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.
The initial shock of Donald Trump's election win has already given way to a second-wave effect in Australia, with policymakers adjusting their stances, toughening their rhetoric, playing to prejudices once discredited.
The extension of the second highest tax threshold from $80,000 to $87,000 to give middle-income families relief, along with cuts to some family tax benefits, has backfired, leaving many poorer families worse off, according to independent analysis.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has accused opposition leader Bill Shorten of hypocrisy on a breathtaking scale as the issue of foreign workers taking Australian jobs threatened to become a defining argument that could last all the way to the next election.
It is tempting to conclude that Bill Shorten watched the blue-collar backlash in the US last week and panicked, deciding to condemn foreign workers taking up Australian jobs.
Bill Shorten will announce a new emphasis on local employment on Tuesday, as Labor moves to protect Australian jobseekers from being replaced by overseas workers brought in by employers under skilled migration visas designed to fill holes in the labour supply.
Malcolm Turnbull's "ring of steel" asylum seeker arrangements designed to buttress his new US resettlement deal could be weakened by Labor, Greens and crossbench opposition to a proposed lifetime visa ban on post-2013 boat arrivals.
Quietly, Malcolm Turnbull began working on a solution to the intractable problems of asylum seekers, people smuggling, and indefinite detention, as a first priority of his new leadership.
That unelectable weakling, Bill Shorten, has demonstrated to devastating effect that the combination of party unity and focus can take you very close to the top in politics.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has talked up Donald Trump as a deal-making businessman who is more pragmatist than ideologue as Canberra repositions for the President-elect's still unpredictable administration.
Australian populist-conservatives are suddenly enlivened, preaching with the certainty of someone who's just been tipped off about the second coming.
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