While both parties may have set out to modernise and renew their ideologies, the ALP’s and Labour’s attempts to marry the old and new instead precipitated two separate identity crises.
Theresa May’s gamble on calling an early election has not paid off.
Reuters/Toby Melville
A minor change, substituting ‘vilify’ for ‘offend’ and ‘insult’, would bring Section 18C more in line with similar laws in other democracies without undermining its effectiveness.
Those who are most likely to be interested in protectionism and curbing immigration are not necessarily the ones who are most vulnerable economically.
Carlo Allegri/Reuters
Many in Australia look to the use of the referendum in Ireland as an example of how its marriage equality debate might be resolved. But what worked well in Ireland might be very damaging in Australia.
Most of Australia’s women federal MPs sit on the opposition benches of parliament.
AAP/Lukas Coch
A party can have the most brilliantly informed and farsighted policies. But if the protagonists cannot communicate these effectively to the electorate, they will be overlooked.
The UK has limits on expenditure by political parties and third parties, and doesn’t allow paid advertising in electronic media at all.
Reuters
It is no criticism of Australia’s judiciary to say that it would be preferable, both for them and the public, if they took office after a more transparent process.
The haste to deregulate political finance has led to political participation in the US becoming highly unequal.
Reuters/Jason Reed
The role of money in politics challenges rich and poor countries worldwide. Its abuse raises problems of graft, corruption and cronyism, undermining legitimacy and governance.
Expenses scandals like Bronwyn Bishop’s can have a devastating effect on parliament and on trust in the political system.
AAP/Lukas Coch
During the UK’s parliamentary expenses scandal, many questioned the system as – just like Bronwyn Bishop in Australia now – they felt that they had acted within the rules that existed at the time.
The speakership has become so politicised in Australia that we’ve been blinded to the possibilities that having a truly independent Speaker might open up.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
By making the speakership a political gift of the party in power, Australia is missing a major opportunity for democratic renewal of its parliament.
Australia’s proposals to recognise Indigenous people in its Constitution will likely be much less substantive than those of many other countries.
AAP/David Moir
Constitutional recognition may have very limited impact if the groups benefiting from the change lack the political weight to leverage it into greater social change.
The success of Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party has profoundly disrupted the tedious pendulum movement between Left and Right.
EPA/Robert Perry
With a steady hollowing out of membership, the cosying up to vested interests with pockets deep enough to maintain party, today’s political parties barely “represent”.
Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras and Pablo Iglesias of Podemos have taken their populist parties to victory in Greece and a lead in the polls in Spain.
Flickr/Fanis Xouryas
The rise of left-wing populism challenges those who flatly denounced right-wing populism as undemocratic. Populism can appear as a democratic force in some contexts and anti-democratic in others.
Census collectors go door to door in Sydney in 2011, the 100th year of census taking in Australia. Now the next census, due in 2016, is in doubt.
AAP/Dean Lewins
Before Australia proceeds with plans to devote fewer resources to a less frequent national census, we should consider the Canadian experience of what losing such rich data means.
Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Discipline of Politics & International Relations, Macquarie School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University