This week’s Newspoll and Age/Nielsen poll make interesting reading in the wake of last week’s debate over the relationship between the Labor and the Greens. According to Newspoll, support for Labor has…
A river at Cubbie Station, southwest Queensland, in 2004.
AAP/Supplied
Until the recent bid from a Chinese-Japanese consortium Shandong RuYi for megafarm Cubbie Station, it appeared the property would limp along under locally-based administration. But then the opportunity…
Queensland Premier Campbell Newman congratulates Treaurer Tim Nicholls after handing down the first LNP budget in 14 years.
AAP/Dave Hunt
As budgets go we’ve seen tougher, but not often. The first appropriation bill of the Queensland’s new Liberal-National government – the first non-Labor budget in 14 years – was always going to be austere…
Malcolm Turnbull calls time on Question Time.
(AAP Image/Alan Porritt
Malcolm Turnbull’s call to change Question Time is admirable. He has proposed looking to the British system, where the Prime Minister is only required to answer questions one day a week, giving other ministers…
We’ve had the big announcement on schools funding, but now comes the political reality.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
The battle over the future of Australia’s school funding arrangements has started in earnest. Outlining the government’s response to the landmark Gonski Review, Prime Minister Gillard spoke of a national…
The Gillard response to the Gonski review was a disappointment and could have been much more.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
Yesterday the Prime Minister announced the government will introduce some of the recommendations of the Gonski Review, including a new model for funding schools. Many commentators criticised the announcement…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard speaking at the National Press Club yesterday signalled serious changes to the states’ role in education.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
After the government’s response to the Gonski report on schools funding, it’s worth looking at not only what was in the announcement but what wasn’t. Prime Minister Julia Gillard offered no indication…
Both political parties are lining up their elections strategies now, even though an election could still be a year away.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
The former British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson famously said a week is a long time in politics. If this is the case, then you have to wonder how long it will feel if the current Parliament runs it full…
There was cause for new NT chief minister Terry Mills to cheer this weekend, but political debate continues to suffer in Australia.
AAP
Labor has just lost another election in Australia to the opposition in an electoral race that was dominated by negative messages, where both parties attempted unsuccessfully to differentiate themselves…
The final pieces of the historical puzzle around the 1975 Whitlam dismissal are not as sensational as they first seem.
Image courtesy of National Archives of Australia. NAA: A6180, 13/11/75/33
Much hyperbole has been generated by the recent revelations concerning Sir Anthony Mason’s involvement in the 1975 dismissal, but for the most part it shows ignorance of the past. Earlier this week, The…
Country Liberal Party (CLP) leader Terry Mills (left) shakes hands with Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson ahead of an election debate in Darwin.
AAP/Xaiver La Canna
This week the Northern Territory News announced that by the end of the week we can expect the notorious “build up” that heralds the end of the dry season, to begin. Today the first clouds we have seen…
Julia Gillard yesterday blasted those on the internet for recycling rumours about her, part of what she calls a sexist campaign.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
Prime minister Julia Gillard took aim yesterday at the “misogynists” and “nut jobs” on the internet posting about her conduct 17 years ago while working as an industrial lawyer. The Prime Minister said…
In asylum seeker policy, the most punitive measures are the most politically acceptable.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Remarkably, in all the 162 pages of the Houston panel’s report on asylum seekers, the word “deter” does not appear a single time. But this does not necessarily indicate a welcome move away from the deterrence-based…
The Houston panel - Paris Aristotle, Angus Houston and Michael L'Estrange - briefed the media on their findings yesterday afternoon.
AAP/Alan Porritt
The Report of the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers contains some threads of a genuine shift from the prevailing framework towards a more regulatory model for responding to asylum seekers. The panel has abandoned…
Joyous photos such as this one of Phyllis Siegel, 76, right, and Connie Kopelov, 84, marrying in New York could soon flood out of Tasmania.
EPA/Michael Appleton
I personally experienced the full necessity for marriage equality only recently. In the sunny town of Lamego, Portugal, my dear friend Nina was married to her beloved Marcos. She was the first of my friends…
Politicians should invoke the Boss at their peril.
EPA/Daniel Dal Zennaro
Wayne Swan’s deeply felt and widely pilloried use of the music of Bruce Springsteen as some kind of political motivation begs some interesting questions. On the one hand it has those of us who remember…
Fiona Patten is President of the Australian Sex Party and CEO of sex industry lobby group the EROS Foundation.
AAP/Julian Smith
“Vote for more sex!” Walking through the party pamphleteers to vote in Melbourne last week felt more like passing through a light-hearted student union ballot than a tightly contested state by-election…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard speaking at the release of the Gonski report in Canberra earlier this year.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
After nearly six months on the policy bench, the Gillard Labor government is planning to release its response to the Gonski review into school funding. The government is still debating the reforms in cabinet…
Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne’s recent comments show his misunderstanding of curriculum.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
On the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night, Shadow Minister for Education Christopher Pyne was asked what the Liberal Party would do about the national (history) curriculum if they came to power. Pyne’s…
ALP candidate Jennifer Kanis (pictured) has won a narrow victory over favoured Greens candidate Cathy Oke.
AAP/David Crosling
The outcome of the Melbourne by-election, in which Labor has claimed a narrow victory, reflected a disappointing performance from the Greens. At the 2010 state election Labor’s victory was dependent on…