James Ashby, who worked as a media adviser to the Speaker of the Federal Parliament, Peter Slipper, worked to undermine his boss by giving information to a tabloid journalist and to his political rivals, a court has heard.

In the past five (5) years, the following price increases have occurred:

*   average loaf of bread up by 12%;

*   price of movie tickets up by 25%;

*   price of petrol up by 34%;

*   council rates have increased by 39%; &

*   electricity prices have increased by an obscene 163%

The overall cost of living has increased by 22%, whilst average weekly earnings have increased by only 14%, which effectively means that average real disposable incomes have fallen by more than 35% in the same period.

The Australian economy is going gangbusters, according to the latest figures.

Annual growth is 4.3%. Inflation is low. Interest rates continue to fall. Unemployment is at 4.9%.

A vastly bigger network of mobile speed and red light cameras will soon gaze down on NSW drivers in a safety crackdown that the opposition calls a 'cash grab' by the state.

Signs warning motorists of the cameras will also increase - in size, as well as in number - to ward off complaints about the 'entrapment' of unsuspecting drivers.

Tony Abbott and the opposition must be careful their wrecking-ball approach doesn't rebound and hurt them.

When 16-year-old Colleen Walker went missing from Bowraville, a country town in northern New South Wales, police told her family she had probably "gone walkabout". They said the same when Colleen's cousin, four-year-old Evelyn Greenup, disappeared three weeks later. Then a third Aboriginal child, Clinton Speedy, 16, vanished - and a fortnight later the bodies began turning up in bushland.

Greek talk shows are by nature combustible affairs. But rarely have they witnessed anything quite as shocking as the moment when a leading member of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party launched a physical assault on two female politicians.

Australians have turned on the carbon tax, with almost two-thirds of people opposed to pricing greenhouse gas emissions and an overwhelming majority backing Coalition plans to unravel the policy.

Two bad boys of Australian swimming are in hot water again for posting online photos of themselves posing in a gun shop in the United States.

If you want to see a pretty pack of pollies, you need look no further than James Packer's new political mates.

The billionaire's offices in Sydney's Park Street are now becoming a stronghold for the Labor Party in exile. How strange.

Not content with hiring just one hard man from the NSW Right - former ALP General Secretary, Karl Bitar - James Packer has now hauled his terrible twin, Mark Arbib, on board. 

"Captain Emad", the man alleged to have run a people smuggling operation out of Canberra, left Australia on Tuesday night.

AFP Commissioner Tony Negus told reporters in Canberra today that Captain Emad had not been detained when he left Melbourne, despite an alert going out to authorities.

Mr Negus said there was not enough evidence yet to detain him.

"Yes, it's frustrating," Mr Negus said of the people smuggling case.

But he said the AFP would go ahead with the "full force of the law" in investigating Captain Emad.

Poor old Joe.

Forced to flick the default personality switch from ''generally avuncular'' to ''prophet of doom'', Hockey flailed at a loss, sinking deeper the more he spun in his own rhetorical quicksand.

Good economic news was just that. Good.