Kevin Andrews says welfare reform a 'two-term exercise'
JUDITH IRELAND 12:15am Mr Andrews, who was a senior minister under the Howard government, has also committed to standing at the 2016 election and made a pitch to keep his portfolio in a second term.
Latest political news
EXCLUSIVE
Foreign teachers on 457 visas worsen glut
Heath Aston, political correspondent 7:04am Foreign nationals on 457 visas are working in schools and early childhood centres despite a growing glut of unemployed Australian teaching graduates.
Offshore detention centres: costs hit $1 b
SARAH WHYTE 6:28pm The federal government has spent more than $1 billion this financial year to house about 2100 asylum seekers in offshore detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, Senate estimates has heard.
Australian special forces to join Iraq's elite
DAVID WROE 7:41pm Australian special forces officers are expected to arrive in Baghdad within days, in preparation for advising Iraqi troops from the elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) in their fight against the Islamic State.
Barnaby Joyce promises to defend farms
Dan Harrison, Darren Gray 6:13am Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce, who has promised to defend the interests of family farms farmers against threats from mining companies and supermarket giants.
Tony Abbott invites Joko Widodo to G20
MICHAEL BACHELARD 2:48am Tony Abbott met the new Indonesian President Joko Widodo late on Monday night and personally invited him to Brisbane to the G20 meeting next month, but received a non-committal reply.
Medibank's $2 share price cap
Jessica Gardner and Georgia Wilkins 1:14am Retail investors will pay no more than $2 a share for a piece of Medibank Private when it floats in November.
Credlin establishes women-only network
LATIKA BOURKE 6:41pm The Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Peta Credlin has established a network of female staffers within the government so that they can "support each other".
Cormann 'a d--head' for girly man insult: Labor
LATIKA BOURKE 2:33pm Labor frontbenchers have attacked Finance Minister Mathias Cormann over his use of the insult "economic girly man" against Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, with one accusing him of "sounding like a dickhead".
Bishop confirms special forces deployment
Australia has reached an agreement with Iraq for its special forces to support Iraqi forces in their fight against Islamic State, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says.
Medibank sale to raise up to $5.5b
Jessica Gardner 2:48pm The government will reap up to $5.5 billion from the sale of Medibank Private when it lists on November 25, the health insurer's prospectus has shown.
Parliament House burqa ban dumped
Latika Bourke and James Massola 4:26pm The controversial plan was put in place without any prior advice from security agencies.
Diggers' pay may suffer for war effort
MARK KENNY Australia's hardworking defence forces have been told to take a pay cut to help fix the budget under further strain because of the Iraq campaign even though the government has made provision for higher pay.
Plibersek steps up attack over Ebola action
MARK KENNY Australia's hands-off approach is short-sighted and wholly inadequate, says Deputy Opposition Leader.
Second repeal day to cut $300m in red tape
JAMES MASSOLA Australians will have access to new medical devices more quickly and households will not have to renew their phone number on the national Do Not Call register under changes.
Germany intelligence service's MH17 finding
NICK MILLER Report contradicts previous claims – including by Prime Minister Tony Abbott and US Secretary of State John Kerry – that the missile was supplied by Russia.
Privileged men need to step up: MP
JUDITH IRELAND In April this year, a 33 year-old mother of four was stabbed to death in front of lunchtime shoppers in Tim Watts' west Melbourne electorate.
More universities under pressure to divest
PETER HANNAM Pressure to join the ANU and dump investments in fossil fuels will continue to mount despite the rejection of such moves by Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey as “bizarre” and “removed from the reality”.
My fragile nation being exploited: Gusmao
TOM ALLARD Foreign interests are trying to "dominate" East Timor, exploiting the fragility of the tiny nation to deny its rightful share of the oil and gas revenues in the Timor Sea and sow unrest, its Prime Minister says.
'No plans for Australian ground troops in Iraq'
Morrison rebuffs Indonesian President
Cormann defends 'girly man' comment
Leaked report raises concerns over 457 visa
Tax talkfest costs public a pretty penny
Australian health officials reassuring on Ebola
Widodo's blunt warning to Tony Abbott
Shorten a 'girly man': Cormann
'Filthy' Manus holds 87 awaiting medical help
RAAF fighters step up strikes in Iraq
Ebola in region would be 'catastrophic'
Bishop misses chance to 'shirt-front' Putin
Counterterror laws get nod with new checks
Bronwyn Bishop to face music on 'burqa ban'
'Stay and fight': Abbott tells NSW members
Don't trust authorities on metadata: Greens
Australians may pay more under trade deal
Comment & Analysis
Impractical greens fill policy vacuum
PETER REITH 12:15am Scaremongering greens' focus on resource sector is an attack on standard of living.
One step forward for Indonesia, one step back
PETER HARTCHER 12:15am While Indonesia marks another democratic advance on Tuesday, democracy in neighbouring Malaysia goes backwards.
Commonsense prevails - eventually
JAMES MASSOLA 2:14pm Opinion The decision by Parliament's presiding officers to reverse course on a move to segregate women wearing a burqa or niqab was inevitable.
Political club misses chance for true reform
Bruce Hawker 12:15am Giving political parties more public money takes the pressure off them to address their reliance on institutional donations.
Abbott must charm Indonesia's new leader
JOHN GARNAUT Opinion Tony Abbott has shown his sceptics he can do business in three of the big four capitals of Asia and today, in Jakarta, he gets the chance to try for the quadrella.
Angry young man problem crosses cultures
JACQUELINE MALEY True or false: the vast majority of young men are, at any given moment, just a few behavioural leaps away from doing something very, very stupid.
At rest, a man who brought the war home
Anne Summers The week before our Prime Minister promised to "shirt-front" the president of the Russia, I was at the gravesite of a man who hit his wife so hard she went through a door.
New terror laws threaten our system of justice
MARK KENNY Opinion The only thing worse than bad laws enacted intentionally, are those which are drafted hastily, and passed without adequate scrutiny or resistance.
Ebola exposes a political malaise
DANIEL FLITTON Opinion The virus will never patiently queue for a passport stamp or respect the neat lines that humans have drawn on a map.
PM may yet be on the wrong side of history
MARK KENNY Opinion As the US, EU and China push on with reducing emissions Tony Abbott could be left clinging to an argument that is out of date.
Tackling literacy, numeracy where it counts
Ken Boston There are many key milestones in a child's education, but one critical moment stands out for me - a point which speaks volumes about a child's likely educational outcomes.
Curriculum review a ho-hum effort on history
Tony Taylor Opinion Christopher Pyne's review of the national curriculum simply repeats old political catchcries.
Medibank Private still belongs to its members
John Evered Ethically Medibank Private is not this or any other government's to sell.
Science experiment yet to pass acid test
Bridie Smith and Nicky Phillips Opinion At a dinner in Canberra last October, Prime Minister Tony Abbott urged the country's already wary scientific community to judge his government by its performance, not by its titles.
Why the campaign against IS is doomed
HUGH WHITE Enthusiasm for a swift and cheap war against Islamic State ignores the bitter lessons of failure Australia learned so recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Healthy, wealthy and unfair
PETER HARTCHER Barack Obama said last year that growing income inequality was "the defining challenge of our time." And the people nodding in agreement are not only other politicians from the left-of-centre parties.
Coal comfort for Tony Abbott
MARK KENNY Opinion What else could an Australian prime minister do when opening a huge new coal mine but sing its praises and those of the industry?
The great resources investment debate
Erwin Jackson Climate and carbon risks are fast becoming a concern on financial, not ethical grounds.
Time to move to a post-carbon world
Ian Young We have been attacked by elements of industry, media and some political figures as reckless, cowardly, superficial, anti-business, poorly conceived and as destroying jobs.
Rich versus poor is the wrong debate
AMANDA VANSTONE I wish I received a parcel of shares in The Big Australian every time I saw or heard a story about the rich/poor divide in Australia.
Special features
Saving the family farm
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce wants more dams and stronger protections for family farms- but faces a tough time winning support.
Walrus weirdness
The opposition lampoons Environment Minister Greg Hunt's recent comments espousing walrus research in Antarctica.
Commonsense prevails, eventually, with burqa backdown
Federal Parliament's presiding officers have decided to overturn their move to segregate women wearing a burqa or niqab in the building - it's hard to understand how commonsense did not prevail sooner, writes James Massola.
Girly man? Banter is sadly lacking originality
Tony Wright "I wouldn't vote for you if you was Jesus Christ himself!" a disgruntled woman was once supposed to have roared at prime minister Bob Menzies during a rowdy town hall meeting.
Labor and the bush
Labor must be more competitive in rural Australia if it wants to regain government, says Shadow Regional Affairs Minister Joel Fitzgibbon.
Abbott's choice: competition v cronies
It's still too soon to tell whether Abbott's government is pro-market or pro-business.
Nuclear frission
It no longer seems funny to joke with Russians about nuclear war. Peter Hartcher reports.
Stuck in the middle
Sarah Whyte While asylum seekers are left in the dark about their fate, the political games continue.
The lunch that destroyed careers
Little did the seven diners know that the link that drew them to lunch at the upmarket Sydney restaurant Rockpool would destroy friendships and careers, writes Kate McClymont.
Baghdad: city of burnt trees and bravado
The good citizens of Baghdad insist that all is normal, as a force that terrifies the world closes in, writes Paul McGeogh.
On the world stage
Within minutes of being named winner of the Man Booker Prize, Richard Flanagan was asked to comment on the Australian government's environmental and energy policies and told the BBC he was "ashamed to be Australian when you bring this up", writes Susan Wyndham.
Coal faith
Tom Allard While the PM insists coal is here to stay, others say the world is on the cusp of a once-in-a-century shift towards renewables.
Turnbull v Scott: the battle for the ABC
Matthew Knott Mark Scott is no rabble rouser. Past profiles of the ABC managing director have described him as "vanilla", "cautious", "dull", "bureaucratic", "not one to make waves".
Joko Widodo's inauguration
Indonesia's new president will be sworn in this Monday, but his political battles are only just beginning, according to Indonesia correspondent Michael Bachelard.
PM unsuited to foreign policy? Far from it
Comment Tony Abbott has made a good start to his first year on the world stage. His task now is to balance his ambitious nature with a view of the national interest that is both liberal and practical.
Budget will increase violence against women: Greens
Budget cuts will make domestic violence worse says Senator Larissa Waters, while Nationals MP Andrew Broad says more resources are needed.
Economic turmoil threatens budget
Volatility on global markets is undermining the federal budget bottom line and could force the government to rethink its strategy, says economist Stephen Koukoulas.
Cutting the ABC
Liberal MP Alex Hawke questions whether the ABC needs to cut production or shift resources from broadcasting to online as a result of budget cuts.
Science experiment yet to pass acid test
Bridie Smith At a dinner in Canberra last October, Prime Minister Tony Abbott urged the country's already wary scientific community to judge his government by its performance, not by its titles.
Picking winners?
The government has revealed its industry assistance program but there are criticisms about which sectors it is supporting. With Liberal MP Alex Hawke and Labor's Michelle Rowland
How we share the refugee burden
Interactive More than 85 per cent of refugees are hosted in developing countries. Australia hosts 0.3 per cent of the 11.7 million refugees under the UNHCR's mandate.
Federal budget 2014: Interactive explorer
Explore the major data points of the 2014 federal budget and see how Joe Hockey’s first budget shapes up to his predecessors.
Investigating MPs' expenses
Fairfax Media has conducted an extensive investigation on MPs claiming expense entitlements. Read our coverage here.
