Imagine this scenario.

You are the leader of an opposition party in a thriving medium-sized democracy.

The party's doing swell in the polls. So swell, it's tipped to romp it in at the next election to the sound of a few brass bands playing.

You've got a formidable work ethic, a Rhodes scholarship and three photogenic daughters.

You're also great at sport and not afraid to demonstrate this prowess to your country's sports loving populace.

There's just one issue.

Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne scrambled for the exits in the House of Representatives this morning as suspended Labor MP Craig Thomson lent his "tainted" vote to the Opposition.

The Zutbots is a new toon strip from Gus Leonisky. It will feature a family of robots and hopefully will be published on this site more or less daily. The Zutbots at times will be politically relevant, mostly subliminally... Please note that the terms Zutbot, Zutbots and The Zutbots are non-registered but activated by publishing herein trademarks of the Gus Leonisky Corporation.

Billionaire James Packer will reportedly ask shareholders to dump the head of Sydney's Star casino in favour of former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett.

Mr Packer, who is chairman of Melbourne's Crown Casino, has called for the chairman of Star operator Echo Entertainment, John Story, to be stood down over the company's management of the casino and handling of a recent public inquiry into its operations.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has told a Coalition party meeting he has no illusions about how hard it will be to win the next election after today's Newspoll, which gave Labor a small bounce.

Telling colleagues their job would not be over until the election was won, Mr Abbott observed: "Gillard won't lie down and die, and where there's life, there's fight."

Julia Gillard is once again the nation's preferred prime minister and her government has received a small boost, according to the poll.

In caucus today, Ms Gillard attempted to rally her troops, saying this was  ''the hardest political time'' for the government.

Apparently the Greeks (Athenians) invented the tax refund... When there was enough loot plundered from somewhere else, they would refund the taxes (used to fund the looting armies) accordingly... Unfortunately these days looting is far more sophisticated than war and one could say that the Greeks have been buggered by the US bonking (sorry Freudian slip: I mean banking) system...

Detectives carrying out the multimillion-pound investigation into illegal newsgathering techniques at Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper group have been asked to investigate whether it attempted to blackmail politicians.

The alleged plot centres on News International's apparent efforts to warn off MPs on a parliamentary committee from disproving its discredited defence that phone hacking was the work of a single "rogue reporter".

The latest round of international climate change talks finished on Friday in discord and disappointment, with some participants concerned that important progress made last year was being unpicked.

At the talks, countries were supposed to set out a workplan on negotiations that should result in a new global climate treaty, to be drafted by the end of 2015 and to come into force in 2020. But participants told the Guardian they were downbeat, disappointed and frustrated that the decision to work on a new treaty – reached after marathon late-running talks last December in Durban – was being questioned.

The fetid cloud of hypocrisy rising from our federal Parliament must surely by now be visible from space.

Strip away all the insincere grandstanding about due process and parliamentary standards and you get a government motivated by clinging to power and an opposition motivated by the burning desire to bring that government down, whatever it takes.

The Queensland independent Bob Katter wants a return to an economic past that should be consigned to history.

Julia Gillard has promised no Australian worker will miss out on a job as a result of the Federal Government's decision to allow mining magnate Gina Rinehart to import more than 1700 workers for an iron ore project in Western Australia.