Cat owners who live near areas containing threatened species could be banned from allowing their pets outdoors as the federal government sets its sights on the potential killing machines.

Australia's first threatened species commissioner, Gregory Andrews, said all cat owners should keep their pets contained 24 hours a day, saying it makes them happier and healthier, and saves native mammals.

But a veterinarian said the measure, already in place in some jurisdictions, could cause health and behavioural problems and should be implemented with caution.

Gambling lobby group Clubs New South Wales must explain why it donated money to the Victorian MP and federal minister Kevin Andrews, Independent senator Nick Xenophon says.

This piece of parchment is a fake... It was found in Leonisko da Vinci archives —between a Telstra bill and a hamburger wrapper... Though the parchment is fake, the words are true Leonardo, mirror like. 

Every kid in Australian schools know our flag. They know the seven pointed star beneath the union jack symbolic of a colonial past. But not our valiant Turdy. Apparently he never studied the flag. He never looked at it beyond seeing the union jack from his country of origin. He is a pom, flaunting the laws of Australia. 

ABC Shops around the country will be phased out and closed as the national broadcaster moves to an online retail model.

Up to 300 staff employed by the ABC's commercial division through ABC Retail were briefed on the decision in a national video hook-up last night.

We, atheists, have a problem on our hands... We do not have an international company nor a small shop-front from which to sell the concept of being an atheist. We don't have a church not even a cottage industry... We do not have "followers" because we don't have anything to be followed for, except our raw essential human ethics based on sound analysis of reality and a lack of god(s). 

Apart from some famous atheists who can be counted on one hand for raking in a living from it, there is no money in atheism. 

Prime Minister Tony Abbott is expected to make his first public comments about the scandal later on Saturday. But Fairfax Media understands he is standing by his Speaker.

At a closed door event on Friday Mr Abbott reportedly dismissed the scandal as "village gossip". However the Prime Minister's office says that was not an accurate reflection of what he said.

Coalition ministers and MPs are quietly furious that the scandal has derailed their attacks on Labor over union corruption, and some have described her position as increasingly untenable.

But Finance Minister Mathias Cormann says he strongly disagrees with that assessment.

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has made light of the Speaker Bronwyn Bishop's travel claim controversy and the Coalition's Q&A ban at an awards dinner in Sydney on Thursday night.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said this week the CEFC should not invest in established technologies that can easily attract private funding.

"As long as it exists, it might as well be as useful as possible and … invest in new and emerging technologies, the things that might not otherwise get finance," he said.

That view apparently contradicts comments by Mr Robb in 2011 when the Coalition was in opposition. He said the fund proposed by Labor would be spent on "all sorts of wild and wacky proposals that the banks would not touch in a fit".

"This fund will be a honeypot to every white-shoe salesman imaginable," he added.

Not every evildoer is an evil person, but if you commit enough despicable acts you might just qualify as the real deal. How else can you explain serial killers or war criminals? There are, however, some provisos, writes Luke Russell.