Today, Government frontbencher Christopher Pyne downplayed the seriousness of Indonesia's decision not to accept the group.

Mr Pyne has told Channel 10 boats have been turned back to Indonesia but it will not always work that way.

Federal politicians who lodge ineligible expense claims will be hit in the hip pocket and can be named and shamed in parliament under new guidelines introduced by the government.

The seemingly unending drama of the Australian Labor party’s internal leadership battles is set to be dramatised, with actress Rachel Griffiths signed on to play Julia Gillard.

Federal and state politicians have been receiving invitations to join former world leaders at the World Leadership Alliance "world annual forum" at Clive Palmer’s Palmer Coolum Resort on 7 December – billed as “a major event for Australia and indeed the world”.

An anti-coal activist says the Queensland Government's offer of incentives for mining companies in the Galilee Basin shows the projects are not economically viable.

Firefighters are overstretched and facing a “desperate” summer, according to New South Wales Rural Fire Service group captains who have lambasted the state government over what they see as cuts to the organisation’s salaried staff.

IT was all over in a few seconds, but the assassination of John F Kennedy on 22 November 1963 has generated five decades of "painstaking, and for some unsatisfying, analysis," the Daily Mail says.

London: Former Prime Minister John Howard has poured scorn on the "alarmist" scientific consensus on global warming, comparing those calling for action on climate change to religious zealots in a speech to a gathering of UK climate sceptics.

From the master of hypocrisy, Gerard Henderson...

The lucky country? Try selfish and deluded, too

Pakistan's interior minister has said the death of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud has destroyed the country's nascent peace process.

"This is not just the killing of one person, it's the death of all peace efforts," Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said.

Pakistan summoned the US ambassador to protest over Friday's drone strike that killed Mehsud.

It came a day before a Pakistani delegation had been due to fly to North Waziristan to meet Mehsud.

In opposition, Tony Abbott promised Australians they would get a "no-surprises" government.