In the contradictions business
The right has been all over the shop on energy policy for decades.
The right has been all over the shop on energy policy for decades.
The dispute undermined Australia's claim to be an upstanding member of the international community.
When the High Court interprets the constitution, expect the unexpected.
If the Parliament abdicates its rights, why should the High Court care?
Peter Dutton is the latest Australian official to find himself accused of cack-handedness in the deployment of a language test to keep unwanted immigrants at bay.
Bizarre, bespoke, benighted. The postal survey may well be all these things, but it is also legal.
As your regular, every day, garden-variety human is being forced to hop through more and more hoops to successfully interact with the government, standards appear to be as relaxed as ever for MPs.
Canberra has attracted excellent preselection candidates in the past. Hopefully, we'll avoid party hacks.
Of all the various arguments against the postal survey, the best is that it represents the government's deliberate circumnavigation of the Parliament.
Australia's energy grid remains messy, ad hoc, stridently politicised and subject to an uncertain outlook.
Our static, outdated, parliamentary democracy is no longer working.
The parliamentary citizenship frenzy gripping Canberra in recent weeks suddenly feels a bit anti-climactic.
Tony Abbott's dare and Bill Shorten's capitulation will now make it impossible for any MP suspected of dual citizenship issues to withhold their documentation.
These are alarming times, what with the Korean Peninsula on the brink of war. Only Bob Katter could summon a more apocalyptic vision.
Malcolm Turnbull can decide whether his slight recovery in Newspoll is an aberration or the start of a structural return to electoral competitiveness.
Labor's wiser parliamentary strategists are reminding themselves of a sage lesson in tactics.
A citizen's jury is a nice theory of government but the opinion of a random collection of citizens won't necessarily stick.
The Prime Minister's proposal for energy retailers to write to one million customers by Christmas is non-binding and ineffective.
It is tempting to explain America's mixed messaging towards North Korea as calculated - the old "good cop, bad cop" routine. If only it were that complicated.
None of the senior figures in either the Abbott or Turnbull governments have handled economic messaging well.
No Australian should be upset by the proposals to change the wording on Cook's statue.
Let's consider Malcolm Turnbull's best case scenario.
The answer: Certainly not Tony Abbott and his reactionary slogans and one-liners.
The Prime Minister dialled it up to 11 but the resting face of Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg presaged the modest scale of the government's energy package.
Sometimes I wonder whether outrage gets lost on the way.
Although royal commissions are costly and lengthy, the weight of evidence against the banks has become compelling.
Labor's become the "do nothing" party, coasting to victory, unwilling to let any policy idea get in the way of a vote
Australia is a nation scared. Scared to fully stake out its own flag. Scared to install an Australian as head of state. Nervous even about bringing into the daylight a more complete account of its own creation.
If only we could afford to live the way we do, lamented Europe's entitled nobility as the continental order crumbled in the 1930s.
I'm starting to suspect the federal government – of whatever colour – has lost its ability to control its own spending.
The hurly-burly of the 2016 election campaign, as seen through the eyes of Fairfax reporters and photographers.
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