Michael Gordon
Michael Gordon is the political editor of The Age.
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.
Game on as Gillard pulls an election surprise
Michael Gordon Julia Gillard should be congratulated for nipping six months of election speculation in the bud - and calling a September 14 election.
Analysis
A magic act that stretches credulity
Michael Gordon If politics was purely numbers Rudd would be made Prime Minister. But it ain't that simple.
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.
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.
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...
Marginal difference in national sphere
Michael Gordon Ted Baillieu's shock resignation is a morale boost for Labor in Victoria that has few implications for the federal election that Julia Gillard has called for September 14.
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.
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.
A body blow
Michael Gordon The surprise departure of two of the Government’s most senior figures is a very bad look on two levels.
Michael Gordon
Can this sporting nation restore its sense of self?
Michael Gordon Two very different snapshots of the country's progress were delivered during an otherwise underwhelming opening week in the Federal Parliament.
Michael Gordon
PM's captain's pick may end a sorry chapter in Labor history
Michael Gordon The long backstory to the PM using her 'captain's pick' to impose Nova Peris, an Olympic champion but a political novice, on Labor's NT branch helps explain why Warren Mundine was so quick to endorse...
