By-elections sometimes reflect important political trends, and sometimes they don’t. So why are we watching Canning so closely? It was Saturday 26 March 1988, and Coalition supporters were cock-a-hoop. Just a week earlier twelve years of NSW Labor government had been swept away, big time, and now the federal electorate of Port Adelaide had swung...

His leadership again under threat, the prime minister is locked in a potentially terminal embrace with his party’s right There aren’t many votes – either way – in same-sex marriage. A negligible number of people would change their after-preferences support for a major party solely on this issue. Yes, the fact that we lag behind...

With the next election on the horizon, the pressure is on to give Labor’s carbon policy a name that sticks.

Referendums don’t bring out the best in the Australian political system. But that shouldn’t stop us from picking our way through the minefield.

Labor’s state election successes during the Howard era propelled ill-equipped party heavies into Canberra. The Killing Season is showing us some of the results ONE THING all Labor players agree on in ABC TV’s The Killing Season is the sublime nature of the party’s 2007 federal election campaign. Everyone involved, from Kevin Rudd and campaign...