Tony Wright
Tony Wright is the National Affairs Editor of The Age. He has been based in the Canberra Press Gallery for 20 years, working for The Canberra Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Bulletin before joining The Age in 2007. He has written two plays and two best-selling books, was named Magazine Feature Writer of the Year twice, has won several UN Media Peace Prizes and has been a Walkley Awards finalist five times.
Tony Wright
Chill wind of war leaves debate cold
Tony Wright Something approaching a chill settled over the chamber as Julia Gillard declared that Australia would remain engaged in Afghanistan 'through this decade at least'.
Comment
Preparing for B-Day and hoping that the other bastard dies
Tony Wright The embattled Gillard government's battalions of media advisors, facing a tough budget and an even more difficult election campaign, are being put on a war footing worthy of the D-Day landings ...
Something has been broken at the heart of politics
Tony Wright Late last month, a woman stood alone on the forecourt of Canberra's Parliament House, inhaling gulps of cigarette smoke. ''All very nice,'' she said. ''Too late. Tomorrow it'll be wrapping chips.''
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?
Giants will be replaced by pygmies
Tony Wright The choice of a new ministry from a shrinking political gene pool is the most daunting task Prime Minister Julia Gillard faces as she tries to shuffle her government out of the chaos that enveloped...
Fitting political pygmies into giants' shoes
Tony Wright The choice of a new ministry from a shrinking political gene pool is the most daunting task facing Prime Minister Julia Gillard as she tries to shuffle her government out of the chaos that enveloped...
Abbott's paper armour
Tony Wright Opposition Leader Tony Abbott carries a shield with him as he darts from greengrocer to drycleaner to manufacturer warning of the evils of the carbon tax and how Julia Gillard's government is...
Refugees tarred with brush of prejudice
Tony Wright Refugees, barely more than boys, worked on our family farm when I was a child. Not one of them spoke anything approaching ''all the English language skills that you might normally expect''.
Prepare ye the way to a northern promised land
Tony Wright The Abbott Liberal Party's draft plan to settle and develop Australia north of the Tropic of Capricorn is a very long way from being the most remarkable scheme for a northern promised land.
ASIS boss opens up on a kinder, gentler spy agency
Tony Wright ASIS doesn't use violence, blackmail or threats in its work to protect Australia against terrorism and other security threats, the agency's boss says.
Tony Wright
Question time has become rather questionable itself
Tony Wright Perched on a hill in Canberra is a building called Parliament House. It cost Australians $1 billion in 1980s dollars. It costs several hundreds of millions a year to run.
Tony Wright
St Kevin took the winding road but a pilgrim's progress is rarely smooth
Tony Wright An icy, windy pathway wends across the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland. St Kevin's Way, it's called.
Tony Wright
Smart bomb crosses continents for a direct hit
Tony Wright It was the most audacious stealth attack in modern Australian political history.
Surprise reflections in a nation's mirror
Tony Wright IN A week when a small grab bag of historians attempted to puncture some of the mythology surrounding what happened in the hills above Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli Peninsula 97 years ago, an estimated...
Tony Wright
When the Concert Party ruled politics
Tony Wright It is difficult to imagine it now when there seems such little music in the hearts of Australia's politicians, but not so long ago song and mirth spread a bit of magic across the national political...
Tony Wright
PM's over the moon. What about Bono?
Tony Wright It's a fraught business, giving a big speech to a foreign audience.
Tony Wright
Salve for a scalding start
Tony Wright A fledgling reporter once had a taste of the compassion that prompted Malcolm Fraser to walk away from a party he felt had lost its humanity.
Tony Wright
Hardest task is put on ice
Tony Wright As a science show exposes the fragility of the frozen continent's ecosystem, the Prime Minister's own policy fragility is laid bare.
Goanna Tracks
Gallipoli and a gypsy cart
Tony Wright Strip away the politicians' fine words and the academic agonising, and Anzac Day doesn't really add up to much glorifying of war or a resurgent militarisation.
Tony Wright
Strangers to our shores
Tony Wright Despite increasing sophistication over the decades, Australia remains confused and at odds about what it is to be an immigrant nation.
