Politically speaking, the Easter break is a blessing for a jaded electorate, at least a partial rest for voters’ in a campaign that’s started as an impossibly complex jumble of claims and numbers.
Just not cricket: Politicians make promises but obfuscate how those promises will be paid for.
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West Australian voters need convincing that the Coalition will be better than Labor at managing the economy. Meanwhile, the Queensland seat of Dickson has already descended into personality politics.
Today we’re asking: what Queensland seats are the ones to watch on election night? How to give Indigenous Australians a true voice in politics? And how can we improve trust in the political system?
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The myth of ‘the Queensland voter’, Australia’s trust deficit, and the path to Indigenous recognition
The Conversation122 MB(download)
Today, an election-themed episode about some of the biggest policy questions Australia faces, featuring Indigenous academic lawyer Eddie Synot and political scientist Anne Tiernan.
Morrison would remember that well – he was treasurer when it happened in 2016.
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Morrison argues ATO can act before tax law passes. But in PEFO officials said while many budget tax measures can be legislated later without affecting estimates they can often go ahead on that basis
First-time voters are often treated as a homogenous group, but new research shows they make their decisions in a variety of ways.
AAP/Danny Casey
Young people voting for the first time in the upcoming federal election can be broadly grouped into five categories: impulsive, collective, instinctive, principled and pragmatic.
The Grattan Institute’s Commonwealth Orange Book 2019 serves as a guide for what the next government should do, and what it should not try to do.
Grattan Institute
Medicare is a vote-changer. The Coalition learnt this in the 2016 federal election campaign and has since guaranteed its commitment to the program. But that may not avert a Mediscare 2.0.
Most Australians have had enough of the opportunistic point-scoring that characterises politics today and want leaders who put the public interest first.
Mick Tsikas/Lukas Coch/AAP
Whoever the federal education minister after the May 18 election, he or she needs to put school funding, evidence for what works and initial teacher training front and centre.
Morrison appeared at a forum of seniors in the Victorian seat of Corangamite.
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Both sides have different perceptions about how what the government characterises as a “retirement tax” - the franking credits change – will play out politically.
To start with each side offers a “lamington” (Low and Middle Income Tax offset), then the differences get serious.
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After some years the Coalition’s proposals would cost $40 billion per year more than Labor’s, but by then Labor will have probably cut tax further too.
Arthur Caldwell almost defeated Robert Menzies in the poll in 1961, and won the debate about policy.
National Archives, National Library of Australia, Wikimedia
The government has set out the tax benefit people in particular occupations would get in the long term under its plan, while Labor has announced funding for pathology from its cancer package.
Screenshot from Labor Party advertisement linking Peter Dutton to Liberal candidates.
Australian Labor Party
While Peter Dutton is fighting for his political life in his marginal Brisbane seat of Dickson, he is being “weaponised” by Labor in its efforts to defeat two of his strongest Victorian supporters, Greg…
With the election season now under way, Labor has retained its lead over the Coalition in the latest Newspoll, though Bill Shorten’s approval rating has not improved.
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After the 2016 US election and ensuing Cambridge Analytic scandal, there was a lot of scaremongering around digital election campaigning. But this hysteria is, for the most part, unfounded.
What’s not to like about a flatter tax system? Well, for starters, the one laid out in this budget won’t actually simplify our lives.
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Steven Hamilton, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Flat tax is simple, Kondo simple. But that doesn’t mean it simplifies lives.
Labor’s campaign communications are organised around the word ‘fair’, while the Coalition is focusing on ‘strength’ and ‘security’.
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Senior Lecturer in Political Science: Research Fellow at the Cairns Institute; Research Associate for Centre for Policy Futures, University of Queensland, James Cook University