![Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has kept tight-lipped on speculation of a deal with the US.](/web/20161112045622im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/m/7/n/a/image.related.landscape.460x307.gsnefm.png/1478855695202.jpg)
Nauru and Manus centres to close by 2019 under Coalition asylum seeker solution
Australia's offshore detention system would be shut down before the next federal election under a series of international deals.
Peter Hartcher is the political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. He is a Gold Walkley award winner, a former foreign correspondent in Tokyo and Washington, and a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. His latest book is The Sweet Spot: How Australia Made its Own Luck and Could Now Throw it All Away. His 2005 book, Bubble Man: Alan Greenspan and the Missing Seven Trillion Dollars, foresaw the collapse of the US housing market and the economic slump that followed.
Australia's offshore detention system would be shut down before the next federal election under a series of international deals.
The Turnbull government has just demonstrated indiscipline. It cannot afford to make this a habit.
New Science Minister Greg Hunt has ordered a major u-turn in the direction of the CSIRO, reviving climate research as a bedrock function just months after the national science agency slashed climate staff and programs.
US Vice-President Joe Biden has attacked "the gathering forces of racism" in America and Australia.
Instead of ending Australia's dismal decade of politics, the election appears to have set it up for another round.
The underlying struggle was for the Liberals to build public trust in Turnbull, and for Labor to damage it.
At the start of the election campaign, the Turnbull government was ahead on the national vote by 51 per cent to Labor's 49 in the Fairfax Ipsos poll.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says Australia "is not immune" to the populist anger powering Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign.
Malcolm Turnbull has completed his transformation from progressive firebrand to ambassador for the conservative brand.
Bill Shorten began the Labor leadership as a Faceless Man, but he has now completed the shift to become Everyman.
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