With four elections in twelve months it’s likely that allegations about electoral fraud will surge in 2010. In Inside Story Brian Costar looks at two court cases that exposed a striking lack of evidence behind the claims UNLIKE THEIR counterparts in the United States, Australian courts play only an occasional and limited role in federal...

Lawrence Springborg has a glimpse of the summit, but the polls suggest he won't get there this time, writes Brian Costar.

JUST OVER a century ago Australia’s two non-Labor political parties - Alfred Deakin’s Liberals and George Reid’s Anti-Socialists - merged to form the Fusion Party. The new party was dominated by economic conservatives and suffered a heavy electoral defeat at the hands of the young Labor Party the following year. Nearly one hundred years later...

THEIR LORDSHIPS and Honourable Members were pleased last week to host the Queen at the Palace of Westminster, where she dutifully delivered the Speech from the Throne to open the new session of parliament. Many of them were decidedly less pleased a week earlier to learn that members of the Metropolitan Police had also paid...

The merger of Queensland’s Liberals and Nationals could end in tears, writes Brian Costar.