The royal commissions are successful and effective when they have a focused terms of reference and can do the job quickly and report. And then action can be taken.

Government will not nominate the former Labor prime minister [Kevin Rudd] to be the UN's next secretary-general.

If consulted by friends about marital dramas, I always encourage the singles to marry, the married to stick together, the neglectful and wayward to renew their loving commitment and the wronged to forgive.

Mitt Romney speaking to a $50,000-a-plate Republican fundraiser says he doesn't have to worry about the 47 per cent of Americans who don't pay tax. He was not counting on the smart phone recording his speech and then posting it on YouTube.

The question of whether or to what extent human activities are causing global warming is not a matter of ideology, let alone of belief. The issue is simply one of risk management.

If Margaret Thatcher took climate change seriously and believed that we should take action to reduce global greenhouse emissions, then taking action and supporting and accepting the science can hardly be the mark of incipient Bolshevism.

While our energy efficiency is improving, there is a very high correlation, almost near perfect correlation, between GDP growth, and energy usage.