Kate Fitz-Gibbon

Time to act - provocation must be rejected as an excuse for murder

Kate Fitz-Gibbon On Wednesday, the Select Committee of the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into the partial defence of provocation will release its final report recommending reform to a law that has long animated debate...

Michelle Grattan

Swan avoids risking too much with juggling act

Michelle Grattan The government has done what it had to do. It has kept its budget numbers in the black, in a fiscal exercise driven by the imperative of preserving its political credibility rather than by economic...

Rob Casamento

School open day spin just a classroom act

Rob Casamento Parents can learn more about schools if they do their homework first.

Ross Gittins

Reform is a delicate act of balance

Ross Gittins A lot of the problems the nation struggles with and argues over boil down to the considerable potential for conflict between what economists summarise as ''equity'' and ''efficiency''.

Janine Perrett

High wire act between the US and China

Janine Perrett Confused about the political posturing over our new best friend China and our old ally the US? Well, no need to be.

Richard Ackland

Hanged, drawn and quartered - and that's just the Bail Act

Richard Ackland Who would have picked the hard-line Christian warrior Attorney-General, Greg Smith, as a ''leftie masquerading as a conservative''.

Abbott's own act to blame for the lack of criminal charges

Phillip Coorey TONY ABBOTT'S frustration that the Fair Work Australia investigation into the Health Services Union has not paved the way explicitly for criminal charges in part stems from legislation he introduced...

Call for referendum for ACT electoral deadlock

ACT voters could be asked to vote in a referendum next year in an effort to break a nine-year deadlock between the territory's warring politicians.

Mike Carlton

Margaret, a commonsense class act

Mike Carlton Paris 1985. A gleaming limousine glides to a halt outside a grand restaurant, a temple of French gastronomy in the Bois de Boulogne.

No more ministerial veto over ACT

The ACT can now make its own laws without the fear of the Federal Government overriding them at the whim of the minister of the day.

No more jackpots for Labor in ACT

A donation of nearly $1 million from the Canberra Labor Clubs to the ALP in 2010-2011 could be the party's last pokies-funded windfall, as the Liberals moves to prevent future donations.

Bourke annointed as fifth ACT minister

A meeting of ACT Labor's caucus this morning voted unanimously to elect Dr Chris Bourke, the Assembly's newest member, to the frontbench, taking on four portfolios.

ACT cabinet Twitters away to community

The ACT Chief Minister Katy Gallagher's office declared the Government's third "virtual community cabinet" yesterday a success.

ACT to sign border deal

The ACT will gain a greater say in developments in the surrounding region under a major cross-border agreement with NSW to be signed today.

ACT's $1b blowout

Big spending by the ACT Labor Government on water security projects and other capital works has contributed to a serious weakening in the ACT's long-term financial positions.

Labor should push for G20 in ACT

Canberra Liberal Senator Gary Humphries has accused the ACT's federal Labor representatives of going quiet on the idea of Canberra hosting the G20 summit in 2014.

Peter Hartcher

Wayne's wild man act

Peter Hartcher 'To be honest, I've never paid much attention to you in the past, although I think you've proven to be a very good Treasurer," begins one of the hundreds of letters and emails that Wayne Swan...

Ben Wadham

Defence Force's great battle within: cleaning up its own act

Ben Wadham Breaking down entrenched military culture is central to fixing problems.

ACT Greens' funding keeps growing

The ACT Greens received an unprecedented half a million dollars in donations, loans and election funding in the past financial year, the biggest in the local party's history.