David Solomon

An unholy conspiracy between the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Coalition to preserve Australia’s century-old two-party system seems certain to fail. It is most unlikely to survive multiple challenges in the High Court. But in the unlikely event that if it does gain constitutional approval, it will be overturned by voters. (more…)

With the election still somewhere between eight and 14 weeks away, it is too early to get much of a guide from the opinion polls about the probable outcome – except that a majority Liberal-National Party Government, the result most favoured by those who have already punted their money on the result with the various betting agencies, is the least likely. (more…)

There is an air of unreality, and a substantial quantity of pie in the sky, about the nuclear power policy unveiled on Friday the 13^th of December by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. And as for costs and practicability, voters are faced with the Liberals’ reliance on economic modelling by a Canberra consultant versus scientific modelling by the CSIRO. (more…)

Everyone, it seems, is getting stuck into Anthony Albanese. Its not as though he has done much that is wrong. He hasn’t gone back on his promises, except, perhaps, in not delivering improved environmental legislation, and of course he failed to deliver on the Voice, though he tried. (more…)

Come the election (whenever) the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition will unite in warning voters against the perils of a hung parliament. Only Labor or the Coalition can form government, we will be told. We should choose one or the other.  (more…)

There is a huge difference between the problem Robert Menzies faced in creating the Liberal Party from the ruins of the United Australia Party during the second World War, and that facing Peter Dutton as he tries to unify the Liberal Party after its succession of defeats at federal and state levels in the past year or so. (more…)

I have no sympathy for Michelle Rowland in her persecution over accepting almost $20,000 in donations from betting and gambling behemoth, Sportsbet, before the last election. Sportsbet was then, and is now, a leader in the industry she, as the prospective federal minister, would be responsible for regulating. (more…)

‘Perhaps the single biggest question confronting Australian politics’ is how the Liberal-National coalition addresses an ‘overwhelming deficit of support among younger generations’.  (more…)

Is the Government undermining its own National Anti-Corruption Commission in an attempt to prevent it being nobbled by a future LNP Government? And is it able to future-proof it? (more…)

Next week the Government will unveil its long-anticipated National Anti-Corruption Commission (that’s now the official title) legislation. Experts and critics will be on hand to offer critiques based on comparisons with similar existing bodies in the States, with the Federal ICAC Bill tabled in the last Parliament by independent MP Helen Haines and with the promised but never delivered legislation of the Morrison government. (more…)

Scott Morrison’s enabling accomplice in his ministerial power grab, the Governor-General David Hurley, has some explaining to do if he is to resist suggestions that he should resign. Indeed, the political storm the ongoing revelations about Morrison’s extraordinary actions may be so embarrassing for the Governor-General that his early departure from the role cannot be avoided. (more…)

For many years, federal governments have done their best to reduce to the absolute minimum the number of days on which they have scheduled sittings of the Parliament. (more…)

Let us be quite clear about the Constitution and the Voice. The Commonwealth Parliament already has the power to legislate to bring the Voice into effect, one of the wishes/demands of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. (more…)

Ministers will set the tone and it is unlikely that the new Speaker, Labor’s Milton Dick, will do much to impose himself on them. (more…)

For governments, few things are harder than implementing or improving almost any arm of a fully functioning and effective integrity regime. Every such development – including effective freedom of information, an independent auditor-general, Ombudsman, whistleblower protection, an impartial professional and effective public service, an independent anti-corruption commission – appears to government to involve a surrender of part of its power rather than an acknowledgement that it needs to be open and accountable to the people it represents and from whom its power derives. (more…)

There’s a lot wrong with the system that provides MPs and Senators with advisers and other office helpers, not least that it is run by the government and particularly the Prime Minister. That means decisions about staffing for MPs are influenced – and largely determined by – purely political considerations, and not the actual needs of parliamentarians or the contribution that might be made to improving outcomes for the public. (more…)

The new Albanese Labor Government is facing a host of difficult problems that will thoroughly test its capacity to govern, but politically it is in an enviable position enjoyed by none of its predecessors in the past half a century and more. (more…)

As a republican, I’m not sure whether to rejoice or rage at the latest display of idiocy by the presumptive future King of Australia, Prince Charles. One the one hand (hooray!) he has demonstrated once again his unfitness to succeed Queen Elizabeth, who, understandably, is beginning to show her considerable age and restrict her public engagements. On the other (shame!) the fact that he demonstrates his unfitness on a regular basis has done nothing to increase the prospect of Australia cutting our constitutional links with the British monarchy. (more…)

After nine years in the wilderness, the new Labor Party government will have a massive to-do list, notwithstanding the relatively modest policy proposals it took to this election – its so-called small target strategy. For just a moment, when Anthony Albanese announced that he and four colleagues would be sworn in as the new government just two days after the election, it looked as though it might try to emulate Gough Whitlam after his 1972 election win when he established, with deputy Lance Barnard, a two-man government to instantly implement a huge range of policies that didn’t need legislation. (more…)

Labor’s primary vote in the election fell by just over half of one percent to its lowest level in recent history, but it still won an extraordinary victory in Saturday’s election. It did so mostly because the Liberals (minus the National Party) suffered an even larger fall, its vote dropping by over 4 per cent in its worst ever electoral performance. (more…)

The super-salesman’s ploy is working: since his claimed character reformation last Friday – when he said he recognised he had been ‘a bit of a bulldozer’ and that things were going to have to change – the debate about some of his worst behavioural faults as Prime Minister has shifted dramatically. (more…)