Two of Australia’s most economically successful former Prime Ministers have teamed up to warn the Morrison Government not to support a dangerous plan for superannuation.
In Australia, employees nominate a ‘super fund’ for their employers to pay a percentage of their wage into. Those super funds invest the money until the employee retires. This system makes it easier for Australians to fund their retirement.
Currently, employers are obligated to contribute 9.5% of their employee’s wage to super. Legislation means that amount raises to 10% next year and 12% by 2025. …
Ed Markey is a US senator who represents Massachusetts. His seat is up for election this year. In a such a safe Democratic state all he has to worry about is an internal party challenge. That challenge has come in the form of Joe Kennedy.
When the late Senator Ted Kennedy decided to challenge then President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Party’s nomination in 1980, journalist Roger Mudd asked him a simple question: “Senator, why do you want to be President?"
The camera was rolling and Kennedy didn’t have a very good answer. The incident delivered an early blow to the senator’s campaign and though Carter had become a very unpopular President, Kennedy was unsuccessful is his bid to remove him. He would continue to represent Massachusetts in the Senate until his death in 2009.
Two of Ted’s older brothers had also served in the…
New Zealand’s election is set for this September. Three years after Jacinda Ardern’s sudden rise to power, Kiwis will decide whether her government deserves a second term.
At the 2017 general election, the conservative National Party that had governed New Zealand for nine years lost its majority in parliament. Labour’s leader Andrew Little had resigned after months of bad polling. Just seven weeks before the election, Jacinda Ardern became the country’s alternative Prime Minister.
Ardern injected into Labour’s campaign the boost that it needed and polling soon showed that the Opposition had become competitive with the Government. Ardern made headlines around the world after an interview in which she called out a question as sexist, pointing out that her male opponents weren’t subjected to the same rhetoric.
…
In America today, 14 states are holding their Democratic Party nominating contests simultaneously. As a result, today is known as Super Tuesday.
In each state, candidates compete for delegates to the Democratic National Convention which will be held in Milwaukee from the 13th to the 16th of July. There, the delegates will choose the Democratic nominees for President and Vice President. Whoever is chosen will lead the party to the US Presidential Election, held later in November.
It’s a long process.
Super Tuesday is important because of the extremely large number of delegates to be won in just one day…
Most candidates running for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President are focussing on Super Tuesday, when 14 states will hold simultaneous contests on March 3. But the campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden hinges on the South Carolina Primary, held three days before on February 29.
It’s primary season in America, and in 2020 that means the Democratic Party is busy trying to work out which of its national stars should be chosen to take on Republican President Donald Trump. Every state holds a primary or a caucus to choose their delegates for the Democratic National Convention in mid-July, candidates compete in those contests to win the most delegates.
By winning the most votes in all of the first three states, the independent senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, has become the front-runner for the nomination. …
The Fianna Fáil leader is likely Ireland’s premier-in-waiting, but the job will come at a cost.
Ireland’s lower house (Dáil Éireann) is soon to meet for the first time since a historic election took place just a week ago. In the lead up to it, the new-look parties are meeting in Dublin to try and figure out where the country goes next.
Leo Varadkar remains in charge of Ireland a week after voters relegated his party to third place.
The country’s two major parties suffered nation-wide swings against them. In the 160 seat Dáil, Varadkar’s Fine Gael are left with just 35 seats, Micheál Martin’s Fianna Fáil with 38.
Sinn Féin surprised everyone during Ireland’s election campaign, rising to the top of the polls and winning its chief a seat in the major debates alongside premier Leo Varadkar and opposition leader Micheál Martin. They even managed to surprise themselves, the party failed to nominate enough candidates at the start of the campaign to match their king tide support at the end of it.
It’s fair to say Sinn Féin haven’t had an easy few years. After the death of Martin McGuinness and the departure of Gerry Adams (its two leaders for decades), the radical left-wing party long associated with the IRA and the united Ireland concept have suffered in the polls.
Mary Lou McDonald succeeded Adams in February 2018 and has since endured bad numbers and results. In the 2019 European Elections Sinn Féin lost two seats and in the Republic’s local elections the same year the party lost more than half its councillors nationally.
But after Taoiseach (Ireland’s PM) Leo Varadkar called…
The developing story surrounding Prince Andrew has served as an important reminder that the monarchy is unfit for purpose in our modern society. 20 years after the failed referendum, Australian republicans need to unite around a model that can actually win.
A republic based on Ireland’s is that model.
Australia has its own mutation of the Westminster political system, with a powerful head of government (the Prime Minister) and a ceremonial head of state (the Queen). We’re pretty happy with that arrangement and have no desire for a powerful head of state, like in America or France.
However, many Australians…
Barnaby Joyce’s days as Deputy PM seem numbered and talk within the National Party has turned to who might replace him as leader.
Sources within the bush-tories have confirmed that Joyce’s successor will be an MP you’ve never heard of with a name straight out of a Banjo Paterson poem.
“Mate, name recognition? That’s big party stuff,” said a Nats staffer. “Without a doubt the next bloke or girl in the top job will be the MP for Woop Woop, who’s been the Parliamentary Secretary for Murray-Darling Basin Water Theft and has quietly been in Parliament since 1982.”
Every day…
T.J. Weber
Pre-service teacher. Politics, history, drama student. Essendon supporter, huge train nerd, lover of a good burger.
