Scott Morrison is betting his political life that young people won’t pay much attention to tonight’s budget or change their vote if they did. This is why he announced no new spending to help those struggling with high rents, high uni fees, or expensive public transport in this year’s Federal Budget. And it’s why he

Scott Morrison lies about the economy all the time. He can’t help himself. He tells big lies about transitioning away from fossil fuels and small lies about the role of his office in the way grants are directed to marginal seats. He tells strategic lies about the union movement engaging in “a campaign of extortion”

The recent decision to make Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) tax deductible rather than free will deliver nothing to low paid essential workers and big savings to high income earners. How very Morrison Government. While a part-time cleaner working in the aged care sector will likely receive zero benefit from tax deductible RATs, someone earning $200,000

If he doesn’t provide support soon the economy will spiral but if he does he must admit the cost of living with the virus.

It’s no surprise the Business Council, the Australian Industry Group and the National Farmers’ Federation are supporting Labor’s position.

Scott Morrison thrives in the empty space between three-year terms and 30-year plans. Whether it is climate change, nuclear submarines or budget repair – it is no accident the prime minister with the shortest planning horizon in living memory is our greatest announcer of long-run plans. While the vacuousness of Morrison’s net-zero “plan” and his

The federal government’s handling of the pandemic has been the worst public policy screw-up in Australian history

If a tree doesn’t fall in a forest, was the climate really saved? Sadly, such esoteric questions have become the main game in the topsy-turvy world of Australian climate policy, where rising emissions from the oil and gas industry are ‘offset’ by not chopping down trees. The polite term for the creation of dodgy carbon

Christian Porter has the right to remain silent about who funded his legal bills but, thanks to draconian laws drafted in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, you do not have the right to remain silent. Forget what American TV has taught you, in Australia you do not always have the right to

In an amazing feat, both leaders shift attention away from their past performances and on to future freedoms to be granted, based on decisions made by the public In the ultimate expression of neoliberal language, prime minister Scott Morrison and New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian are gradually shifting their messaging away from the dangers

Why politicians love being caught rorting in their electorates

The same Prime Minister who spruiks ‘technology not taxes’ as a climate change strategy is now championing ‘pharmaceuticals not physical distancing’ in the battle against COVID-19. As always, his slogan is more spin than science, and the phoney distinction will be dangerous to our health, our wealth and our society. Just as virtually every economist agrees that

Scott Morrison has an answer for everything and a solution for nothing. Like the neoliberalism of which his party was once so proud, he is all promise and no delivery. His press conferences have long been a masterclass in dictating the terms of debates, dodging accountability and delivering attacks on his rivals. But now that

Scott Morrison’s government loves financial incentives when they’re for CEOs and high-income earners As any parent or child knows, sometimes threats work, and sometimes bribes work. Despite the Morrison government planning to spend $180bn on tax cuts to those earning above $200,000 per year as more incentive to work hard, the Coalition are arguing that

Like a struggling middle manager, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been playing the states against each other to distract from his own poor decisions. The interstate fight for vaccines, funding, and even praise from the Prime Minister, now dominates Australia’s response to COVID. But if COVID rarely breached our quarantine, if there was plenty of

Ministers are spending millions to fight the ruling that they must think about future generations when making planning decisions The environment minister, Sussan Ley, has announced she will spend millions of dollars appealing a federal court judgment that she has a duty of care to protect Australian children from climate harm. She’s not alone in

The more a company invests in safely handling waste the more jobs it will create, the less damage it will do to the natural environment and the less harm it will do to the tourism, agriculture and fisheries industries that are built on the image and the reality of Tasmania’s clean environment. While it is

While Australia sticks to accounting tricks, calls by other countries are growing to impose a carbon price on our export Who would have thought that Scott Morrison would be the one to reintroduce a carbon tax? And who would have thought it possible to design a carbon tax on Australian polluters that delivered revenue to