Senate voting needs to be simpler and more transparent. Brian Costar talks to Peter Clarke about a plan to fix the system, and looks at the politics of the federal budget.

A new study finds social status rippling across the centuries IF YOU WANT to know who made up Australia’s elite in the nineteenth century, a useful place to look is the Australian Dictionary of Biography. In its many volumes, you’ll find business leaders, scientists, media barons and politicians who have featured among the upper echelons...

The timing of Barry O’Farrell’s departure, and its aftermath, reveal much about the heavily factionalised NSW Liberal Party.

If the rumours are correct, the federal government is considering a complex but far-reaching change to pension payments WITH THE federal budget looming, Joe Hockey has flagged two possible changes to pensions. The first, raising the age at which individuals become eligible for the age pension to seventy years, has attracted widespread media coverage, in...

New Zealand has reacted to proposed changes to Australian social security law by raising discrimination concerns with Canberra.