring in its step. After months of poor polls and difficulty passing legislation, things now seem to be going Labor’s way. In recent weeks, the government has been…
Crossbenchers Tony Windsor and Rob Oakleshott arrive at a press conference on asylum seekers.
AAP/Alan Porrit
It is fair to say that, in the eyes of the Australian public at least, the view of our politicians is currently at a very low ebb. The tone of the Australian Parliament is at its most toxic for a generation…
Craig Emerson may be well regarded as Trade Minister, but he can’t sing.
AAP/Lukas Coch
It is a clear and incontrovertible case for the Deparment of Community Services and the public must immediately demand intervention. We cannot allow the suffering of the children to continue. I am of course…
Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella has been criticised for her failure to respond when GetUp director Simon Sheikh collapsed on Q+A.
ABC Television
By 9AM yesterday I’d been called a Sophie Mirabella apologist. Of all the very many slurs I’ve ever been subjected to, that one came as one hell of a surprise. And I just thought I was defending every…
Promises are easy to make, but will Abbott be able to deliver?
AAP
Opposition leader Tony Abbott has given Australians a “blood oath” promise that if the Coalition wins power at the next election, he will repeal the carbon tax within his first month in office. But is…
Julia Gillard faces the media after Craig Thomson’s suspension from the government benches.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Since forming government in 2010, the Gillard government has faced an uphill battle to assert its authority on the policy agenda. Initially, this was partly due to the fact that it relied on the Greens…
Does Labor have a future after Julia Gillard?
AAP/Alan Porrit
Every day seems to be the worst day for the Gillard government. With an opposition that has refined negativity into a stilleto, it seems that nearly everything the government attempts backfires, leaving…
Campbell Newman, Barry O'Farrell and Julia Gillard enjoy a laugh at last week’s COAG meeting.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The rituals before a Council of Australian Governments meeting tend to outweigh the substance and outcomes from the meeting. By playing the parochial card before the meeting, state premiers sell themselves…
Former Health Services Union head Craig Thomson represents a vital vote for the Gillard government.
AAP Image/Penny Bradfield
The ACTU yesterday voted to suspend the Health Servives Union from affiliation until they can prove that issues of governance have been dealt with appropriately. Although it does seem to have been a slow…