Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has expressed her support for a parliamentary vote on same-sex marriage, despite her personal opposition to changing the existing law. In an opinion piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald and other Australian newspapers, Gillard emphasized that politicians should have the freedom to vote in parliament based on their own values and beliefs. This stance... 

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard The Australian senate has endorsed a controversial pollution tax as part of policy adjustments aimed at reducing the country’s carbon emissions. On Tuesday, the senate passed the Clean Energy Act, which requires Australia’s coal-fired power stations as well as other major emitters to “pay to pollute” from July 1 next year. The move was... 

Australia has passed its controversial carbon tax law. One of the worst aspects of living in these apocalyptic times is that whenever you look around the world, wondering where you might escape to, you begin to realise that everywhere else is just as bad if not worse. Take Australia, an island built on fossil fuel with an economy dependent on fossil fuel. What would be the maddest economic policy a... 

United Nations human rights watchdog has accused Australia of racism over its treatment of boat people and Aborigines. School students are being targeted in a major new push to force acceptance of multiculturalism by “embedding” it in the national curriculum. Young Australians will be trained in “cultural competency” during classes as part of the Gillard Government’s plan... 

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has hit out at a High Court decision that ruled an asylum deal with Malaysia was unlawful. Ms Gillard called the ruling “deeply disappointing” and said the court had “rewritten the Migration Act”. Under the deal, Australia would have sent 800 asylum-seekers to Malaysia and would have received 4,000 refugees in return over four years. But... 

Australia is almost certain to vote against a Palestinian state next month, despite an apparent push by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd for Canberra to abstain from any such vote. Leaders of the Jewish community reacted angrily yesterday to a report that Mr Rudd had written to Julia Gillard recommending that Australia abstain from the vote at the UN. The diplomatic row came as Victorian Labor leader Daniel... 

A boat is intercepted by the Border Protection Command off Australia's north coast. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has indicated that authorities on Christmas Island will be authorised to use force to make sure asylum seekers get on board aircraft taking them to Malaysia. The first boatload of people to be processed under the asylum seeker swap deal with Malaysia arrived on Christmas Island this... 

China has laughed off Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s concerns about Beijing’s human rights issues, and questioned Australia’s own human rights performance, secret US diplomatic cables obtained by Wikileaks has suggested. Gillard highlighted the annual Australia-China human rights dialogue as the centrepiece of her government’s efforts to enhance respect for human... 

While most pundits – and some senior politicians – stare in wonder at the size of the mining industry’s windfall profits, they are missing a great tragedy happening under their noses. The mining boom has pushed the Australian dollar to historic highs and this, in turn, has pushed manufacturing to the brink. The damage being done by the high dollar to the rest of the economy is actually... 

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key meets Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in Auckland. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has used an historical speech to New Zealand’s parliament to boost trans-Tasman ties with a pledge for more leader talks and greater economic unity. Ms Gillard jetted home to Canberra on Wednesday having made history as the first foreign politician to address the NZ parliament. It... 

A large section of Australian MPs are enraged at the treatment of Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is facing a revolt from several MPs in her left-wing parliamentary faction, who are enraged at the treatment of Julian Assange, founder of the whistleblower website ‘Wikileaks’ that is releasing over 250,000 classified US diplomatic cables. According to... 

TONY Abbott believes it is “far from certain” Australia will become a republic in his lifetime, after Labor signalled a new push on the issue. Julia Gillard today declared she wants Australia to become a republic when the Queen dies, and plans to lead a national debate on the form the republic would take. The Prime Minister said today that despite being a republican, she understood... 

When Julia Gillard was first elected to parliament in l998, she was quick to challenge the idea that immigrants were a problem for Australia. In her maiden speech, the future prime minister – a Welsh migrant herself – challenged the anti-Asian line of Pauline Hanson, the nationalist Right-winger whose views enjoyed widespread support at the time. Ms Gillard told parliament that Ms...