Michael Gordon
Michael Gordon is the political editor of The Age.
A private pessimism now a public despair
Michael Gordon For more than two years, Rod Cameron's pessimism about Labor's prospects has been a strictly private affair.
No political points to be scored in Ford closure
Michael Gordon Tony Abbott's initial reluctance to score big political points from Ford's decision to stop making cars in Australia tells us two things: the first is that he's a more measured politician than he...
Industrial lite on the hill
Michael Gordon Tony Abbott has produced a minimalist industrial relations policy with a bold objective - to eliminate what he considers the biggest threat to a Coalition victory in September.
Bounce in the polls too much to expect
Michael Gordon Comeback the one thing Wayne Swan will not be expecting from his sixth budget.
Michael Gordon
From class wars to classroom war: the Gillard battle plan
Michael Gordon Dejected federal Labor MPs have something positive to say to their alienated, disengaged and even hostile constituents.
No pain no gain: PM talks budget options
Michael Gordon Julia Gillard's warning underscores reality that selling this pre-election budget will be even harder than framing it.
PM's comeback now consigned to history
Michael Gordon Julia Gillard's government is now trapped in a vortex of miserable morale, low expectations and sullied credibility - almost all of its own making and all neatly reflected in another shocker...
Hard road ahead for heavily burdened ministers
Michael Gordon Rather than call in the Rudd backers in cabinet one by one, Gillard put the onus on them.
Who would be in your (political) team of the century?
Michael Gordon The late John Button had his own strategy for coping with the tedium of Parliament during his years as the government leader in the Senate.
They look like Keystone Cops and the real test is still to come
Michael Gordon Julia Gillard has triumphed in her third party-room showdown with Kevin Rudd, but Tony Abbott is the biggest - the only - winner from one of the most bizarre days in Australia's political history.
A clean start for the PM, but is the election already lost?
Michael Gordon Simon Crean has removed the threat of Kevin Rudd and gave Julia Gillard's prime ministership a fresh start.
Gillard takes on Abbott in the populist and cynical stakes
Michael Gordon Simon Crean maintains Australia's new cultural policy joins the dots on a range of Labor priorities.
Hard slog for PM to get Labor back into the game
Michael Gordon It is a measure of Labor's predicament that the good news for the government in the latest Age/Nielsen poll is that Julia Gillard's - and the party's - standing did not take another hit after yet...
Michael Gordon
The national disgrace that is our asylum-seeker debate
Michael Gordon A month before Julia Gillard's mini-campaign in Sydney's outer west, Tony Abbott took his own mini-campaign to Melbourne's outer east, and reflected with justifiable pride on the diversity of...
Michael Gordon
Worlds apart, but the pain's the same when the axe falls
Michael Gordon Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott agree on something. There are no parallels between the political assassination of Kevin Rudd in 2010 and Ted Baillieu's decision to fall on his sword this week.
Michael Gordon
Rudd's long cold shower heats up as leadership stress grows
Michael Gordon What's Kevin up to? It's the perennial question for those Labor MPs who voted for Julia Gillard in last year's leadership ballot, and for her advisers, but now it's being asked by some of Rudd's own...
Michael Gordon
ALP's poor performance gives Abbott a dream start
Michael Gordon A combination of bad management, poor communications, ill-discipline and poor timing by Labor have handed Tony Abbott a dream start to this election year.
Michael Gordon
High-fives around PM reveal faulty grasp of Labor's reality
Michael Gordon Julia Gillard's inner sanctum hasn't had much to smile about lately, but on Tuesday her advisers were giving each other high-fives in the Prime Minister's office.
The demonisation continues
Michael Gordon The kindest thing that can be said of Scott Morrison's call for a freeze on the release of asylum seekers into the community on bridging visas is that it is a massive overreaction.
Michael Gordon
The remaking of Tony Abbott: a seven-month Liberal project
Michael Gordon Tony Abbott gave voters a glimpse of a very different prime ministership when he stepped up to the podium at the National Press Club.
