Australian government officials were deeply involved in a $150 million shipbuilding deal between defence contractor Tenix and the Philippines that federal police are investigating for alleged bribery, declassified diplomatic cables reveal.

The truth can finally be told: Gina Rinehart is a double agent, presenting a parody of a billionaire in order to advance her socialist aims. We all know about the overbearing father and his florid third marriage. What daughter would not detest all he stood for?

Day after day, week after week, month after month, Tony Abbott's opening words in parliamentary question time were almost always the same. It was almost invariably a question to put Julia Gillard on the spot on the carbon tax.

Politicians, journalists and bankers are the least trusted people in a survey of professions compiled by consumer group Which?

Only seven per cent of those surveyed said they trusted politicians and journalists, while just 11 per cent trusted bankers and estate agents.

A political slanging match has broken out over the traditionally politically neutral subject of Australian victims of terrorism.

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion.

from politicoz …

The next election will be austere if the Treasury boss, Martin Parkinson, gets his way.

Back in June, Dr Parkinson told the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia in Canberra that Australians should get real and realise they couldn't ''have it all''.

The grotesquery of corruption within our banking systems seems endless, writes contributing editor-at-large Tess Lawrence, with vaultlines leading to the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi has suggested legalising same sex marriage would lead to demands for bestiality to also be sanctioned.

Speaking in Parliament last night on a gay marriage bill sponsored by four Labor senators, Senator Bernardi said the push for same-sex marriage was part of an attack on ''our enduring institutions.''

Shares in Fortescue Metals have soared after the iron ore miner was handed a $4.26 billion lifeline by its creditors, which will delay its earliest debt repayments until November 2015.

By all signs, it appears that the whole of planet Earth has at once decided to shun nuclear energy. The popular sentiment was definitely negative towards the use of nuclear power, and now it seems that governments have had to bow to people’s wishes.