The prime minister has to shrug off culture wars and Green taunts to focus relentlessly on an improving economy.

Brexit, MAGA trade policies, and the Coalition’s nuclear power push will fail because they make no economic sense.

The new code offers the best of both a mandatory and voluntary system of compliance for the supermarket giants.

Talk of a need to increase the cash rate is misguided – especially so when the main culprits behind the 3.6 per cent inflation rate are identified.

Australia prospered in an open postwar world economy. But a new generation has less faith in it.

The climate movement needs to ask itself what is worse: gas in the new energy mix, or coal that lingers for longer.

The Reserve Bank should not be firing up its interest rate models on the strength of inflation that is now steadily dropping into target range.

The interim report seeks to prevent big supermarkets from abusing their market power while rejecting populist policies such as forced divestiture of stores.

The opposition is more interested in keeping the Nationals in the tent than carbon emissions at bay.

While the Liberals look down rabbit holes like crime and refugees, Labor plans to claim vindication on economic policy.

The central bank is at great risk of overshooting its policy settings into higher unemployment and it is workers and small business who will cop it.

Except for Malcolm Turnbull, Liberal leaders have always scuppered tax overhauls that did not suit the direct interests of them and their outriders. 

In all the questions and comments following the announcement of my review of the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct between the major supermarkets and their suppliers, one was barely mentioned: If the review succeeds in getting a better deal for suppliers, won’t that necessarily force up prices for shoppers? The answer is no.

Political pundits are predicting a poor year for the Albanese government, but circumstances, serendipity and strategy suggest a different story. Who will be right?

A rational decarbonising energy policy offers a middle path between the absolutists and the denialists.

Neoliberalist theory and practice went so horribly wrong because governments that put their faith in markets forgot one word – competition.

As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese prepares to travel to San Francisco for the annual APEC leaders’ meeting, Australia can take a leading role in shaping the agenda for APEC 2024. An APEC agreement to digitise and streamline customs and quarantine clearance procedures can be the modern-day equivalent of the successful tariff reductions of the last three decades.

In a troubled world, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is using two overseas visits to strengthen Australia’s ties with rival superpowers, the US and China. While geostrategic differences will remain, a philosophy is available to bring all nations together – the philosophy of free trade.

Tuesday’s minutes of the Reserve Bank board’s October meeting provide a candid account of the deliberations led by its new governor, Michele Bullock, that resulted in a further pause in the cash rate. But they also highlight the risk that the board will lose its nerve and needlessly hike interest rates even further.

Soon the Australian people will have decided the referendum on the Voice. Media coverage thereafter will be dominated by what the result means for the nation. But most Australians will want the government to switch to dealing with the cost of living, the housing divide, and the energy transition.