Mark Kenny is Fairfax Media's national affairs editor. 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.
In a barely noticed respite from last week's hyper-partisan squabbling, Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten actually agreed on a couple of things. It is an enduring curiosity that such moments tend to escape attention.
In the end, the deal to secure Malcolm Turnbull's signature election pledge of enterprise tax cuts, at least for small and medium businesses, was, to use the vernacular, a little "exxy". Big business missed out. A bridge too far. As such the cost to the budget is substantially less - around $20 billion. The X-man of Australian politics, Nick Xenophon has once again proved the master-negotiator, and Turnbull, the great deal-maker and achiever of results. As in all compromises, neither got all they wanted, But both will be happy.
The performance of the Senate in the company tax debate has been marked by an overweening self-importance.
The government says it supports an extradition treaty with Beijing because it will ensure Chinese criminals are sent back to China, where they belong. And it maintains that righteous enthusiasm right up until suddenly, it's gone.And so, another column in the facade of orderly, government, topples to populist whimsy.Cory Bernardi's power as a rookie independent, just got a pretty big kick-along. The government's prestige, not so much.
The PM badly needs clean air and real traction or colleagues will return to discussing their alternative driver options.
There is a growing sense around the halls of power that Malcolm Turnbull is finally starting to get somewhere, writes Mark Kenny.
Local beef producers have won unfettered access to the giant Chinese domestic market for the first time, in a commercial breakthrough that gives Australia a unique level of entree denied to all other countries until now. But the resolution of Australia's beef over beef exports came with a gentle reminder to Canberra, and other regional neighbours, that China will not back down on the South China Sea and regards its outposts in international waters as its sovereign territory.
Politicians normally avoid airing their dirty linen in public but for Australia's longest governing leader, it was actually a laundry incident that nearly brought him undone.
Another moderate shibboleth associated with national unity has been slain. On Harmony Day. Priceless.
Home doctors fear a review of after hours services could see vital services cut.
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