In the shadow of Monash University’s Clayton campus landmark Menzies Building to its north and with the affluent bayside Melbourne suburbs to its south and west lie the flat lands of the federal seat of…
Kevin Rudd has recruited three strategists from the US to help his election chances, continuing a trend of the ‘internationalisation’ of campaign craft.
AAP/Dean Lewins
Kevin Rudd has imported three members of US president Barack Obama’s successful 2012 campaign team to advise on Labor’s September 7 re-election efforts. This announcement has already achieved one of the…
Prime minister Kevin Rudd has already expressed his disgust at ICAC’s findings, but will its stench affect the upcoming federal campaign?
AAP/Dean Lewins
“ICAC, SHMY-CAC. My name is Kevin, I’m from Queensland and I’m here to help.” I know it’s not quite what the prime minister would say: I have taken a little licence with his words from 2007. But I think…
Reform of the ALP has been raised by several key figures such as former leader Mark Latham, and implemented in some form by current prime minister Kevin Rudd.
AAP/Alan Porritt
In his recent Quarterly Essay, Mark Latham compared Labor parliamentary representation to the rotten boroughs of the 18th century. Though union membership has fallen away, suggested Latham, union officials…
Kevin Rudd is back as prime minister. But can he change party rules to prevent leaders being ousted as he was in 2010?
AAP/Dan Peled
Today, a specially convened meeting of the Labor caucus will decide on proposed changes to how the party selects its parliamentary leader. The politics of leadership in Australia have been described as…
Treasurer Chris Bowen needs voters to put a 1 next to his party on the ballot in the upcoming election. Will his new book help win the political argument?
AAP/Dean Lewins
Treasurer Chris Bowen’s new blueprint for Labor party reform Hearts and Minds gives us the easy listening version of Paul Keating, just as Tony Abbott offers us the same for John Howard. The book provides…
The new and improved Kevin Rudd wants to change the way Labor elects its leaders. But is his proposed method democratic?
AAP/Image News Corp Australia Pool/Gary Ramage
On Monday, prime minister Kevin Rudd announced a series of proposals to change the way the Australian Labor Party selects its parliamentary leader. Under his proposal, incumbents can only be challenged…
Prime minister Kevin Rudd has announced reform to the workings of the ALP, including that the parliamentary leader will be jointly elected by rank-and-file and caucus members.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Public servants often complain that when their ministers go on holiday, they usually return with a rag bag of new policy ideas. Since regaining the ALP leadership, Kevin Rudd has a three year backlog of…
Is the decision to re-install Kevin Rudd as leader of the ALP and of the country an affront to Australian democracy?
AAP/Alan Porritt
The decision by the Labor caucus to minimise the electoral damage in September and return Kevin Rudd to the party leadership was short-sighted and ultimately self-destructive. More importantly, it operated…
Ultimately, it was Julia Gillard’s failure to find a ‘narrative’ to weave her policies together that cost her the Labor leadership to a more opportunistic Kevin Rudd.
AAP/Alan Porritt
The morning Julia Gillard was deposed as Australia’s prime minister many of the British newspapers carried a picture of her knitting a present for the future heir to the British (and presumably) Australian…
Will history judge Julia Gillard favourably on her legislative record as prime minister?
AAP/Alan Porritt
Julia Gillard has been a reasonably effective politician, but the political paradigm within which she has worked is approaching the end of its life. She has been aware of this but has struggled to develop…
Both sides of politics need to take the carbon tax fight to the election.
Flickr/Leonard John Matthews
If climate change features prominently in the federal election campaign, it will almost certainly be driven by the Coalition. Under Tony Abbott, the Coalition has long smelled blood in the water on climate…
Who has the voter’s eocnomic interests at heart plays the biggest role in determining voter allegiance.
AAP/Theron Kirkman
Graham Richardson, the legendary Labor numbers man, pronounced last week that “if I was religious, I would pray that my long-held view that Labor will be slaughtered under Gillard’s leadership would be…
Julia Gillard has been hit by criticisms she is promoting ‘class warfare’ from ministers who resigned in the wake of last week’s leadership spill.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Among all the self-serving tattle from disgruntled cabinet ministers who felt impelled to resign last week, surely the stupidest was the attack on Julia Gillard supposedly promoting “class warfare”. The…
The political show must go on but Labor is running out of time and options if it is to have any hope of avoiding a devastating defeat in this year’s election.
AAP/Matt Roberts
Labor starts this week still reeling from the “no show” leadership spill and its aftermath. Labor’s electorally disastrous polls are likely to get even worse following those events. Are there any ways…
After surviving two challenges to her leadership, Julia Gillard faces a desperately tough fight in the upcoming election.
AAP/Alan Porritt
After one of the more bizarre days in Australian politics, Julia Gillard remains as the prime minister of Australia. The question of leadership of the Labor Party has been a constant problem for the party…
Adam Bandt, Christine Milne and Richard Di Natale don’t walk this planet, says The Daily Telegraph.
AAP/Penny Bradfield
The Daily Telegraph isn’t known for holding back. As Stephen Conroy discovered in an already infamous front page, if you’re in its firing line, you’ll know it. It’s a world where a relatively pragmatic…
Gillard should stop focusing on unions, and start explaining how to pay for progressive policy.
AAP/Dave Hunt
It is ironic that just as our politics become increasingly presidential, so too do the two contending party leaders become increasingly unpopular. Indeed, both parties increasingly campaign as if the choice…
Australian Greens leader Senator Christine Milne called for an end to the ALP and Greens alliance during a National Press Club speech.
Alan Porritt/AAP
The termination of the ALP/Green alliance has been characterised by some sections of the media and the commentariat as a “divorce”. The language is interesting because it implies that there was genuine…
Happier times: prime minister Julia Gillard and former Greens leader Bob Brown’s agreement has largely been upheld.
Alan Porritt/AAP
Greens leader Christine Milne’s announcement yesterday that the alliance between the Greens and Labor was over had more symbolic than practical implications for Australian politics. Senator Milne vowed…