One divisive figure in Australian politics could decide the result of the same-sex marriage postal vote.

A visitor to this country over the past week might wonder where, or in what year, he or she has landed. It’s now nine sleeps since ANZAC Day 2017, and hundreds of articles and hours of rolling outrage have been expended on a few words posted on Facebook by part-time ABC presenter Yassmin Abdel-Magied on...

A lot happened in poltics over the past fortnight. But not much happened in Newspoll. TODAY’s Newspoll, conducted between last Thursday evening and Sunday and published in the Australian, has the primary vote virtually identical to a fortnight ago: the Coalition sits on 36 per cent (unchanged), Labor on 35 (minus 1), One Nation on...

South Australian Senator, Cory Bernardi, is said to be preparing to quit the Liberals and launch a new party. Perhaps. It is rumoured. The signs are there. And he would, apparently, be bankrolled by mining magnate, Gina Rinehart. Bernardi appears to have drawn great inspiration from Donald Trump’s success in the United States. But if...

Like much else in the forty-fifth parliament’s infancy, the same-sex marriage plebiscite has become hostage to the dynamics of contemporary politics: a weakened prime minister, a ferociously oppositional federal opposition led by a man also less than secure in his job, and a large, attention-craving Senate crossbench. As with last week’s big topic, political finance...