Landmark report reveals scale of indigenous disadvantage
MICHAEL GORDON 7:58am Levels of self-harm and incarceration for indigenous Australians have increased at alarming levels despite the efforts of both sides of politics to 'close the gap', the most comprehensive report on indigenous wellbeing has found.
Latest political news
Lambie demoted by PUP leader Clive Palmer
8:48am Clive Palmer has reportedly demoted Palmer United Party senator Jacqui Lambie.
Morrison cuts off access from Indonesia
SARAH WHYTE 8:03am Australia will no longer take asylum seekers found to be refugees by the United Nations High Commission of Refugees in Indonesia, cutting off the flow of people who applied after July.
How Turnbull will justify ABC cuts
HEATH ASTON 8:15pm ABC staff will be forced to walk to a pigeonhole to collect their mail at the new streamlined public broadcaster.
Australia and India commit to fresh era
8:03am Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has proposed a dramatic deepening of Australia's defence, security, and economic relationship in a gesture clearly designed to offer a counter-balance to the China option expressed just 24 hours earlier.
Chinese could sue federal government
GARETH HUTCHENS 12:28am Academics, Labor and Greens senators have warned about a controversial and little-understood clause in the new China-Australia free trade agreement that will allow Chinese corporations to sue the Australian government.
Pauline Hanson set to lead One Nation again
12:50am Pauline Hanson looks set to once again take the helm of One Nation.
Coalition confirms Climate Fund no-show
PETER HANNAM 5:58am Australia is playing its part in an effective response to climate change through direct action, international engagement and aid program, according to a spokesman for Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.
Japan to expand its Antarctic whaling area
ANDREW DARBY 6:56pm Japan is to vastly expand its Antarctic whaling area, and take 333 minke whales, under a scientific research plan to replace the program ruled illegal at Australia's request.
Stars join detention centre campaign
SARAH WHYTE 11:45pm Unlikely high profile Australian celebrities have come together with a simple message to the Australian government: remove children from immigration detention.
Food prices to rise under China deal: minister
DAN HARRISON 4:03pm Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce has conceded Australian food prices will rise as a result of the nation's freshly-inked free trade agreement with China.
Ruling against unionist in defamation case
MARK RUSSELL 11:37am The Court of Appeal's Justices ruled against Mr Setka on Tuesday.
Modi calls for new era with Australia
DAVID WROE 12:31pm Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for a close partnership with Australia based on shared values to exploit the Indo-Pacific region's immense economic opportunities while tackling its growing security challenges.
Awkwardness for Merkel visit
DAN HARRISON There was awkwardness in Sydney on Monday as Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull hosted German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a tour of a research facility the Abbott Government has cut funding for.
Former Fraser minister and lord mayor dies
Australia urges 'harmonious' partnership
FTA will boost jobs and exports, say economists
ABC will be cut by $50m a year
Red faces for Abbott on Green Climate Fund
Nauruan letter threatens island's refugees
Gillard rejects royal commission's criticism
Lambie seeks complete Senate blockage
Help put a brake on climate change: Merkel
Don't sell out Australian jobs, say unions
Leaders united on tax, trade, climate
Tony Abbott seals free trade deal with Beijing
'Trench warfare' on G20 climate communique
Bid to suppress East Timor file
Lambie to meet senators on voting bloc
Tighter controls to curb terror funding
Obama puts climate change at fore
UN chief urges Abbott to support climate fund
Lambie approached to form 'voting bloc'
Morrison ready to meet parents of IS brothers
G20 finance ministers exceed expectations
Rudd in Mid East as G20 comes to his home
G20 protests begin on first day of summit
Comment & Analysis
ABC's poor satire not proof of political bias
Jonathan Holmes 12:33am An attempt to insert a light note into the current affairs program 7.30 fell flat, but political skits do have a place in public broadcasting.
Applaud men who learn from their mistakes
Elizabeth Broderick 12:00am True equality for women will come when men become champions of change.
Who'll be the next judge of the High Court?
GEORGE WILLIAMS The Abbott government will soon make two very significant appointments. They arise due to the retirements of Justices Kenneth Hayne and Susan Crennan from the High Court.
How to make your G20 summit a success
ANNABEL CRABB I know the thing's already under way, but it can't hurt to recap – just for the sake of thoroughness.
Vladimir Putin says it with nuclear powers
PETER HARTCHER It's not just posturing: the Russian President is using every trick in his arsenal to reassert his nation's lost greatness.
Political climate puts Abbott on the spot
MARK KENNY The Abbott government is furiously spinning a belated justification for having feet of clay in the climate change debate and for ensuring the issue would not achieve headline status at this year's G20.
G20: Words from the wise?
MICHAEL GORDON A conga line is unlikely, but the leaders' summit in Brisbane still promises to be captivating.
Forget the F-word, action is what counts
Anne Summers Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will have a strong interest in ensuring the gender targets in the draft communique are agreed to by the G20 leaders in Brisbane this weekend.
Co-operation and goodwill are in the air
PETER HARTCHER Opinion The Sino-American announcement improves the prospects that the Paris protocol to be agreed next year might contain harmful climate change.
US-China deal puts pressure on Tony Abbott
MICHAEL GORDON China and the US agreement highlights PM's inaction on global warming.
Australia and India have never been closer
Amitabh Mattoo The partnership between the two countries is set to bear fruit as Indian PM Narendra Modi sets foot on Australian soil for the first time.
Problems with banking go to the top
ADELE FERGUSON Senator Nick Xenophon's question whether ANZ's role in Timbercorp and lack of due diligence was "reckless indifference or wilful ignorance" summed up the mood of an urgent hearing at a Senate inquiry into managed investment schemes.
As cost of education grows, so does cheating
PAUL SHEEHAN Financial pressure has compromised the standards, governance and ethics of Australia's universities.
The six main benefits from a China trade deal
JOHN GARNAUT So, after 10 years of negotiations, just what does Australia stand to gain from inking a free trade agreement with its biggest trading partner?
We need cost analysis of campaign promises
PETER MARTIN The sky is the limit for political parties when it comes to making election promises.
AIIB puts zest into directors' gravy train
PETER REITH The proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has little to offer Australians, writes Peter Reith.
Even the wrong war can be fought right
PETER HARTCHER Opinion A retired general is a source of wisdom regarding our latest military venture, but not everybody wants to listen.
A piece of paper doesn't make a happy couple
JACQUELINE MALEY Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews is an easy target. Old-fashioned in both manners and values, he has earned comparisons with the Simpsons character Ned Flanders, and he is treated with great suspicion by left-wingers.
It's time - for leaders to be brave again
MICHAEL GORDON Gough Whitlam's state memorial service at Sydney Town Hall on Wednesday was much more than a nostalgic celebration of an extraordinary life. It was also an invocation to today's crop of politicians to think big and be brave.
Brisbane alive with G20 hysteria
JOHN BIRMINGHAM In the countdown to the G20 summit, Brisbane's residents are feeling the strength of the Ring of Steel.
Lest we forget a trial by fire on the veldt
JULIA BAIRD Tens of thousands of Australians fought in the Boer War and it and the lessons learned from it merit attention due any war we have fought in.
Now we've stopped the boats, what next?
Bob Douglas Having deterred the boats carrying asylum seekers from sailing to Australia, the nation and its neighbours need to discuss how they should treat the world's record number of refugees.
Employment. How the ABS got it wrong
PETER MARTIN The Bureau of Statistics thinks it's got to the bottom of what's been wrong with its employment survey and it's bumped up the unemployment rate to compensate.
A long time since we led refugee policy
Claire Higgins In-country programs were a creative solution to the challenge of rescuing people in humanitarian need.
Cup shows power is in our hands
PETER MARTIN Something remarkable happens as the horses leave the barrier at 3pm each Melbourne Cup day. Our use of electricity drops.
Global policy lost in political point-scoring
PETER HARTCHER In the lead-up to the 2013 election, then opposition leader Tony Abbott was running hard against the Rudd government by promising to turn back asylum-seeker boats to Indonesia.
Forget the title fights, let's see some action
JACQUELINE MALEY Foreign Minister Julie Bishop does not identify as a feminist. She doesn't reject the word; it's just not one she reaches for when she's describing herself. Does it matter?
Salute the Anzacs but embrace contradictions
Steve Sailah The lessons of Gallipoli remain relevant in the light of our new military commitment against Islamic State.
F-word strikes again, but does it land a blow?
JUDITH IRELAND Opinion It is ludicrous to suggest that someone like Foreign Minister Julie Bishop does not live and breathe the cause for the advancement of women every day.
Abbott's fuel tax stance signals new approach
MARK KENNY Mature debate needs time, but Tony Abbott now accepts bluster doesn’t aid ambitions.
Insane, antisocial loners a new type of terrorist
WALEED ALY Terrorism is evolving. Planes crashing into skyscrapers are gone. Now it’s low-casualty, high-impact attacks by misfits in search of an identity.
Special features
How Narendra Modi turned Parliament House into a rock star's stage
Judith Ireland You got the sense there was something about Narendra Modi when world leaders had their official handshakes with Tony Abbott at the G20 summit.
Julie Bishop's secret sign language
Dan Harrison It looked like Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had kicked off a game of charades in the House of Representatives chamber to pass the time until Chinese President Xi Jinping started speaking.
Well done, G20, now let's check our spending
Peter Reith I don't want to be a wet blanket but whilst the G20 is important its also a lot of huff and puff.
China ahead of us on climate change. Let's not belittle its commitment
China must hate the things that are being said about it as it closes its free trade deal with Australia.
Was the G20 a success?
The G20 saw President Obama announce a US $3 billion green fund; Labor's Andrew Leigh and Liberal MP Andrew Laming discuss the fallout from the meeting.
Abbott shirt-fronted by climate change reality
Michael Gordon It was reality that shirt-fronted Prime Minister Tony Abbott at the G20 summit, the reality that everyone else was concerned about climate change.
Finally Abbott scores a victory with his words on climate change
Tony Abbott managed to snatch summit victory, but it was almost buried under a pile of international indignation at his suspected climate change denialism.
Call me top trader Tony, as Abbott scores big time
Mark Kenny The title Tony Abbott applies to himself whenever possible, is that of "the infrastructure prime minister".
Three-way G20 tryst an awkward affair
Tony Wright The trouble with threesomes is that no one is quite sure what goes where.
A seat at the table
As leaders of the world's most powerful nations arrive in Australia for the G20 summit, all eyes are on the relationship between the United States and China, and just where Australia can fit in.
G20 a chance to boost global economic health
Tom Allard World leaders at the G20 summit have the ability to resolve some of the world's economic challenges.
'Paradise' for the powerful G20 people
Tony Wright Brisbanites packed up and left the G20 to its paranoid paradise on Friday, and headed to the Gold Coast.
US-China climate deal thrills Bill Shorten but does Australia care?
Tom Allard When the US and China unveiled their deal to curb greenhouse gases this week in Beijing, Labor leader Bill Shorten was claiming sweet vindication.
Would uni reforms curb cheating?
Would the government's reforms to the university sector reduce the reliance on revenue from international students? Amanda Rishworth and Wyatt Roy debate.
Tony Abbott tries hostessing, G20 style
Jacqueline Maley History has not recorded whether our Prime Minister Tony Abbott has read the classic Virginia Woolf novel, but Tony would surely sympathise.
G20: Shirt Front Diplomacy
Having finished their big pow wow in the orient, it's time for the world leaders to slip out of their silly shirts and head south to sunny Brisvegas for the G20.
Clive Palmer: radio quiz master
What Palmer got right about China.
Whitlam: 1916 - 2014
See our complete coverage of the former Labor prime minister, including news, reflections, tributes, analyses, picture galleries, videos and cartoons.
Abbott's metadata laws explained
Ben Grubb We look at how the surveillance legislation introduced to the Australian Parliament this week may affect you.
What's watt? The Renewable Energy Target explained
Analysis Confused by the jargon about gigawatts and "real 20 per cent"? Here are some basics in the debate over the Renewable Energy Target.
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.
