David Solomon

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…)

Only a super salesman like Scott Morrison would think of trying to convert a negative attribute – bully – into something that has perhaps a small positive connotation – bulldozer. But that’s at least partly what last Friday’s makeover was about. (more…)

Autocracy: ‘a system of government by one person with absolute power’. (more…)

Three weeks out from the federal election is too long to be confident of predicting the outcome, though the polls suggest Labor has every reason to be more optimistic at this stage than the Liberal-National coalition government. But for weeks now we have had both sides – perhaps all sides including the minor parties – warning that we could be in for a hung parliament. (more…)

More than 6 million people voted early at the last federal elections, in 2019. If you were one of them and were planning to do so again this year, you may have to think again. The Federal Government (with the concurrence of the Opposition) has decided  to greatly restrict access to this particular highly convenient mode of voting. (more…)

For the second successive election, billionaire Clive Palmer is using his wealth to try to determine or at least significantly influence who will govern the country for the next three years. (more…)

The Morrison Government has ramped up its multi-million dollar spending on its most egregious rort of all, propaganda. Paid for from the public purse, to try to influence (in its favour) the way the public votes. (more…)

Cynicism is the order of the day, far more so than in any pre-election period in the past 50 years. It seems to be the prevailing mood of those who are reporting and recording the issues and events that dominate the federal election that will take place one Saturday in May. (more…)

Andrew Laming who conducted vile harassment and bullying campaigns on social media and elsewhere against several women in his electorate has been ordered to do empathy (or ‘awareness’) training. (more…)