• 36 mins ago

Federal-state tensions over water issues have escalated with South Australia demanding Barnaby Joyce, the federal water minister, drop his nomination of an irrigation lobbyist to the Murray Darling Basin Authority's board.

Barnaby Joyce says Matt Canavan's mother was "at her wit's end" that her son's promising political career had now stalled.

Could a gay or lesbian Australian reach the top of politics today?

A top NSW bureaucrat was on Tuesday refusing calls to stand down despite allegedly offering privileged access to government documents to irrigation lobbyists.

The Queensland senator is a close political ally of Barnaby Joyce and is seen as a rising star in the Nationals.

Immigration officials helped conduct interviews for possible family reunions from Nauru and Manus Island, the United Nations refugee agency has said, appearing to bolster its claim the Turnbull government was considering resettling some refugees.

The Australian Conservatives has raised three-quarters of a million dollars, primarily from grassroots supporters.

National Mental Health Commission chairman Allan Fels has called for a radical rethink of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Liberal MPs are preparing to turn Tony Abbott's words against him as they push to ditch the plebiscite.

Andrew Bartlett says he is waiting for the Court of Disputed Returns to officially make a ruling on Ms Waters' position.

A new secretary for the Department of Environment and Energy will be appointed after September.

The Berejiklian government needs to refer the issues of water theft and industry collusion to the corruption watchdog, green groups say.

This is the first time China's People's Liberal Army Navy has been known to carry out such open surveillance off our coast.

Same-sex marriage is further inflaming tensions inside the Turnbull government.

One Nation voters are the only group preferring Mr Abbott's leadership qualities, the poll found.

Veteran Liberal confronted by young rising star for calling refugee activists and environmentalists "a bunch of cockroaches"

The Turnbull government has denied inequality is worsening in Australia and dismissed Labor's latest tax change push as the "politics of envy".

UN High Commissioner for Refugees releases statement strikingly at odds with the Turnbull government's public position.

Momentum is building within the Coalition for a postal vote plebiscite on same-sex marriage.

• BREAKING

Two men with links to outlaw motorcycle gangs have won a court bid to stay in Australia.

"I'm not sure it's the highest priority for people when they're thinking about the issues that affect them."

The Turnbull government is moving a step closer to slapping export restrictions on liquefied natural gas producers.

Australia's competition watchdog will begin the public phase of its inquiry into the nation's electricity prices this week, with a forum to gain feedback from customers slugged with rising power costs to be held in Brisbane on Tuesday.

Defence again tops the annual public service travel bill.

Bill Shorten is calling for bipartisan support for a referendum to give federal governments fixed four-year terms.

Federal senator Nick Xenophon says there's nothing funny about a joke Facebook page run by ACT students.

The party members voted on a motion championed by Tony Abbott for plebiscites to select candidates in parliaments.

Labor is preparing to put a compromise technology known as fibre-to-the-kerb at the centre of its plans for the National Broadband Network should it win the next election.

Prominent conservatives within the Coalition are split over whether to hold a postal vote plebiscite on same-sex marriage.