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Every year around the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, politicians with white ribbons pinned to their suits deliver passionate speeches about protecting women from domestic violence. But when it comes to implementing life saving measures, their lack of action speaks louder than words.
Every time the self-appointed Ambassador for the Little Black Rock fronts up to the cameras he reinforces the message that coal power is the technology of a bygone era. The Coalition old guard's thinking hasn't changed since Abbott's 'carbon tax' sloganeering of 2012 and 2013. But the landscape has changed considerably.
Punish A Muslim Day has come and gone. While we won't know for a few months if there was a statistical increase in the number of reported attacks on Muslims, the campaign's real purpose was simply to reiterate a message of stigma and exclusion. This is what makes the various counter-campaigns so important.
Is it any wonder that when I came to work in the press gallery I was cynical about arts policy? In those lockup hours scouring budget papers it was clear yet again the arts would not see any wins. It wasn't always this way. Prime ministers and arts ministers of yesteryear produced arts policy informed by their personal and political interest.
The downfall of Barnaby Joyce and his replacement by Michael McCormack as Nationals leader shows once again that maintaining the Liberal-National coalition has a considerable impact on the nation, and thus it deserves greater attention and transparency. Instead it is clouded in secrecy and often taken for granted.
Amid speculation about whether and why the Deputy Prime Minister's relationship is in the public interest, is a much more interesting and foundational point about the nature of marriage as an institution.
There are opportunities for both sides of politics, government and opposition, in the leftovers from 2017. The balance looked to have shifted somewhat back towards the government in the final weeks of last year. The task of Malcolm Turnbull will be to begin the new year as he ended the last.
Here we have a quick demonstration of a new political method. It's not designed to advance any particular policy position. The point is trolling: the simple art of using rhetoric and political acts to provoke a reaction. Suddenly a lot makes sense. Tony Abbott makes sense. Donald Trump makes sense. So much of social media makes sense.
'Most of his life, Dr Johnson was a priest. Most of his life, he started his day sharing this bread of life with the world. He spent his childhood years here in Rocky, and he enjoyed his twilight years here. Rockhampton was home. Yet the cosmopolitan Grove was ever so much more at home in Rome, Paris or Sydney. And he meant that as no offence to the people of Rockhampton.' Homily delivered for the funeral of the 94 year old priest Grove Johnson.
Summer is here, and so is the political spin about blackouts. This year, with a record November heatwave in Victoria and a press gallery hypersensitised to energy politics, the blame game started early - well before anything has actually gone wrong.
As Barnaby Joyce, standing beside the Prime Minister last Saturday night after his by-election win, proclaimed: 'Running a country is a little harder than running sheep through a gate.' Similarly, Turnbull must find running a party, much less a Coalition of parties, like herding cats.
The common thread through all of these stories is the need to have a mature conversation about the ways in which we can afford a meaningful voice to our communities. If human rights are the benchmark, then rights must be afforded to all. It is not right that those with the least power must continue to compromise.