Latest Government Stories

The arrest of a producer of YouTube journalist and comedian FriendlyJordies has disturbing implications for free speech and civil liberties. That a counter-terrorism unit would be sent in to arrest a government critic has eerie parallels to repressive regimes around the world, writes Michael Tanner.

Nearly half of students at public schools are considered disadvantaged – either living remotely, with a disability, having an Indigenous background or from a low socio-economic background – compared to just 20 per cent at private schools, yet private schools have far more income. Trevor Cobbold reports.

Misleading tactics from the NDIS have devastated many Australians. One mother had always been given advance notice that her son’s plan was being reviewed. This time, it was only at the end of the phone call to discuss her son’s support package that she realised the call was in fact the review. Natasha May reports.

New documents show the government negotiated the controversial $80m Watergate deal directly with the Cayman Islands company founded by Energy Minister Angus Taylor. The Department failed to notify the Senate. Jommy Tee investigates the email trail between the Department, then overseen by Barnaby Joyce, and secretive Switzerland director and Taylor associate Connor Maloney. 

An Australian breakthrough in drone technology, making it easier to locate hidden enemy on the battlefield, could also be used to target civilian protesters. The US government has already used surveillance drones to monitor Black Lives Matters protests, while Israel last week reportedly used small drones to drop tear gas on Palestinian protesters. Michelle Fahy investigates.

The power to send Australian troops to fight in foreign wars rests in effect with the Prime Minister alone, yet a huge majority of Australians think parliamentary approval should be required. With both major parties refusing to budge, Australians for War Powers Reform has launched a GoFundMe campaign Be Sure On War to put pressure on them to change their stance. Alison Broinowski reports.

The Red Cross actively encouraged people it knew were infected with Hepatitis C to continue to donate blood in defiance of basic principles of blood safety. As set out by World Health Organisation guidelines, a safe blood donor is healthy and has no risk factors for HIV or other infections. Knowingly including infected blood into a therapeutic setting is a basic breach. Elizabeth Minter reports Part II of the infected blood scandal investigation.

Following Michael West Media’s report on domain squatting by the NSW Nationals in the lead-up to the Upper Hunter by-election, the Nationals candidate has directed the party to relinquish the domains, in apparent defiance of Nationals’ leader John Barilaro. Callum Foote reports.

The vaccine rollout debacle is further evidence that the federal Department of Health should not be in charge of reforming the aged care sector, as recommended by one of the Aged Care Royal Commissioners. And when will governments of all political persuasions finally wake up to the failed economic model that is neoliberalism? Dr Sarah Russell and Elizabeth Minter report.

Scott Morrison and the Coalition keep changing their story on why the Covid vaccine rollout is a debacle. Are they betting the public will be unable to keep up with the rewriting of history? Elizabeth Minter reports on the Government’s world-leading program of false premises.

Scott Morrison’s latest billion-dollar missile spend was deftly leaked to the media then talked up by ASPI whose sponsors have raked in $51 billion in Defence Department contracts while doling cash to the conflicted “think-tank”. Marcus Rubenstein investigates.

Australia has plunged down the global rankings on to gender equality. Some 300,000 older live in poverty. Emma Dawson writes that the structural discrimination baked into our economic system is still punishing women for being women fifty years after they took up the fight against the patriarchy. 

It was a magnificent shot-in-the-foot, a political “own goal” directed at its ideological foes, and driven by a relentless campaign by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, but an own-goal which backfired and caught all the Coalition friendly lobby groups in a red-tape nightmare. Stephanie Tran reports on political donations.

In his inability to listen to women, Prime Minister Scott Morrison keeps digging a bigger hole for himself, as evinced by his popularity slide in Newspoll and his latest failure to take a stand against the trolling of women by Coalition MP Andrew Laming. Yet the repeated failures indicate this is not just a matter of a “tin ear” but rather a contempt for women, reports Elizabeth Minter.

“The strongest arguments for the Australian War Memorial have always come from the old white men whose names will appear on foundation stones and for whom these 24,000 square metres of new space will stand as a lasting legacy. And lasting, too, will be the memories of the flawed process that led to this outcome.” David Stephens reports on the failure of process and the public opposition which have marred the half a billion dollar AWM expansion.

By 2029 public schools will be underfunded by $60 billion; private schools overfunded by $6 billion. In the decade to 2019, private schools received an extra $2,164 per student, public schools just $334 per student. The huge costs to society as a result of such disadvantage includes higher unemployment, poor health and low economic growth but Minister Alan Tudge claims the school funding wars over. Trevor Cobbold reports.

Christian Porter is responsible for serial breaches of the law, as documented here last year. These revelations alone should be enough to see Porter removed from official duties but his relentless persecution of Witness K and Bernard Collaery – both denied natural justice and prosecuted in secret – are hardly the stuff of a model litigant. Yet now the besieged Attorney-General calls for rule of law to apply in respect of the rape allegations against him. Elizabeth Minter reports. 

The Department of Parliamentary Services has been in the news following reports that it withheld its security incident report into the Brittany Higgins case from the Australian Federal Police, despite multiple requests, and was only provided after the police escalated inquiries. It seems the DPS has form in wanting to bury bad news. Marcus Reubenstein reports.

A skydiving adventure park in a National Party electorate was showered in bushfire grants, getting far more than it asked for, while a host of bushfire recovery projects in the Blue Mountains were ignored, even badly needed toilet facilities for firefighters. Callum Foote reports on new documents in the bushfire rorts scandal.