• COMMENT
• Peter Hartcher

The underlying struggle was for the Liberals to build public trust in Turnbull, and for Labor to damage it.

• Richard Glover

Consuming whole pallet-loads of a particular show without coming up for air can alter your personality.

• David Blair

More than any other country, Turkey shows that geography is destiny.

• COMMENT
• Jacqueline Maley

Tony, you promised. But the temptation was just too great.

• Julia Baird

It has never been entirely clear why so many people like to draw penises on ballot papers.

• Elizabeth Farrelly

Australia seems determined to crush its nurseries of thought.

• The Canberra Times

Britain is now essentially leaderless, and will remain so until September 9 when the Conservatives are expected to wrap up their selection process.

• Michael Gordon

There has been much discussion this past six months about whether we have been seeing "the real Malcolm" or a politician who has traded convictions and adopted a more conservative stance to secure the prime ministership.

• Danny Katz

The reason why I don't let people get too emotionally close to me is that I'm worried that one day they'll decide to have a big birthday party or milestone celebration and ask me to say a few words. 

• Martin Flanagan

She was blonde, bulky and she'd been drinking. She told us with deafening certainty that it was "inappropriate" to talk politics in a New York bar.

• Karen Hardy

Youngsters and the voting game.

• COMMENT
• Jack Waterford

So what was all that about? Was there ever a more pointless election? Does anyone know what it resolved?

• Richard Denniss

Boris Johnson is the Tony Abbott of British politics. Both are former journalists who prioritise selling simple messages over solving complex problems

• Gwynne Dyer

Everybody in British politics is in shock now that that they face the reality of having to negotiate the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union.

• Bede Harris

The increasing stream of Coalition MPs asserting that, even if same-sex marriage is approved in a plebiscite, they will either vote against or abstain from supporting necessary enabling legislation, reveals the futility and waste involved in holding the plebiscite. If MPs claim a conscience vote irrespective of the outcome of the plebiscite, why hold the plebiscite? Why not proceed directly to a conscience vote on the floor of Parliament?

  The federal  election does little for me except  bring on a huge wave  of despair at being an ACT resident.

• Claire Mallinson

For too long successive governments have sought to develop Indigenous affairs policy in isolation from Indigenous people.

• COMMENT
• Alison and Jillian Barrett

How can you legally protect yourself from cyberbullying, harassment and online trolling?

• Crispin Hull

Labor, Coalition: Take heed of the voters.

• COMMENT
• James Robertson

Politics is boring again and it's because the kooks have left the building.

• COMMENT
• David McLennan

It's just one of the quirks of the political system that screw over those in the national capital.

• Luca Belgiorno-Nettis

Modern-day elections are little more than a naked, brutish struggle for control, tainted by campaign funding and lobby groups, masquerading as a contest of ideas.

• Tim Williams

I was in London the day the Britain voted for Brexit. I was there to give a speech on the housing challenges of global cities and to meet advisors to the Prime Minister and the new London Mayor. As a former advisor to ministers in the Blair government and as someone who has advised Boris Johnson on housing when he was the London mayor, I was more than a little interested in the drama and then crisis which overtook the UK's political class.

• Greg Baum

Enough is enough; indeed, this time it's too much.

• COMMENT
• Jessica Irvine

No young person can realistically expect to enjoy the same spoils being enjoyed today by the baby boomer generation.

• COMMENT
• Marija Taflaga

The speed of the news cycle and the rise of social media are eroding the capacity of leaders to centralise and control messages.

• COMMENT
• Ian Dunlop

The abrupt decision by CSIRO to focus its strategy far more on commercialisation than on fundamental science is incomprehensible given the critical challenges now confronting Australia and the science needed for their resolution.  

• COMMENT
• Waleed Aly

There is an historic rejection of the political establishment underway.

A timely reminder to the good senator Zed Seselja - you are a representative of the people of the ACT.

• The Canberra Times

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s reluctance to fully embrace budget repair and the need for overdue tax reform notwithstanding, the Coalition promises stronger, more effective government than Labor.