Michelle Grattan
Michelle Grattan is the political editor of The Age. In 2008, she shared the Melbourne Press Club Lifetime Achievement Award with Laurie Oakes. She edited the books 'Reconciliation' and 'Australian Prime Ministers' (2000), and wrote 'Back on the Wool Track' (2004).
Michelle Grattan
Abbott has his own slushy history
Michelle Grattan Tony Abbott has had his own slush fund experience, not all of it happy.
Michelle Grattan
Rudd's dream but Abbott's reality?
Michelle Grattan What ironies there are in Australia's ascension to a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council!
Michelle Grattan
Disability scheming trips up premiers who should know better
Michelle Grattan Who would think - who would believe - that politicians could make a handful of disabled people the object of such shameless power play? Last week's behaviour by Liberal premiers over the plan to get...
Michelle Grattan
Disability scheming trips up premiers
Michelle Grattan Who would believe that politicians could make a handful of needy, disabled people the object of such shameless power play?
Glenn Stevens and the pub with no beer
Michelle Grattan Tony Abbott — who at the weekend insisted he had been ''absolutely realistic'' about the economy — has shares in the company called Gloom.
Michelle Grattan
A tale of two standards
Michelle Grattan Julia Gillard's ministers will be trying their hardest to keep the heat on the Coalition over who did what when in the saga of Peter Slipper and his staffer.
Michelle Grattan
Game changer or game over?
Michelle Grattan Treasurer Wayne Swan declares that tomorrow - the day the carbon tax starts - will be a 'game-changer'. Tony Abbott insists it is the beginning of the ''python squeeze''.
Michelle Grattan
The view from the back
Michelle Grattan Gillard's marginal-seat members fear for their political lives.
Michelle Grattan
For dentist's son, positivity is like pulling teeth
Michelle Grattan Tony Abbott's first major speech for 2012 pitched to his political need to be modestly positive.
Michelle Grattan
Rudd may yet have ticker but Labor has lost love
Michelle Grattan WHEN Kevin Rudd announced last week that his aortic valve needed to be replaced again, it was a classic performance.
Michelle Grattan
PM wins votes but not voters
Michelle Grattan Julia Gillard receives little credit for getting major legislation through a difficult Parliament.
Michelle Grattan
A strange sense of entitlement
Michelle Grattan Joe Hockey's politically dangerous contribution to the welfare debate is a gift to the struggling Gillard government.
Michelle Grattan
Gillard acts fast to create bold legacy
Michelle Grattan If Julia Gillard gets the aged care reform plans she wants, she'll have something of which to be proud.
Michelle Grattan
Abbott brings in big gun to woo women
Michelle Grattan Margie Abbott hit the election trail yesterday, as her husband tries to show he's a woman's man, while Julia Gillard kept the First Bloke in shadow. Abbott, as we know, has a gender problem.
Michelle Grattan
For Rudd it's quite atrocious
Michelle Grattan While the Prime Minister is busy being buried by the miners, his teflon-coated deputy rises above the fray.
Michelle Grattan
A rash promise dogs absent PM
Michelle Grattan It may not be, as the opposition claimed, the worst program in Australia's history, but the now-dead insulation scheme has been an horrendous debacle.
Michelle Grattan
Spoils to the patient party
Michelle Grattan Tony Abbott is best advised to turn his attention to matters other than health.
Michelle Grattan
Hospital reform should not be sacrificed to the election cycle
Michelle Grattan Instead of putting its whole health package on the table, Canberra has dribbled out the various sweeteners.
A health-rebate double dissolution is on the cards
Michelle Grattan It won't be an early poll, but the signals are that the double dissolution option is very much alive.
Michelle Grattan
Can Abbott control IR monster?
Michelle Grattan If you are Liberal leader, there are two ways of looking at WorkChoices. The most obvious is that it was a monster that did the Coalition in and must never be allowed to rise from the dead - so the...
