Michael Gordon
Michael Gordon is the political editor of The Age.
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...
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.
They look like Keystone Cops and the real test is still to come
Michael Gordon Julia Gillard has triumphed in her third party-room showdown with Kevin Rudd, but Tony Abbott is the biggest - the only - winner from one of the most bizarre days in Australia's political history.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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...
Michael Gordon
Dirty politics stains the PM, Abbott and all of us
Michael Gordon The Coalition will pay a price for playing politics this way.
Michael Gordon
Team Legal goes in to bat for desperate Sri Lankans
Michael Gordon Here's a poser to start a dinner table conversation: Name one Australian institution that has emerged from a year of dismal politics, dashed expectations and revelations of systemic failure with its...
Michael Gordon
Disability: we've got the sense, now for the dollars
Michael Gordon When Jenny Macklin stepped up to the podium at the National Press Club last month to talk up the country's first national disability insurance scheme, an elephant lurked ominously at the back of the...
Michael Gordon
Friendship hits a snag in a sea of confusion over boats
Michael Gordon Paris Aristotle and David Manne are good friends. They have been for more than 15 years.
Michael Gordon
Amid the politics of fear, steps to reconciliation
Michael Gordon They were the other expert panel, the one that wasn't charged with stopping the boats.
Michael Gordon
The real lesson to be learnt from Labor's history wars
Michael Gordon Maxine McKew's blistering critique of Julia Gillard in her new book, Tales from the Political Trenches, invites three questions: Why did she feel compelled to write it? Is it accurate? And, most...
Michael Gordon
Everything is not all right, we're uptight, out of sight
Michael Gordon There are signs that both sides of politics are at least trying to inject a dose of confidence into the electorate.
