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.

Terrible troubles for a terrible speaker. Ben Eltham breaks down the storm that is engulfing Bronwyn Bishop.

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.

“We should thank Canberra for the funding we do have but it’s frustrating to build a state-of-the-art vessel only to have it sitting in a wharf for six months of the year,” Suthers said.

The solar industry has been left fuming by a letter to the CEFC by Treasurer Joe Hockey and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann in which they direct investments in household and small-scale solar to be "excluded" from the $10 billion fund in future.

The draft investment mandate calls for "mature and established clean energy technologies … to be excluded from the corporation's activities, including extant wind technology and household and small-scale solar".

The Q Society, one of the loudest opponents of Islam and multiculturalism in Australia, has entered the fray in Cory Bernardi's ongoing inquiry. Max Chalmers reports.

COLUMBIA, S.C — In a historic moment for South Carolina, the Confederate battle flag is set to be removed from a 30-foot pole on the grounds of the State House on Friday morning.