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
No smoking gun but loaded words have already damaged Gillard
Phillip Coorey The gulf between the circumstantial case and anything actually linking Julia Gillard to knowingly having done something illegal as a lawyer 19 years ago is a cause of frustration among the Prime...
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
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
PM fixes stalemate but funding battle will be Abbott's
Phillip Coorey Julia Gillard is taking a week off and, in the process, doing her bit for Queensland's struggling tourism sector.
Phillip Coorey
Thomson has no words to lance boil that will ache until election day
Phillip Coorey The question that will be left hanging after Craig Thomson makes his statement to Parliament today is how did the whole saga get this far?
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.
Coalition split over super rise linked to the mining tax
Phillip Coorey THE opposition spokesman for finance, Andrew Robb, has slammed the superannuation increases associated with the mining tax, despite the Coalition's decision to keep them if elected.
Charges or not, the Thomson nightmare continues for Labor
Phillip Coorey From a political perspective, all that matters in the Craig Thomson saga is whether the MP is eligible to remain in Parliament.
Phillip Coorey
Thomson saga travels slowly in a cul-de-sac
Phillip Coorey What is being overlooked amid all the huff and puff of the Craig Thomson saga is that the investigation by Fair Work Australia was never supposed to be a precursor to the laying of criminal charges.
Phillip Coorey
Concealment hurts Coalition's clout
Phillip Coorey Suddenly, the Coalition has discovered the sanctity of process. It was two Saturdays ago when news broke that Peter Slipper had been accused by a staff member, James Hunter Ashby, of the criminal...
Phillip Coorey
Abbott's gaffe won't be forgotten
Phillip Coorey COALITION MPs and frontbenchers circled wagons around Tony Abbott yesterday following his ''shit happens'' gaffe but, privately many expressed concern about how much damage the incident might have...
Phillip Coorey
PM turns away from a taxing distraction
Phillip Coorey Julia Gillard set her own test for this budget when she addressed caucus on Monday. In what could be construed as a concession to her foe, Gillard told her charges that Tony Abbott had managed to...
Phillip Coorey
Gillard on the go is being undersold
Phillip Coorey Julia Gillard will spend about 55 hours in the air and 18 on the ground just to attend the NATO summit in Lisbon. She arrives home this morning from a week overseas and heads off again on Thursday.
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
Abbott the cyborg assassin will not give up on his hell-bent mission
Phillip Coorey Just after Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor decided to back Labor, a relieved minister observed that, throughout the election campaign, Tony Abbott had reminded him of the Terminator, the...
Phillip Coorey
Labor 2.0: a lumbering beast that might just avoid extinction
Phillip Coorey The soft carpet throughout the ministerial wing in Parliament House has its benefits, especially if you are a Labor minister walking behind two Liberal frontbenchers who do not realise you are there...
Phillip Coorey
Surveillance plane not cleared for take-off
Phillip Coorey THE Coalition has shelved one of its border protection promises just two days before the federal election.
Phillip Coorey
Faction too much fiction for Gillard
Phillip Coorey Several factors contributed to Kevin Rudd's downfall and chief among them was his decision to sideline the factions and designate himself the sole authority.
Phillip Coorey
Rudd needs his dunny-cleaning mates - and that's the bottom line
Phillip Coorey As an academic and bureaucrat, Kevin Rudd was never a creature of the union movement.
