Bronwyn Bishop has failed the first test of her speakership and this Parliament is in danger of being just as rancorous as the last one.

As Abbott said when Bishop was elevated to the post on Tuesday: ''When any of us are tempted to be low, mean or petty, the member for Mackellar is well equipped to recall us to our duty. This Parliament will be a different one and a better one, I hope.''

International tourists want man-made attractions and don't want to spend all their holidays "looking at Ayers Rock", businessman James Packer says.

'An iconic part of local heritage': Glasgow Council drops £65,000 plans to raise Duke of Wellington statue that regularly has traffic cones placed on its head …

like father ….

David Cameron calls for permanent austerity …. dressed in a white tie & standing at a golden lectern …..

Joe Hockey, Liberal Treasurer, announced some important tax changes today to help clear a backlog of measures announced but not yet legislated. Some date back to 2004 (and one to 2001) under the Howard and Costello government. Let’s look at a few of them to see who is conducting class war.

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 NSW government has bulldozed opposition to more mines, with new rules that put economic benefits – including to the state coffers – above all else.

The gambling industry has emerged from an era of failed reforms with campaigners on the payroll, politicians in its pocket, and four new casinos in the offing …

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned to death in 2004 with radioactive polonium, his widow Suha said on Wednesday after receiving the results of Swiss forensic tests on her husband's corpse.

"We are revealing a real crime, a political assassination," she said.