Members of the Human Rights Commission are sharply at odds over plans to water down the Racial Discrimination Act. Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane, in a speech to be delivered tonight…
- Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
Immigration minister Scott Morrison’s weekend talks in Papua New Guinea have led to belated efforts to better co-ordinate “the PNG solution”. His visit reflects what must be deep disquiet in the government…
As federal Labor backbencher and former state minister Alannah MacTiernan tweeted after Friday’s announcement that Western Australians will go to the polls on April 5 for the re-run Senate election, “Game…
Hardly a week goes by, it seems, when there is not some fresh announcement of job shedding. Qantas’s loss of 5000 is the latest blow. But amid the gloom on Thursday, Tony Abbott optimistically reaffirmed…
Before the election Stephen Conroy inflicted severe damage on his own side with his ill-fated media reforms. Now his badly judged attack on Angus Campbell, the military man in charge of Operation Sovereign…
A $280 million scheme for concessional loans enabling farmers to borrow up to $1 million is a centrepiece of the government’s drought relief announced today. The $320 million package includes more generous…
The House of Representatives has made an unprecedented apology over the false statement made to the parliament by disgraced former Labor MP Craig Thomson. The apology, moved by Leader of the House Christopher…
Tony Abbott told Tuesday’s Coalition parties meeting that in the 1980s “we thought to ourselves, do we really think this economic rationalism stuff is going to work? But, mirabile dictu, it did”. He went…
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has promised the independent inquiry into the Manus Island rioting will examine his own and the government’s conduct since it assumed responsibility from Labor for the…
Tony Abbott has warned that the rate of increase in spending on health and schools must be reduced “in the longer term”. He has also pledged that all new spending in the May budget will be fully funded…
Unemployment among Australian young people has risen to an “alarming” 12.2% in the year to January, compared with 8.8% in 2008, the Brotherhood of St Laurence says, launching a national campaign to get…
“What goes around, comes around,” cabinet minister Kevin Andrews said, when defending government attacks on the ABC’s reporting of allegations the Navy mistreated asylum seekers. Indeed it does, as Scott…
The Australian Election Study has found that Tony Abbott is the most unpopular leader to win an election since the ANU began to track public opinion in 1987. The study, done after each election, confirmed…
The Australian Electoral Commissioner, Ed Killesteyn, has resigned a day after confirmation that Western Australians will go to a fresh Senate poll caused by the AEC losing 1370 votes. The government has…
This week the government’s new “freedom commissioner”, Tim Wilson, fresh from the Institute of Public Affairs, started at the Human Rights Commission, with the central task of promoting free speech and…
The Abbott government, so scathing in opposition of Labor’s administration lapses, is now coping with the fallout of two serious foul ups in its asylum seeker operations, as well as the Manus Island disaster…
Australian Industry Group chief Innes Willox has called on the Abbott government to “put beyond doubt” an employer’s right to propose to workers changes in their enterprise agreement to meet new conditions…
Manus Island is a wretched place for those incarcerated and now it has become a national shame – Australia’s shame – with an Iranian asylum seeker’s death and many serious injuries in Monday night’s riot…
Western Australian voters are set to face an unprecedented fresh Senate election after the High Court signalled it would strike down the result of the September poll because 1370 ballot papers were lost…
After five months of the Abbott government, no finality has been reached with Papua New Guinea about what sort of life Manus Island detainees found to be refugees will get. The government’s response to…
The head of the Abbott government’s new renewable target review says he is going into the inquiry with “a very open mind”, despite his scepticism about humans’ contribution to global warming. Former Reserve…
Finance ministers from the G20 countries gather in Sydney this weekend, a crucial step on the way to November’s Leaders meeting, which will be the most important gathering of world leaders Australia has…
Michelle Grattan: Australia will host the G20 leaders meeting late this year. It will be the most important international conference we have ever had in this country. This week, the G20 finance ministers…
There have been so many declarations of good intentions followed by minimal progress that it is hard to dare hope real advancement might be made in Aboriginal affairs in the next few years. Yet, we have…
Overreach seems to be endemic in this government. One would think that, after Tony Abbott laid it on far too thick about workers’ conditions at SPC Ardmona and received a tongue lashing from one of his…
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