Education Minister Dan Tehan has now held the portfolio for two weeks and has made as many as no pronouncements on policy. So, what does this mean for policy development, notably Simon Birmingham’s promised measures to allocate undergraduate growth places? It means nothing will happen until after the election, if then, says a learned reader versed in what governments do when they lose interest. “It looks like the government has conceded the education space to Labor,” the LR says.

Not in Victoria, where there is an election in November.  Labor backbencher Natalie Suleyman says the government will spend $23m on a new campus for the Victoria University Secondary College.