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- 01:46
Vote counting - why so long?
The votes are cast, but counting them is no simple task. Peter Martin explains the process - and why it takes so long.
The votes are cast, but counting them is no simple task. Peter Martin explains the process - and why it takes so long.
There has perhaps never been a more obvious, more protracted and more destructive public policy failure in the history of democracy than the war on drugs.
How many votes do you reckon Kevin Rudd lost when it was revealed he had gone into a seedy New York strip club known as Scores in a drunken manhattan bar crawl? Or what about Donald J Trump? How many do you imagine he lost from the notorious bus tape where he was recorded boasting of preying on and sexually assaulting women?
If the prime minister and his government are to properly revive their fortunes in 2017 they need to become a whole lot better.
If he did what has been alleged, he ought to go.
Peter Dutton found himself in unfamiliar territory this week, cast as the victim of the "tricky language" of Bill Shorten.
Voters now understand that the 'real' Turnbull will never emerge.
Peter Costello delivered the last federal budget surplus on May 8, 2007.
We don't have a budget deficit problem; we just have a spineless politician problem.
Your personally curated news with six things you need to know before you get going.
My father was a great believer in Australian stories.
The Americans have elected Donald Trump and barring unforeseen circumstances they'll have him for the next four years.
We charge individuals with crimes, not ethnic communities. There is an important reason why.
"I am fed up with people... calling me a racist when they cannot find one thing that I have said that is racist."
A handful of wins towards the end of the year have rescued the Turnbull government from the near certainty of a difficult summer, but progress must be maintained if the government is to recover its balance and make something of 2017.
With one speech Labor MP Emma Husar has shone a spotlight on the often hidden crime of domestic violence. This is her full speech.
Never accept dietary advice from the Nationals.
The Senate cross bench remains in the limelight as the parliamentary year draws to a close.
Any advice sugar-loving Barnaby Joyce might have on public health should be taken seriously. The man's a living miracle.
Your personally curated news with six things you need to know before you get going.
You'd have to believe Mickey Mouse was the Roadrunner to believe that National Party Ministers hadn't gone gun-shy.
It's easy to take a quick look at Peter Dutton and simply write him off. That would be a mistake.
Your personally curated news with six things you need to know before you get going.
Once again, a government has put politics before policy, at the expense of the latter.
What if the right to an income was as basic as the right to vote?
A close examination shows that Keating was not primarily responsible for any of the major reforms that contributed to Australia's lauded economic growth.
If mainstream parties fail to provide 'fairness', socially destructive opportunists will step in.
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.
"Australia has been making mistakes about the sort of people we've been letting in for quite a while now," Peter Dutton mused.
That whining noise in the background this week was mostly from politicians and businessmen trying to pretend that they have "got" the message from the election of Donald Trump as US President, and about what it means for Australians whom they have pissed-off.
Your personally curated news with six things you need to know before you get going.
The hurly-burly of the 2016 election campaign, as seen through the eyes of Fairfax reporters and photographers.
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