If ever there was a ruling authority that needed prayer, it's the NSW State Government.

There is something about the last Federal parliamentary sitting week before the winter recess that sends everyone berko. It's like school muck-up day, but with more invective.

Call me cynical, but with the Australian economy just having narrowly escaped technical recession, it is hardly surprising that the Rudd Government hardheads are now apparently speculating about an early election.

It is time for a more sophisticated conversation about women and work which continues to value motherhood, but recognises the fundamental social shift brought about by women moving into the workforce .

While much of the Federal Budget was leaked beforehand, the most surprising element was raising the pension age to 67. This measure was as startling as it was profound.

With the economy in survival mode, business is in no mood to spend money on tricky new policy initiatives such as the Federal Govt's carbon emissions trading scheme.

As we prepare for the Federal Budget, some forms of middle class welfare are clearly in the Government's sights. But we need them now more than ever.

I hate the term 'asylum seeker'. In the 1970s, asylum seekers were smart-suited Soviet spies walking off planes at Heathrow and pampered Eastern bloc athletes and ballerinas going AWOL in America.

Fiji's return to the bad old days of political chaos is sure to provide headaches for the Australian Government, and for our Fijian brothers and sisters.

The leak of Kevin Rudd's outburst over an inflight meal on a Defence force jet shows the war between the Department and its political leaders could be just beginning.

In the wake of Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon's difficulties, we must watch our Government's friendship with an emerging China.

Recently stirred up debate about the authorship of the Dead Sea Scrolls changes little about their overall importance.

Nothing excites Parliament House in Canberra quite like squabbles over political leadership. The atmosphere in the bubble that is Capitol Hill swirls around like a mini tornado as people share the latest gossip on an almost hourly basis. But this is not what Australians need, writes Dr Karin Sowada.

The government is right to continue with the intervention if they can truly 'close the gap' on indigenous health, education, employment and housing outcomes, writes Karin Sowada

The prompt for the first of my regular blogs on Australian politics was, interestingly, a photograph in the Australian depicting 20 coffins draped in American flags, writes Dr Karin Sowada.