Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his Treasurer Wayne Swan were bent on a progressive thinking educated Australia which would be built from a fairer disbursement of sovereign wealth, according to credible parliamentary sources. The Stringer was told that Mr Rudd and Mr Swan were both adamant that other business sectors of Australia could not be hit for tax hikes till the resources sector was finally brought into line.

Awstrayla’s mighty midget Metternich, Foreign Affairs Minister, Bob Carr, has walked away from a written undertaking to raise the case of Julian Assange in talks with the Swedish Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt, next week.

In the bewildering battle of ideas, ideology and spin, facts are important.

If you're inclined to take a long-term view of politics, the hand-wringing on whether Julia Gillard should stay or go is really just so much white noise.

Labor is in crisis, but not principally for the reasons that occupy the commentariat.

A week before Cardinal Timothy Dolan is set to leave New York for Rome, where his name is being floated as a contender in the conclave to elect the next pope, he was grilled for hours behind closed doors in a legal deposition concerning child sexual abuse by priests.

Julia Gillard's lack of leadership has spurred on her inevitable demise.

To paraphrase Labor's campaign slogan in 1972, it's only a matter of time. Politically, Julia Gillard is a dead woman walking. The Prime Minister may dismiss the latest polls, but the trend is clear. With a trio of polls all pointing in the same direction, they spell her certain demise.

Unions, hopefully, are there to protect workers in case of danger — financially as well as safety at the working place. Picture by Gus.

Bob Katter wants to dominate the electoral map, but according to former insiders the maverick federal MP has an abrasive way of carving out his party in his own image.

By dividing, Labor hopes to rule again. But this admission of failure repudiates its most successful period in office.

The theme of the Gillard government's election campaign has now emerged into the light of day. Although no one in Labor has yet stated it clearly as a single coherent idea, it's to be a campaign on "values".

It is a dark underworld of kidnapping and forged passports, of straw companies and assassinations.

A place where young Australians with clean identities become invaluable assets to secretive spy agencies such as the Mossad.

Tony Abbott reminds me of Rimmer in the TV comedy Red Dwarf...

Rimmer is full of self-promoting hubris and as such Rimmer, the Hologram, is the self-appointed captain of a garbage disposal ship lost in space for about 3 million years... The only difference is that Rimmer from time to time realises he's a waste of space, but Abbott never does, though he is the Hollowman... See Tony's latest grand scheme of fiddling with the northern rivers... It's a bit like going from BLUE ALERT to RED ALERT, as the tin-can robot, Kryten, masterly ask Rimmer if that really was what he wanted as all he had to do was change the coloured light bulb in the flashing sign...

My Global Mail colleague Michael Bowers once had the pleasure of talking to one of Kevin Rudd’s primary school teachers, and learned that even back then, Kevin was a little know-it-all.