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.
Special Minister of State Mathias Cormann explains the changes to the government's Senate voting reforms.
Special Minister of State Mathias Cormann has announced that the Senate voting reforms will include a provision for optional preferential voting below the line.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
The government is making a major change to its legislation to reform the Senate voting system after a recommendation from a brief parliamentary inquiry.
The High Court is unlikely to be sympathetic to claims of discrimination against the microparties in the proposed Senate reforms.
AAP/Lukas Koch
A former official of the Australian Electoral Commission, Michael Maley, has attacked the government’s planned reform of Senate voting as internally inconsistent.
Australia’s political system would be better off with more ordinary people and fewer career party politicians in the Senate. It would thus be more representative of ordinary Australians, not less.
Gary Gray remains shadow special minister of state despite having offered his resignation to Bill Shorten last week.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Labor’s unconvincing performance on Senate voting reform reached new levels with the extraordinary speech by frontbencher Gary Gray in parliament on Wednesday. Labor this week has been going through contortions…
Family First senator Bob Day is set to propose an amendment to the legislation changing the Senate voting system that would prevent the government using the new rules in a double dissolution.
The government has announced changes to the Senate electoral system. The group voting ticket has been abandoned, and instead voters will need to number at least six groups above the line. However, there…
The government’s changes to the Senate voting system will almost certainly pass with the support of the Greens and Nick Xenophon.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Those who do understand the Senate voting system have the potential to wield some influence both in its conduct and in debates about how it might be reformed.
Malcolm Turnbull already has ‘trigger bills’ that he could present to the Governor-General to call a double dissolution election.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Malcolm Turnbull is fond of saying that we need to be less risk averse. Now the question is whether he will follow his own advice. He is waving around the possibility of a double dissolution in early July…
Ricky Muir, who entered the Senate with 0.51% of the vote in Victoria, delivering his maiden speech in March 2015.
Lukas Coch/AAP
While the government boasts about engaging the community on the tax issue, it has avoided public debate as it seeks to muster the numbers for voting changes that would have sweeping implications for the…
Control of preferences for electing the Senate has switched almost entirely to the party organisations.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The polling sends a strong message: Malcolm Turnbull starts his prime ministership with people wanting to think the best of him. Essential has found people believe Turnbull is intelligent (81%), hardworking…
The cross-bench senators may call to mind Paul Keating’s charge of ‘unrepresentative swill’, but they also reflect and respond to the 21st-century world in ways that the major parties can’t.
AAP/Alan Porritt
The Senate is not a root cause, but part of a long list of symptoms that indicate Australia’s political system is increasingly unfit for purpose in the 21st century.