New Politics Quarterly

What happens when a government has the numbers - but the country starts to lose belief in that government?
Australia's old political certainties are falling apart. The conservative Coalition is fracturing and doesn't seem to understand its purpose anymore. Labor's commanding majority has delivered cautious government while demands for reform and doing things differently grow louder by the day. Public institutions face a crisis of confidence, and Australia's dependence on the United States raises increasingly urgent questions about sovereignty.
In New Politics Quarterly: The End of Political Certainty, Eddy Jokovich and David Lewis, co-presenters of the New Politics Australia podcast, connect the events shaping Australian politics to the deeper forces transforming its democracy.
The first volume in a new quarterly series examines April-June 2026 through six searching chapters:

• The great conservative realignment: the Coalition's fragmentation, the rise of One Nation and the struggle over the Australian right's future.
• Power without purpose: Labor's reluctance to turn its electoral dominance into an agenda of substantial reform.
• The managed democracy: the forces narrowing political debate and limiting meaningful accountability.
• The captured ally: AUKUS, the American alliance and the erosion of strategic independence.
• The war at home: how Israel and Palestine have become a defining test of Australia's commitment to protest, free expression and democratic participation.
• Institutions without confidence: the widening distance between public expectations and institutional performance.