Felicity Neale

2 weeks ago | themandarin.com.au | Felicity Neale |Tom Ravlic

Furniture used in Parliament House in Canberra is generally unfit for modification to serve as a sit-stand combination for parliamentarians and their staff, an uploaded answer to Senate estimates reveals. Senator Richard Colbeck asked the Department of Parliamentary Services whether modifying existing furniture was possible as part of a discussion on expensive furniture that was built from scratch for former DPS deputy secretary Cate Saunders.

Mar 25, 2025 | themandarin.com.au | Felicity Neale

Jim Chalmers’ March budget was aimed at relieving cost of living pressures. Anyone might think an election was due soon. Some of the key measures such as increased Medicare funding and cheaper prescriptions had already been announced — but the budget announced them again. They were accompanied by tax cuts for all Australian taxpayers — one of the few surprises in a budget that had been comprehensively foreshadowed in advance.

Feb 4, 2025 | themandarin.com.au | Felicity Neale |Tom Ravlic

Services related to housing and homelessness cost about $6.9 billion during the 2023-24 period, the Productivity Commission has said. The latest Report on Government Services released last week into the housing and homelessness sector breaks down the expenditure across social housing and homelessness. Total state and territory government recurrent expenditure on social housing was $5.4 billion. It represents an increase of $0.4 billion from the previous financial year.

Feb 2, 2025 | themandarin.com.au | Felicity Neale

Most public servants try their hardest to answer questions at estimates but there are times when departments go a tad rogue and need a rebuke, a chair of a key Senate committee has said. Senator Karen Grogan chairs the Senate’s environment and communications committee and she tells The Mandarin that public servants generally do their best to answer questions but there are times where they themselves are guessing.

Dec 15, 2024 | themandarin.com.au | Felicity Neale

As the year draws to its close, here is a selection of images created by our Design artist Zennie for our columnists’ articles. Every single pic Zennie made this year was spectacular; these are the ones that particularly captured my eye. By Helena CainBrief given to Design: It’s a recount of her flying to the UK after her mother had a stroke and the hospital was telling Helena’s family their mum should go into a nursing home.