Wednesday, May 13, 2026
HomePOLITICS

POLITICS

Political donations reform is overdue — Labor shouldn’t waste time with inquiries

Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell’s commitment to lowering the political donation disclosure threshold to $1000 and requiring real-time reporting of donations is a welcome step in transparency for the mechanisms of state capture — if they can be legislated. Remember, most parties — including Labor, which has been doing it...

Coalition spent almost $3.8 billion in 2021 on Consultants

In the run-up to the Federal election, the government’s use of external consultants has come under the microscope. Spending on consultants has surged with the Coalition entering into more than 8400 contracts worth almost $3.8 billion since July 2021. In the run-up to the Federal election, the government’s use of...

The Uber Files show how a tech company convinced the world it was innovative rather than just illegal

Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick in 2017 (Image: AAP/Evan Agostini/Invision)The Uber Files confirmed what had long been reported: top executives knowingly flouted the law to run a venture capital-fuelled war against workers’ rights, public transport and government itself. On Monday, a coalition of media outlets across the world published revelations about...

What the oil and gas industry tells itself

Royce Kurmelovs reportsOn day two, Kevin Gallagher stepped to the main stage at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, where the oil and gas industry was holding its annual national conference, and began his presentation with an unscripted joke. A short man with a broad Scottish brogue, the Santos...

With the persecution of Collaery ended, it’s time to hold the perpetrators to account

Bernard Keane writes in CrikeyBernard Collaery’s immediate ordeal is over. For four years he has been pursued by a vindictive government hellbent on punishing him not merely for helping, with Witness K, to expose the malignant crimes of the Howard government in Timor-Leste, but for trashing basic concepts of...

‘Pushing bullshit’: Leaked docs reveal Dutton’s education farce

Peter Dutton’s attempt to reignite the education wars ignores a key point of very modern history: it was the Coalition that signed off on the revised national curriculum in April, just days before the federal election was called. Education ministers across Australia had also met in February to consider...

How men without substance squander success and leave politics diminished

Bernard Keane writes in Crikey As Boris Johnson noted, in his ungracious and reluctant resignation speech, he departed despite a large mandate. He had won in 2019 — against a suicidally incompetent Labour opposition — with a landslide of 80 seats. Now, less than three years later, much of his...

Australia’s Timor-Leste intervention has a dark history — one perpetrators want to hide

Bernard Keane writes in CrikeyThe failure to prosecute the alleged perpetrators of war crimes committed during Australia’s intervention in East Timor — and the recognition that there was an active culture of cover-up in the ADF — further strengthens the case for a proper inquiry into the intervention and...

‘Patently ridiculous’: state government failures have exacerbated Sydney’s flood disaster

‘Patently ridiculous’: state government failures have exacerbated Sydney’s flood disaster Jamie Pittock, Australian National University For the fourth time in 18 months, floodwaters have inundated homes and businesses in Western Sydney’s Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley. Recent torrential rain is obviously the immediate cause. But poor decisions by successive New South Wales governments have...

Qantas Smiles: shareholders and executives grin, customers and staff grit their teeth

Michael West writesScott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg, no doubt with the counsel of Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, repelled calls for a Qantas “bail-out” in early April 2020. Yet, just as the pandemic gripped, they promptly began bailing it out. Virgin too, an airline 90% owned by foreign airlines and...