Manus Island detainees 'on hunger strike'

More than 250 asylum seekers are on a hunger strike on Manus Island over their frustration at being held in detention for the past 17 months and without being given any guarantee about their futures, refugee advocates say.

Stars in alignment for food ratings

Dan Harrison   Assistant Minister for Health Fiona Nash has launched a system for rating the nutritional value of foods, almost 10 months after shutting down a website which promoted an earlier version of the scheme.

Tougher dole terms for regional jobless

Out-of-work Australians living in remote communities will have to work five days a week under employment reforms to be introduced next year.

Joe Hockey acknowledges unrest over budget

Mark Kenny   Tony Abbott's plans of drawing a line under a difficult first year in office could be swamped by a party-room uprising fuelled by political errors and what some say is excessive control by the PM's Office.

Muir's anguish on asylum vote

Michael Gordon   Senator Ricky Muir says he was placed in a position he would not wish on his "worst enemies" in having to decide the fate of Scott Morrison's controversial asylum seekers laws.

Parliament House official misled Senate

Matthew Knott   The public servant in charge of running Parliament House misled the Senate when giving evidence, a Senate committee has found.

Unemployment a $15b drag on wellbeing

Matt Wade   Australians are feeling the effects of a sluggish national economy with new figures revealing a sharp rise in the social and economic cost of unemployment.

Richo caught up in new ICAC inquiry

Kate McClymont   Graham Richardson, one of the Labor party’s most enduringly controversial figures, is embroiled in a potentially explosive investigation being conducted by the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Indian citizens head immigration queue

Sarah Whyte   Indian citizens are flocking to Australia to work, beating the once-dominant British, according to figures released this week.

State's big projects thrashed out over lunch

Josh Gordon and Mark Hawthorne   The fate of Victoria's spare $3 billion federal infrastructure money has been thrashed out at a power lunch  – attended by  Tony Abbott,  Joe Hockey,  Premier Daniel Andrews, his Treasurer Tim Pallas and Opposition Leader Matthew Guy.

When times are tough, it's all tit for tat

Annabel Crabb   A funny thing happens when governments start to panic. All of a sudden, the language becomes clearer.

Fractious leaders play an old tune

Peter Hartcher   The parliamentary year has ended for 2014, but in truth Australian politics is stuck firmly in 2010.

Labor's great big win with Katy Gallagher

Judith Ireland   Bill Shorten did not waste any time asking Katy Gallagher to run for the Senate.

Mark Latham, meet Karl Lagerfeld

Jacqueline Maley   Domestic concerns tend to be dismissed as unworthy subjects for people leading artistic lives, unless a man writes about them.

Senate v Pyne: a victory for the people

John Birmingham   There have been some cruel and stupid things said about Glenn Lazarus and Jacqui Lambie since they arrived in the Senate. But these two Senators covered themselves in glory this week.

Comments 55

Why the RBA is poised to cut interest rates

Peter Martin   After a year of finely judged inactivity, the Reserve Bank is stirring.

MPs seek solace in the far away

Tony Wright   We've all had that feeling. It's just too much. The end of the year can't come too soon. Australia's government MPs couldn't keep their minds on the job on Wednesday.

Time for Abbott to tell a new story

Paul Sheehan   The collective carnivorous hunger of the parliamentary press gallery was whetted at question time on Wednesday.

Lesson for Shorten in the Coalition's failures

Latika Bourke   The one person who should take the greatest notice of Christopher Pyne and Peter Dutton’s defeats on higher education reform and the $7 GP co-payment is Bill Shorten.

Complex stories defy digital dumb down

Jonathan Holmes   There is plenty of scope for cerebral content in the digital era - if we're willing to learn.

Comments 9

Treasury's bias against women exposed 

Gareth Hutchens   Officials of both genders receptive to moves to change a culture preventing women rising to senior positions.

Federal Liberals have reason to be scared

Tim Colebatch   As soon as one election is over, we start turning our attention to the next – and that will be Prime Minister Tony Abbott's appointment with the voters, due some time around September 2016.

Degrees of failure: uni reforms fail to pass

Mark Kenny   Another day, another humiliating set-back ending a year of budget policy pain for the Abbott coalition government. 

The Brick gives the finger to Pyne

Tony Wright   There are those callous enough to have referred to Christopher Pyne as twinkle-toes. They got it wrong. He is, it turns out, something of a twinkle-fingers.

High risk: drug war fought with dollars

Ross Gittins   How goes the war on drugs? On the face of it, not well. But in thinking about the drug problem it helps to know a bit of economics. When you do, you see things aren't as bad as they seem.

Abbott recognises aphorisms...and reality

Tony Wright   Political witch doctors remind us at every election that "governments lose elections, oppositions don't win them".

PM will rob the nation if he rips off Victoria

Peter Martin   Abbott will be shooting himself in the foot if he holds back the billions of dollars he promised for the state’s construction industry.

Shaken Abbott stirs

Mark Kenny   It is a sad reflection on our politics that it takes some pretty hostile circumstances to get leaders to come clean and tell the truth.

Victorian Liberals have lost their way

Peter Reith   After Saturday's defeat, the federal coalition could be facing the loss of even more seats and the prospect of a one-term government.

The strategy behind Abbott's epic presser

Judith Ireland   Will this lead to a lasting change in prime ministerial strategy?

Abbott's spinners deluding themselves

Michael Gordon   The Abbott government is deluding itself if it truly believes what senior ministers are furiously spinning after the Napthine government was tipped out of office after a single term.

Abbott's nightmare could become permanent

Paul Sheehan   The lone Greens MP in the federal parliament, Adam Bandt, was sneering at Tony Abbott on Tuesday. Mocking him.

Abbott sweats as voters cast harsh judgment

Mark Kenny   There will be no shortage of theories about what caused the Victorian result but you can safely bet federal Labor will target the toxic standing of the Abbott government as the key driver.

Abbott's rudderless ship won't scrape by

Peter Hartcher   Not even halfway into its term, Team Abbott is replicating some of the failures of its fractious Labor predecessor.

GP fee debacle caps off  'terrible week'

Mark Kenny   Senior Ministers have privately blamed Tony Abbott's own office for creating the crisis which raised tensions between the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.

We have to fight for our ABC

Martin Flanagan   The ABC's quality broadcasting has broad support, but News Corp's indefatigable and deceptive attacks on it mean ordinary Australians must defend it.

You can't hurry same-sex marriage

Judith Ireland   When David Leyonhjelm announced he would introduce his same-sex marriage bill into the Senate he argued "the time is right" for the reform.

Climate doesn't have to be a dry argument

Wendy Harmer   Data and graphs aren't getting the climate change message across in Australia. It's time for a more personal touch.

A visionary PM takes on the eggheads

John Birmingham   Envy of scientists and ignorance of their work is behind the muted reaction to the slashing of one in five jobs at the CSIRO.

Wrong and right of Abbott's vulnerability

Mark Kenny   As debate builds over the Coalition government, conservative voices weigh in with their concerns.

Comments 145

Coalition marooned in a sea of troubles

Waleed Aly   Tony Abbott’s broken promises are just the garnish on top of the real problem: the Coalition government is in serious strife.

Nothing more potent than Bishop and a 94a

Judith Ireland   Julie Bishop has her freaky death stare and Tony Abbott has his scary swimmers, but nothing is more potent in Parliament than Bronwyn Bishop armed with a 94a.

GP-tax: a study in chaos management

Mark Kenny   For the fourth time this week, the Abbott government has resorted to sophistry as it muddles around trying to disguise what many are now calling policy chaos.

Comments 286

Johnston looks like man overboard

Mark Kenny   Luckily timing is not everything in politics because Defence Minister David Johnston could not be further out of sync.