Senior Cabinet minister Peter Dutton has been caught up in the continuing Jamie Briggs scandal, after mistakenly sending an offensive text message to a journalist who was covering the story.

When I read your report that  the Baird government had sold the Education Department building and the Lands Department building for $35 million, I checked the date, thinking that it must have been April 1 ("Baird's $3b sell-off", January 2-3). Each of those buildings occupies a complete block in  one of the most prestigious parts of the CBD.  Were competitive bids sought before this unbelievable price from a Singaporean hotel developer was accepted? 

On this scale of values the government no doubt will consider selling the Opera House for $1 million and the Sydney Harbour Bridge for, oh say, $50,000.

Rupert Murdoch is the major mass publisher of climate change denialism. ALL his journals, newspapers and TV outlets sing to the same tune: "Global warming is CRAP". Even when his learned journalists publish some purportedly "balanced" articles on the subject, it is designed to sow doubt in the mind of fair minded people. In his heart he hates anything that smells of anti-coal, anti-oil and anti-gas. He wants to burn the place down with more CO2 emissions. So how can he and HALL got into a relationship?

Here is some of what Jerry Hall wrote in the daily Mail in 2009:

from John Passant …

I take Panadol Osteo on my doctor’s advice for my osteo-arthritic knee. I buy it over the counter from my local chemist.Until today patients could also buy it at a subsidised price if it was prescribed by a doctor.

2016, the year when the richest 1 percent of humanity will own more than the rest of the world, according to projections made by the nongovernmental organization Oxfam.

The film honors the sacrifices of all those who have battled to win the freedoms we enjoy today, and reminds us of the importance of demanding equality for all and speaking truth to power.

From farm to pharmaceutical, diesel truck to dinner plate, pipeline to plastic product, it is impossible to think of an area of our modern-day lives that is not affected by the oil industry.

The story of oil is the story of the modern world. And this is the story of those who helped shape that world, and how the oil-igarchy they created is on the verge of monopolizing life itself.

From farm to pharmaceutical, diesel truck to dinner plate, pipeline to plastic product, it is impossible to think of an area of our modern-day lives that is not affected by the oil industry.

The story of oil is the story of the modern world. And this is the story of those who helped shape that world, and how the oil-igarchy they created is on the verge of monopolizing life itself.

The most dramatic example of this is recommendation 60 – which singles out the CFMEU for its “culture of disregard for the law” and suggests parliament consider legislation banning individual CFMEU officials.

Here we are at the end of 2015, and apparently there has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian.

Maybe, maybe not.