Come election time, votes won’t turn on an integrity commission. They will turn on such issues as cost of living, discontent with flat wages, and health.
Michael Courts, The Conversation and Amanda Dunn, The Conversation
2017 has felt like a chaotic year in Australian politics, and one in which policy progress has been swamped by other distractions. We can only hope that 2018 is calmer and more productive.
The win in Saturday’s byelection was a crucial fillip for Malcolm Turnbull, who has finished a rocky year on a relative high – one he will hope continues into the new year.
The Sam Dastyari episode underscores the need for clear-cut rules to prevent those with links to foreign governments from using money to influence the political process.
Malcolm Turnbull’s cancellation of next week’s House of Representatives sitting has been received sceptically by Queensland ‘soft’ voters, but they still prefer him over Bill Shorten.
Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten are inching toward an agreement on the form of a citizenship declaration that each MP would have to make within weeks.
Labor has been on a unity ticket with the Coalition in opposing an audit, but as the crisis continues to unfold it has moved to a position that falls short of bringing in an outside auditor.
A senior staffer of Employment Minister Michaelia Cash was forced to quit after tipping off the media about police raids on the Australian Workers Union’s offices.
Labor extends its crucial two-party preferred lead over the government, while in the marriage equality postal survey, the ‘yes’ case appears to be losing its advantage.
Senior Lecturer in Political Science: Research Fellow at the Cairns Institute; Research Associate for Centre for Policy Futures, University of Queensland, James Cook University