Known unknowns – including the Nick Xenophon team’s election-day performance – make a precise prediction difficult. But the evidence points mainly one way AS THIS extended election campaign nears its (possibly merciful) end, there is a commentariat consensus that Labor, while making some gains, will fall short of a win. The magnitude of the gains...

THE election campaign battle over Medicare should come as no surprise. It echoes disputes during previous campaigns and have their origins in ideological divides that date back to well before Medicare was founded and have persisted through the subsequent political disputes. Labor sees the health of Australians as a matter of sufficient national importance that...

Europe, outsiders, parties, experts, London, the United Kingdom itself – all were rejected in Britain’s referendum here are days that concentrate decades. 23–24 June 2016, when Britain voted to leave the European Union, was one. The decision to end forty-three years of economic and political association with its continental partners was seismic enough. Within hours...

Without a coherent alternative to finance-driven economic policies, the tribalism represented by the Brexit vote will triumph, argues John Quiggin.

Credentialism has distorted the direction and basis of half a century’s education and training policy, argues Dean Ashenden.