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Keywords: Labor Party

  • ENVIRONMENT

    Wanted: A liberal dose of climate action

    • Stephen Minas
    • 09 June 2022
    9 Comments

    The Liberal wipeout in inner-city electorates is without precedent in Australian politics. For the Liberal Party, ‘existential crisis’ is not an overstatement. As the party founded by Robert Menzies finds itself in the hall of mirrors, climate policy should be a major focus of critical self-appraisal.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    On remembering the forgotten

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 08 June 2022
    4 Comments

    In his initial speech as leader of the Liberal Party Peter Dutton committed himself to care for the forgotten voters, echoing a foundation document of the Liberal Party: Robert Menzies’ speech after an electoral defeat in 1942 refers to forgotten people to point the way forward for the new party. The phrase was central to a re-imagining of Australian society. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A moment to dream about

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 07 June 2022

    Before the game, Richmond players of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent were encircled and then honoured by their teammates. The sight of non-indigenous Richmond players on their knees while their teammates stood proudly before them was powerful and moving. It felt like a significant moment in the club’s history. To get to that moment, authentically, was not easy.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    On Bernie Finn

    • Julian Butler
    • 03 June 2022
    1 Comment

    Bernie Finn is not a figure I would naturally warm to. He has a rambunctious, contrarian persona that grates. A few months ago, if you had said to me that he would be expelled from the Victorian Liberal Party, I would have imagined it would be for some position or action I find egregious. Instead, he has been expelled for a position I essentially share.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Independent triumphs: The changing of Australian politics

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 24 May 2022
    11 Comments

    The centre of the political system did not so much hold as desert. The vote was a furious, determined and tenacious shout from the estranged centre, a shivering of the timbers. The calibre of individuals elected — many from professions, many with public service outside the traditional party hierarchy of patronage and promotion, and most, women — has not been previously seen in this country’s politics.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The cities strike back

    • John Warhurst
    • 24 May 2022
    13 Comments

    Governments lose elections, but Oppositions still must demonstrate that they are a capable alternative. Both the Morrison Coalition government and the Albanese Labor Opposition played their part last Saturday. There were many sub-plots in the pattern of voting, but this election was primarily lost and won in the four biggest mainland cities. 

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  • EDUCATION

    Teal candidates and the Catholic vote

    • Chris Middleton
    • 23 May 2022
    7 Comments

    Perhaps the most dramatic individual result of the Federal election was that Menzies’s seat, Kooyong, has fallen to a Teal independent, Dr Monique Ryan. Xavier College sits in the Kooyong electorate, and Dr Ryan is a parent at the College. Dr Ryan proved to be an impressive candidate who ran as a good a local campaign as I have ever seen. It was marked by a strong engagement by many locals, and especially among professional women, and older residents.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    When victory for the silent is defeat for the silenced

    • Anthony N Castle
    • 18 May 2022
    8 Comments

    I was invited to a party the night of the 2019 election. The night’s entertainment was invite-only, with long tables of bread and wine, and I stepped back from the sounds of celebration to hear the political coverage on my phone. Standing at the far window, I looked up to see people in the night below, out in the dark, silent. Behind me a party guest shouted over the noise ‘what happened?’ I looked away from those outside and answered: a loss.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The ties that bind: How negative campaigns eclipse community focus

    • Julian Butler
    • 12 May 2022
    3 Comments

    Election campaigns can be defined by all sorts of things. Gaffes, negative ads, international incidents, public policy. It is trite but no less true to say that this federal election campaign has been much more about the first three rather than the last. The policy discussion has been edged into the election mix most seriously by various interest groups and by some of the macro party and independent candidates seeking election.  

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  • CARTOON

    The life of the party

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 09 May 2022

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Uluru Statement, the Constitution and the Election

    • Frank Brennan
    • 06 May 2022
    5 Comments

    Whoever is Prime Minister after the election on May 21, he will need to address the question of Indigenous recognition in the Australian Constitution. This is the sixth election in a row when the question has been a live, unresolved issue during the election campaign. The patience of Indigenous leaders is understandably wearing thin. Trust is waning. There is still no clear path ahead. So where to from here?  

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  • RELIGION

    Distinctive Catholic voices in the election campaign

    • John Warhurst
    • 26 April 2022
    22 Comments

    The Church must speak up to be relevant, but those who seek to ‘speak for the church’ must be brave. They risk exposing themselves to claims of bias unless they stick to a very narrow agenda and speak in extremely measured terms. Yet if they are too bland they risk being irrelevant to the sharp end of political debate and their intervention becomes little more than a symbolic ritual.   

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