Recognition a step toward a treaty, says Shorten

Constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians will not be a roadblock to a treaty, but a step toward a final settlement and the closing the disadvantage gap, Bill Shorten has said.

Yes, PM, it's business as usual: disunity, ill-discipline and undermining

• ANALYSIS

"This is business as usual," Malcolm Turnbull declared this morning, as he defended the decision to release a set of broad terms of reference for a climate change policy review that has been Coalition policy for years.

These numbers reveal an underwhelmed and disengaged electorate

• COMMENT

Forget post-truth. This is the era of post-hope, where the instinct of voters is to give the finger to an established order.

Norway pension fund told to get out of offshore detention

'The reputation of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund investing ethically would be tarnished by ongoing investment in these camps'.

When words fail

• COMMENT

Peter Dutton found himself in unfamiliar territory this week, cast as the victim of the "tricky language" of Bill Shorten.

UN warns of asylum-seeker 'social time bomb'

• EXCLUSIVE

 Australia faces a "social time bomb" over the failure to process and integrate more than 30,000 asylum seekers who are in the community on bridging visas after arriving by boat during the term of the former Labor government.

Mental illness of offshore detainees 'among the highest recorded'

Report also mounts a powerful argument that officials statistics on self-harm and threatened self-harm dramatically understate the scale of the problem.

Glimmer of hope for damaged Manus Island detainees

What was extraordinary about this text message was that it is not extraordinary at all.

PM and Shorten to link arms against family violence

• EXCLUSIVE

 Every federal MP is expected to link arms with Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten next week in a national declaration of "no more" to the scourge family and community violence.