ABSTRACT Interruptions are a routine component of parliamentary debate, but also reveal underlying power dynamics and behavioural norms within political institutions. Using digitised Australian Hansard transcripts from 1998 to 2025, we examine interruptions in the House of Representatives debates, focusing on how gender and political party affect being interrupted. We analyze 535,961 statements, including 95,522 interruptions, from 391 unique speakers across 1651 sitting days in nine parliaments. Results from our negative binomial regression model suggest that women MPs may be less likely to be interrupted than men MPs, and that overall interruptions decreased as the number of women MPs increased. MPs from the Liberal Party of Australia, the Nationals, and the Australian Greens may be less likely to be interrupted than the Australian Labor Party. These findings provide evidence that institutional norms can shape representation and that quantitative analysis of parliamentary speech can reveal gendered patterns of discursive inequality.

ABSTRACT Social media has increasingly become crucial for political actors, especially during election campaigns. However, these platforms are not without risks, as they can expose politicians to various forms of harm, including harassment, discrimination, and violence. This study aims to understand the social media harassment of LGBTQIA + candidates during the 2022 Australian federal election campaign. Taking a mixed methods approach, we analysed 76,511 tweets directed at all publicly ‘out’ candidates with an active Twitter account during the campaign period to examine the extent of harassment they received, how much is queerphobic, and the differences in queerphobic harassment for those with intersecting marginalised identities. We found that most candidates experienced semiotic violence attacking their identity, which we refer to as the ‘identity fine’ paid by queer politicians. Furthermore, multiply marginalised identities resulted in the layering of harassment. This study furthers our understanding of the unique barriers to campaigning for LGBTQIA + candidates, which is crucial to improving the representation of these marginalised groups.

ABSTRACT Despite women’s contribution to the viability of Australian family farming, there is gendered inequality in access to cultural recognition and economic rewards. This article examines the extent to which the Australian rural women’s movement challenged the state to respond to this inequality. It focuses on the period 1983–2024 and finds evidence of effective claim-making by the rural women’s movement for cultural recognition as partners in the farm business. It does not find evidence of claims for greater access to economic rewards. Effective claim-making depended upon supporting the broader economic policy of agricultural restructuring and supporting the viability of the family farm. This limited the movement’s ability to make claims for economic rewards as doing so would necessitate a challenge to the gendered power relations of Australian agriculture. This study offers a rural perspective to the broader body of literature on the efficacy of women’s movements in neoliberal states.

ABSTRACT There is a long history internationally of socially conservative politicians using negative policy discourse around LGBTQIA+ issues in attempts to mobilise electoral support and wedge political opponents. This article analyses the use of such discourse in Australia, with a particular focus on the role of Liberal and National Party politicians but also includes those politicians’ support for, and occasional joint sponsoring of, legislation proposed by parties such as One Nation. The article focuses on the period from the Howard government on, covering policy issues such as lesbian access to Assisted Reproductive technology, same-sex relationship recognition, same-sex marriage and transgender rights. The article argues that while such discourse primarily appeals to voters with socially conservative, heteronormative, homophobic and/or transphobic views, it is also a way of signalling broader messages around traditional gender roles in a time when social attitudes are changing.

ABSTRACT This paper uses the concepts of administrative burden and economic dignity to understand the harms imposed on welfare recipients from the application of behavioural insights in the initial correspondence they received in the Robodebt scheme. A core principle of Robodebt was the shifting of the burden of compliance from state to citizen, with correspondence requiring citizens to ‘prove’ their income from years past or face a debt. This was coupled with significant challenges for recipients in being able to talk to the government directly about the notice they received. Based upon this, recipients have recounted feeling like criminals, and were actively described as such in the media and by Ministers. Moves towards ‘self-service’ or automated forms of compliance like in the case of Robodebt are typically justified in terms of cost savings and efficiency. However, without serious consideration of the potential negative impacts on citizens, they risk the production of significant harm.

ABSTRACT The Robodebt Royal Commission highlighted the Australian Public Service’s (APS) role in designing and delivering a programme that caused significant harm to vulnerable people. The APS’s actions went beyond mere compliance, demonstrating the significant influence the public sector can have over both policy design and implementation. This reflects a concerning drift away from the frank and fearless advice that has been an expected convention of the public sector in Westminster systems. A pervasive culture of technical rationality, facilitated by the growth of both managerialism and marketisation in the public sector, has diminished the APS’s capacity to provide challenging advice on value-laden issues and instead encourages a focus on technical reasoning. This has masked politicisation while reducing accountability. To address this, I argue that the APS’s discretion in policymaking should be developed and made more transparent, rather than minimised, allowing for a shift back towards responsible rather than just responsive advice.

ABSTRACT The referendum to establish a Voice to Parliament for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples failed to receive popular support from the Australian public. Questions as to why the referendum was unsuccessful have been put forward following the outcome. As we analyse the defeat, it is useful to look back at the two other referendums in Australia’s history that addressed inclusion and recognition of our First Peoples, 1967 and 1999, and compare factors which lead to their respective outcomes. Drawing on qualitative sources, this paper posits an argument which connects received national values to Australia’s unwillingness to go beyond inclusion and recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have inherent rights to be involved in decisions that affect them. Australian ‘egalitarianism’ presents a barrier to greater Indigenous recognition, and referenda regarding Indigenous rights are impacted by discourses of ‘equality’.

ABSTRACT When former Prime Minister John Howard introduced the new tax system, he declared it would enable ‘more choice for women’. Yet the reform, grounded in the regressive integration of the tax and transfer systems, financially penalised mothers who wished to return to work and reinforced women’s roles as primary carers within the setting of the home and family. In this paper, we use a methodology based on Foucault’s theory of discursive formation to analyse Howard’s speeches prior to enacting A New Tax System to explore how Australian women’s roles were shaped in this reform. We found Howard constructed a values-based discourse that discursively framed women, not as individuals but as indistinguishable from the family, and actively limited women’s choices. More than a quarter of a century later, this reform continues to disadvantage women and act as a disincentive to work, underscoring the importance of historical discourse in shaping contemporary policy.

ABSTRACT This article examines the Albanese Labor Government's adoption of ‘consensus politics’ as a governing strategy, drawing comparisons with the corporatist approaches of previous Australian Labor governments, particularly under Bob Hawke. Since the 2022 election, Albanese's government has aimed to reconcile capital-labour relations by fostering cooperation between business, unions, and government. However, the effectiveness and sustainability of Labor's ‘consensus’ approach remain uncertain, with limited structural reforms and significant business-sector departures casting doubt on its longevity. The article critiques this strategy and characterises the Albanese government's approach as a new variant of labourism, highlighting its constrained ideological impact within a neoliberal framework. A key contribution of the article is theorising the underexplored concept of consensus politics, offering a new a typology through the Australian case. More broadly, this study situates the ALP's agenda within a broader social-democratic tradition, offering insights into how contemporary centre-left parties are navigating capital-labour tensions.

ABSTRACT Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter/X have become central to political communication, yet their role in mobilising specific demographic segments remains underexplored. WeChat, widely used among ethnic Chinese voters, offers a unique lens into targeted mobilisation. This article examines how New Zealand's National and Labour parties used WeChat to engage ethnic Chinese voters. Drawing on a content analysis of 885 WeChat posts from official party accounts (mid-2010s to cessation) and interviews with 12 political practitioners, this study focuses on mobilisation function and the thematic content of the posts. Findings suggest both parties used WeChat primarily for daily outreach and information dissemination, not dialogue. Operational challenges included language barriers and resource demands. The eventual discontinuation of WeChat use reflected internal party dynamics, notably the retirement of experienced ethnic MPs who had sustained engagement. These findings highligts both the potential and limitations of ethnic-language social media in party mobilisation.