Tim Colebatch
Tim Colebatch was hired by The Age as a cadet in 1880 when Alfred Deakin decided to move into politics. Since then he has held every writing job on the paper, established a new company record of three years’ long service leave owing, held up the paper on 2673 nights by filing late copy, and still loves the job and has fun writing.
Labor should win two-party seesaw
Tim Colebatch By Monday night, the Coalition had surged to the lead in the two-party preferred vote, but last night Labor was back in front.
A climate for change
Tim Colebatch Last week we saw Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott as rivals performing genteel courting dances to win over the independents.
Political values redefined
Tim Colebatch The election result challenges the parties to decide what they stand for.
A deficit of difference
Tim Colebatch For all its shortcomings, the stimulus was essential to get us through the financial crisis.
Coalition cuts amount to just 0.1% of Budget spending
Tim Colebatch The Coalition has used up almost all its budget savings for new spending and tax cuts, leaving it with a bit over $1 billion of net savings over the next four years.
Libs skate over the details
Tim Colebatch Abbott may win by being the last one standing, but what would his government do?
Coalition's promises in search of costings
Tim Colebatch The Coalition's health policy takes the four-year cost of its promises of new spending and tax cuts to at least $32.5 billion. Yet less than 1 per cent of it has been costed.
With back door swinging shut, immigration drops
Tim Colebatch Immigration is in free fall, with new figures showing net permanent and long-term overseas arrivals have plunged to barely half last year's levels.
Rivals in different directions on parental leave
Tim Colebatch Our family has gone without a car for so long that it was a bit of a shock when the olds said it was time to get one. But now they cannot agree on what to buy.
Labor in trouble up north, but the bookies still like it
Tim Colebatch Labor in serious trouble of losing the August 21 election in the two key states of New South Wales and Queensland, analysis of the last three Age/Nielsen polls reveals.
Coalition figures suggest it might increase deficit, debt
Tim Colebatch Last week, both parties pledged, hand on heart, this would not be an election spendathon. But if it's not that, what do you call it?
A failure of leadership
Tim Colebatch Crucial policies to mitigate climate change and on immigration go to ruin as Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott bicker and obfuscate.
Balancing the books on education refund promises
Tim Colebatch The Coalition's plan to extend the education tax refund to school fees got both sides hot and excited. Education Minister Simon Crean accused the Coalition of opening a fiscal ''black hole''.
Population: focus turns on middle ground
Tim Colebatch On population issues, both sides are not so much moving forward as spinning towards the middle ground. They're telling us what they know we want to hear.
Mining tax revenue is a guessing game
Tim Colebatch ''Where is the money coming from?'' the Coalition wants to know. How can the government reduce the revenue base for its mining tax so drastically, yet reduce the revenue forecasts so little? It's a...
Catch and skill our own
Tim Colebatch One of the fears you hear in the debate over asylum seekers is that Australia is being flooded by refugees. Well, fear not. Australia is being flooded by new arrivals - but they're not refugees.
Swan's next step up in life of politics
Tim Colebatch Wayne Swan grew up in Nambour long before it became the Sunshine Coast. He surfed, smoked dope, wore long hair and a mo, then won a scholarship to university.
Control fetish stifles ALP
Tim Colebatch Rudd's mania to manage everything is a waste of his frontbench talent.
Fiscal time bomb yet to explode
Tim Colebatch The West is now in a demographic ''sweet spot''. It won't last, and the alarming debt levels will be unsustainable.
Resource tax amounts to 40% nationalisation of the mines
Tim Colebatch For five weeks, our politics has been dominated by a debate that for most of us has nothing to do with our daily lives, and which we have no hope of understanding.
