Christian Kerr writes:

Women in Parliament: paradise postponed? The Treasurer,
Peter Costello, has called for Australia to create the most “female-friendly
environment in the world”. Yet on International Women’s Day over at the
Democratic Audit of Australia, Marian Sawer finds that Australia has just slid
to its lowest place ever in the league table of women’s representation in
national parliaments and a major factor has been the Liberal Party’s failure to
preselect women. All this and
campaign finance, to-and-fro over the Government’s proposals to change
electoral laws, independent candidates and government advertising at the ANU’s
Democratic Audit website .

Ode to Laura Norder. Family
First has decided to make “an eye for an eye” its text for the South
Australian state campaign. The posters shout “Protect your home” in the
sternest Old Testament style. Yet at the same time the party has
refused to front a human rights forum in the marginal, environmental
and alternatives-to-prisons dos in Norwood, the seat being contested by
our electoral poet laureate, Democrat David Winderlich:

They’d legislate brimstone and fright,
Yet their candidates stay out of sight.
How can they protect us
From those who’d molest us?
Perhaps they lack faith that they’re right.

Recipes of the Day. An ode to factionalism: Neapolitan Ice-Cream (aka chocolate-cherry, pistachio and raspberry ice-cream cake). Or how about a trifle, a thing which the ALP’s in-fighting woes are not.