Let's not beat about the bush: putting a price on carbon means asking people to pay more for electricity and other carbon-intensive activities. So how much are we willing to pay?

Tony Abbott thinks the answer is nothing. The opposition imagines it has discovered the political equivalent of Mortein: just one spray about ''a great big new tax on everything'' will knock any policy proposal dead.

I suspect most Australians want to have their climate cake and eat it, too; we want action to curb climate change, but we don't want to pay for it.

The manager of Opposition business Christopher Pyne has become the first MP of the new Parliament to be booted from the chamber during Question Time.

Question Time is operating under new time limits and other rules aimed to ensure proper debate and less abuse of the process.

During an answer from Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Mr Pyne wanted to make a point of order but was denied by Speaker Harry Jenkins who had already sat Ms Gillard down.

Mr Pyne then said Ms Gillard had sat down because she was "hopeless".

He was promptly expelled from the chamber for one hour.

The Federal Government says its success in getting Coalition MP Peter Slipper up for the job of Deputy Speaker yesterday proves that it is in control of its fragile majority in the House of Representatives.

Mr Slipper was nominated by Labor and went on to win a secret ballot 78 votes to 71 over the Coalition's preferred candidate, Nationals MP Bruce Scott.

Labor backbencher Mike Symon says it shows the Federal Government can get the numbers when it counts.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/29/3024465.htm?section=justin

from Crikey .....

Climate committee is better without the Coalition

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

If Israel's stranglehold over U.S. foreign policy is to be broken, Americans will need to be informed about the harm that Washington's unconditional support for the Jewish state is doing to American interests, say leading analysts of US-Israeli relations.

The US says it is "disappointed" by Israel's decision not to extend a ban on West Bank settlement building.

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has been sent to the region in an attempt to salvage direct peace talks that were restarted earlier this month.

The 10-month moratorium came to an end at midnight (2200 GMT on Sunday).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11422065

I can't understand the thinking behind the ''personal view'' of the NSW Liberal leader, Barry O'Farrell, opposing ethics classes as a complement to special religious education classes. Mr O'Farrell, please tell us how you came to this position.

Yes, ethics is already embedded in school curriculums, policies and other programs. However ethics classes for the 100,000 children who do not take part in scripture classes each week is a matter of fair play. It offers those children an opportunity to formally and explicitly explore concepts of the self, respect for others, justice, intention, problem solving and consequences for actions - just as their peers are doing in their religious education classes.

Just after Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor decided to back Labor, a relieved minister observed that, throughout the election campaign, Tony Abbott had reminded him of the Terminator, the Hollywood-created cyborg that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star.

The seemingly indestructible cyborg assassin travelled back in time from 2029 to 1984 Los Angeles, programmed to kill its target, Sarah Connor.

In the kill-or-be-killed game of politics, the minister was paying Abbott a compliment with the analogy to the cold-blooded and emotionless killing machine.

US President Barack Obama has slammed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's September 11 conspiracy theory comments at the United Nations as ''offensive'' and ''hateful''.

In his first comments on the Iranian leader's statement that the 2001 terrorist attacks on America may have been orchestrated to bolster the US economy and ''save the Zionist regime'', Mr Obama told BBC Persian that ''for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable''.

US and European diplomats walked out of the UN General Assembly hall on Friday when Mr Ahmadinejad delivered his remarks about the September 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

from Crikey .....

The Usher of the Black Rod is displeased

Andrew Crook writes:

Downhill With the G.O.P.

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Once upon a time, a Latin American political party promised to help motorists save money on gasoline. How? By building highways that ran only downhill.