Last week demonstrated how fast fortunes may change in politics. Just as the government thought it could get onto the front foot, it experienced a significant setback by not being able to make changes…
Julia Gillard and her Immigration Minister Chris Bowen haven’t had the best of weeks.
AAP/Alan Porritt
The Malaysia Solution isn’t quite dead, but its vital signs are certainly not good. With a steely look in her eye, and barely concealed anger, Julia Gillard blamed Opposition Leader Tony Abbott for “trashing…
Without reform of the Migration Act, the governments plan for processing refugees offshore would be in tatters.
AFP/Saeed Khan
Later today the Australian Government plans to put the Migration Legislation Amendment (Offshore Processing and Other Measures) Bill 2011 to a vote in the House of Representatives. Without it, the government’s…
Julia Gillard has to strike a balance between forging meaningful links with Asian countries, and managing relationships with older allies.
EPA/Rungroj Yongrit
AUSTRALIA IN ASIA: In the third part of our series, former diplomat Alison Broinowski of the Australian National University examines our rocky relationship with our Asian neighbours. “Australia hasn’t…
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser is ‘uneasy’ about Liberal leader Tony Abbott because he is unpredictable.
AAP
Welcome to our “In Conversation” between former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and Melbourne University political scientist Professor Robyn Eckersley. First elected to Federal parliament in 1955, Fraser…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott are not doing Australian politics any favours.
AAP
Imagine a country in which politics is not a struggle among ambitious individuals for power, but the community’s way of resolving conflicts and advancing its common interests. Voters are well-educated…
Barack Obama’s web campaign helped him win the presidency. Parties should learn from it.
Flickr/Scorpions and Centaurs
The increasing spread of information and communication technology has changed just about every aspect of Australian society – except democracy. The opportunities to engage citizens in the democratic process…
Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond made a roaring success of minority government.
AAP
In Anglo-American democracies at least, having a “minority government” is often regarded as an undesirable state of affairs. Canada may have had considerable experience of the phenomenon, New Zealand learnt…
Andrew Bolt has a presence across a variety of media platforms.
AAP
Already the Libertarian Right have begun to marshal their traditional arguments to cover Andrew Bolt’s disgrace by the Federal Court. Bolt himself has screeched freedom of speech in the wake of his ascerbic…
Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard are not seeing eye to eye on pairing.
AAP/Alan Porritt
The decision last month by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to severely restrict the practice of “pairing” votes in Parliament is another demonstration of the fractious and polarised state of federal politics…
Gillard is trying to re-cast her party building on the tradition of great ALP leaders John Curtin and Ben Chifley.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s rally to the Labor faithful on Friday called for party reform. It’s become a familiar pattern of introspection within the ALP, starting with the Hawke Wran Review in 2002…
The Murdoch crisis in the UK raises many questions about media ownership in Australia.
AAP/William West
The Gillard Government’s media inquiry is to disregard the crucial issues of bias and concentration of media ownership, despite Bob Brown’s demands for wider terms of reference. This is, at best, misled…
At Home With Julia follows the tradition of poking fun at politicians’ personal lives.
ABC Television publicity
I was waiting for her to say “he touched me in nooks and in unexplored crannies I never knew I had” but it was not to be. For the rest of the episode, however, the lead in At Home With Julia sounded like…
Julia Gillard could face another awkward moment if Kevin Rudd moves against her next year.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Kevin Rudd’s presence as Foreign Minister has been a constant reminder that Julia Gillard’s ascension to Prime Minister was never fully accepted in the electorate, a perception confirmed by the 2010 election…
Senator Nick Xenophon has used parliamentary privilege to name an alleged sex offender.
AAP
Senator Nick Xenophon has caused controversy after claiming a South Australian priest is a sex offender. Speaking in the Senate - and thus under the legal shield of parliamentary privilege - Xenophon revealed…
Julia Gillard is portrayed sympathetically in the new ABC satire.
ABC Television publicity
Does the ABC’s new hit series At Home With Julia demonstrate an unreconstructed sexism in Australian political satire? Should we be cringing at our cultural immaturity again? If the 2010 Election (or subsequent…
Former Prime Minister John Howard with his then chief of staff Arthur Sinodinos.
AAP
Arthur Sinodinos has long been mooted as a potential successor to retiring former Howard minister, Senator Helen Coonan. Now that Sinodinos - long serving chief of staff to former Primer Minister John…
Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey wants the Opposition’s policies privately costed.
AAP
Federal parliament has begun debating the merits of a new independent unit which would cost election promises and policies for all parliamentarians. But one of the more controversial aspects of the Gillard…
The State premiers and Prime Minister, Julia Gillard meet at the Council of Australian Governments (AAP/Alan Porritt)
There is an old joke in Canada, one that every university student is told early in the Introduction to Politics class. It goes like this: three students - one British, one French, and a Canadian - are…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants Tony Abbott to put up or shut up on offshore processing.
AAP
Prime Minister Julia Gillard today announced the Government would seek to legislate in order to revive the “Malaysian Solution” ruled illegal by the High Court earlier this month. The plan would see Australia…