Auspol Explained

Arguing that politicians need to get paid is not the hot take you expected, but trust me I have an important point to make. Members of Parliament in Australia used to be paid nothing. 0 dollars (well at the time it was 0 pounds). This was terrible on multiple levels because it limited who could run, who could vote, limited accountability, limited choice of the public, and also encouraged corruption. While some people today complain about how much politicians get paid, the public in the 19th century complained they weren't paid anything. Join me on a quick history lesson about why it's actually a good thing politicians get paid something.

SPORTS! POLITICS! A numbered list that combines the two! Many Australian politicians have been former athletes with Olympic careers going all the way back to the 1908 Paris Olympics (at least). Here are ten that range from those who managed to go once and didn't win anything all the way to some of the most decorated and successful athletes Australia has ever sent to the Summer, Winter, and Paralympic games.

The ACT Government is a combination of Labor and Greens - and has been for over a decade now. Majority governments are rare and so it has become a long standing agreement between the two political parties to share the cabinet positions, with Labor getting most of them and Greens getting a few depending on their numbers. But how does it work? How do the two parties resolve their disagreements? And how does it impact election campaigns in the ACT when the two parties have different goals yet may share the co-governing fate after the election? Well, I asked the longest serving Chief Minister of the ACT, Andrew Barr, to talk about how the Labor-Greens Alliance works and to explain the Parliamentary and Governing Agreement that is created as a result.

Not everyone understands the Constitution, but not all misunderstandings of the Constitution are equal. Over the years I've gotten a lot of very bizarre comments that make outlandishly wrong and even conspiracy theory level claims about what is actually in the Constitution, or what has become of it. Is the Australian Government actually a corporation registered in Washington DC? Are Australians secretly classified as cargo under maritime law? Is Western Australia non-existent? Did Gough Whitlam secretly replace the Constitution with a different colour? Of course not. None of these claims make any sense. So to debunk them I've got Professor Anne Twomey, constitutional expert, to explain how it actually works and to encourage people to do the most basic fact checking exercise of all: actually reading things. Enjoy!

What training do new MPs get? The standing orders of the chambers can be a complex set of rules to follow, and getting your head around the technical details of a bill may seem intimidating to those who've never had to do it - so what kind of job support and training is there for a Member of Parliament so they can do their job? I sat down with Stephen Bates, Member for Brisbane and Greens MP, to ask him what it's like going from being a retail worker to a Member of Parliament and what resources there are for new MPs to learn from.