Australia
Modi’s second term: what it means for the South Pacific
The Bhartiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Narendra Modi has secured his second term as India’s Prime Minister with a landslide victory in the 2019 general elections. He spearheaded the…
Australia’s presidential politics
Watch enough sport in Australia and the so-called “Americanisation” of culture is readily apparent. In Australian rules football, where contract arrangements increasingly follow…
Australia’s election: what the hell just happened?
Not everyone who was hoping for a Labor victory took the loss well. But if, as the sore losers claimed, the unexpected return of the centre-right Morrison Government shows that…
What a Shorten government will mean for the US-Australia alliance
To start, I think it’s pretty likely that Labor will win on Saturday, meaning a change of government in Australia. So my comments will be based on that assumption.
In broad terms…
Peeling back the label in Australia’s America and China relationships
For American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, the test of a great intellect was the ability to “hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time.” By this measure, Australian…
Young, energised, ready to vote, and maybe decide two elections
Two of the world’s democracies on either side of the Indian Ocean will see their elections culminate this weekend. Australians will go to the polls on Saturday, while Sunday marks…
Time to reverse the Indonesian language disaster on our shores
Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong’s efforts to set out a vision for Australia’s foreign policy on Asia, embodied in Labor’s “FutureAsia” plans, are admirable. The…
Charting 50 years of turning tides in Australian politics
Australians will choose a new national government on 18 May in the context of two underlying trends: a record number of independents already now in office across the country and a…
My mother’s life: faraway dreams, new growth and seeking acceptance
To mark Mother’s Day on Sunday, The Interpreter invited contributors to write about their mothers who shaped world politics or were shaped by it.
Too often the “immigration…
What the world thinks is at stake in Australia’s election campaign
Former prime minister Paul Keating pinched a moment in the international spotlight this week after calling for a clean out of “nutters” in Australia’s intelligence agencies. But…