The one thing ANZ may have done by choosing not to simply emulate NAB is to reduce the chances of another 25 basis point rise in official rates next month, writes Stephen Bartholomeusz.
Federal election campaign
What’s missing from the COAG agenda?
Vertical fiscal balance isn’t the catchiest phrase, but this is what COAG should be all about, writes Christian Kerr.
Crikey Says: Crikey Says
The Jackie Kelly pamphlet affair gives context to the behaviour of another John Howard favourite, Senator Bill Heffernan, making it all the more relevant in the last moments of this federal election campaign.
The Tracker Timeline: Crikey’s Campaign Corkers and C-ck-Ups
Well, well, well, doesn’t time fly? Here we are, only one sleep away from what Mark Vaile says is the most important moment in the whole history of the Australian nation … and that includes WWII and everything! Where, oh where, have the last six weeks gone? If for any reason you have had trouble sorting the beautiful and the bizarre from the banal over the last 40 days (and hasn’t there been a bit of that?), then Crikey’s Election Tracker Timeline might be able to help.
Exclusive Brethren step out from the shadows. Again
Are the Exclusive Brethren trying once again to help the Howard Government? Suggestions have emerged that the shadowy religious sect is once again seeking to influence the federal election campaign, writes Margaret Simons.
The Crikey reality check
There is one thing you can be sure about if you bothered to read all or most of those thousands upon thousands of words in your newspaper this morning about the formal beginning of the federal election campaign. You were one of a very small minority of Australians.
Commercial networks gifted $20m of extra campaign ads
Our substantially foreign-owned free to air commercial TV industry has been given a multi million dollar bonus: permission to broadcast an extra minute of political advertising per hour in primetime during the forthcoming federal election campaign.
