![Prime Minister Theresa May and Elmo at a polling station in Maidenhead, England.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170609050405im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/n/o/2/0/image.related.wideLandscape.460x259.gwnzse.png/1496983618383.jpg)
Australia should adopt this delightful but awful UK election tradition
Australia should follow the UK method of announcing seats. Election nights would be more interesting and importantly, more Elmo.
Australia should follow the UK method of announcing seats. Election nights would be more interesting and importantly, more Elmo.
The nation and its rule of law have managed to survive assaults by terrorists of all shades over many decades.
The commonalities between a series of recent elections, including last year's poll in Australia, are striking.
Donald J. Trump sits in the Oval Office staring at a television sagging from the wall, its screen peppered with bullet holes. Clumps of freshly torn Cheezels-coloured hair are strewn across the great desk and a mobile phone lies smoking on the carpet.
Our best students are not being extended, our disadvantaged children are not being improved.
We need to seriously debate the institute's future now, before it's gone.
Squalid political price-taking has already crept into the public space, and it began right at the top.
To say 12 Iranians who died were somewhat more legitimate targets muddies what should be an issue of crystal clarity.
With a dizzying array of positions, how's anyone supposed to invest?
Terrorism isn't going away any time soon. So we may as well keep calm.
The PM seems to believe our conservatism goes far beyond constitutional matters to life in general.
Everything about terrorism is desperate, and the latest wave of attacks represents a new phase of great desperation.
Gone was talk of the "most harmonious multicultural nation in the world". Gone too, the front-footed defence of Islam.
Within hours of the latest terrorist attack in London, the reliably tasteless Donald Trump was taking political potshots, revealing a procedurally adolescent mind. For most of us, our earliest political statements - the usual blend of fact, idealism, ignorance, and too much passion - were not recorded. Thanks to our juniority, we were in no position to influence anything anyway. But in the digital age? Forget about it. Or rather, don't.
Politicians no longer question the wisdom of the 2 per cent of GDP spending target.
The Uluru statement can take Indigenous people beyond being subjects to their rightful place.
Beware out there this week, folks. There's a storm a'comin'. An economic data storm, that is. Economists are tipping the good ship 'Oz economy' has hit shallow waters in the first half of 2017.
No-one ever got rewarded for putting the economy into recession.
The big banks won the last great war against government interference, 70 years ago.
Until we stop building new coal mines, we should stop pretending we care about emissions.
Spare a thought for the republicans.
Real change, even symbolic, is never achieved by clever strategies, discussion papers or facilitators.
There has to be more to our 26-year record than just our deft response to the global financial crisis.
Australia's long run of economic success bred a complacency that persists to this day.
Europe doesn't need another arms race despite what Trump says.
Australia keeps baulking at a simple task that other nations managed with ease.
Cory Bernardi is keeping some very interesting company and it should worry the Liberal Party.
The new watchdog knows where many of the bureaucracy's bodies are buried. Will he disinter a few?
Face reddens until it is deep puce, veins on his neck and forehead bulge and he begins jabbering.
Both sides of politics now agree about giving a Gonski. But we need to give a Gonskini, too.
The hurly-burly of the 2016 election campaign, as seen through the eyes of Fairfax reporters and photographers.
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