Welcome to the second of The Conversation’s Election 2013 podcasts. Each week The Conversation will be sitting down with Australia’s top political minds to discuss all things election as we gear up for…
Serious discussion of climate change policy has been noticeably absent this election campaign - while the issue was allotted a portion of the first leaders’ debate, little time was devoted to it. Nonetheless…
Liberal MP Ken Wyatt became the first Indigenous member of the lower house in 2010 in the WA seat of Hasluck. Will he be returned this time?
AAP/Alan Porritt
The outer suburban Western Australian seat of Hasluck moved centre stage during the last federal election for two reasons. First, the tight result meant that it was not decided until late in the count…
This is one of the first elections in decades where health isn’t a headline issue.
Image from shutterstock.com
Welcome to the The Conversation’s Election 2013 State of the Nation essays. These articles by leading experts in their field provide an in-depth look at the key policy challenges affecting Australia as…
From the Liberals’ perspective, preferencing against the Greens is a highly practical and sensible tactic.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Today’s announcement by the Liberal Party that they will preference against the Greens at this year’s federal election should hardly come as a surprise. There has been endless speculation that the Liberals…
Research suggests that young people are disengaged with politics. What role can schools play in developing their interest, even from a pre-voting age?
AAP/Bradley Kanaris
From the beginning of the 2013 election campaign, prime minister Kevin Rudd has put young people front and centre. Be it through the use of social media (although no more “selfies” have surfaced of late…
Indigenous health minister Warren Snowdon ought to be concerned about the growing disillusionment towards the ALP of Aborigines in his Lingiari electorate.
AAP/Dean Lewins
Recently, Lingiari MP and Minister for Indigenous Health and Veterans’ Affairs Warren Snowdon made a big fuss in the local NT media about a A$4,500 grant for a new stove for the ailing RSL club in Alice…
Electorally, we are assumed to live in an economy, not a society which protects its most vulnerable members.
Flickr/Viewminder
Welcome to the The Conversation’s Election 2013 State of the Nation essays. These articles by leading experts in their field provide an in-depth look at the key policy challenges affecting Australia as…
The Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, to be released today, began during John Howard’s term in government.
AAP/Bluey Thomson
The Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook report (PEFO) is a recent development in Australian politics. It emerged as part of the Charter of Budget Honesty Act 1998 during the first term of the Howard…
All about me: but how does the level of personality in Australian politics stack up globally?
AAP/Lukas Coch
Up until Sunday’s debate, we heard grumbles that this election is too personality-focused. The beef was that the last few months in political news had been consumed by conflict and drama. “MPs” are “Media…
Tony Abbott won’t raise the GST without a voter mandate - a smart move if he wants it to succeed.
AAP
It looks like the GST will feature prominently in yet another election. The government is running a scare campaign on whether the Coalition will raise the GST after the election. In the meantime Tony Abbott…
Kevin Rudd’s restoration to the ALP leadership may yet be an electoral game-changer as the polling day of September 7 fast approaches. Recent opinion polling suggests Labor’s primary vote has returned…
“With one of the most concentrated food retail sectors in the world dominated by the supermarket duopoly, the barriers to making it easy to buy local food in Australia are significant. It is time for Australia…
The first televised leaders’ debate between Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott of the election campaign focused predominantly on economic issues.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Prime minister Kevin Rudd and opposition leader Tony Abbott have faced off in the first televised leaders’ debate of the 2013 election campaign. In a debate largely framed by the economic issues, Rudd…
Kim Williams’ departure from News Corp can be seen through the prism of him having ‘failed to civilise’ the media giant.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
Poor old Kim Williams. It was like putting celebrity chef Gabriel Gaté in charge of the abattoir. Red in tooth and claw is the News Corp style, especially during election campaigns, and now in the midst…
The election campaign for Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott has begun. Tune into our weekly podcasts for the best analysis of the week’s events.
Welcome to the first of The Conversation’s Election 2013 podcasts. Each week The Conversation will be sitting down with Australia’s top political minds to discuss all things election as we gear up for…
Former Queenland Premier and new Labor candidate for Forde Peter Beattie and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (right) arrive for a press conference, 8 August 2013.
(AAP Image/Lukas Coch)
The shock entry of former Queensland premier Peter Beattie into the federal election campaign as the Labor candidate for Forde was kept a tightly guarded secret - and with good reason. It sends two clear…
“This year our debt will be $30 billion. This year what we see is that government expenditure has grown by $30 billion… The entire volume of our deficit for this financial year is explained by government…
Cartoonists like the Herald Sun’s Mark Knight can capture and critique the political mood in the most vivid way during election campaigns.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Cartoonists working in a liberal democracy have a licence to be satirical, comic and even outrageous because they are the modern day court jesters. Since 1996 we have been studying political cartoons appearing…
Now that governor-general Quentin Bryce has issued the writs for the election and dissolved parliament, the government is in caretaker mode. But what does this mean?
AAP/Alan Porritt
The Coalition has raised concerns that the Memorandum of Understanding with Papua New Guinea over the Manus Island asylum seeker processing deal was entered into after the caretaker conventions commenced…