Australia politics live: Labor and Coalition finalise deals on gambling reform and closing ‘widow tax’ negative gearing loophole
Julia Gillard is the most put-upon prime minister in question time in recent times, according to a new academic study reported by Australian Associated Press.
More than 21,000 question time questions from the opposition were tracked from 1981 to 2025, taking in the tenures of 10 prime ministers.
The study found prime ministers were asked just 26% of questions back in the early 1980s, but have fielded roughly half of all opposition queries in the past decade.
“It’s part of an overall pattern over time of politics becoming more personalised or centralised around party leaders,” the study’s lead author, Australian Catholic University political scientist Daniel Casey, told AAP.
“Question time is increasingly becoming a heavyweight title fight ... while ministers are being let off the hook.”
Top of the pops - receiving 62% of all questions from the then Tony-Abbott-led opposition - was Julia Gillard.
Casey said a wealth of research showed female leaders were subjected to higher levels of attack than their male counterparts.
“It was the period with the lowest (level of the) leader of the opposition asking questions, and instead they used their deputy leader, Julie Bishop ... the opposition really went out of their way to get their women to ask questions.”
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has claimed Labor’s proposal to let Australians opt out of all gambling ads online doesn’t account for how the internet works.
The government has promised a “one-stop shop” to opt out of the ads online, in its latest gambling reform bill introduced on Monday. It has not explained how an opt-out register could work and government sources have conceded it would be a complex measure.
Hanson-Young told the ABC’s 7.30 on Monday the Greens would not support the “smokescreen” bill. She said the government had told her it wouldn’t pursue a stronger alternative measure, a system requiring Australians to opt in to seeing gambling ads, because such a system would effectively ban the ads.
On the opt-out proposal, she said:
The idea that you can opt out of all corners of the internet - I mean, it just beggars belief that any serious policy brain has put this forward. I don’t know whose idea it was. Maybe it was Angus Taylor’s, maybe it was the prime minister’s, but it’s certainly come from someone who doesn’t know how the internet actually works.
Labor hopes to pass the bill with Coalition support this week. Hanson-Young said there were “good people in the Liberal Party who want this law to go further”, adding:
But they are being ignored .. I think what’s happened is that Angus Taylor is not up to the job. He is a weak leader. And I think he’s been spooked by Pauline Hanson and One Nation.
Good morning and welcome to our live politics blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Krishani Dhanji with the main action.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has claimed Labor’s proposal to let Australians opt-out of all gambling ads online doesn’t account for how the internet works. More details in a moment.
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