Politics is full of surprises but few people expected abortion policy to be back on the agenda in 2024. The fierce abortion debate in the United States has been turbocharged by the upcoming presidential election.  Now the fight over reproductive rights has made its way to Australia.  Abortion has been a surprise issue in the Queensland election campaign. It was also the subject of an attempted legislative rollback in South Australia last week. Now it is being put on the federal agenda by...

It’s probably our greatest national obsession. Property: buying it, selling it, how much it costs and how hard it is to afford.  This week Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made headlines when it was reported he had bought a $4.3 million ocean-front beach house at Copacabana on the NSW Central Coast.  Albanese said the purchase was made in contemplation of his changing personal circumstances. He is set to marry his partner Jodie Haydon, who grew up in the area and whose family still lives...

A year on from the stunning October 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli towns, our parliament - on the other side of the world - is again convulsing over the widening war. As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese jets off to the influential ASEAN summit in Laos, he is trying to lower the temperature on a polarising domestic debate about antisemitism and Australia’s level of support for Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. One of the most prominent Australian backers of the Palestinian cause, Labor defector...

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wanted to talk about the budget surplus and the crack-down on the big supermarkets over their alleged ill-treatment of customers this week, but that was derailed by the escalating conflict in the Middle East.  While the government struggled to find the right form of words to respond to the crisis between Israel and its neighbours, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton labelled the Prime Minister weak, and said he needed to stand more firmly with Israel.  The result...

Federal politics got interesting this week when our very own James Massola and David Crowe reported that the Labor government has asked the Treasury to model cuts to negative gearing tax concessions, a policy that has previously caused Labor plenty of electoral pain.  The Prime Minister and his frontbench are being very coy about any proposed changes to the tax treatment of investment properties.  Are changes to negative gearing an option the government is really considering? How would they...

The Albanese government came to power promising to ease the housing crisis by increasing supply. But has its housing agenda stalled?  This week, the Greens hardened their opposition to two key elements of the government’s housing policy.  The Prime Minister has urged the Greens to “get on with it” and wave the plans through. So will Labor be able to secure its agenda? And if not, who will pay the political price?  Plus we have a look at the war of words between the business lobby and the...

Snapchat is officially on notice. As are Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.  This week the Prime Minister and his communications minister Michelle Rowland announced they will introduce a ban on young people using social media. But they were short on detail, including exactly what age the government would require teens to be before they could access social media.  Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton promised the minerals industry that a Coalition government would be the...

This week’s National Accounts figures showed that GDP growth was the weakest annual figure since the 1990s recession, not counting the pandemic.  Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the soft growth reflected the “impacts of global economic uncertainty, higher interest rates and persistent but moderating inflation”. But Chalmers also seemed to blame the Reserve Bank, saying the RBA is “smashing” the economy with interest rates.  Meanwhile, The Age and SMH exclusively reported this week that Prime...

The Albanese government has told the university sector it has to slash foreign students by 53,000 places by next year. The universities say this will financially devastate them, but the government has pledged to halve net migration by next year, and something has to give.  Plus, this week, members of the militant CFMEU hit the streets in major capitals to protest the Government’s decision to place the controversial union into administration.  Joining Jacqueline Maley to discuss is chief...

In this special episode of Inside Politics, Treasurer Jim Chalmers sits down with Jacqueline Maley, chief political correspondent David Crowe and senior economics correspondent Shane Wright to talk about tax, housing and the cost of living crisis. The Treasurer acknowledges how high mortgages are impacting ordinary Australians, and talks about what the Government is focusing on in the upcoming mid year budget. Plus he shares some words of wisdom he lives by every day. Cut through the noise...

After a six-week break over winter, the Parliament was a fiery place this week. Labor framed the next election as one between the “mainstream vs the maddies”, and the opposition is homing in on its framing of the prime minister as dishonest. But, as has been the case so many times in the past year, the parliament again convulsed over the war in Gaza. Opposition leader Peter Dutton started a sharp immigration row when he called for Palestinians to be blocked from Australia because they may...

This week the boss of the Australian spy agency, ASIO, lifted the terror threat level from possible to probable. The last increase in the threat level was in 2014, and it was in response to Islamic extremism.  This time, the risk to society is different - it is the risk of young men, especially, being radicalised online by a grab-bag of conspiracy theories and far-right grievances, and carrying out a lone wolf attack.  So what are the social conditions that have led to this evolving threat...

Australians are buying way less stuff. Households are draining their savings.  Yet at the same time, we’ve been hearing months of warnings that the Reserve Bank might again hike mortgage rates. That all changed on Wednesday when a key data set was released. It showed the prices of goods and services were still rising higher than we would like, but not quite as quickly as some feared. Today, senior economic correspondent Shane Wright joins Paul Sakkal to unpack what the latest data tell us...

The cost of energy generation went up over winter. That doesn’t mean power bills are about to spike however - retail prices are set once a year by a regulator, which means that households aren’t about to see a change in the cost of their electricity any time soon.  But the increased cost of generating power could have big impacts on the economy, politics and households. Also, two long-serving Labor ministers are retiring from politics, ahead of the next federal election. Indigenous Affairs...

Unions and Labor are intertwined. The oldest Labor Party in the world traces its roots to the shearers strike of the 1890s.  At that time, powerless workers decided to band together to create a political party and take on big business. The aims of unions underpins a lot of what Labor does when it holds power. Many of its MPs worked for unions. But what happens when one misbehaves? Misbehaves badly. There have long been suggestions and reports of bully-boy tactics in the rough world that is...

They’re worn by the hundreds of lobbyists who are granted access to the building and the politicians who work inside it.It’s a lucrative business - lobbyists charge handsomely to help big firms get access to large federal deals. And with billions of dollars of government contracts up for grabs - including $22.7 billion for Labor’s made in Australia plan - a new class of Labor-allied lobbyists has emerged. This has heightened concerns about the power of top lobbyists and renewed calls for...

After a tumultuous couple of weeks in Canberra, senator Fatima Payman has quit the Labor party. On Thursday, Payman emotionally announced her decision to leave the party that helped her gain a senate seat in the 2022 election, saying she had exhausted every option to raise her concerns about the government’s position on Palestinian recognition. Today, political correspondents Paul Sakkal and Angus Thompson talk to Jacqueline Maley about the split between Payman and the Labor party and its...

"My name is Julian Paul Assange." These were the first words spoken by the Wikileaks founder and high-profile long-time former prisoner as he finally faced court to answer charges this week. Assange accepted a deal to plead guilty of violating US espionage law and appeared on Wednesday in a court in the obscure US Pacific island territory of Saipan.  He was sentenced to time already served and boarded a flight home to Canberra, Australia. He arrived home on Wednesday evening to a cold...

This week Opposition leader Peter Dutton unveiled the Coalition’s plans for its nuclear energy policy. In doing so, he drew the battle lines for the next election, with the Albanese government firmly backing in its own plan to lower emissions using renewable energy sources, particularly wind and solar.Plus, this week Australia hosted a visit from the Chinese Premier Li Qiang. So did the visit improve relations with our largest trading partner, or set them back?Today, chief political...

This week, opposition leader Peter Dutton indicated he would not commit to a climate change target for 2030 until after the election. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hit back, saying the Coalition policy would mean energy shortfalls and higher bills. This development sets up the next election as a battle between the major parties on global warming. Also, there has been discontent among Liberal party members - particularly senator Hollie Hughes, who was recently kicked off a winnable spot on...

Amid the national debate about immigration levels, it was reported this week that yoga instructors, martial artists and dog handlers have been put above some construction trades on the nation’s draft priority skills list for migrants.  This is despite a desperate need for tradies to build more homes to address the nation’s housing crisis.  Plus, a look at another important skills shortage - in our armed forces. Joining Jacqueline Maley to discuss all this is chief political correspondent...

The Albanese government faced relentless pressure this week as it scrambled to replace a ministerial direction linked to tribunal decisions that has allowed serious criminals to stay in Australia. The Prime Minister has also been forced to defend embattled Immigration Minister Andrew Giles in parliament - as public servants revealed some criminals including murderers and sex offenders were not required to wear ankle monitors under immigration detention laws. The Coalition has stepped up its...