The current economic environment, with its “headwinds”, reinforced the importance of getting the budget back into order, Treasurer Joe Hockey has said in a ministerial statement as parliament prepares…
- Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
Tony Abbott is sending Trade Minister Andrew Robb rather than Environment Minister Greg Hunt to accompany Julie Bishop at the United Nations climate conference in Peru. Bishop, as Foreign Minister, is…
After the Senate sent his higher education bill packing, Education Minister Christopher Pyne dropped into a Universities Australia reception, which serendipitously happened to be in full swing at Parliament…
The Senate has voted down Education Minister Christopher Pyne’s higher education measures – one of the budget’s key reforms – in a major defeat for the Abbott government. But Pyne announced the government…
Palmer United Party Senate leader Glenn Lazarus has warned Education Minister Christopher Pyne to “stop harassing” him and other crossbenchers as the government tries desperately to get its higher education…
After a shocker week in Canberra and a Liberal turf-out in Victoria, Tony Abbott conspicuously changed the tone of his government’s rhetoric. At his long Monday news conference he no longer behaved like…
Tony Abbott is appointing the former chief of the Australian Federal Police, Tony Negus, as Australia’s new high commissioner to Canada. Meanwhile, career diplomat Paul Grigson is being sent as ambassador…
In his statement on Labor’s Victorian election win, Tony Abbott referred to just one policy issue: the East West Link, which was a central Liberal promise. The Prime Minister declared he was “determined…
Modern politicians are schooled in the art of designer “blather” – how, as a dodging tactic, to talk endlessly without saying anything much. They are coached to avoid repeating words of a provocative question…
University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Stephen Parker and Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics including Bronwyn Bishop’s record day, Julie Bishop, the future leadership of the Liberal Party and…
During Thursday’s extremely unruly Question Time, when Speaker Bronwyn Bishop ejected a record 18 (all Labor) members, Tony Abbott was asked whether he’d visit Victoria on Friday, the eve of the state…
Tony Abbott’s reference to removing “barnacles” from his government has become the Canberra chatter. In technical terms, according to senior government sources who’ve had nautical advice since the Prime…
With the polling bad, some of his strongest media backers excoriating him and his pants on fire over the “no cuts to the ABC” pledge, Tony Abbott has assured his Coalition partyroom that, bar a couple…
The full ramifications of Jacqui Lambie’s decision to leave the PUP kennel to sit as an independent won’t be clear for some time. Obviously, however, it is a major blow to Clive Palmer’s power. It further…
Jacqui Lambie has finally quit the Palmer United Party but vowed to continue her opposition to government proposals for university fee deregulation, a Medicare co-payment and welfare measures that “hit…
Clive Palmer has suggested renegade Palmer United Party senator Jacqui Lambie was deliberately planted in PUP to disrupt it. He said PUP was currently investigating Lambie, including how she got endorsement…
Barack Obama certainly hit a sensitive domestic nerve when, speaking at the University of Queensland last weekend, he highlighted the threat climate change poses to the Great Barrier Reef. The Abbott and…
University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Stephen Parker and Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics including Malcolm Turnbull’s cuts to the ABC, higher education, the frission in the Palmer United…
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, usually sharp-witted and articulate, entered an Orwellian zone this week. Trying to explain away Tony Abbott’s pre-election promise of “no cuts to the ABC or SBS…
Australia’s financial services industry has been thrown into turmoil by the spectacular implosion of the Palmer United Party (PUP) and an independent stand by its supposed ally, Motoring Enthusiast Ricky…
Below is the text of Michelle Grattan’s Accountability Round Table lecture, November 18, 2014. Most of us who’ve been around politics for a while in one capacity or another can remember the time when misleading…
Labor’s support is at its highest for nine months in the latest Newspoll and Bill Shorten is ahead of Tony Abbott as better prime minister. In two-party terms, the opposition leads the government by 55-45…
Chinese President Xi Jinping has declared that “big guy” China is dedicated to pursuing peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region in a speech urging that China and Australia “jointly meet various…
Tony Abbott always said he wanted the Brisbane G20 to come up with practical actions and a communique of no more than three pages. He achieved both objectives – although the communique had a mass of attached…
G20 nations have supported “strong and effective” action on climate change, but included some equivocal wording on the timing for issuing post-2020 targets and on the Green Climate Fund to accommodate…
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