Taxing matters as GST takes centre stage again

Mark Kenny Hypersensitivity over the GST dates back to Howard and Costello.

GST may be the answer to balancing the books

Mark Kenny Politician after politician has squibbed it, making florid gestures but avoiding serious discussion of the goods and services tax.

Labor sets a booby-trap as it heads for the door

Mark Kenny Gillard and Swan have tried to use this budget to make it as hard as possible for Abbott to enjoy a clean run to the election.

PM will be judged as skilled at policy, but inept at politics

Mark Kenny In just his first 30 days in office, an impatient Gough Whitlam signed off on a vast array of reforms.

Gillard's fine reforms slip between the gap

Mark Kenny The PM's policy record holds up well. It's her political skills that let her down, badly.

Gillard's deal on Gonski a case of better late than never

Mark Kenny Things are somehow different way out west.

PM should junk playbook in hunt for silver linings

Mark Kenny Setting the election date eight months in advance represented a calculated risk for Julia Gillard. So far, it has not worked.

Cynical game played at the expense of the disabled

Mark Kenny Around 2 million Australians desperate to see disability insurance become a reality are now caught in a political game of chicken with neither side of politics prepared to unconditionally back...

Triple-F for Labor in convincing voters of budget credibility

Mark Kenny The federal government's political skills are again being exposed as slipshod amid a messy prelude to a pre-election budget.

Gillard's diplomatic triumphs have come all too late

Mark Kenny The PM didn't relish a foreign affairs role, but she has excelled as a stateswoman.

PM solved Rubik's Cube of diplomacy but won't get credit

Mark Kenny It has been said before that if it weren't for bad luck, Julia Gillard would probably have no luck at all.

Abbott can't lose if Labor fiddles with super rules

Mark Kenny Two distinctly different interests are hoping that the Gillard Labor government proceeds with necessary but unpopular tax changes in the superannuation system.

Looking for a quicksand escape

Mark Kenny Like the ubiquitous quicksand scene from the movies of his youth, the more John Howard struggled in 2007, the faster he sank.

Back from the brink

Mark Kenny Prime Minister Julia Gillard faces an uphill battle rebuilding her party's shattered brand after Labor's crippling leadership crisis ended in farce on Thursday with a party-room spill devoid of a...

Mark Kenny and Tony Wright

How it all went so horribly wrong for Labor

Mark Kenny and Tony Wright How did the government leave Opposition Leader Tony Abbott in a seemingly unassailable position to waltz into the Lodge in September?

Ministerial stamp of authority may be too late

Mark Kenny Julia Gillard's new ministerial line-up is the embodiment of politics as the art of the possible.

Simply put, Gillard is indestructible

Mark Kenny Whenever American voters are asked to name the qualities they most value in their political representatives, having a strong leader comes out as most important.

Mark Kenny

Frankly, this secrecy is undemocratic

Mark Kenny AUSTRALIA boasts a stable democracy and a famously frank political culture. Yet for all that robustness, Australians too readily accept secrecy by those representing us.

Mark Kenny

Labor strains at leash that would tether it to Gillard

Mark Kenny The push by the Labor party to make a change for change's sake is misplaced.

Money makes debate go round

Mark Kenny While much of the world reeled from the banking and related property sector meltdown in 2008-09, swift stimulatory action in Australia, and our good fortune in being a major commodity supplier to...