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
As the Coalition knows, there is a long history of costing opposition policies
Phillip Coorey The opposition and some sections of the media are in high dudgeon because information has been released. However, it's not the first time a government has costed opposition policies.
Phillip Coorey
States give Abbott a nasty headache
Phillip Coorey In one week, the NSW and Queensland governments effectively neutered two of Tony Abbott's attack lines against the Gillard government - school funding and the mining tax.
Phillip Coorey
Both sides respect Beazley, even if he's telling home truths
Phillip Coorey Tony Abbott was not kind to Kim Beazley when they were both in Parliament. ''Sanctimonious windbag'' and ''great big bellowing cow'' were two of the more memorable insults that Abbott, then a Howard...
Phillip Coorey
Why the Coalition is on a winner - it's all about individual pain
Phillip Coorey W hen John Howard told Parliament on March 26, 2007, ''working families in Australia have never been better off'', he was entitled to boast.
Phillip Coorey
Carr to go after the one that got away
Phillip Coorey A week ago, Bob Carr called on his new federal Labor colleagues to put aside the ill-feeling caused by the leadership dispute and to ''dwell a bit more on the horror of an Abbott-led government''.
Phillip Coorey
Labor hegemony may be dead but it's not all bad for Gillard
Phillip Coorey This Friday, the Labor government will find itself outnumbered for the first time in 4½ years in office.
Phillip Coorey
Labor's fear is that Milne's Greens will lack Brown's pragmatism
Phillip Coorey The Gillard government's immediate reaction to the departure of the Greens leader Bob Brown and to his replacement by Christine Milne was one of concern.
Phillip Coorey
Howard's book simply circles the wagons around his own legacy
Phillip Coorey Nothing is ever certain in politics, but in late 2007 it was a near certainty - and had been for some time - that John Howard's Coalition government was going to lose.
Phillip Coorey
Campaign circus veers into realms of bizarre
Phillip Coorey Mark Latham has become all he once claimed to despise, and a sad parody of himself. His presence on the campaign trail is a joke, bullying Julia Gillard - who he has spent the past few years...
Phillip Coorey
Round and round with parade of leaders
Phillip Coorey Should Labor lose this election, Tony Abbott would be Australia's third prime minister in two months and its fourth in three years.
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...
Phillip Coorey
Celebrity showdown in former PM's sacred seat
Phillip Coorey At the last federal election, it was the battle for Wentworth that gripped Sydney's attention because of the soap opera it became as Malcolm Turnbull fended off the eccentric human rights lawyer...
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
Another job for a Tory, but Costello will have to help Labor look good
Phillip Coorey At the conclusion of the weekly cabinet meeting a fortnight ago, a minister, mostly in jest - but not entirely - dismissively slid a file along the table after a quick perusal.
Phillip Coorey
Costello's sharp tongue may never taste the milk of human kindness
Phillip Coorey When Labor stalwarts speak of the debt the party owes Kim Beazley, you need look no further than the state of the federal Liberal Party to understand why.
Phillip Coorey
Turnbull tortured by his own party
Phillip Coorey You really have to wonder about the Liberal Party. Only weeks after Peter Costello anoints the Opposition spokesman on health, Peter Dutton, as a future leader, and days after Malcolm Turnbull and...
