Australian politics

12.24am BST00:24 Good morning It’s another day in Labor’s leadership contest and Chris Bowen says he has the majority numbers in the caucus. There are reports Bill Shorten has been advocating on his behalf. Penny Wong,…

12.10am BST00:10 Good morning It’s another day in Labor’s leadership contest and Chris Bowen says he has the majority numbers in the caucus. There’s reports Bill Shorten has been advocating on his behalf. Penny Wong…

If Scott Morrison can be the Messiah from the Shire, Labor leadership aspirant Chris Bowen says his claim to the position is his lifelong connections to western Sydney. In an interview with Guardian Australia after confirming his…

Electorates that swung harder to the Liberal and National parties are more likely to have higher unemployment, lower income, lower levels of education and fewer migrants, according to a Guardian Australia analysis. Conversely,…

The electoral watchdog has found 87 cases of unlawful political advertising after being inundated with almost 500 complaints during the federal election. The campaign was littered with examples of unsourced or anonymous political…

Australia has roiled for three years, only to end up back where it started when the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull won the 2016 election by one seat. The Liberal National Coalition is back in power in Canberra, with a new…

The former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce is positioning himself for a return to cabinet following the Coalition’s shock election win, as Scott Morrison prepares to unveil his new-look frontbench as early as next week. The jockeying…

The New South Wales regulator has laid more charges against one of the state’s biggest cotton growers, Peter Harris, alleging that in August 2015 he extracted water from the Barwon river when the meters on his pumps weren’t working. The…

Josh Frydenberg has rejected suggestions low- and middle-income tax rebates will be delayed by a year but is still refusing to split the tax package to deliver faster tax relief, setting up a likely battle with Labor in the Senate. But…

Independent Oliver Yates has threatened to take the Liberal party to the court of disputed returns over Chinese language signs, designed to resemble Australian Electoral Commission material, that directed people to vote Liberal. Labor…

While progressives struggle to make sense of the weekend election result, the pollsters whose projections created the security blanket of certainty around a Labor win are rightly in the firing line. I don’t think there is any simple…

As I write, metropolitan journalists are doubtless making their way to north Queensland, whose voters have been cast as a principal actor in Labor’s defeat. I’m from Townsville, my family still lives there, and I visit as often as I…

Welcome to the on-going wash up of the 2019 election, as Scott Morrison waits to find out just how comfortable his majority in the lower house will be. It’s not all smooth sailing - the promise to legislate the low and middle income tax…

The Labor leadership aspirant Jim Chalmers says the party’s entire policy agenda, including its ambitious 45% emissions reduction target, could be upended in the wake of Saturday’s shock election loss. “Everything is up for grabs,”…

As much as the Liberal party might hate to admit it, independent Zali Steggall had an unbeatable advantage in Warringah – she had genuine grassroots support. It might have started with a few disaffected moderate Liberal party members…

Australia’s nursing homes have been in the spotlight for five months and there is a picture emerging of residents being routinely drugged, physically restrained for large parts of the day and subjected to an heavily institutionalised…

A key figure in the emerging Senate crossbench, Rex Patrick, has warned his party will not support the Coalition’s proposed anti-corruption body unless it is given stronger powers. The make-up of the Senate is still being finalised, but…

Tanya Plibersek has decided not to run for the Labor leadership, citing the challenges of balancing work and family.At this point, she wrote in a statement, she “cannot reconcile the important responsibilities I have to my family with…

Two Labor rightwingers, Chris Bowen and Jim Chalmers, are weighing up whether to run for Labor leader against Anthony Albanese, effectively forcing the party to undertake a grassroots ballot. Bowen, Labor’s most senior rightwing figure,…

It seems this week is all about trash endings, as we’ve seen with Australian politics and Game of Thrones. The GoT finale did suck — mainly because I didn’t watch any of the previous seasons. What can I say, I’m a busy mum. When I’m not…