Julia Gillard is an Australian political pioneer in many ways. She was the first female prime minister, she led the first minority government in the post-war period and recently moved to appoint the first…
Too much has been made of the IMF’s report that shows John Howard’s government was fiscally profligate.
AAP/Sergio Dionisio
A recent publication by the International Monetary Fund provides examines government fiscal policy in 55 major economies. The report employs the rather loaded terminology of “prudence” or “profligacy…
The region has changed a lot in 100 years, but old anxieties remain.
The New Student's Reference Work
It seems 2012 was all about Asia: from the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper, to the possible repercussions of the Obama administration’s “Pacific turn”, and the continued rise of China. These…
Has it been a particularly bad year for Australian politics?
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
The political year has been characterised by many commentators as a grisly one, full of aggressive personal abuse and character assassination. A prime example was the vituperative final week of parliamentary…
Does Julia Gillard really love cricket? The law of sport and politics says she must.
AAP/Andrew Taylor
It was the last sitting day of the federal parliament for the year. Opposition leader Tony Abbott was suggesting that prime minister Julia Gillard was a criminal, who in turn was rehearsing her lines that…
Has the time come for Paul Keating to put the geo-political cue in the rack?
AAP Image/Guy Wilmot
In charting how Australia has influence in its foreign policy, the figure of Paul John Keating rightly looms large. Yet his recent speech is less effective as a call for greater independence from the USA…
Debates can change a campaign, as the US experience has shown.
EPA/Rick Wilking
Only a month ago the outcome of the US presidential election was seen my most commentators as being a question of the margin of President Barack Obama’s victory. But then the television debates intervened…
Julia Gillard meets the govenor general after winning the 2010 election. Can she repeat the trick next year?
AAP/David Foote
From the time the carbon tax policy was unveiled in February 2011 until its implementation on July 1, the unchallenged consensus of the Canberra press gallery was that a Tony Abbott prime ministership…
Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd in parliament shortly after the 2010 federal election.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Dennis Altman I’m going to start by quoting you when you say, talking about your career as a journalist, particularly a radio and television journalist, that “there was plenty of robust exchanges but my…
The ACT election result has produced another hung parliament. ALP leader Kate Gallagher is waiting to find out if she’ll lead it.
AAP/Alan Porritt
As numbers from polling booths across the ACT started to go up on the big screen in the tally room on Saturday night the first and most obvious trend was a huge swing to the Liberals and a correlative…
If someone got access to your personal information, wouldn’t you want to know?
subcircle/Flickr
In an age of Facebook, eBay and online banking, data privacy is becoming more important than ever before. The majority of Australians have personal information stored online with a range of organisations…
Macquarie is changing its definition of misogyny… but it still applies to the leader of the opposition.
AAP/Pan Macmillan
As an academic, I often become obsessed with the meaning of words. They lure me in with their conceptual promise, and then I get hooked and tangled on distinctions and disciplinary nuance. Perhaps unsurprisingly…
Are cuts the best way to achieve efficient Government?
Joe Castro / AAP
I was sitting in a session at the Institute of Public Administration Congress recently where Greg Hywood, the CEO of Fairfax, boldly announced that the public sector simply did not understand cuts. Not…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard in parliament - has the Slipper resignation cost her political momentum?
AAP/Alan Porritt
The Gillard government could have been forgiven for believing an electoral renaissance was underway. But just as it appeared the prime minister was going to cruise to the end of the year, the government…
Julia Gillard attacked Tony Abbott’s past comments about women in a passionate speech during Question Time.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Peter Slipper has resigned. The sexist text messages mentioning female genitalia published as part of a civil court case were suddenly the bridge too far for Her Majesty’s Opposition. But the Opposition…
Tony Abbott greets Liberal MP Kelly O'Dwyer before an event in Melbourne. Does the Opposition Leader have an issue with women?
AAP/David Crosling
In a discussion with ABC journalist Emma Alberici on Lateline last week, Liberal MP Kelly O’Dwyer defended Tony Abbott from attacks by Labor ministers who criticised his attitudes towards women. In the…
Former Prime Minister John Howard is misinformed about the Australian history curriculum.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
There is a great deal of derogatory, evidence-free and ill-informed opinion about how history is taught in Australian schools. But these tired arguments are so often repeated that we can actually put them…
Lindsay Tanner has railed against his own party in a new book.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
Lindsay Tanner was one of a generation of Labor activists who came to political maturity in the 1980s. These were challenging years for the Australian left. Labor’s 1983 victory set Australia apart from…
The families of the interned men of the Caminiti clan in Queensland, circa 1940.
Supplied
When Fascist Italy declared war on Britain in mid-1940, almost 5,000 Italians living in Australia were imprisoned in internment camps. Few Italian families escaped the human cost of detention as “enemy…
Cory Bernardi making his now infamous comments on gay marriage in the Australian Senate last night.
ABC News
South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi’s comments about gay marriage have caused an uproar. Today he was forced to step down from his position as parliamentary secretary to Tony Abbott. But are they representative…