In calling for an overhaul of the donations system, former senior Liberal Michael Yabsley has focused on reputational risk. But transparency also breeds trust, and any politician bold enough to embrace it will be on to a sure-fire vote winner

I don’t care if the prime minister and his treasurer are not-so-secret frenemies, I just want them to start restoring economic policy leadership

It’s time now for the Australian public to buy into the media reform debate

Alienation and disaffection is fuelling the Trump and Sanders insurgencies in the US. Australia risks sleepwalking into the same ornery place unless the weaknesses in its political system are fixed

Macfarlane – and Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott and Mal Brough – are so used to the entitlement culture they have forgotten how to behave in the real world

The PM arrives home to all the ingredients for bloodletting on a historic scale amid Tony Abbott’s fresh attack on Julie Bishop and the Mal Brough saga

There’s been joyful exuberance and solemn statesmanship, and squeezed in among meetings with world leaders, some carefully calibrated policy resets

Prime minister’s charm offensive sees him confirm common ground with Barack Obama at Apec while striking right note with Xi Jinping at G20

The Australian PM went to the G20 at ease among the world’s great powers and confident in his trade and economic agenda. Then Paris changed everything

The prime minister revelled in his moment of ascension and a meeting with a leader from whom he has much to learn

Abbott’s adviser was the personification of power. She refused to be anonymous, but her role as a lightning rod allowed the Liberals to ignore deeper issues

For Bill Shorten to get Operation Sovereign Silence up at the party’s national conference, leading from the front is what’s required

Voters think big business owns the Liberal party and the trade unions own the Labor party. The latest expenses scandal highlights the need for revolutionary thinking on donations and disclosure

Environment minister Greg Hunt says the leak to News Corp tabloids is either ‘an attempt to kill the tax, or kill Bill’. He’s not wrong

‘Wild talk by wild men’ on citizenship; Bill Shorten feels the cold of June and July; paying people smugglers; tricks of the trade; a toast to Ricky Muir