Latest
Greens join push to scrap junior worker pay rates
The Greens would push a second term minority Albanese government to abolish lower rates of pay for young workers in retail, fast food and pharmacy.
- 28 mins ago
- Tom McIlroy
Payman won’t lead a single-issue ‘dead duck’ party: adviser
Parliament’s “preference whisperer”, Glenn Druery, says religious-based politics focused on one issue aren’t a vote winner.
- 39 mins ago
- Tom Rabe
- Opinion
- Middle East tensions
For the Liberals, Israel is a rare moment of cultural unity
Even multicultural societies need some shared values. The Liberals feel confident they are defending them.
- John Roskam
NAB calls for lower home loan buffer to help first-time buyers
In a submission to the Senate inquiry, NAB says dropping HECS-HELP debt from serviceability calculations for first home buyers would boost borrowing capacity.
- James Eyers
- Explainer
- Social media
Everything you need to know about Labor’s misinformation crackdown
More than 75 per cent of people believe addressing the deliberate spread of misinformation online is extremely important or quite important. On how you achieve that goal, the country is far more divided.
- Ronald Mizen
This Month
Curtin bid is not a ‘Game of Thrones’ quest
Readers’ letters on WA Liberal candidate Tom White; how to halt Iran; AI’s double-edged sword; income tax hit; investor risks; divisive politics; and green steel.
- Opinion
- Opinion
Rate cuts likely to save Albanese in 2025
The budget is back in the black and prices are easing. Interest rate relief in the lead-up to the election will complete the prime minister’s winning hand just as it hurt Scott Morrison in 2022.
- Lidija Ivanovski
The five crossbench MPs who could make Peter Dutton PM
South Australian independent MP Rebekha Sharkie says her constituents would expect her to negotiate with Peter Dutton first in a hung parliament. These are the MPs he would be calling on.
- Ronald Mizen
September
- Exclusive
- Social media
Misinformation laws could stymie public health debates: Coatsworth
The nation’s deputy chief medical officer during the COVID-19 pandemic says Labor’s proposed crackdown on misinformation and disinformation goes too far.
- Ronald Mizen
Palmer-proof election donations reform plan looms
Labor is close to finalising plans to overhaul Australia’s electoral laws, including new rules for real-time political donation disclosures.
- Tom McIlroy
- Opinion
- Queensland votes
Will Steven Miles be Albanese’s sacrificial anode? Labor hopes so
Feds beware: Miles has shamelessly thrown money at the cost of living and no-one has thanked him for it.
- Phillip Coorey
‘The kingmaker seat’: The former Uber exec tasked with taking on the teals
Returning to Australia after almost a decade as an executive with Uber in Asia, Liberal candidate for Curtin Tom White says the ride-share giant helped shape his free market approach to politics.
- Tom Rabe
- Analysis
- Anthony Albanese
Labor, the Greens and the threat of minority government
Labor is struggling to keep everyone happy as the election nears, but courting both miners and environmentalists looks like a near-impossible task.
- Phillip Coorey
Labor won’t pursue negative gearing changes, Shorten predicts
The former Labor leader says he is sure the government won’t take changes to property investor tax breaks to the next election.
- Phillip Coorey
- Exclusive
- Energy
Bowen uses gas to fire up offensive on Coalition’s nuclear plans
Energy Minister Chris Bowen claims the Coalition’s energy plans will require spending tens of billions of dollars to build and service new gas power plants.
- Ronald Mizen and Angela Macdonald-Smith
- Opinion
- Opinion
The National Party must help to fix up the farm that is Australia
Labor is only adding to sense of regression and decline in Australia. The Nationals can’t restore the country if they succumb to populism themselves.
- John Anderson
Only Labor can form majority government: Albanese
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has stepped up his stability pitch to voters by disparaging the Greens as a party of extremists
- Phillip Coorey
The unassuming senator with Labor’s fortunes on his shoulders
Queensland is at the centre of two crucial elections in the coming months, and the personable Murray Watt might be the bridge builder who helps tip things for the ALP.
- James Hall
Dutton argues the case for nuclear energy, but cost still unknown
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says nuclear power plants will outlast renewable electricity sources, as he seeks to use Labor’s attacks to his advantage.
- Ronald Mizen
- Opinion
- Property market
Senate standoff shows politics and policy are a long way from perfect
The complexity of the housing challenge requires a level of cooperation between governments and politicians that feels a long way from the debate we are having.
- Laura Tingle
Out in the cold: Why housing is just one problem for Labor
Unless Labor can dig its way out of its parliamentary quagmire, it faces the real possibility of ending up in minority government – or worse.
- Tom McIlroy
‘Propping up a failed system’: Labor looks beyond PC on childcare
The Productivity Commission’s childcare proposal has raised questions of affordability, the removal of the activity test, and adding more subsidies onto a failed model.
- Phillip Coorey and Julie Hare
Going gets tough for Labor in the Senate as time gets short
Only two bills were passed by the upper house this week, further adding to the government’s legislative backlog.
- Tom McIlroy
- Opinion
- Childcare
Universal childcare? Remember what the PC said about the NDIS
It is well worth remembering how spectacularly wrong the Productivity Commission was in 2017 when it gave the green light to the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
- Phillip Coorey
Neo-Nazis boasted of protecting rally Deeming helped plan, court told
Social media posts made by a neo-Nazi leader have been read out to a court during MP Moira Deeming’s defamation trial against Liberal leader John Pesutto.
- Gus McCubbing and Patrick Durkin