Under new leader Barnaby Joyce, the Nationals – the most-successful minor party in Australia’s political history – will pretty much continue to be treated as the Akubra wing of the Liberals.
Warren Truss told parliament that when he became Nationals leader after the 2007 election defeat: ‘nobody wanted the job, including me’.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
A new dynamic is coming to the Turnbull government with Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss finally set to announce on Thursday that he will quit the Nationals leadership, ahead of retiring at the election…
The succession weighs on the mind of the cautious Warren Truss as he contemplates his future.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Water isn’t straightforward. And by putting the Nationals in charge of policy for water assets like the Murray-Darling Basin, the government will trigger a complex round of bureaucratic musical chairs.
The governments’s proposed new labelling system doesn’t allow for clear statements about where food comes from if it’s not Australian.
Cascadian Farm/Flickr
The new country-of-origin labels are supposed to change a confusing system that led to public outrage about hepatitis infections from frozen berries earlier this year. They fall considerably short.
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce says he is working to find ‘alternate venues’ for the cattle.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The fall in prospective Australian live cattle exports to Indonesia has come as a surprise to the government and immediately prompted the question of whether tensions in the relationship are at play.
Barnaby Joyce has been outspoken in opposition to a government decision to build a coal mine in his electorate of New England.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Collective responsibility – or cabinet solidarity – is an axiom of political prudence that has mutated into a constitutional convention of how ministers should behave.
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce has written to the Baird government in a last-ditch effort to try to stop the state licence needed for the Shenhua mine.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Barnaby Joyce says existing mining activity near the proposed Shenhua Watermark mine in his New England electorate has breached the aquifer, indicating the same is likely to happen with the new project.
University of Canberra Acting Vice-Chancellor Nicholas Klomp and Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics.
Bill Shorten has emerged from the royal commission with wounds that are not mortal for his leadership but serious enough to set it back.
AAP/David Moir
Bill Shorten’s appearance at the royal commission has not only damaged him but diverted a good deal of attention from the signs of division and tension at senior levels of the Abbott government.
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull is unsure if he will be able to appear on Q&A, after Tony Abbott banned ministers from appearing on the program.
AAP/Stefan Postles
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has continued the retribution against Q&A beyond what had seemed agreed within government last week, when it was thought enough had been done.
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce’s argument about same-sex marriage is improbable and even if it were not, it would be irrelevant.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
the battle over same-sex marriage is taking on a strange nature
The Nationals – of whom Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce is deputy leader – have been agitated at the strong power of Coles and Woolworths to beat down prices of suppliers.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Farmers will get some extra help in the battle against the supermarket chains in the government’s long-awaited White Paper on Agricultural Competitiveness released on Saturday.
Speaker Bronwyn Bishop ruled out of order a question to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, from Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Speaker Bronwyn Bishop cut off a Labor attempt to question Tony Abbott about Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce’s intervention in the court case between Gina Rinehart and her children.
The story of Johnny Depp’s dogs and their potential fate attracted global media attention.
AAP/Dave Hunt
Behind the uproar over Johnny Depp’s dogs lies a serious and evolving idea: our animal companions have an important place in our lives that entitles them to rights akin to a sort of citizenship.
University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Stephen Parker and Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics including Barnaby Joyce as the next Deputy Prime Minister, the passing of Gough…
Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss has a low profile but is experienced and solid.
AAP/Alan Porritt
As the Nationals this week celebrated their greatest leader, John McEwen, with a reissued autobiography, a question mark hung over the future of current leader Warren Truss. There is an expectation within…
The Ord River dam, completed in 1971, formed Australia’s largest artificial lake in the far north west.
Graeme Churchard/Flickr
Some 27 irrigation and dam projects are highlighted in the green paper for agricultural competitiveness released this week by agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce. Six of the projects – five in Tasmania…
After a tip-off from an Egyptian vet, Animals Australia sparked a government investigation into what an industry leader described as “horrific” slaughtering practices in Egypt last year. Tougher rules have now been promised.
Animals Australia
Australia looks set to resume exporting live sheep to Iran, after Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce this week flagged the end of a 40-year ban following Iran’s Islamic revolution. Flanked by the chief…