If Tony Abbott is disappointed by the failure to choose Japan to build Australia’s new submarines, the only one he can blame is himself.
AAP/Ben Macmahon
Like oil and water, party politics and good defence policy are presumed not to mix. And the process to buy Australia’s next fleet of submarines has been all about party politics.
Recent debates over federation reform confirm that the Turnbull government must map out a path and a plan.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Commitment to a stronger, ongoing and more bipartisan federal reform process is one of the true tests of modern political leadership.
Malcolm Turnbull has downplayed calls for a royal commission into the banks, arguing that their operations are already well governed.
AAP/Richard Wainwright
The politics that Malcolm Turnbull and the big banks support is one in which people are robbed of their citizenship and reduced to economic functionaries.
Tony Abbott can rest assured he has made a lasting contribution to Australia’s future.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Malcolm Turnbull’s bold plan to give states the power to levy income tax is a risky move, and the latest in a string of attempts to ‘fix’ federal-state relations that have not succeeded.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has penned an essay in Quadrant defending his government’s stance on national security. It betrays an extraordinarily open contempt for international human rights law…
Malcolm Turnbull’s move to have the governor-general recall parliament, using an often-forgotten constitutional power, caught many political players off guard.
The review of MPs’ entitlements was instigated following Bronwyn Bishop’s resignation from the speakership.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
“It’s very easy for me to campaign for the election of the Turnbull government,” Tony Abbott declared on Monday, because “fundamentally the Turnbull government is seeking election on the record of the…
Diplomats and businesspeople in Australia would likely be dismayed if Britain was to leave the European Union.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Despite its distance from Europe, Euroscepticism can be observed in Australia. What would a ‘Brexit’ from the EU mean for Australia?
Senator Ian Macdonald, pictured here speaking against the carbon tax in 2014, has since described human-induced climate change as “farcical and fanciful”.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
After fighting the 1990 election on a stronger climate platform than Labor, the following two decades saw an ebb and flow of climate scepticism in the Liberal Party, which still continues today.
Tony Abbott’s psychological dependence on Peta Credlin was built on gratitude and loyalty but went way beyond.
Lukas Coch/AAP
It is hard to imagine the emotions of Tony Abbott or Peta Credlin as they read journalist Niki Savva’s indictment, in The Road to Ruin, of the former prime minister’s pig-headedness and his former chief-of-staff’s…
Victoria will be a key state for Malcolm Turnbull to make gains in if he is to win the election, and win well.
AAP/ Lukas Coch
With internal party ructions and an unco-operative Senate to manage, Malcolm Turnbull needs a convincing election win to be able to govern as he wants to.
Malcolm Turnbull’s office was forced to clarify Attorney-General George Brandis’ remarks on the timing of a plebiscite on same-sex marriage.
AAP/Lukas Coch
In the latest example of the government’s cack-handedness, Attorney-General George Brandis on Sunday promised a plebiscite on same-sex marriage this year, only to have the Prime Minister’s Office hang…
It has been a week of political contests, both within party lines and across them. Stephen Parker and Michelle Grattan take a look at the bitter rivalry between Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott.
Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison often seem in different places, and not just on tax options.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Politics has its own purgatory, as Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott might have reflected when they sat on the same table at the Howard government’s 20th anniversary dinner on Wednesday.
A plebiscite on legalising same-sex marriage is bad policy that ought to be revisited.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
On Monday, a scarifying account of Tony Abbott’s prime ministership appears in the bookshops. By journalist Niki Savva, The Road to Ruin: How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin Destroyed Their Own Government…
Liberal MP Andrew Nikolic (right) is close to deposed prime minister Tony Abbott.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
In an era of ever-increasing counter-terrorism powers, what is Andrew Nikolic’s appointment to a powerful parliamentary committee likely to mean for its scrutiny of national security legislation?