Fergus Hunter is a political reporter for Fairfax Media in the federal press gallery at Parliament House
"We will spend what we need to spend to get this job done," former prime minister Tony Abbott declared in March 2014, shortly after the multi-country effort to find recently downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Transport Minister Darren Chester says the underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 could be re-established but only if compelling new information came to light that pinpointed the location of the aircraft.
One Nation senator Brian Burston has labelled Centrelink's contentious debt-recovery system "malicious and bordering on the criminal", adding Pauline Hanson's party to the chorus of concern surrounding the automated clawback.
"The decision to suspend the underwater search has not been taken lightly nor without sadness."
Fairfield City Council, which welcomed 3000 humanitarian arrivals last year, has been told to expect the same again.
Former prime minister Paul Keating has rounded on the incoming US secretary of state Rex Tillerson, accusing him of threatening to bring on war with China by making "ludicrous" comments on the tense South China Sea dispute.
Trade Minister Steve Ciobo has argued the case for politicians to attend sporting events on the taxpayer dime, describing it as the kind of activity that voters expect.
Former senator Rodney Culleton has mounted an eleventh-hour effort to save his parliamentary career, seeking to appeal a Federal Court decision that rendered him bankrupt and demanding Senate President Stephen Parry immediately withdraw his declaration of a vacancy.
Calls for reform of the parliamentary entitlements system have again intensified following the latest expenses scandal, which has centred around Health Minister Sussan Ley's Gold Coast travel.Â
When it comes to the employment and training sector, the names do not get any bigger than Sarina Russo.
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