Paul J. Berating

Today's Top Stories

⚡ Top Story

SMH · James Massola

How Hanson became the de facto leader of the opposition

Pauline Hanson’s decision to speak at the National Press Club this month shows the political landscape in Australia has changed. Has she changed with it?

Hanson hasn't changed a syllable in thirty years. The Liberals dissolved around her like a sandcastle at high tide, and the gallery needs someone to quote, so here she is at the Press Club — de facto opposition leader by sheer act of standing still. Talleyrand outlasted five French regimes by never being the most disposable man in the room. She's managed it by being the last one upright.

SMH · Shane Wright

Coalition and One Nation chase each other down the immigration rabbit hole, PM warns

The Coalition and One Nation are competing to restrict welfare payments to citizens only, with Albanese warning the two parties are chasing each other down an immigration 'rabbit hole.'

The Coalition's decided to beat One Nation by becoming One Nation — a limbo contest against a snake, where the bar only goes one way. Scratch the citizenship line and you find the same talk that's been kicking round since the boats. Menzies built a broad church to keep these people inside the tent. This mob's pitched it in Pauline's backyard and wonders why she's charging rent.

SMH · Parnell Palme McGuinness

Women Vote With Their Feet, and Both Sides Built the Exit

Women are drifting to One Nation from both Labor and the Coalition, and the major parties are treating the exodus as a surprise rather than a verdict.

Both sides treated women like a captive market — a childcare announcement here, a netball-club photo op there, the whole thing run off a focus group. Hanson's hoovering up the ones who worked out nobody was actually listening. The parties will blame the women. Bismarck handed the workers pensions to stop them defecting; this mob's polled women for a decade and never once read the answer.

SMH · Rob Harris

CGT would be a 'wrecking ball' for Kiwi economy, NZ PM tells Albanese

Albanese and his New Zealand counterpart traded jokes in Noosa while papering over a real split on capital gains tax, with the Kiwi leader warning the policy would wreck growth.

New Zealand's never had a capital gains tax, and it's also got the most unaffordable housing in the developed world. Funny, that. Now Luxon's flown to Noosa to warn us the wrecking ball's coming for the economy. Mate, the wrecking ball already swung. It's called the Auckland property market, and you're standing in the rubble telling us not to build.

SMH · Rob Harris

Liberals sublet their renewal from the Nationals

Federal Liberal president Tony Abbott has installed Nationals organisational figure Lincoln Folo to lead an urgent rebuild, framed as a defence against the rising tide of minor parties.

The born-to-rule squad has gone next door to borrow an organiser off the Nationals — the senior partner subletting competence from the junior tenant.