Politics | Opinion | Federal Politics

Morrison delivers passable first budget but fails to tackle the deficit

Latika Bourke Your personally curated news with six things you need to know before you get going.

Nauru tragedies are a failure of policy and politics

Michael Gordon The day a young Iranian husband died after setting himself alight on Nauru last week, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton released not one but two media statements accusing Labor of being weak on border protection.

Google Tax looms on budget day

Latika Bourke Your personally curated news with six things you need to know before you get going.

It's all about fairness, nothing else matters

Mark Kenny For all its enormous complexities and competing demands, Scott Morrison's first, and potentially only, federal budget will sink or swim on one question alone. And it's a question that has little to do with the dismal science nor even with the reams of graphs, tables, and explanations accompanying the economic blueprint.

High-flying NBN execs pass up on virtual meetings

Mark Kenny For all the cost-saving potential of the internet, it seems there's nothing quite like being there.

Make the most of budget. It's something to treasure

Peter Martin Most of us reporting the federal budget get little sleep the night after. We are busy "unwinding".

Budget eve bonanza, high court challenge, Trump could seal the deal this week

Latika Bourke Your personally curated news with six things you need to know before you get going.

Scott Morrison reads the politics on Chinese land grab

Mark Kenny If you wanted a window into the peculiar chemistry of Coalition politics, this marriage of convenience between liberal free marketeers and nostalgic agrarian socialists, this was it.

The Productivity Commission's hands were tied on copyright

Peter Martin Buried within this week's landmark Productivity Commission report on copyright and patents is seething resentment at the way Australia has negotiated trade agreements.

Behold Malcolm Abbott

Michael Gordon The PM has no answer to the asylum seeker situation beyond inflicting more harm.

Australian aid worker kidnapped in Afghanistan

Latika Bourke Your personally curated news with six things you need to know before you get going.

We are all at sea, paralysed, when it comes to riding the rails

Tony Wright Mark Twain didn't mince words when he wrote of one of Australia's most absurd and enduring cock-ups.

Sound familiar? The 2013 campaign redux

Stephanie Peatling Voters could be forgiven for experiencing political deja vu thanks to the return of immigration and climate change as key election issues.

Crossbench cull won't improve Turnbull's Senate woes

Mark Kenny Poor polling is making the decision to defer the election until July look increasingly questionable.

Trump's foreign policy pitch

Latika Bourke Your personally curated news with six things you need to know before you get going.

The understatement of Malcolm Turnbull's prime ministership

Michael Gordon When Malcolm Turnbull confessed on Wednesday that he could not produce a "definitive roadmap", he may have delivered the understatement of his prime ministership.

Good times, bad times: a tale of two treasurers

Peter Martin Victorian treasurer Tim Pallas luxuriates in surpluses, but he’s also protecting his revenue base, unlike another treasurer in Canberra.

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Dear Shinzo, the Frogs know nothing about subs. Love, Tones

Tony Wright Tony Abbott has written to his friend, Japanese Prime Minister Shinto Abe, commiserating at Japan's failure to make the cut in the $50 billion bid to build submarines in Australia.

Labor unveils ambitious carbon targets and promises ETS

Latika Bourke Your personally curated news with six things you need to know before you get going.

What's $50 billion between besties?

Daniel Flitton For all the serious and weighty talk of national security, there must surely be a better way for Australia to decide on a dozen submarines.

Votes for boats: Subs decision avoids a political meltdown in South Australia

Mark Kenny Luckily, South Australia does not grow balsa trees, or we might just have committed $50 billion to submarines that won't submerge. Instead, they'll be built from high-quality non-buoyant Australian steel.

Punitive, immoral and now illegal: the verdict on Manus Island

Michael Gordon The PNG Supreme Court has given Malcolm Turnbull cover to do the right thing and, not a moment too soon, end the inhumanity of indefinite detention of vulnerable and damaged people on Manus Island.

Clive, Australia's political prisoner?

Tony Wright We're not sure which gulag Clive Palmer has been condemned to inhabit, nor how he might be confined - let alone what catering arrangements have been made.

Coalition MPs in need of climate refresher courses

Stephanie Peatling The international scientific community might have accepted the reality of climate change, but it is a different matter in the Coalition.