The government has quietly removed the ban on MPs and senators using office budgets to pay for TV and radio ads. Let's be clear: this is not the norm.
Outgoing MPs dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars on goodbye mail promoting new candidates in 2016, a Crikey investigation has discovered.
The federal government is slashing politicians' printing allowances, but it might also have a profound effect on student politics, writes Paul Norton. Not such a bad thing really.
When things go wrong, as they have in the UK, public outrage is entirely appropriate. But the sort of knee jerk media hostility toward Australian politicians is ridiculous.