Paul Howes understands, better than almost anyone in Australian politics, the power of being a media tart. The 30-year old's self-confident, self-aggrandising style has won him plenty of enemies while putting him exactly where he wants to be: at the centre of our national conversation.

Joe Hockey looks set to have the toughest job in Australian politics come September next year. That's when, if current polls bear out over the next 18 months, he'll become Treasurer.

The ALP suits crammed into the function room of Lygon Street’s legendary La Notte restaurant last Thursday to celebrate the first meeting of the Victorian party’s new think tank ‘Progressive Network’ were restless.

The Labor Right's attack on the Greens misses the point that disgruntled ex-Labor voters are only a part of the Greens' electoral support. Labor can look to the Democrats for that.

Christopher Pyne is the Liberals' leading powerbroker now the Right's leader Nick Minchin has retired from parliament. But Pyne had already taken control of the South Australian party before Old Nick called it a day.

No person has snatched, wielded and lost more power in the past eighteen months than Julian Assange. We spoke to one of the world's most wanted men about why he does it.

Ben Hubbard was Labor's beacon of hope when he took over as Julia Gillard's chief of staff last February. Here was the man, thought the true believers, who could end the policy stuff-ups, sharpen the government's message, and bring order to an out-of-control office.

Since 2007, union leaders have been holding out for a hero – someone capable of returning the ACTU to the centre of Australian politics. Now, finally, they think they've found him.

Last year we set out to discover Who Really Runs Australia. And now we're ready to answer the question. But don't expect it to be simple.

Sir Roderick Ian Eddington sits very high indeed in Melbourne's tower of power at 101 Collins Street. His ideas, hatched in another role under the previous Labor government but only now coming to fruition are, quite literally, changing the face of the southern metropolis.