Phillip Coorey
Phillip Coorey joined the Sydney Morning Herald in 2005 and is the paper's Chief Political Correspondent, based in Canberra. Previously he was the Political Editor for Adelaide's The Advertiser. He has been in the Canberrra Press Gallery since 1998, except for 2003 and 2004 when he was the New York correspondent for News Ltd.
Phillip Coorey
Absent Hockey will be front and centre if Abbott falters
Phillip Coorey There was a brief period of unrest in the Coalition last week when MPs were wondering why the shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, was not among the speakers at an economic summit in Melbourne.
Phillip Coorey
Solving a problem like Bernardi nets trifecta
Phillip Coorey TONY ABBOTT hates ill-discipline. Time and again he warns against it, telling his charges the aim is to have people talking about Labor, not the Coalition. Make Labor the story.
Phillip Coorey
Team players get top jobs but mavericks make a difference
Phillip Coorey About three years ago, Barnaby Joyce had a half-hearted crack at replacing Warren Truss as the leader of the Nationals.
Phillip Coorey
Rivers will die of thirst as the arguments get wetter
Phillip Coorey Just over a year ago, Malcolm Turnbull returned from London and a meeting with the Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, to declare he was no longer prepared to lead a party that refused to take...
Phillip Coorey
Sales talk begins as election moves into focus
Phillip Coorey With Julia Gillard expected to call the election today, Tony Abbott has tried to define the contest as being about the need to get rid of a bad government full of flawed characters.
Phillip Coorey
Martyr Turnbull comes in from cold
Phillip Coorey If Australians wanted an emissions trading scheme, they should have voted for John Howard at the last election.
Phillip Coorey
Managing Joyce hard task for either side
Phillip Coorey The finance portfolio has been maligned and overhyped in recent decades. The Coalition started it in 1996 by labelling the $10 billion budget deficit inherited from Labor as the ''Beazley black...
Philip Coorey
Farmers friend must beware of the risks
Phillip Coorey Last Thursday's issue of the newspaper The Land was a public relations bonanza for Tony Abbott. Under a front-page headline saying ''At your side'' is a photograph of Abbott deep in conversation with...
Phillip Coorey
Libs fear Joyce will overpower Hockey
Phillip Coorey ''This is going to be a disaster,'' said one MP. ''Great retail politician? Sure, but so was Pauline Hanson''.
Phillip Coorey
Libs seek unity in a cool climate
Phillip Coorey When Liberals discuss the key reasons why they lost the 2007 election, a monumental failure to read the public mood on climate change is always mentioned.
