Michael Gordon
Michael Gordon is the political editor of The Age.
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.
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.
PM's comeback now consigned to history
Michael Gordon Julia Gillard's government is now trapped in a vortex of miserable morale, low expectations and sullied credibility - almost all of its own making and all neatly reflected in another shocker...
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.
Hard road ahead for heavily burdened ministers
Michael Gordon Rather than call in the Rudd backers in cabinet one by one, Gillard put the onus on them.
Who would be in your (political) team of the century?
Michael Gordon The late John Button had his own strategy for coping with the tedium of Parliament during his years as the government leader in the Senate.
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...
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
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.
The demonisation continues
Michael Gordon The kindest thing that can be said of Scott Morrison's call for a freeze on the release of asylum seekers into the community on bridging visas is that it is a massive overreaction.
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
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 right to punt on Peris
Michael Gordon Julia Gillard's coup in securing one of Australia's most successful indigenous athletes as a Senate candidate invites predictable criticisms and involves some risk, but is justified by the two words...
Ready, set go: Nova Peris happy to take the baton
Michael Gordon Fifteen years ago, when Nova Peris first confided an interest in entering the national Parliament, the leading indigenous advocate Professor Lowitja O'Donoghue was decidedly unimpressed.
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...
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.
Michael Gordon
Time for a new script after a year of tears and smears
Michael Gordon As morality tales go, they don't get much better, or shabbier, than the saga of how Peter Slipper came to, and was removed from, the most prestigious office in the national Parliament.
