Federal Politics

The opportunity to critique the Prime Minister's approach to eating is a pleasure, if not a right.

Turnbull's sausage 'no' denies us all

Otto von Bismarck, Germany's first Chancellor, is usually credited with the famous remark likening laws to sausages: for peace of mind, one should never see either being made.

Westminster's parliamentary committees, unlike ours, know how to get to the point.

Incompetence a cup with no bottom

The parallels go right down to misleading threats and ultimatums issued to "clients", bad algorithms and drawing misleading conclusions from matching incompatible data.

Cyclone Debbie provided a rare and overlooked moment of bipartisanship in today's politics.

Is it any wonder politicians are on the nose?

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.

Senator Nick Xenophon during debate in the Senate on Friday.

Turnbull's company tax deal 'exxy' but effective

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.