Mark Kenny is Fairfax Media's chief political correspondent. A director of the National Press Club, he regularly appears on the ABC's Insiders, Sky News Agenda, and Ten's Meet the Press. He has reported from Canberra under three prime ministers and several opposition leaders.
Heading into its fourth year in office, the Coalition government is again warning of a complacency in Australian politico-economic discourse, which accepts a budget deficit as a more-or-less permanent feature.
Australia could be headed towards an unprecedented trillion debt position over the next decade which would see the nation's triple A credit rating downgraded, and the economy pushed into recession, Scott Morrison has warned.
Federal police remained tight-lipped on Wednesday after conducting extraordinary raids on opposition parliamentary offices in search of leaked documents relating to the operation of the beleaguered national broadband network.
Chinese investors are being encouraged to get in new bids for Australian infrastructure assets even though last week's rejection of the $10 billion Ausgrid bids by two Chinese mega-firms has sown panic in their ranks.
Tony Abbott was hospitalised briefly on Friday after an early morning surf was truncated by an injury severe enough to require emergency medical attention.
Treasurer Scott Morrison has distanced himself from the Coaliton's most criticised piece of hard-nosed political strategy against Julia Gillard's minority government in 2011: the blocking of the Malaysian "people-swap" solution.
Malcolm Turnbull would do well to remember most urgent advice drummed into children about looking right and left because when he steps off the kerb in the 45th parliament, he's as likely to get cleaned up by the Karma bus as he is to get safely to the other side.
There's a huge difference between good debt and bad debt, writes Mark Kenny.
Former prime ministers are usually afforded a degree of latitude in defending their policies from their own time in office.
Denial of service? Denial of common sense more like. And the net result is a denial of public confidence and just as inevitably, a denial of prime ministerial good will.
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