from Crikey .....

Finally, we have John Howard's own version of why he remained Liberal leader through to the 2007 election -- and then went down, ignominiously and unnecessarily, with the ship.

And a tacky version it is, confirming in his own calibrated words how selfishness, hubris and the wishes of his wife (who elected her again?) prevented an orderly transfer of leadership to Peter Costello, and created the conditions for a humiliating defeat for the political party whose fortunes Howard was supposed to protect.

As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims.

Even before the British Defense Ministry this week elected to scrap the Royal Navy's only fixed-wing-aircraft carrier, nobody imagined that Britannia still ruled the waves - or had any of the power that characterized its empire before the two world wars of the past century.

Julia Gillard will meet the most powerful woman in US politics when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Australia next month as part of a two-week tour of the Asia-Pacific region.

The visit will be her first to Australia in the role given to her by President Barack Obama in 2008.

Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd and Defence Minister Stephen Smith will also meet Mrs Clinton for discussions on regional and global security.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates will also be here for the 25th annual Australia-US ministerial consultation in Melbourne.

Gillard talking tougher than Americans, says Oakeshott

The independent MP Robert Oakeshott has joined the ranks of the dissenters over the war in Afghanistan, saying Australia should be working on a withdrawal.

Speaking in the parliamentary debate on the war yesterday, Mr Oakeshott disagreed with Julia Gillard's assertion that Australia would stay engaged in the country for another decade.

''The US is not even saying that and nor should we,'' he said.

This will be a a messy and complex withdrawal, whether it happens now or in 10 years' time. This work should, therefore, be on in earnest now.

Joe Hockey has spent the week dispensing wisdom from the Book of Hock-onomics, which is an unconventional text of mysterious provenance. It is part economics, part philosophy and, as the government would have it, mostly ''ill-considered rubbish''.

But the latter is too harsh a characterisation. It's simply that, like the Tao or a cup of tea-leaves, the Book requires divination rather than straight reading.

Under the laws of Hock-onomics, governments have levers that they can pull, much like crane drivers.

It is difficult to say what those levers are, or where they are located, but Hock-onomists are working on that as we speak.

The Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, & the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, both stood up in our nation's Parliament today & boldly, deliberately & directly lied to the Australian people about the need for Australia to maintain its military presence in Afghanistan.

In perpetrating this foul & obscene act of theatre in the guise of a 'debate', I believe both are guilty of treason, the ultimate act of betrayal.

The foreclosure fraud crisis seems to escalate with each passing now. It is being reported that all 50 U.S. states have launched a joint investigation into alleged fraud in the mortgage industry. This is a huge story that is not going to go away any time soon.

Barry O'Farrell has promised to allow new types of gambling technology and games into NSW clubs if he is elected premier, while ruling out proposed reforms to poker machine laws.

The NSW Opposition Leader has also promised to ease a cap on the number of electronic roulette and blackjack games in clubs.

The concessions are part of a memorandum of understanding struck between Clubs NSW and the Coalition that includes $300 million in tax breaks on their poker machine profits.

''This deal shows a terrifying contempt for the interests of the people of NSW,'' the anti-gambling activist Paul Bendat said yesterday.

going cheap, the mother of all souvenirs .....

At the Vatican Mint we're delighted to announce our new and exciting Mary MacKillop heirloom collection, a unique heritage range of exquisite merchandise, gifts and memorabilia especially created by world famous artists in reverent homage to A Saint For All Australians.

The Mother Mary Figurine

Her former husband thought she was perfectly capable of supporting herself as a legal secretary or personal assistant after their marriage broke down.

But having emerged from the ''long, expensive and fraught litigation'' that followed their separation, the woman wanted nothing more to do with lawyers or the law - and the Family Court has ordered her former husband pay her $1000 a week while she retrains for another career.

The order came as Justice Stuart Fowler determined a property settlement for the Sydney pair who, for legal reasons, cannot be named.

ABC Radio has just stated that the federal government is about to announce a major policy shift in the management of asylum seekers by releasing them into the Australian community pending the processing of their applications ....... with the only caveat being that they must not represent a security threat.

If this is correct, it will be only the 2nd time in more than a decade that I could say that I'm proud of our federal government & not embarassed to be an Australian ..... the first being Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generation.

If this policy change does eventuate, it should be recognised that Australia is one of the last countries in the world to adopt a genuinely humanitarian approach to dealing with the refugee problem.

This announcement will prove to be a defining moment for the Gillard Labor government ....

Statement from Greens Senator .........

There is a dark psychology to being in opposition. It is easy to get into an angry mindset, especially when you come so close to winning as Tony Abbott did in the recent election.

Initial euphoria gives way to the realisation that winning government could be years away. I suspect the angry outbursts from Abbott in the past week have a lot to do with disappointment and frustration at just falling short of winning government.

Future historians may well agree that the twenty-first century Silk Road first opened for business on December 14, 2009. That was the day a crucial stretch of pipeline officially went into operation linking the fabulously energy-rich state of Turkmenistan (via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) to Xinjiang Province in China's far west.

Hyperbole did not deter the spectacularly named Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Turkmenistan's president, from bragging, "This project has not only commercial or economic value. It is also political. China, through its wise and farsighted policy, has become one of the key guarantors of global security."

from Crikey .....

Some things to bear in mind on the Murray-Darling Basin...

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes: