Phillip Coorey
Phillip Coorey joined the Sydney Morning Herald in 2005 and is the paper's Chief Political Correspondent, based in Canberra. Previously he was the Political Editor for Adelaide's The Advertiser. He has been in the Canberrra Press Gallery since 1998, except for 2003 and 2004 when he was the New York correspondent for News Ltd.
Kind and gentle no more than words
Phillip Coorey The last time Tony Abbott spoke of the need for a ''kinder, gentler'' approach to politics, all hell broke loose.
Disparities in voters' priorities are even more stark now
Phillip Coorey If Adelaide has an equivalent of western Sydney, it is the city's sprawling southern suburbs. As the seats of Lindsay and Macarthur encapsulate western Sydney, Kingston defines Adelaide's south.
Jolly Green giant-killers in spotlight
Phillip Coorey Senator Sarah Hanson Young declared on Saturday night that her party, the Greens, had joined the political mainstream.
Surveillance plane not cleared for take-off
Phillip Coorey THE Coalition has shelved one of its border protection promises just two days before the federal election.
All eyes on Labor's soft spots as rivals enter home stretch
Phillip Coorey This time next week, either Tony Abbott or Julia Gillard will be prime minister. Or the independents will find themselves being wooed after the main parties failed to win the minimum 76 seats...
Campaign circus veers into realms of bizarre
Phillip Coorey Mark Latham has become all he once claimed to despise, and a sad parody of himself. His presence on the campaign trail is a joke, bullying Julia Gillard - who he has spent the past few years...
Rudd is late but very welcome
Phillip Coorey It took Kevin Rudd seven minutes yesterday to mention Julia Gillard's name but in the Labor Party, no one was quibbling.
She may be up against it but Gillard is full of energy for a cracking pace
Phillip Coorey If Julia Gillard loses the election, she won't die wondering.
A string of pearls, and a soft spot for Howard
Phillip Coorey Every now and then, during happier times, Julia Gillard's office would have a ''dress-like-a-Tory day''.
Round and round with parade of leaders
Phillip Coorey Should Labor lose this election, Tony Abbott would be Australia's third prime minister in two months and its fourth in three years.
Fearlessly committed to building committees
Phillip Coorey So far, population and climate change have emerged as the key policy challenges of this election campaign and Labor's response to both has been the same: form a committee.
Keys to Lodge lie in NSW or Queensland
Phillip Coorey This election, like its immediate predecessors, will be won and lost in NSW and Queensland.
Cold war begins in depths of winter
Phillip Coorey There has only been one other August federal election since federation and, like this poll, it was held on August 21. It was 1943.
Sales talk begins as election moves into focus
Phillip Coorey With Julia Gillard expected to call the election today, Tony Abbott has tried to define the contest as being about the need to get rid of a bad government full of flawed characters.
Long-term vision pursued with spectacles prescribed for myopia
Phillip Coorey The election contest is starting to resemble Seinfeld, the show about nothing. It is hard to recall a time this close to an election when both major parties had no defined agenda, or anything else...
PM relies on poll ... unless Paul comes to the party
Phillip Coorey SHORT of Paul the Octopus moving from sport to politics, polls - internal and external - will inform Julia Gillard when she has the best chance of winning and thus, the timing of the election.
Humanitarian and tough, whatever it takes
Phillip Coorey Today’s he-man contest between Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard over asylum seekers is the federal political equivalent to the standard law-and-order auctions state political parties engage in every...
Voters get a taste for miner miracles
Phillip Coorey A week is no longer a long time in politics, it is an eternity. With the rapid advent of new media - the internet, twitter, 24-hour television news and so forth - the news cycle has accelerated and...
Faction too much fiction for Gillard
Phillip Coorey Several factors contributed to Kevin Rudd's downfall and chief among them was his decision to sideline the factions and designate himself the sole authority.
Change came even faster than the plotters knew
Phillip Coorey FOR months, a group of Labor senators who did not like Kevin Rudd had been meeting regularly for dinner.
