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Alexandra Smith

Alexandra Smith

WA Today

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In public life, some private failings can be overlooked. But this MP should resign

More than a decade before the grubby antics of the Seven Network were revealed in spectacular fashion through its role in securing the infamous Bruce...

previous day 9

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Corrupt? No. Acceptable behaviour for an MP? Also no

One-time NSW skills minister Tim Crakanthorp was found to have breached the public trust. His only punishment is a seat on the backbench. The...

11.04.2024 6

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Public schools have an image problem, even without funding cuts

Public schools in NSW have an image problem. As a parent of children who attend public schools, I know this all too well. I am often looked at with...

10.04.2024 4

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Minns’ law to lock up kids incites Labor and even makes Libs blush

Rewind almost 30 years, and a politically naive NSW Labor leader wanted to ban teens from wearing their baseball caps backwards. Clearly, Bob Carr...

03.04.2024 10

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Top cop’s unforced errors put Minns government into damage control

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb desperately needed a reset after a series of unforced errors that have plagued her leadership. Instead, she has...

19.03.2024 8

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

You can’t to do a U-turn on a toll road, but Minns might have to

With a dollar symbol cheekily superimposed onto a photograph of the city’s most iconic tollroad, NSW Labor launched a petition – some may say...

13.03.2024 6

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

The ‘non-negotiable’ Sydney tolling laws Minns won’t back down on

The Minns government will not scrap refunds for motorists who use the M5 motorway in Sydney’s south-west or its new $60-weekly toll cap, despite a...

11.03.2024 9

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Why Minns building ‘up not out’ might not send him down and out

NSW Labor leader Chris Minns waited until he was firmly ensconced in the government wing of Macquarie Street before he dared to really talk...

06.03.2024 5

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Should we catch this falling Star? Or is it time for troubled casino to fold?

Before the spectacular fall from grace of Sydney’s Star casino, when its nemesis Crown Resorts was the bad egg in the world of NSW gambling, the...

21.02.2024 10

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Anyone who reckons you can’t raise kids in a flat has never done it

Like everyone, my family of five became pretty accustomed to our home during those never-ending days of COVID lockdown. We home-schooled two kids...

14.02.2024 9

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

If you’re going to sledge Kolkata, at least do your homework

If a politician is going to make brash claims, it’s best they get their facts straight, especially when taking aim at the home of a cricket legend...

07.02.2024 30

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

You can’t joke about sexual fetishes at work – except in state parliament

Show me a workplace in 2024 where men can invent sexual fetishes about a female colleague and joke about it. Let’s hope you can’t. Sadly, I can....

31.01.2024 10

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Why Minns might wear green and gold thongs, but Albanese won’t

Stand by for photos of Chris Minns on Friday’s public holiday. Might we assume he’ll be wearing sartorially questionable green and gold thongs, a...

24.01.2024 10

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

The race for Cook likely down to a Liberal local and an outsider

In the aftermath of the Coalition’s drubbing in May 2022, the focus in Scott Morrison’s southern Sydney electorate turned to replacing the man who...

23.01.2024 8

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Paramedics save Minns from a new year catastrophe

In the end, paramedics rescued Chris Minns from a real-time emergency but the NSW government will still end the year bruised and battered. After the...

13.12.2023 5

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

They’re off and racing: Minns’ housing vision grows some hi-vis

Safe and small won him power, but Premier Chris Minns needs to go big and bold if he has any hope of solving the biggest issue facing NSW. From the...

07.12.2023 3

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Opposition disorder could become NSW’s weakest link

The former premier Dominic Perrottet liked to say that bad opposition delivers bad government. That, of course, was when the shoe was on the other...

29.11.2023 6

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Minns’ growing funding war with federal Labor

When federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King stunned the NSW Labor government last week with the revelation that the Commonwealth was walking...

22.11.2023 7

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Why Minns’ house is feeling less like home

The Minns government might just finish the year on a high, but it’s line ball. It might just as well finish with a humiliating exposure of its...

15.11.2023 8

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Why Minns won’t abandon his ministers on thin ice, Haylen and Catley

For the weeks leading up to the budget estimates period in Macquarie Street, anxious staff spent hours putting their equally anxious ministers through...

08.11.2023 7

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Transport Minister Jo Haylen dances around the tough questions

Transport Minister Jo Haylen walked into her first budget estimates hearing with rehearsed answers and she did not stray from them. The more she...

07.11.2023 8

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

To secure his political destiny, Minns faces date with density

NSW Labor leader Chris Minns told the Liberal-heavy Sydney Institute annual dinner on Tuesday that he knows all too well that his time as premier is...

02.11.2023 10

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Hell hath no fury like my cancelled bus. Time for Minns to get on board

There were unseemly scenes at my Randwick bus stop on Wednesday. As a jam-packed 377X sailed by, and the next service was cancelled, tensions ran hot...

25.10.2023 5

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

After Voice defeat, Minns’ path to a treaty looks tricky

When NSW Labor leader Chris Minns promised in January that a government led by him would embark on a year-long consultation with First Nations people...

18.10.2023 6

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Minns’ ministers in the spotlight after Opera House fiasco

For a building that is the most iconic structure in this city, or indeed Australia, the Sydney Opera House has caused its share of political headaches...

11.10.2023 3

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

The premiers who dictated our lives for two years are almost all gone

And then there was one ... of the COVID premiers that is. Just as the nation seems to be moving on post-pandemic, so do the state politicians tasked...

27.09.2023 9

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

Minns passed his budget, but did he fail a drug test?

NSW Labor boasted its first budget had two goals: to repair the state’s finances and deliver on its election promises. All going well, a small...

21.09.2023 7

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

NSW Labor’s budget was exactly on brand. Safe and risk-averse

NSW Labor was elected with a mandate to be safe, and its first budget reflects exactly that. Its first budget since 2010 is on brand for the Minns...

19.09.2023 2

The Sydney Morning Herald

Alexandra Smith

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