Over the past decade we have witnessed the rise and rise of long form television – from The Sopranos to The Wire, Game of Thrones to Orange Is the New Black – and no one has been watching this transformation…
Chris Hadfield spent nearly five months on the International Space Station.
NASA
Colonel Chris Hadfield is one of the most famous astronauts on Earth. Through the creative use of social media, he’s made space exciting and accessible to new generations of enthusiasts, most notably through…
Not amused by reports linking him to a suppression order, Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono demanded transparency.
AAP Image/Yuli Seperi
Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation e Prodita Sabarini, The Conversation
Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono recently called for Australia to be “transparent” following its attempt at protecting international relations by suppressing details of an international bribery…
Prabowo Subianto is to challenge the presidential election result in Indonesia’s Constitutional Court.
AAP/Gabrielle Dunlevy
Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation e Prodita Sabarini, The Conversation
International leaders have begun congratulating Indonesia’s president-elect Joko Widodo. But losing candidate Prabowo Subianto is yet to concede defeat. After a dramatic withdrawal from the vote-counting…
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is hoping that the carbon tax repeal will play positively in the polls.
AAP/Lukas Coch
After the parliamentarians finally head off for the winter break, the government desperately needs the major win it had this week to flow through to the opinion polls – because it is struggling with head…
A Bharatiya Janata Party official said people who don’t vote for Narendra Modi have no place in India and should move to Pakistan, taking campaigning to a new low.
EPA/Divyakant Solanki
With results due in next week, campaigning for India’s 16th Lok Sabha (lower house) election is in its final stages. Commentators are calling this the meanest election India has ever seen, with mudslinging…
The drongo and babbler look different, but one can masterfully impersonate the other.
Tom Flowers
In Aesop’s fable of the boy who cried wolf, the boy warns farmers of imaginary wolves threatening their flocks just to laugh at the sight of them running to the rescue for no reason. Of course, when the…
Narendra Modi won’t back away from border disputes with China if he wins the Indian election.
Al Jazeera English/Flickr
Considering India’s aspirations to be a global power, foreign policy has played but a minor role in the current election campaign. The manifestos of the major parties also say little on the subject, so…
Citizens line up to cast their vote in New Delhi.
AAP
Since Monday the Indian people have been voting in the largest elections the world has ever seen. So far things have gone smoothly as 815 million people are expected to turn out at polling stations all…
Clive Palmer will now lead a party in a very powerful position.
AAP/Daniel Munoz
Regardless of whether the Liberals’ Linda Reynolds or Labor’s Senator Louise Pratt wins the last West Australian Senate seat, the Abbott government will need the support of Clive Palmer’s PUP to pass any…
Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos has come under fire in the witness stand at ICAC.
AAP/Paul Miller
Regardless of what the Independent Commission against Corruption finally says about Arthur Sinodinos, his day of evidence has in itself raised fundamental questions about his suitability for the job of…
Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson believes the taxation white paper will be a good opportunity to overhaul parts of the tax system.
AAP Image/AFP Pool, Saeed Khan
Modern governments believe that during budget framing it is politically savvy to parade the pain. We saw it with Labor and the Coalition is doing the same. There are scary scenarios of what would happen…
One of the challenges Bill Shorten faces as Labor leader is how he and the ALP deal with the perception, and reality, of excessive union influence on the party. This is a problem at multiple levels. Only…
In September 1996 John Howard said one great change that had come over Australia in the early months of his government was that “the pall of censorship on certain issues” had been lifted and people felt…
Paul Howes, enfant terrible of the labour movement, who is leaving his high profile Australian Workers’ Union job in July, has been seldom out of the news for long in recent years. He’s that unlikely figure…
If Arthur Sinodinos couldn’t be across key facts about a company of which he became chairman, how can he and the government credibly argue that someone with no expertise should be their own watchdog?
AAP/Daniel Munoz
Interviewed recently about the government’s plan to roll back key consumer protections in Labor’s financial advice legislation, Arthur Sinodinos said his advice to consumers was to “get more informed…
Listening to Liberal senators, you’d think Labor was accusing Arthur Sinodinos of being an axe murderer and killing the family dog to boot. In fact the opposition wasn’t demanding anything particularly…
Tony Abbott is publicly backing Arthur Sinodinos remaining in situ but it would be better for the Assistant Treasurer to stand aside while the ICAC inquiry is on. That would meet the requirements of both…
Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, WA Labor leader Mark McGowan, Federal Deputy Leader Tanya Plibersek and Federal Labor MP Alannah MacTiernan in Perth this week. Joe Bullock is conspicuously absent.
AAP/Tim Clarke
Parties keep saying they want to attract better candidates and then continue to throw up some shockers. On the evidence, one such has the top spot on the ALP’s ticket for the West Australian Senate election…
Martin Parkinson has been a victim of the Abbott government’s tribalism.
AAP/Daniel Munoz
At the end of the election campaign Tony Abbott observed that the big difference between an opposition leader and a prime minister was that the former was inevitably the leader of a tribe while the latter…
Professor in U.S. Politics and U.S. Foreign Relations at the United States Studies Centre and in the Discipline of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney