September 2024
‘Beautiful chaos’: Iconic Melbourne power diner owner calls time
Simon Hartley has hosted every prime minister since Gough Whitlam at his CBD restaurant Becco. But on Friday, he held the last supper.
- Gus McCubbing
August 2024
- Opinion
- Senate estimates
It’s time to civilise the inquisition of Senate estimates
Hearings that were meant to drill into policy detail have become a scattergun questioning of officials used to settle scores, or make cheap political points.
- Laura Tingle
April 2022
- Opinion
- Canberra Observed
This election is going to be a sprint to the finish
Anthony Albanese wanted to be kicking with the wind in the final quarter. But he may find himself defending an early lead for too long against a scrapper like Scott Morrison.
- Phillip Coorey
- Opinion
- Federal election
No limit to the pile-on from Morrison’s many enemies on his own side
Scott Morrison had a win over NSW preselections in court, but the political scars have badly damaged the Coalition’s hopes of picking up seats in the state.
- Jennifer Hewett
How Bill Browder got under Putin’s skin
He’s been name-checked by the Russian leader and warned by Moscow’s top prosecutor not to sleep soundly at night, but Bill Browder is unbowed in his crusade to expose Putin’s criminality.
- Hans van Leeuwen
March 2022
- Opinion
- Federal budget
Spending in this budget will certainly be targeted – at re-election
The budget is supposed to be about the long-term future. It’s really about the government’s short-term future. Labor will back it – and add spending of its own.
- Jennifer Hewett
Let’s honour Kitching with an election win: Keneally
The Senate was recalled a day early to honour late Labor senator Kimberley Kitching, amid recriminations within the Labor Party
- Tom McIlroy
- Exclusive
- Political leadership
Two years of ‘micro-aggressions’: Kitching felt frozen out by Labor
From comments about her hair colour to exclusion from important meetings, the late Victorian senator experienced unpleasant treatment she said verged on bullying.
- Aaron Patrick
Labor’s Kim Carr retires, Libs sort out NSW factional mess
Veteran Labor senator and factional warrior Kim Carr has announced his retirement after losing the fight to stay in Parliament,
- Phillip Coorey
Why we’ll remember Penny Wong
Labor’s Senate leader should have paused for thought before invoking Madeleine Albright.
- Joe Aston
Albanese denies Kitching was bullied
Anthony Albanese has rejected calls for an inquiry and backed the alleged bullies as the “solution” to Labor’s shift towards a more female friendly party.
- Phillip Coorey
As Wong and Pyne flounder, Farrell ascends
Don Farrell’s second ascendancy is all the more notable for the recent fortunes of the state’s other major political identities.
- Updated
- Myriam Robin
Albanese ‘gutless’ for lying low amid bullying allegations: PM
Scott Morrison says the Labor leader has failed his own test of leadership by not dealing with allegations of a ‘toxic culture’ within his party.
- Phillip Coorey
‘Moral courage, she had it’: Kimberley Kitching farewelled
Politicians from across the partisan divide have paid tribute to the Victorian Labor senator at a funeral service in a packed St Patrick’s Cathedral
- Tom McIlroy
Kitching believed Labor senator was ordered to monitor her: Liberal MP
The late Labor senator said a Labor colleague, Tim Ayres, had been seated next to her in the Senate and placed on committees to check she followed party policy.
- Aaron Patrick
Labor’s Kimberley Kitching ‘warned’ Liberal minister of Higgins ambush
The recently deceased senator’s denial that she tipped off Defence Minister Linda Reynolds about a Labor attack was untrue, political sources say.
- Aaron Patrick
- Opinion
- Federal election
Kitching’s death casts shadow over Albanese’s pitch to be PM
The Labor leader has to shut down a brutal insight into how his party works just as he emerges into the forefront of the election campaign.
- Laura Tingle
‘Untrue’: Labor senators deny bullying Kimberley Kitching
Labor’s Senate leaders Penny Wong, Kristina Keneally and Katy Gallagher said allegations that their deceased colleague Kimberley Kitching was ostracised are untrue.
- Andrew Tillett and Phillip Coorey
- Opinion
- Canberra Observed
Mean girls and boys’ clubs plague all the parties
Once more in politics, we have serious allegations being levied by friends of a dead woman. This time, however, it concerns Labor.
- Phillip Coorey
- Opinion
- ALP
Kitching wasn’t just bullied – she was a victim of cancel culture
Anthony Albanese is promising to govern like Bob Hawke. But does consensus mean eliminating dissent rather than accommodating difference?
- John Roskam