Veteran MP Philip Ruddock is to stand down as Chief Government Whip in the wake of a leadership spill motion which Tony Abbott described as a near-death experience.

Our national impoverishment, at the hands of poor-quality leaders, knows no bounds.

As the lights go down at the Belvoir Theatre, an elderly man with a wonderful white beard leads other actors in a recalled presentation to a Royal Commission.

In 1874 the Victorian government moved to close an economically successful enterprise at Coranderrk, near Healesville. Nearby farmers protested the land was too valuable for Aboriginal people.

The secretive Trans Pacific Partnership is reportedly close to being finalised, which is bad news for people who don't want to give away their rights and freedoms to multinational corporations, says GetUp!

It is not for nothing that Australia is called the Land Down Under, because the way we run things here ‒ in politics and the media ‒ is always contrary to expectations, done backwards, reversed, or turned upside down and put back on its head.

You just can’t make this stuff up. After today’s spill motion and near death experience, Tony Abbott, Australia’s Prime Minister, said that ‘good government starts today.’ So what have the last 520 days been about Mr Abbott under your ‘leadership’? Bad government? Well yes, but that couldn’t really what the great man meant, could it?

from Crikey ….

from politicoz ….

Tony Abbott is Prime Minister of Australia. For now.  We will know in the hours after 9 am on Monday morning (Australian Eastern Daylight Time) if the spill motion in the Liberal Party room meeting has been successful or not, and, if successful, if Abbott has retained his leadership. I hope he does.

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard is under observation at Royal Prince Philip hospital after overdosing on schadenfreude, the pleasure derived from witnessing someone else’s misfortune.

from Crikey …..

Officials admit: we can't justify data retention