Inequality rises as government plans to clip poorest further

• EXCLUSIVE

The Turnbull government's plan to strip low-income welfare recipients of the clean energy supplement, will exacerbate growing inequality, sending their incomes 32 per cent below the poverty line, according to new research by the left-leaning Australia Institute. The study, shows the 2016 budget decision to abolish carbon tax compensation at a saving of $1.4 billion to the commonwealth, will add to a growing wealth gap in which the 10 richest Australians own as much as the bottom 4 million.

PM can still find rhythm after messy start

• ANALYSIS

Defibrillating Australia's flat lining political and economic mindset after a troubled first half of 2016 may be a job tailor made for Malcolm Turnbull.

Turnbull must find courage to avoid a bleak future

• ANALYSIS

Stable government via a strong majority was Malcolm Turnbull's most fundamental promise - a pledge repeated so often in the final weeks of the campaign as to suggest voters might be schmucks.

Scale of Coalition's poor election result slowly emerges

• ANALYSIS

Conservative hopes of passing blocked union-taming legislation which became trigger bills for the double dissolution, were given a boost on Tuesday but the numbers still look tight even in the evbent of a joint sitting to try to pass the bills.

PM gets abuse probe set up at second attempt

Malcolm Turnbull's heavily criticised royal commission into the Northern Territory's youth detention system has been given a second chance at success after the initial Royal Commissioner Brian Martin bowed to pressure by quitting just three days in to be replaced by a former Queensland justice Margaret White and indigenous community leader, Mick Gooda.

Good intentions compromised by haste

• COMMENT

Another excruciating exercise in administrative mediocrity. The result of important policy action constructed with inadequate consultation and too much speed.

Rudd snubbed by Turnbull: no job, no meeting

Kevin Rudd learned by telephone that he would not be nominated to run for the top job at the United Nations despite requesting a face-to-face meeting with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and flying to Sydney for that purpose.

Turnbull hamstrung by a divided party even after the election

• ANALYSIS

Turnbull was given a face-saver or a hospital handpass, depending on how you spin it.

Turnbull broadens abuse inquiry

A culture of racism, brutality, and official cover-up in the Northern Territory's discredited juvenile justice system will be centrally examined by a royal commission formally established on Thursday by the federal government.

Turnbull government's green shift to back renewables

Malcolm Turnbull's new Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg has signalled a declining role for coal in Australia's energy mix in the future, in a marked change from the aggressively pro-coal stance of the Abbott government.