Latest
Behind the PM’s $3b ‘bailout’ of Victoria’s most expensive road
Experts blame a $10 billion blowout for the North East Link on CFMEU disruptions, a failed tender process and crazy design decisions to pander to community groups.
- Patrick Durkin, David Marin-Guzman and Gus McCubbing
Outer Perth ‘pain seats’ at risk as Albanese cocks ear to west
Federal Labor is bleeding votes in Western Australia that could cost it several key seats, pollsters warn.
- Tom Rabe
- Analysis
- Political leadership
All hat, no bull: PM’s tough task disarming farmers in Qld
Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton are in Rockhampton for Beef 2024. One suspects Labor will need to look elsewhere in Queensland to win seats at the next election.
- Phillip Coorey
Markets push interest rate cuts beyond the next election
Investors think the first rate cut may not be until May 2025 or June 2025, complicating Labor’s re-election bid amid red-hot voter concern over cost of living.
- Michael Read
Higgins must accept there was no cover-up: Reynolds
Senator Linda Reynolds will proceed with her defamation lawsuit unless Brittany Higgins and David Sharaz accept Federal Court findings there was no cover-up of rape.
- Ronald Mizen
April
Can you job-share a seat in parliament? These two women want to try
Lucy Bradlow and Bronwen Bock want voters to elect them together to represent the inner-Melbourne electorate of Higgins.
- Tom McIlroy
Climate 200 targets 20 more seats including Dutton’s
Bradfield in northern Sydney, held by Liberal shadow minister Paul Fletcher, tops the teal movement’s list. It is also eyeing Peter Dutton’s seat, Dickson.
- Phillip Coorey
A rape, a cover-up narrative and a political firestorm
“Tonight, claims of rape, roadblocks to a police investigation, and a young woman forced to choose between her career and the pursuit of justice”. That is how Ten introduced its interview with Brittany Higgins.
- Ronald Mizen
- Updated
- Lehrmann trial
Higgins, Sharaz should settle with ‘vindicated’ Reynolds: Dutton
The opposition leader says Brittany Higgins and her fiancé David Sharaz should settle the senator’s defamation actions against them and issue a “full apology”.
- Ronald Mizen
- Exclusive
- Anthony Albanese
No majority support for four-year federal terms: poll
More voters believe four-year terms will deliver better government, but they also like being able to change governments more often.
- Updated
- Phillip Coorey
- Opinion
- Opinion
Wong and Dutton leave Arabic and Islamic Australians feeling abandoned
Both major parties are wildly out of step with the views of people they must woo if they want to win the next federal election.
- Laura Tingle
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
Hot US inflation delivers three warnings
The surprising data will give investors plenty to think about. But fading rate cut hopes will also have ramifications for politicians facing the ballot box.
- James Thomson
Teals warn Labor has ‘dropped the ball’ on small business
The independent MPs, expected to play a crucial role in next year’s federal election, also hit out at the Coalition for failing to support sensible changes.
- Patrick Durkin
March
- Analysis
- Political leadership
The era of majority rule is ending. Here’s what happens next
An ethnically diverse society – less amenable to political labelling – is leading a profound shift from the old two-party divide towards European-style minority government.
- Andrew Clark
Labor ‘working our tails off’ to avoid minority government
The federal government believes its endemically low primary vote is not permanent but a consequence of voters “sending us a message”.
- Phillip Coorey
- Analysis
- Steven Marshall
SA byelection could help Albanese avoid minority government
Anthony Albanese will redouble efforts to win the SA seat of Sturt to ward off replicating the unfolding mess in Tasmania.
- Phillip Coorey
- Opinion
- Carbon challenge
Green policy car crash complicates Labor’s election outlook
A series of competing and interlinked priorities are colliding in Labor’s Senate, where all eyes are turning to the next election.
- Jacob Greber
‘Within a whisker’: Tasmania looks headed for minority government
Premier Jeremy Rockliff says he will deliver more cost-of-living relief to households in the first 100 days of a re-elected Liberal government, as candidates chase votes for Saturday’s state election.
- Tom McIlroy
Tasmanian election power pledges damned as ‘reckless’
Election promises by Tasmania’s major parties to curb sales of hydroelectricity to the mainland are reckless and will hurt the state’s budget, a respected economist says.
- Updated
- Tom McIlroy
Scrap private school religious discrimination rules, Labor advised
The government now has advice it sought from the Australian Law Reform Commission on how to deliver an election promise – but looks unlikely to proceed.
- Ronald Mizen
Devils in the detail: Election barbs traded on stadium cost overruns
In an election debate, Labor leader Rebecca White accused Premier Jeremy Rockliff of failing to do due diligence on plans for an AFL stadium.
- Tom McIlroy
Australia’s long history of short governments
Extending the timeframe for politicians to remain in power has widespread support from government, business and unions. It’s voters that need to be convinced.
- Phillip Coorey
- Opinion
- Opinion
Senate a sticking point for four-year terms
The conundrum that must be squarely faced is 1988’s defeated take-it-or-leave-it constitutional amendment that rolled in a shorter term for the upper house.
- Helen Irving
Resounding majority of AFR readers back four-year federal terms
Almost 80 per cent of The Australian Financial Review’s readers have backed calls to extend federal parliamentary terms to four years.
- Tom Rabe
The one thing John Howard says could get four-year terms over the line
Former prime minister John Howard and his one-time Labor rival Kim Beazley have thrown their support behind calls to extend the federal parliamentary term to four years.
- Tom Rabe
