David Solomon
David Solomon is a former legal and political correspondent. He has degrees in Arts and Law and a Doctorate of Letters. He was Queensland Integrity Commissioner 2009-2014.
David's recent articles
15 April 2025
The effect the Greens will have as a ginger party
The Greens no longer aspire to be a party of government. They have become what is best described as a ginger party, a political party that tries to influence the direction and policies of the Labor Party.
8 April 2025
Strong can be wrong
Are voters really influenced by their view of which of the party leaders is the stronger? Peter Dutton obviously thinks so; for a year and more he has been attacking Anthony Albanese in almost every speech and utterance as being weak and trying to persuade voters that he himself was strong.
7 April 2025
Small policy, big impact
It's too early to predict the outcome of the election – notwithstanding the swing back to Labor reported by recent published polls. Anything could happen to change voting intentions in the last weeks of the campaign.
15 March 2025
Labor's strong federal prospects in WA
The results of the Western Australian election on Saturday give credence to the latest opinion polling showing a trend back towards Labor in the past few weeks. Until mid-February the polls were suggesting the Coalition would have sufficient support to form (at least) a minority government.
10 March 2025
This undemocratic law should be overturned
An unholy conspiracy between the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Coalition to preserve Australia’s century-old two-party system seems certain to fail. It is most unlikely to survive multiple challenges in the High Court. But in the unlikely event that if it does gain constitutional approval, it will be overturned by voters.
8 February 2025
At this point, a minority government looks likely
With the election still somewhere between eight and 14 weeks away, it is too early to get much of a guide from the opinion polls about the probable outcome – except that a majority Liberal-National Party Government, the result most favoured by those who have already punted their money on the result with the various betting agencies, is the least likely.
19 December 2024
A nuclear fantasy?
There is an air of unreality, and a substantial quantity of pie in the sky, about the nuclear power policy unveiled on Friday the 13th of December by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. And as for costs and practicability, voters are faced with the Liberals’ reliance on economic modelling by a Canberra consultant versus scientific modelling by the CSIRO.
13 December 2024
A casualty of expectations
Everyone, it seems, is getting stuck into Anthony Albanese. Its not as though he has done much that is wrong. He hasn’t gone back on his promises, except, perhaps, in not delivering improved environmental legislation, and of course he failed to deliver on the Voice, though he tried.
5 December 2024
Who wants a hung parliament?
Come the election (whenever) the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition will unite in warning voters against the perils of a hung parliament. Only Labor or the Coalition can form government, we will be told. We should choose one or the other.
2 May 2023
Divide over Labor's (lack of) ambition
There is a growing divide between voters, who according to the polls are increasingly favourable to the Albanese Labor Government, and media commentators, who are increasingly expressing disillusionment with that government. Next weeks budget may bring their sentiments closer together, though probably not.
11 April 2023
Menzies, Dutton and the Liberal party
There is a huge difference between the problem Robert Menzies faced in creating the Liberal Party from the ruins of the United Australia Party during the second World War, and that facing Peter Dutton as he tries to unify the Liberal Party after its succession of defeats at federal and state levels in the past year or so.
8 March 2023
Lying to the public, penalty free
Whats worse? Misleading the House (of Parliament)? Or lying to Australian voters? The former can get you sacked if you are a Minister and has on quite a few occasions. The latter, even if you are caught out, will likely go unpunished could even help you keep your job.
14 February 2023
Minister compromised by donations
I have no sympathy for Michelle Rowland in her persecution over accepting almost $20,000 in donations from betting and gambling behemoth, Sportsbet, before the last election. Sportsbet was then, and is now, a leader in the industry she, as the prospective federal minister, would be responsible for regulating.
29 January 2023
Australia's racist Constitution and the Voice
Australia has a racist constitution. It gives the Federal Parliament power to make laws for The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws. Deemed necessary, that is, by the Parliament itself.
23 December 2022
Labor surges after 'falling across the line'
A recap on this years federal election result, prompted by a poll in the Financial Review this Monday and a comment by its political editor that the Albanese government was starting to consolidate power in its own right after falling across the line at the May 21 election'.
8 December 2022
Generational challenge for Liberals facing overwhelming youth vote deficit
Perhaps the single biggest question confronting Australian politics is how the Liberal-National coalition addresses an overwhelming deficit of support among younger generations.
7 October 2022
The Government is undermining its own National Anti-Corruption Commission bill
Is the Government undermining its own National Anti-Corruption Commission in an attempt to prevent it being nobbled by a future LNP Government? And is it able to future-proof it?
14 September 2022
The Defence Strategic Review: Can we rely on the US?
Strategy: a plan designed to achieve a particular long-term aim. The strategic defence review is presumably intended to produce a plan that will guide decisions by the new Labor government on the acquisition of weapons and the use of other resources (such as people) to protect Australia against future threats to its people, its territory and its interests.
9 September 2022
Judging the National Anti-Corruption Commission
Next week the Government will unveil its long-anticipated National Anti-Corruption Commission (thats now the official title) legislation. Experts and critics will be on hand to offer critiques based on comparisons with similar existing bodies in the States, with the Federal ICAC Bill tabled in the last Parliament by independent MP Helen Haines and with the promised but never delivered legislation of the Morrison government.
23 August 2022
Moves began in 2018 for Morrison's secret government
Scott Morrison and/or his officials prepared the way for the Prime Minister or a Minister to secretly administer a government department in August 2018, just four days after Morrison took power after disposing of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
17 August 2022
Governor-General should have queried Morrison
Scott Morrisons enabling accomplice in his ministerial power grab, the Governor-General David Hurley, has some explaining to do if he is to resist suggestions that he should resign. Indeed, the political storm the ongoing revelations about Morrisons extraordinary actions may be so embarrassing for the Governor-General that his early departure from the role cannot be avoided.
9 August 2022
Albanese scores a parliamentary goal
For many years, federal governments have done their best to reduce to the absolute minimum the number of days on which they have scheduled sittings of the Parliament.
3 August 2022
Time to listen to the Voice (and act) is now!
Let us be quite clear about the Constitution and the Voice. The Commonwealth Parliament already has the power to legislate to bring the Voice into effect, one of the wishes/demands of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
27 July 2022
Will Speaker Milton Dick really control MPs' conduct?
Ministers will set the tone and it is unlikely that the new Speaker, Labors Milton Dick, will do much to impose himself on them.
19 July 2022
Breakthrough(s) in lobbying regulation..at last!
It has taken far too long but finally two state governments are taking very seriously the threat to the public interest posed by the inherent risks of corruption and undue influence associated with lobbying.
10 July 2022
Integrity reform is difficult but essential
For governments, few things are harder than implementing or improving almost any arm of a fully functioning and effective integrity regime. Every such development including effective freedom of information, an independent auditor-general, Ombudsman, whistleblower protection, an impartial professional and effective public service, an independent anti-corruption commission - appears to government to involve a surrender of part of its power rather than an acknowledgement that it needs to be open and accountable to the people it represents and from whom its power derives.
30 June 2022
How much paid help for independent MPs?
Theres a lot wrong with the system that provides MPs and Senators with advisers and other office helpers, not least that it is run by the government and particularly the Prime Minister. That means decisions about staffing for MPs are influenced and largely determined by purely political considerations, and not the actual needs of parliamentarians or the contribution that might be made to improving outcomes for the public.
23 June 2022
Government benefits from Opposition's divisions
The new Albanese Labor Government is facing a host of difficult problems that will thoroughly test its capacity to govern, but politically it is in an enviable position enjoyed by none of its predecessors in the past half a century and more.
15 June 2022
Prince Charles and the battle for the Republic
As a republican, Im not sure whether to rejoice or rage at the latest display of idiocy by the presumptive future King of Australia, Prince Charles. One the one hand (hooray!) he has demonstrated once again his unfitness to succeed Queen Elizabeth, who, understandably, is beginning to show her considerable age and restrict her public engagements. On the other (shame!) the fact that he demonstrates his unfitness on a regular basis has done nothing to increase the prospect of Australia cutting our constitutional links with the British monarchy.
8 June 2022
The problems with mandates - or lacking one
Within days of the election, the Greens were setting out the mandates they claim to have won. In particular, according to their leader, Adam Bandt, his party had a mandate to stop new coal and gas mines. He said it would introduce legislation in the Senate to block any new mines.
27 May 2022
Albanese hastens 'in an orderly way'
After nine years in the wilderness, the new Labor Party government will have a massive to-do list, notwithstanding the relatively modest policy proposals it took to this election its so-called small target strategy. For just a moment, when Anthony Albanese announced that he and four colleagues would be sworn in as the new government just two days after the election, it looked as though it might try to emulate Gough Whitlam after his 1972 election win when he established, with deputy Lance Barnard, a two-man government to instantly implement a huge range of policies that didnt need legislation.
22 May 2022
The continuing collapse of the primary vote of the major parties
Labors primary vote in the election fell by just over half of one percent to its lowest level in recent history, but it still won an extraordinary victory in Saturdays election. It did so mostly because the Liberals (minus the National Party) suffered an even larger fall, its vote dropping by over 4 per cent in its worst ever electoral performance.
19 May 2022
Morrison reverts to pre-bulldozer type
The super-salesmans ploy is working: since his claimed character reformation last Friday when he said he recognised he had been a bit of a bulldozer and that things were going to have to change the debate about some of his worst behavioural faults as Prime Minister has shifted dramatically.
16 May 2022
Morrison: a more empathetic, consultative bulldozer? It is all about marketing
Only a super salesman like Scott Morrison would think of trying to convert a negative attribute - bully into something that has perhaps a small positive connotation bulldozer. But thats at least partly what last Fridays makeover was about.
12 May 2022
Even if the Liberals win, Morrison won't
Since television arrived (and probably a bit before) it has become commonplace to describe Australian federal elections as presidential. All the focus is on the party leader. We talk about the Morrison government, the Albanese opposition. And when people go to the polls they are urged to vote for one or other of the party leaders to become Prime Minister.
6 May 2022
Who is the autocrat?
Autocracy: a system of government by one person with absolute power.
1 May 2022
Polls don't suggest a hung Parliament
Three weeks out from the federal election is too long to be confident of predicting the outcome, though the polls suggest Labor has every reason to be more optimistic at this stage than the Liberal-National coalition government. But for weeks now we have had both sides - perhaps all sides including the minor parties - warning that we could be in for a hung parliament.
27 April 2022
Government loses foreign policy edge
The last time a foreign policy/defence issue went really bad for a Liberal Party Government was just over half a century ago but it also concerned China. Needless to say, the Labor Party was accused of being soft on China. A recurring theme: from the early 1960s the Menzies Governments election campaigning always included (and sometimes relied heavily upon) fear of the threat of communism generally and specifically of the threats posed by the Soviet Union as well as Communist China.
20 April 2022
Early voter? Think again
More than 6 million people voted early at the last federal elections, in 2019. If you were one of them and were planning to do so again this year, you may have to think again. The Federal Government (with the concurrence of the Opposition) has decided to greatly restrict access to this particular highly convenient mode of voting.
18 April 2022
Why Morrison is dodging an Integrity Commission?
There is a very simple reason why Prime Minister Scott Morrison broke his pre-2019 election promise to introduce into parliament legislation to establish a Commonwealth integrity commission.
11 April 2022
What price democracy?
For the second successive election, billionaire Clive Palmer is using his wealth to try to determine or at least significantly influence who will govern the country for the next three years.
5 April 2022
The advertising propaganda rort
The Morrison Government has ramped up its multi-million dollar spending on its most egregious rort of all, propaganda. Paid for from the public purse, to try to influence (in its favour) the way the public votes.
30 March 2022
Cynicism rampant in this election
Cynicism is the order of the day, far more so than in any pre-election period in the past 50 years. It seems to be the prevailing mood of those who are reporting and recording the issues and events that dominate the federal election that will take place one Saturday in May.
31 July 2021
Labor's plan for an anti-corruption body
The ALP this week released an outline of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) it would introduce if it were to come to power at the next federal election, a body based on the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) that has operated (mostly) successfully in New South Wales for more than three decades.
1 July 2021
National Cabinet is not to blame, unless you ask the State Governments
There has been a subtle but nevertheless significant shift in the operation of the National Cabinet. It reflects the growing evidence that Prime Minister Scott Morrison recognises he is no longer in control of Australias response to the Covid pandemic and that many people are questioning his increasingly inept performance.
24 June 2021
ICAC wants real regulation of lobbying with its unfairness and the inherent risks of corruption.
ICAC tried 11 years ago to persuade the NSW Government to introduce a basic system to regulate lobbyists in the state, but only the bare bones of its proposals (essentially, just 5 out of 17 recommendations) were put into effect. It has now revisited the problem and determined a far more comprehensive scheme that would allow an independent official to monitor not only lobbyists but the ministers and government officials that they try to influence.
16 May 2021
Lobbying: British ex-PM shows the way, Australia pretends there is no problem
Dont you pity David Cameron, the former Conservative Prime Minister of Great Britain, who led the charge (from the Opposition leadership) against the evils of lobbying, but discovered, after he ceased to be PM, that he could profit greatly from his former office by becoming a lobbyist?
4 May 2021
Morrison fails leadership test - again
The Morrison Governments botched and controversial ban on Australians returning from India shows just how error-prone it can be when it makes Covid-19 related decisions without the help of State and Territory leaders.
28 March 2021
Morrison exposes his frailties. He needs empathy training
Andrew Laming who conducted vile harassment and bullying campaigns on social media and elsewhere against several women in his electorate has been ordered to do empathy (or awareness) training.