The Labor Party’s future depends on its ability to steer its vision for a more progressive Australia through the twin obstacles of public suspicion and the still-powerful party oligarchies.
The ALP’s national conference, held in Melbourne over the weekend, was Bill Shorten’s first as Labor leader.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
After a fraught few days and a highly emotional debate at Labor’s national conference, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has secured the right to turn back asylum seeker boats if he becomes prime minister…
‘I do believe in a new direction for Labor’s immigration policies’: Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP
The man in the deepest ditch on day one of Labor’s national conference was surely the party’s immigration spokesman Richard Marles. With party feeling still red hot about the plan to allow a Labor government…
California has realised that investing in renewables is smart economic policy.
Tony Webster/Wikimedia Commons
Ramping up investment in renewable energy would put Australia on a footing with competitors such as China, Germany and California, which are set to reap the economic benefits of this emerging sector.
Low personal poll ratings and the trade union royal commission have made a successful conference especially vital for Labor leader Bill Shorten.
Joe Castro/AAP
The ALP national conference has lost its policymaking significance of the past. Instead it has become a reflection of the leader’s standing within the party.
Stephen Parker and Michelle Grattan discuss the ALP national conference, Bill Shorten’s announcement about asylum seeker turnbacks and Labor’s two-party lead in the latest Newspoll.
Not all of the bold initiatives for internal party reform that Bill Shorten laid down in 2014 appear on the ALP’s national conference draft agenda.
AAP/Julian Smith
Bill Shorten has finally formally reversed his position on turning back boats, seeking to remove the one big difference between Labor and the government in their hardline stands on asylum seekers.
Wind farms: the public likes them, Tony Abbott doesn’t.
Alan Porritt/AAP
If Bill Shorten and his climate spokesman Mark Butler can’t sell Labor’s proposal for Australia to have 50% of its electricity provided by renewable energy by 2030, they should probably vacate the political…
It’s unsurprising that Tony Abbott grabs onto any scrap of Labor’s planned emissions trading policy, but the crudity of the attack insults the public’s intelligence.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Tony Abbott strode down the parliamentary press gallery corridor towards the welcome bank of cameras. A Labor options paper on carbon pricing had appeared in tabloids, under derogatory headlines.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten and Shadow Environment Minister Mark Butler say the ALP supports renewables but haven’t yet decided whether and how to price carbon.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
Labor says it hasn’t yet decided what climate policy to take to the next election, although this week’s leak has bolstered the idea that it will involve carbon pricing – a subject with a long and vexed history for the party.
Labor leader Bill Shorten has three formidable challenges once the immediate problem of the leak has passed.
AAP/Julian Smith
Tony Abbott’s leadership ratings and his standing as preferred prime minister have improved, but only to the point where he is roughly at level pegging with Bill Shorten.
University of Canberra Acting Vice-Chancellor Nicholas Klomp and Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics.
Bill Shorten has emerged from the royal commission with wounds that are not mortal for his leadership but serious enough to set it back.
AAP/David Moir
Bill Shorten’s appearance at the royal commission has not only damaged him but diverted a good deal of attention from the signs of division and tension at senior levels of the Abbott government.
Bill Shorten in 2006, as Victorian branch secretary of The Australian Workers’ Union.
AAP/Andrew Brownbill
Senior Lecturer in Political Science: Research Fellow at the Cairns Institute; Research Associate for Centre for Policy Futures, University of Queensland, James Cook University