Mark Kenny
Mark Kenny is Fairfax Media's chief political correspondent. A director of the National Press Club, he regularly appears on the ABC's Insiders, Sky News Agenda, and Ten's Meet the Press. He has reported from Canberra under three prime ministers and several opposition leaders.
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.
Abbott plays smart but timid politics on IR
Mark Kenny Like a man running along the wrong side of the river, Tony Abbott needed to cross the industrial relations bridge at some point on his journey to election 2013, yet his reluctance has been all too...
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 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.
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?
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...
