As of Sunday afternoon, it seems a deal between Penny Wong and Ian Macfarlane, or at least the Government’s best-and-final offer, is within sight, with the Government spelling out a timetable to put the deal to Cabinet and Caucus on Monday before formally offering it to the Coalition after that.
The Government’s willingness to cut a [...]

Malcolm Turnbull, it seems, just can’t help himself.  After Question Time yesterday – immediately after -  he called a press conference to accuse the Prime Minister of misleading Parliament over whether the Oceanic Viking deal was “preferential treatment”.
You’d think, after THAT business earlier in the year, that Turnbull, or one of his staff, would have [...]

Volume 316 of how the press routinely just makes stuff up.
This morning came the improbable story that a CPRS deal was “in the bag” because the Government had agreed to the Coalition’s demand for exemption of agriculture.  “Australia is likely to have an emissions trading scheme locked in by the end of next week,” we [...]

This is a quick, very simple follow-up to my presentation at the Media140 conference, where I was on a panel on political journalism with Annabel Crabb, Chris Uhlmann, Caroline Overington and John Kerrison.

Another great term coined at #Media140 by Crikey’s Bernard Keane: “Communities of interest, or ghettos of agreement?” tweeted @matthewsinclair yesterday.  My immediate reaction [...]

They managed just over a week, give or take.  Ignoring Wilson Tuckey’s little outburst about Tamil suicide boats wreaking havoc on the North-West Shelf, the Federal Opposition managed to nearly get through an entire sitting week last week without making themselves the issue.  Add on the previous weekend and a few days prior to that [...]