On Monday this week Maurice Newman, the head of Tony Abbott’s business advisory council, gave a speech examining Australia’s fall in competitiveness over the past five years.

WikiLeaks has exposed details of secret trade negotiations that could leave Australians paying more for drugs and medicines, movies, computer games and software, and be placed under surveillance as part of a US-led crackdown on internet piracy.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott's support for Cardinal George Pell over child sex abuse is inappropriate and factually wrong, victims say.

This new controversy came as the Speaker of the Victorian Parliament, Ken Smith, accused the former Melbourne vicar-general, Gerald Cudmore, of committing perjury in evidence he gave to a parliamentary inquiry in 1993. Mr Smith said highly placed Catholics stifled his inquiry's report.

from Crikey ….. 

'The stuff of nightmares': when who you are becomes a crime

I think that most people who gave the matter more than a passing thought, would believe that the primary role of governments is to protect its citizens and their rights; to ensure that proper infrastructure, such as hospitals, roads, schools and others, are set up and well maintained, and to ensure that the economy is stable, in order for the people to be safe, healthy and happy.

Department of State’s objection to release of key evidence may prevent inquiry’s conclusions from ever being published, except in heavily redacted form ….

NEW MP Clive Palmer has dared the Australian Taxation Office to sue his company Queensland Nickel to recover $6.2 million in unpaid carbon tax.

from our friend Vacy Vlazna ….

Bronwyn Bishop has failed the first test of her speakership and this Parliament is in danger of being just as rancorous as the last one.

As Abbott said when Bishop was elevated to the post on Tuesday: ''When any of us are tempted to be low, mean or petty, the member for Mackellar is well equipped to recall us to our duty. This Parliament will be a different one and a better one, I hope.''

International tourists want man-made attractions and don't want to spend all their holidays "looking at Ayers Rock", businessman James Packer says.