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Paul Sakkal

Paul Sakkal

Paul Sakkal is Chief Political Correspondent. He previously covered Victorian politics and won a Walkley award and the 2025 Press Gallery Journalist of the Year. Contact him securely on Signal @paulsakkal.14.

Anthony Albanese is telling the public he understands why they are drawn to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

Labor ramps up Hanson attacks, as Taylor rebukes ally in phone call

The Coalition has also gone on the attack about Pauline Hanson’s admission on the Inside Politics podcast that her party was being “infiltrated by extremists”.

  • Paul Sakkal

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Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese in September.

Shorten’s Trump fears on AUKUS revealed

The former Labor leader raised concerns about the prospect of Donald Trump being elected and compromising the AUKUS deal in a cabinet meeting in 2023.

  • Paul Sakkal and Matthew Knott
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor.

Taylor shoots down One Nation seat-sharing deal as PM dismisses $1.5m fundraising surge

Liberal frontbencher Tony Pasin has urged his party to negotiate with Pauline Hanson so that Liberal and One Nation candidates do not cannibalise each other’s vote.

  • Emily Kaine and Paul Sakkal
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke on Tuesday.

Labor counters Chinese threats to sea cables, as it creates hacking ‘human firewall’

Office workers who fall for hacking attempts are to blame for nearly two-thirds of all successful online attacks, which cost the economy $25 billion per year.

  • Paul Sakkal
A Sydney data centre.

Labor to force data centres to wind down energy use at peak times

As US states block data centre construction, Labor’s AI guru Andrew Charlton says Australia’s approach should be “neither boosterism nor alarmism”.

  • Paul Sakkal
Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese need to finagle the budget bill through the Senate.

Chalmers eyes old CGT for start-ups, as Labor MPs say budget politics being won at auctions

Labor MPs in key inner-city marginal seats say younger voters in the street and at less-competitive auctions are giving the government credit for its tax overhaul.

  • Paul Sakkal
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While de-growther “logic” is unlikely to lead to a wholesale change to modern economies, it does threaten some of the more promising avenues for economic growth and the human flourishing that growth enables. Like data centres.

‘We’ll miss the AI boom’: Nation’s top scientists warn of missed opportunity

As the nation grapples with how to extract economic uplift from AI investment, 640 of Australia’s top researchers have united.

  • Paul Sakkal
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ahead of Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday 2 March 2026. fedpol Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Taylor blames Albanese’s budget for plummeting Coalition vote as One Nation surges

After a fourth poll showed One Nation inching ahead of Labor, Angus Taylor told this masthead that Labor’s budget had “further eroded trust in the political system”.

  • Paul Sakkal
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.

Albanese pledges to keep reducing migration as third poll puts One Nation in lead

After politicians from all sides condemned billboards portraying Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan as a witch, Albanese made an impassioned request for media outlets to stop portraying politicians in a personal manner.

  • Paul Sakkal
Hastie/Hanson

Andrew Hastie slams Hanson’s ‘MAGA first’ mindset as One Nation leader backs Trump

Coalition strategists believe that linking the rising populist leader to the US president is one of the best ways to diminish her standing among voters.

  • Paul Sakkal