Australia’s political leaders have used plenty of colourful language to describe their opponents. Here are a few gems from the archives * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The newly elected opposition leader, Angus Taylor, may have a spring in his step on Friday after winning his party room vote – but not all sides of the political spectrum have wished him well. The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, took aim at Taylor during question time this week, describing him as “born with a silver foot in his mouth” and “failing upwards” throughout his career. The former prime minister Malcom Turnbull was even more frank, telling ABC TV that people described him as the “best-qualified idiot they’ve ever met”. Continue reading...

Liberal leader says his party must ‘change or die’ but is yet to make clear how he differs from his predecessor * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Angus Taylor will announce new Coalition policies on migration and cost-of-living within months, declaring he wants to stop “bad immigration” and shut out those seeking to “import the hatred and violence of another place to Australia”, but has declined to say how the Liberals would make that assessment. The new Liberal leader, and his deputy, Jane Hume, have also candidly admitted they personally made big mistakes during the last election, including unpopular decisions such as opposing Labor’s income tax cuts and seeking to restrict work-from-home arrangements for public servants, which were seen as key reasons for the Coalition’s crushing defeat. Continue reading...

* Updates from the R. Premadasa Cricket Stadium in Colombo * Start time is 11am local/4.30pm AEDT/5.30am GMT * Any thoughts? Email Martin Hello and welcome to live coverage of the T20 World Cup group B match between Australia and Zimbabwe in Colombo. Both sides made winning starts to their campaign with the undermanned Australia brushing aside Ireland by 67 runs, and Zimbabwe making even lighter work of Oman in an eight-wicket victory. But there is little margin for error from here with only the top two in each five-team group to progress to the Super Eight stage, and co-host Sri Lanka also likely to challenge for those pivotal places. Australia captain Mitch Marsh is unlikely to be fit to face Zimbabwe after copping a painful blow to the, ahem, midriff in training ahead of the team’s T20 World Cup opener. Tim David is also expected to miss today’s game at R. Premadasa Cricket Stadium as a thin squad continues to teeter on the brink of an injury crisis. The absence of the heavy-hitting duo might help open the door for Zimbabwe to pull off what would be a huge upset though it remains to be seen whether Steve Smith is parachuted into the Australia XI after getting a late call-up to join the squad. Continue reading...

A sign for the northern beaches Hop, Skip and Jump bus says ‘clothing must be worn over swimwear’ * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Sydney’s Northern Beaches council has banned bikini-clad and shirtless passengers from riding its free community bus service after receiving feedback from passengers. The Hop, Skip and Jump is a daily 30-seat shuttle bus that services the coastal suburbs of Manly, Fairlight and Balgowlah and is frequented by beachgoers. Continue reading...

Jon Kudelka loved his beautiful family and was fiercely intolerant of greed and hypocrisy * Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published * Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints Continue reading...

Policies are an expression and extension of a candidate or party’s values. Does the ‘big tent’ party still have any? One of the great Liberal party pass times is to simultaneously look for both scapegoats and Messiahs. Sussan Ley is today’s scapegoat, and Angus Taylor is its new Messiah. Continue reading...

In the final, the NSW south coast moguls skier laid down a run that edged out the sport’s most accomplished and decorated athlete From the turquoise waters of a sleepy NSW beach town to the summit of his sport atop an alpine mountain in Italy, it has been by Cooper Woods’s own admission “an absolute journey”. Australia celebrated its latest Olympic champion on Friday after the freestyle skier stunned the rest of the field in the final, including greats Mikael Kingsbury and Ikuma Horishima, to become his country’s seventh Winter Olympics gold winner – and first medallist of these Milano Cortina games. Continue reading...

* Attire that ‘may cause offence or incite tension’ will not be allowed * Civil liberties group says APL should be ‘ashamed’ of decision The A-League has been accused of undermining social cohesion after banning fans from wearing jerseys of nations “currently involved in major conflicts” ahead of this week’s multicultural round. On Thursday evening, Western Sydney Wanderers posted a tile to social media announcing “acceptable” and “prohibited” attire for Friday’s multicultural round men’s-women’s double header at Commbank Stadium in Parramatta. Continue reading...

Drama theatre, Sydney Opera House The 1985 play’s first run took place off-Broadway in the middle of the Aids crisis. Much has changed – but Dean Bryant’s production speaks to a new era of protest and unrest The urgency and immediacy that fuels the Normal Heart, Larry Kramer’s full-throated, devastating and galvanising play about the first four years of the Aids crisis, is rare in conventional theatre. The form, especially in establishment spaces, can often take too long to hold its fabled mirror up to society and show us who we are. The Normal Heart is all mirror, and it demands you meet its gaze. When the play made its debut off-Broadway in 1985, the crisis was in full effect. The play’s first set was literally ripped from the headlines: the walls were covered with news stories, quotes and names of people who had died. As the show ran, numbers of the latest total number of cases – prominently displayed – were crossed out and the new number written beneath it. A stage as a living document. Continue reading...

Reviewer Nikki Gemmell gives an enthusiastic five stars, meanwhile job cuts at the Oz are starting to show. Plus: Asio’s email fail * Want to get this in your inbox every Friday? Sign up for the Weekly Beast media newsletter here Readers of The Australian seemed as surprised as we were to read Nikki Gemmell’s review of the new Wuthering Heights movie starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. “My first five-star review: I inhaled Wuthering Heights with my groin,” screamed the headline. Continue reading...

Food, agricultural and health ministers have voted to mandate the health system after years of urging from peak health bodies * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The Health Star Rating system will be mandatory on all packaged foods in Australia after ministers agreed the voluntary system was not working. The government-led front-of-pack nutrition label was introduced in 2014 as a simple way to compare the overall nutritional quality of products on the shelf, as recommended by the World Health Organization. Continue reading...

Ley said she would step away ‘completely and comprehensively from public life’ after losing Liberal leadership ballot to Angus Taylor * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Sussan Ley will soon quit politics, saying she plans on “stepping away completely and comprehensively from public life” after being defeated in a partyroom spill for the Liberal leadership, setting up a by-election for her seat of Farrer which could see the opposition’s parliamentary numbers dwindle further. Ley, the former opposition leader who lost the vote 34-17 to conservative challenger Angus Taylor, said her tenure had been “very tough” but she bore no ill will to colleagues who voted against her, and wished her successor good luck. Continue reading...

Australia stands at a crossroads as it rolled out the red carpet for some, while greeting others with batons Isaac Herzog’s visit to Australia was not a routine diplomatic engagement. It was an ethical and political test of the Australian state. At the very moment a red carpet was rolled out for a man accused of inciting genocide, peaceful Australian citizens were met with batons while exercising their democratic right to protest. For me, this was never an abstract political debate. Before the visit, I pursued the legal channels that are meant to protect citizens and lodged a formal complaint with the Australian government about the role Herzog played in rhetoric and policies that contributed to the destruction of my family in Gaza. Seven of my relatives were killed. My father died because of a lack of medicine, food and water. My brother, his wife, their four children and her father were also killed. Their bodies remain buried beneath the rubble. Despite the seriousness of this complaint, I have received no response from the government. Continue reading...

Ley presented as a moderate who would drag the party back to the centre, but was driven increasingly to the right. The poll numbers delivered a scathing verdict * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast In her first public comments as Liberal leader, Sussan Ley spoke of reviving and re-orientating a party that was reeling from a second catastrophic election defeat. “We have to have a Liberal party that respects modern Australia, that reflects modern Australia, and that represents modern Australia,” Ley told reporters on 13 May 2025, shortly after defeating Angus Taylor to become the first female leader in the party’s 81-year history. Continue reading...

Former shadow defence minister wins partyroom vote, ending Ley tumultuous nine-month reign as the first female leader of the Liberals Angus Taylor has been elected the Liberal party’s new leader, ousting Sussan Ley in a partyroom ballot, 34 votes to 17. Taylor won a strong victory after the spill motion to change the leader passed 33 votes to 17, with one informal vote. Continue reading...

* Outsider stuns greats Mikael Kingsbury and Akuma Horishima * Olympic canoe champion Jess Fox presents medal Australia won its first medal of the Winter Olympics in some style with Cooper Woods taking gold in the men’s moguls with a superb run at Livigno. The gold was presented by one of the country’s most decorated Olympians to one of the most unlikely, with Jessica Fox awarding mogul winner Woods with his prize. Continue reading...

It can feel overwhelming, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. But ask yourself what sacrifices make the biggest proportionate impact * Read more Leading questions I’m finding it difficult living up to my morals – where is the line between compromising a little, versus becoming complicit in what I don’t agree with? I’m one of those people who believes we can each take a role in solving big problems, and that we should try to make things better where we can. For this reason, I’ve ended up working in public service and try to reduce how much meat I eat. I’m vegetarian 60% of the time, which is not perfect, but I believe doing something is better than doing nothing. Continue reading...

For many sewers, choosing paper patterns from one of Simplicity McCall’s ‘big four’ brands was an in-store ritual. But others say digital patterns are the way of the future Decades ago, in the hallowed days before the internet, sewers would walk into a haberdashery store, pick a paper pattern labelled Vogue, Simplicity or McCall’s, figure out how much material they needed and head over to the fabric department to choose something they liked. It was a careful in-store ritual for sewers contemplating their next project, and especially for those who were beginning their sewing journey. “That was my process when I started sewing, which was a while ago now,” says Michelle Sanger, a Melbourne-based sewer. “It used to be a big investment and you would choose carefully based on what you could afford.” Continue reading...

Searchers hope that finding Celine Cremer’s bones, teeth and car key in Tasmania’s north-west will help them solve what happened to her The Belgian tourist Celine Cremer disappeared in an ancient rainforest during a brutal Tasmanian winter, while it is likely her remains were unearthed during this mild summer. The 31-year-old backpacker had packed lightly to walk a relatively easy trail through the wilderness of the Tarkine in June 2023. Days later, her family reported her missing. Continue reading...

One hundred survivors and their descendants gathered in Canberra this week to mark the 18th anniversary of the apology Warning: This article contains descriptions of historical events that will be distressing to some readers * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Valerie Wenberg vividly remembers the first time she saw her mother’s face. It was in a photograph tucked away in a box of black and white pictures under her older brother’s bed. “I said to my brother, ‘who is that?’,” she recalls. “He said: ‘Don’t you know? That’s our mother’.” Continue reading...

I’ve seen a lot of sport and nothing compares to Western Australia snatching victory from the Big V in 1986 in one of the greatest interstate football matches When a late snap from Gary Buckenara put Western Australia ahead of Victoria in the 1986 State of Origin game, I feared the stands at Subiaco Oval were about to collapse under the weight of the thunderous thumping of rapturous fans. Almost 40,000 supporters squeezed into the ageing Soviet-style concrete stadium on a Tuesday afternoon in July to watch the Sandgropers take on the Big V in what is widely regarded as one of the greatest interstate football matches. Continue reading...

Climate carnage is a metaphor for the pain of loss, as an encroaching bushfire traps three mourning teenagers under the golden arches * Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email After the death or loss of someone we love, grief suspends us in the non-real, the in-between. The poet Emily Dickinson describes a “formal feeling” in the aftermath of great pain; a numbed anguish where “The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs” and “The Feet, mechanical, go round”. We become “Freezing persons”. In Soft Serve, playwright George Kemp’s coming-of-age debut novel, people in a small regional Australian town are trying to thaw. It’s been two years since the accidental death of Taz, an ambitious teen who’d just begun to seek a life beyond the town’s “gravitational force”. His mourning mother, Pat, has left her job as a school career counsellor to flip burgers at the local McDonald’s, finding an anchor in the repetition. It’s here that Taz’s friends, Ethan, Fern and her brother Jacob, have gathered for their annual tradition: toasting three soft serves to his memory. Soft Serve by George Kemp is out through UQP ($29.99) Continue reading...

Much of the wellness economy thrives because it offers the illusion that if we just reframe, breathe, manifest and hydrate we can out-think the chaos It was 8:37am and I was scrolling Instagram with one eye squinting, the other sealed shut in protest. The morning light was harsh; the algorithm harsher. Somewhere between a video of a dog doing taxes and a girl making her matcha, I stumbled upon Mel Robbins, motivational speaker and Ted Talk legend, telling me to high-five myself. The video had pandemic energy. That quiet, echoey desperation of someone who’s spent too long indoors talking to objects. Mel explained that in her darkest days she looked at herself in the mirror and gave herself a high-five. Continue reading...

A handful of votes may decide the next Liberal leader, with Sussan Ley to stare down her challenger, Angus Taylor, on Friday morning The Liberal party is on the brink of dumping its first female leader, with Angus Taylor’s backers confident of defeating Sussan Ley in Friday’s leadership vote. The embattled opposition leader faced a tide of 10 resignations by 7pm on Thursday, with fronthbenchers including Dan Tehan, Michaelia Cash, Jonathan Duniam, James McGrath and Dean Smith all abandoning Ley to vote for Taylor. Continue reading...

Taylor’s clumsy challenge looks likely to succeed on Friday although the aspiring opposition leader hasn’t outlined any real alternative course The butt of every Labor joke all week, Angus Taylor looked happier and more engaged in question time than he has all term. As the gags about his political greatest hits rained down – “well done Angus”, the forged Clover Moore documents, his ineffectual tilt as shadow treasurer – Taylor was smily and chatty. He spent question time looking down from his new perch on the backbench, a few rows back from Sussan Ley’s spot at the dispatch box, no doubt looking forward to taking her chair before long. Continue reading...