Columnists
The Goanna
Political parallel universes
Why are we waiting? Independents baiting Parties remonstrating Why are we waiting Greens celebrating Coalition agitating Democracy re-arranging Why are we waiting? So bloody long . . . Why are we waiting so bloody long . . .
Peter Hartcher
A chance to reform NSW Labor's worst gambling habits
Already, the new power of independents in Federal Parliament seems set to achieve one useful reform - encouraging some self-restraint on poker machine gambling.
Michelle Grattan
Abbott digs himself a hole
It was Tony Abbott's very bad day. The belated costings of his election policies came back to bite him. Then Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie not only declared for Labor but revealed that Abbott had offered him $1 billion for a new Hobart hospital, which Wilkie rejected in favour of taking much less from Julia Gillard.
Katharine Murphy
From Canberra outsider to centre stage
Andrew Wilkie surprised his friend John Valder when he signed up yesterday with Julia Gillard. Wilkie yesterday ended a long and tortuous journey, from Canberra outsider to would-be king maker.
Miranda Devine
Seven's weak tackle on Cousins
Despite all the gratuitous public service announcements about the evils of drugs, Channel Seven's two-part documentary on AFL's most famous drug abuser, Ben Cousins, did more to glorify cocaine, ice and six-day-benders than any nightclub VIP room.
Ross Gittins
House, marriage and children - in their own sweet time
The media leap on any suggestion of social change. At present there's talk of younger people being happy to keep renting rather than buy their own homes. Before that there was talk of career women not wanting children. And before that, we kept hearing about young people not bothering to get married, even after the kids had started arriving.
Jessica Irvine
Cause for optimism after near-recession we really did have to have
I have obtained a copy of the ''red book'', the highly classified briefing document prepared by Treasury for an incoming Labor government (it prepares two - a red one for Labor and a blue one for the Coalition).
Stephanie Peatling
Tomorrow's woman, yesterday's man?
Labor's campaign slogan comes with an obvious message: it is the party for the future.
Shaun Carney
Aggression pays in king hits on Labor
Don't expect any gentler, kinder politics. The ALP is on the canvas and Tony Abbott isn't likely to change tactics now.
Paul Sheehan
The secret desires of men, and why they go unfulfilled
We are awash with an appetite for romantic and sexual fantasy. Call it the Twilight phenomenon. It merely adds to the sexual suggestiveness which permeates our lives. But underline the word ''fantasy''.
Phillip Coorey
Kind and gentle no more than words
The last time Tony Abbott spoke of the need for a ''kinder, gentler'' approach to politics, all hell broke loose. It was June 19, 2000, and the Parliament was in shock over the suicide of the Labor MP, Greg Wilton. It was a time for introspection as much as for offering condolences.
Geoff Gallop
Labor's biggest battle is with itself
Labor came to government with a strong reform message, but when the heat went on, the party baulked.
Mike Carlton
It's dark, I've upset my bagman and I'm down to my undies
Dear Premier [fill in name here].
Daniel Flitton
Finally, an Afghan debate
Oakeshott wants democracy, but we need to be realistic about what can be achieved.
Cynthia Banham
The write stuff? But there can be trickery in all that tweeting
Having never used Facebook or sent a tweet, and with no desire to do so, I am what you might call a social media sceptic. All this communicating in 140-character bursts makes me wonder what such instantaneous and abbreviated dispatches are doing to personal relationships.
Paul Austin
MP's explosive exit designed to blow Brumby to pieces
Craig Langdon was on a long, long drive - from Melbourne to Darwin and back via Broken Hill, with his personal and professional lives in turmoil - when he resolved to write himself into Victorian Labor infamy.
Paola Totaro
In the blogosphere, accountability is so last century
The photograph is hardly tabloid fodder: two men dressed in T-shirts and jeans, smiling broadly behind hip sunglasses as they walk in a park on a rare sunny day in London.
Paul Daley
Public passion for a republic is waning
Polling shows more people now oppose a republic. Meanwhile, the Queen's representative Quentin Bryce is a pivotal figure in determining who should form a government after the election.
Tony Wright
Hospital sting leaves Coalition nursing wounds
As Andrew Wilkie stood in a parliamentary courtyard declaring he was a Julia man, it was very nearly possible to hear Tony Abbott banging his head on the wall of his office.
Andrew Darby
Are seas the new green battlegounds?
In case it passed you by in the recent, just cleared, political blizzard, there's been a shift in our domestic environmental battlefronts, to the sea.
Kenneth Davidson
Merry muddle over water leaves Labor high and dry
Entitlements are not the same as having the water, but there is a solution.
Tim Colebatch
Labor should win two-party seesaw
By Monday night, the Coalition had surged to the lead in the two-party preferred vote, but last night Labor was back in front.
Danny Katz
Forget Wagner, I'm here for Brunhilde
Can we separate Wagner's artistic achievements from his personal views?
Cosima Marriner
Bligh hoping past stumbles are a distant memory
It's been 10 months since the last election but the Liberal National Party has yet to produce any policies, content to simply score easy political points in Bligh's annus horribilis. But Bligh's fortunes are likely to hinge on how the Queensland economy performs this year.
Melissa Fyfe
Caught in the web
Mary Delahunty's memoir gives some scathing insights into the modern political machine.
Chris Berg
Snapping at heels of civil liberty
It was obviously a tactical error for Paul Hogan to tell the Australian Taxation Office to "come and get me, you bastards".
Charles Waterstreet
A call to alms
Sutherland Shire girl Alison Thompson couldn't respond to the announcement on Australia Day this year that she had been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for her humanitarian work, particularly for the people of the Peraliya region of Sri Lanka after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. She had just flown into Haiti with members of the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division, actor-hero Sean Penn, her boyfriend Oscar Gubernati and 15 doctors to lend a hand after the dreadful earthquake that had flattened the country.
Geoff Strong
A return to the Joh days of wide hats and narrow minds
Last week a colleague dared me to wear my Akubra into the office. The television screens were featuring as the best photo opportunity in the post-election wash-up the cowboy from Kennedy.
Elizabeth Farrelly
True wisdom needs age and real world experience
Who, apart from a bunch of career academics, would think wisdom something you could teach in a classroom? Like, "See you at 4. I have a wisdom test." Just call me Odysseus.
Richard Ackland
Messy affair a blow to court's sanctity
The solemn edifice of justice depends on the public having some sort of respect for and confidence in judges. That sounds like one of William Blackstone's platitudinous pronouncements but it's something the judiciary trots out frequently to remind everyone that they are ''in touch'' yet remote.
Chalpat Sonti
And they said we didn't matter
A marginal seat battle to savour, and the emergence of the minor parties as a real force were the highlights of the federal election race in WA.
Josh Gordon
It's no tea party
After a near-death experience, rebirth is the only way forward for ALP.
Tanveer Ahmed
Mental health claims overblown
There has never been a federal election where mental health has received such attention. Led by the charismatic and politically savvy Patrick McGorry, criticism of the government's lack of commitment to the sector has been ceaseless. He has been further aided by the advocacy group Get Up!.
Hamish McDonald
The economic miracle falls behind
This month, we've had a mix of intriguing and disturbing news out of Japan, a nation on which we now depend mightily - as a trade, investment and strategic partner - but take for granted.
Jason Koutsoukis
Israeli Gaza probe omits key evidence
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agrees to expand the powers of a judicial inquiry investigating Israel's raid on a Gaza aid flotilla that resulted in nine deaths.
Adele Horin
Next government must confront the dangers in family law reforms
In an election degraded by bipartisan fear-mongering on asylum seekers and climate change, we can be grateful the hot-button issue of family law remained safely off limits.
George Williams
Too much stability can be a problem
Stability has become the new catchcry of Australian politics. It is an understandable reaction to an extraordinary election in which the people failed to pick a winner, and so brought about a hung parliament.
Richard Glover
An optimist's errata: now there's a novel solution
Like all prize-winning novelists, DBC Pierre believes the Western world is in a state of terminal decline. His new book starts with a guy deciding to commit suicide and continues downwards from there.
Gerard Henderson
Coalition can lay blame at its own door
Perhaps the least reported fact of the election is that the Greens candidate Adam Bandt won the seat of Melbourne on Liberal Party preferences. Bandt finished second on the primary vote, well behind Labor's Cath Bowtell.
Lisa Pryor
If you're thinking of acquiring a Third World baby, adopt a new attitude
Don't leave it too late to have babies, girls. There must hardly be a young women out there who has missed out on this warning. It is a lesson pressed on them 100 times over, in the media and over the dinner table.
Peter Costello
MPs awaken to the power of one
The country independents - Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor - are not accidental tourists who have wandered on to the political stage. They are career politicians who know what they are doing.
Heckler
Please don't talk around the subject
CALL out the word police. Our language is under attack, again. This latest spree of linguistic violence is by the people that want to talk to us ''around'' things.
