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Analysis

Today

Peter Dutton and his team have a lot to answer for.

Same errors caused Liberal Party crisis

A scan over the Liberal Party’s review of the 2022 federal election loss under former prime minister Scott Morrison and previous reviews exposes how Peter Dutton’s team repeated the same mistakes.

Yesterday

Peter Dutton and his team have a lot to answer for.

How the Liberals got it so wrong

An aborted income tax cut plan pushed by Liberal campaign headquarters shows the disconnect with Peter Dutton’s travelling staff in the party’s most catastrophic federal election loss.

Albanese read the mood of the Australian electorate.

How the election was won and lost (and the key voters that mattered)

Labor gained seats with a higher share of mortgagors, renters, young people and ethnic communities. The Coalition’s base is looking whiter, older and poorer.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton lost the election, and his own seat of Dickson.

Dutton’s political legacy will be a cautionary tale of what not to do

It was a difficult task to define and sell the former opposition leader. But ultimately, Peter Dutton has only himself to blame for failing to grow into the role of a national leader.

Vials of fentanyl pills at a DEA research laboratory near Washington.

Fentanyl could be key to China-US trade stand-off

The deadly drug is a bargaining chip as both sides look for a way to de-escalate a trade war that is expected to drag down economic growth around the world.

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This Month

The winner of Saturday’s election needs to kick-start growth and can learn from the UK and Canada.

What Australia’s election winner should learn from Keir Starmer

The British government admits the “UK has been regulating for risk, but not regulating for growth”. Could Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers ever utter such words for Australia?

A Liberal election campaign billboard in Brisbane featuring Anthony Albanese and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan.

Jacinta Allan is featuring in the campaign. But not how she’d like to

Voters in Brisbane may have seen more of Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan this election campaign than Victorians.

The tech sector is waiting for clarity from Trump’s agedna.

Apple and Amazon have no idea what’s coming

Big tech earnings are holding up well for now, but it’s clear Amazon, Apple and other tech giants have little idea of how a protracted trade war might hurt them.  

Ten thinkers on what to make of Trump’s 100 days

Ten experts assess the start of Trump’s second term – to make sense of all that has happened so far and what might come next.

Donald Trump blamed former president Joe Biden for the state of the stock market, and urged patience until his tariffs kick in.

Trump concedes tariffs politically risky as economy contracts

The US economy contracted by an annualised 0.3 per cent over the first quarter, as US companies responded to Trump’s trade war by rushing to import goods.

Meta Founder Mark Zuckerberg greets Microsoft’s chief executive Satya Nadella at his company’s LlamaCon 2025 AI developer conference this week.

Why investors (but not workers) are raving about Microsoft, Meta

The big-tech AI party seemed to be winding down, but Meta and Microsoft say the night is still young.

This is how far the Chinese car industry has come in 20 years

In 2005, the Asian giant’s car companies were making shameless copies of Daihatsu hatchbacks. Now, China is home to the largest motor industry the world has seen.

April

donations index

This is the last election without caps on donations. It shows

The 2025 election will likely be the last when Australia’s wealthiest political donors can splash cash on allies without limit.

Peter Dutton’s press conference on Tuesday lasted a brief 16 minutes, with lots of questions skipped over.

Peter Dutton is done playing nice with the media

In the final days of the campaign, the opposition leader’s media strategy says more than any press conference could: he is playing defence, not offence.

Displaced Palestinians fleeing Rafah last month.

Gazans fear Israel is enacting Trump’s ‘Riviera’ plan

Benjamin Netanyahu has embraced the US president’s idea to expel the Palestinian population and rebuild the Gaza as Israel’s own Mediterranean tourist strip.

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Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in Berwick in the seat of Bruce on Monday flanked by Liberal candidate Zahid Safi and MP Jason Wood.

This battleground seat has become a minefield for Peter Dutton

The Melbourne electorate of Bruce is up for grabs but a series of unflattering stories about Liberal candidate Zahid Safi has made campaigning difficult.

Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton face off in the fourth leaders debate.

What’s the election got to do with the price of eggs? A lot, maybe

Given the cost-of-living is such a dominant issue, for Peter Dutton to falter on this debate topic was a bad outcome. Even before he undercooked the price of eggs.

Inside China’s angry push to win Trump’s trade war

J.D. Vance has inadvertently fuelled nationalistic fervour inside China to ride out the global trade war by spurning US imports and shopping locally.

Dutton says the PM is out of his depth.

Dutton copies Albanese’s media strategy: say nothing

On Saturday, Dutton changed tack and imposed Albanese-like order on his press conference. But he may be taking away the wrong lesson from Labor’s success so far.

Xi Jinping’s patience could be paying off as US backtracks on trade tariffs.

China says US must revoke all tariffs, denies talks

Beijing says the US must lift all tariffs against China if it “truly” wants to resolve the trade war after the US president flagged rolling back levies.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/Analysis-1qu