Dumped treasurer Joe Hockey will become Australia's ambassador to the United States in the new year, and has conceded staying in parliament would have been about "getting even" with those who engineered his downfall.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has attempted to get on the front foot over a joke she made that went awry about the impact of climate change the Marshall Islands, laying the blame on her opposite number, Tanya Plibersek.

Mal Brough's mere presence as Special Minister of State is dragging down the Government. If the Prime Minister stands by him, he will have a lame duck - indeed, a next to useless minister - on his hands, writes Barrie Cassidy.

When it comes to action on climate change, the Government has permitted "big business" to take out public insurance against democracy, says Kellie Tranter.

Ian Macfarlane has revealed that within one week of being dumped from the Turnbull frontbench, he began looking to the Nationals for a way back in.

There is new force in Christendom. The unquestionable art of promoting the concept that trying to stop pollution is actually creating global warming. It's a new religiousdom theory tagging along with the older science of planetary geo-engineering. It's only a small weeny force yet, but, as the index of pollution goes up,  I am sure it will take, as it should, a momentum like the Christian crusades of the late 11th century AD... Apotheosis, here we come — as well as Asbestosis on the side, but it's a small price to pay to save the planet.

Fox Television has been cut to the bone by accusations the network cheated stars out of millions. 

The whistleblower who exposed wrongdoing at HSBC’s Swiss private bank has been sentenced to five years in prison by a Swiss court.

The "nice" atheists are out in force trying to prove to themselves, mostly, that Dawkins and Harris are pushing the atheist barrow too much too far too fast too nasty. Some, like Jeff sparrow, even will say that: