New Politics: Australian Politics, News, Analysis & Commentary

How much can a new government be held responsible for the mistakes of the previous government? And how much time should this new government be given to resolve all of these problems? Easy answer: if it’s an incoming Labor government, they are cause of all these problems from the moment they are elected, and must resolve these problems within, say, three weeks of assuming office. The rules for the...

The final assessment is in and the Labor Party has won 77 seats, enough to form government in its own right, without needing the support from the crossbench to pass legislation. But is this the best outcome? The number of crossbenchers has risen to 16 and it would be wise for Labor to engage this substantial group of MPs, and keep that buffer between them and the Liberal and National parties, who...

The 2022 federal election turned out to be one of the interesting and exciting results in Australian history. Not that you’d get an understanding of this while watching any of the mainstream media coverage on election night: their presentation and analysis of the result was as abysmal as their campaign coverage and, as soon as it became obvious their favoured political team was not going to win –...

And so, it has come to this. The day of the 2022 federal election. Week 6 of the campaign wasn’t that different to the previous five weeks: an array of announcements from both sides of politics, a campaign launch from the Liberal–National Coalition – held in the final week so they could maximise their funding from the public coffers before they had to start paying for the campaign themselves – and...

Scott Morrison must now be rueing his decision to embark on a six-week election campaign, and it appears the longer it continues, the worse his position has become. Week five of the campaign commenced with a leader’s debate which closely resembled a combination of a rugby scrum and an all-out brawl, before the sands of time put an end to proceedings, leaving the public no wiser as to who was the b...

Four weeks into the campaign and real votes are being cast, with the acceptance of postal votes and the prepoll period commencing soon. In 2019, Labor won the two-party preferred vote – but lost the vote by a wide margin during the prepolling period and, as a result, has reworked it’s campaigning processes and is viewing the 2022 election not just as ‘election day’, but the ‘election fortnight’. S...

Anthony Albanese was missing from the election campaign for one week, and didn’t the media have a field day. Unfortunately, the media has it in for Albanese, and instead of the predicted nightmare disaster that was meant to be caused by their leader’s absence, Labor managed to highlight key members from their frontbench – the differences between the two sides of politics could not be more stark. P...

Scare campaigns need to have a semblance of truth behind them to work effectively and Labor’s strategy of making pensioners think they’ll have their income managed through the cashless debit card if the Coalition wins the federal election, does gave some solid foundations. For a start: the scheme already exists. And the legislation to apply the scheme to age pensions also exists. And footage of ma...

A very hostile first media conference for Anthony Albanese in the marginal seat of Bass in Tasmania, where he couldn’t answer or gave the wrong answers to two questions from a journalist: what’s the Reserve Bank’s cash rate, and what is the official unemployment rate. A classic ‘gotcha’ question from the media, and it’s just another example of how poor political journalism is in Australia, where t...

We’ve never seen a government in so much trouble entering an election campaign and it’s just a question of whether Scott Morrison has the political skills to turn matters around. But before everyone starts drawing a line through the Liberal–National Coalition and ending nine years of brutally poor government and incompetence, it has to be remembered that we’ve seen this story before – 2016 and 201...

The Budget was announced this week, and not only was it one of the most political ever, it was also one of the most expensive job applications in history for the federal Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, who is clearly angling for the leadership of the Liberal Party after the next election, win or lose. Is this a good Budget? Budgets should be all about the community and the economy but, once again, the...

The electorate in South Australia has removed a one-term Liberal Party government and installed a Labor government under Peter Malinauskas. And with a state election so close to a federal election, will there be any implications for Scott Morrison? We keep being told that there’s no relationship between state and federal issues, but we think there is much for the Morrison government to be worried...

It was Anthony Albanese’s turn to appear on 60 Minutes, but not as much enthusiasm as they displayed for Scott Morrison, even though more people tuned in to watch Albanese, compared to Morrison’s episode several weeks earlier. And his appearance brought the ire of Morrison, who complained about Albanese’s weight loss, his lack of interest in Italian cakes and his choice of glasses. In Morrison’s m...

Dedicated to the memory of Senator Kimberley Kitching. The floods in northern NSW and Queensland are causing major political headaches for the Morrison government and, as the floodwaters flow back into the oceans, their ideological obsession with small government has been laid bare. Communities expect governments to act when events occur that are beyond their control and beyond their abilities to...

The war in Russian invasion in Ukraine is escalating, and it’s difficult to know how this will end. But Vladimir Putin has already lost, irrespective of the outcome: a crashing Russian economy, the Rouble has collapsed, and receiving opprobrium from most of the rest of the world. As well as what populist dictators hate the most: removal of the Russian football team from World Cup games. And is has...

Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton are keen to mention the Community Party of China at every opportunity and how terrible they are – ignoring the fact that China is Australia’s number one trading partner and Australian athletes recently competed at the Winter Olympics in Beijing (so surely it can be all that bad) – and making the link between bad China and the Labor Party, especially its leader, Anth...

Butchering a classic pop song from a 1970s Australian band and playing a ukulele might not seem like the best way to prepare for a critical election year, but that’s exactly what Scott Morrison did. It seemed bizarre but there is a method to this madness: it keeps all the bad news away from the headlines and keeps the enemies of the Liberal Party occupied with the unimportant and minute details. I...

It was an explosive week of Parliament, the first of very few in 2022. The government decided not to schedule too many sitting days this year because, when there’s an election year, a most secretive government doesn’t want too much scrutiny placed upon itself. And, because it’s an election year, a funding freeze for the ABC has been lifted, which is a little bit awkward: the Liberal Party conferen...

An absolute summer of discontent is almost sealing the fate of the Morrison government, one of the most incompetent administrations Australia has ever seen, aided and abetted by a NSW Government which has managed – or mismanaged – the Omicron outbreak in the worst possible way. For many families, Christmas was spent in isolation, either with COVID, or waiting until the results of their PCR tests a...

Georgia Steele is an independent candidate in the southern Sydney seat of Hughes and is up against the current member Craig Kelly, and candidates from the major political parties. It’s a difficult task for any independent to win any federal seat but there seems to be a groundswell of support for change in the 2022 federal election. There are many key issues not being addressed by the federal gover...

Jo Dyer is the independent candidate in the South Australia seat of Boothby, the third-most marginal seat in Australia. And she’s running under the banner of the ‘Voices Of’ movement, a loose alliance of independents campaigning all across Australia on the issues of climate change, integrity and women’s safety – all of which the Prime Minister and his team are doing very little about, and seem to...

An incredible year in Australian politics, but the biggest feature was all the issues left behind and the issues that were not managed very well at all: climate change, corruption, the way women are treated within the political system. And the biggest issue of all for 2021: the coronavirus pandemic. It can be argued that at least by the end of the year, high vaccination rates were achieved and we...

Independent candidates are set to play a big role in the next federal election. And why are they running for election? Because they’ve had enough of the politics-as-usual approach and feel Australia is being held back by poor leadership, especially on climate change, a lack of action against corruption, and the treatment of women in politics. David Lewis speaks with Kylea Tink, the independent can...

Political parties love to end the year with momentum and provide a springboard into the new year – especially if there’s an election coming up. Labor is starting to release some policy to address long-term political issues: climate change, skills shortages, university placements – and to combat this, the Prime Minister decided that it was best to ride around Mount Panorama in a race car and announ...

The parliamentary year commenced with the revelations of a rape at Parliament House; it ended with a report into sexual harassment at parliamentary workplaces… and a federal minister stepping aside after he was accused of physically abusing a staffer he was having an affair with. When will parliamentarians learn their lessons? And with so many government MPs and Ministers resigning, is it a sign o...