Coal smoke and mirrors reflect poorly on what's really happening
See if you can pick it. The economy-wide plan calls for a halt to any new coal-fired generators and a tripling of renewable energy generation in just five years.
Mark Kenny is the national affairs editor for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based at Parliament House
See if you can pick it. The economy-wide plan calls for a halt to any new coal-fired generators and a tripling of renewable energy generation in just five years.
Malcolm Turnbull has admitted a potentially lucrative free trade agreement with India is now on the backburner.
The real challenge for Australia is to see India not for what it was or even is now, but for what it will be in the future.
An Indian trade official has warned Australia not to get too optimistic about signing new deals with the sub-continental giant.
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.
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