Australian Politics

This week Katharine Murphy speaks to Labor MPs Peta Murphy and Kate Thwaites after the allegations made by a former Liberal staffer, Brittany Higgins, revealed the toxic culture embedded within Australia’s parliament. The MPs discuss parliamentary workplace norms, lack of training and HR management, and the steps needed to address it.

Katharine Murphy sits down with her team in Canberra to answer your most urgent political questions for 2021. When will the government roll out a vaccine? Will there be an election this year? How can we hold our politicians more accountable after the scandals of 2020?

In the first episode of the Australian politics podcast for 2021, Katharine Murphy talks with former special forces captain and barrister Keith Wolahan after he unseated veteran Liberal MP Kevin Andrews in a party preselection. How did Wolahan pull off the first unseat of a federal Liberal since 1990? What factions in the party does he associate himself? How will he approach the Liberals’ waning popularity in Victoria?

Looking back at the year, Katharine Murphy sits down with Labor MP Andrew Giles and Liberal MP Fiona Martin to discuss Australia’s other epidemic: loneliness. With coronavirus exacerbating the country’s feelings of isolation, which age groups have been hit hardest? How has social media use increased loneliness among young people? And what measures will the government take to solve the problem?

On the last sitting day of parliament, politics editor Katharine Murphy and political reporter Paul Karp talk to Labor MP Tony Burke about the government’s omnibus industrial relations bill. With unions concerned the provision will cut pay and conditions, Burke discusses how the Morrison government’s gagging of parliamentary debate is putting workers, and democracy, at risk

Katharine Murphy talks to MP Anne Webster after her defamation case against conspiracy theorist Karen Brewer. Webster intends to bring forward legislation that would force Facebook and other platforms to assume editorial responsibility for the content they publish, in an effort to combat proliferating misinformation. How would the legislation work? Will senior ministers support it? What impact would it have on Australian media? Australian MP targeted by conspiracy posts calls for Facebook to be treated as publisher