Shaun Carney pretty well covers it all. With Matt Price pinning the tail on the jackass of selfish cowardice.

Howard has secured unfettered control of the Senate. Presumably, it will take a bit longer before the ramifications of this spectacular achievement are fully understood.

What it seems to mean is this: Australia has confirmed that it has set sail on a new political course, one where controversies over such things as propriety, ethics and honesty are likely to be dismissed - if they occur at all - as boutique sideshows, of little concern to the great mass of voters. There seems to be no other way to interpret the October 9 election result.

The "punishment" that voters meted out to Howard for taking the nation to war on false pretences was to increase the Coalition's vote by more than 2 per cent and give him unfettered control of both houses of Parliament.

The majority did not opt for checks and balances. They want the Coalition to be able to do whatever it wants. They did not want the country to get caught up in discussions about which advice got through to which minister, or whether it is appropriate for ministers to come down like a ton of bricks on the head of the Federal Police for making the simple observation that being a combatant in Iraq makes us more prone to terrorism, or any of the other revelations about ministerial behaviour that sprang up regularly in the past three years.

That is second order stuff to most voters and they are unlikely to want to hear about it during the Howard Government's fourth term. This situation poses serious challenges for the media as well as the Labor Opposition. When most Australians are saying with some force that they are not overly concerned about process just as long as their economic circumstances aren't being disturbed, how are questions of right and wrong in public life decided?

It was all cutesy banter at Yarralumla yesterday, as GG Jeffreys reminded the ladies present of their place. Members of the Party of the Living Dead just loved calling him your Excellency as he graciously reminded them of their taxpayer funded privilege at upcoming events like the Melbourne Cup.

The Governor-General congratulated Sharman Stone on her new position as parliamentary secretary to Finance Minister Nick Minchin. "I guess if you run a household budget this will help your portfolio," he told her. "Congratulations and very well done!"

Yesterday, he brightened fairly dull proceedings by asking new Ageing Minister Julie Bishop: "Is there any ministerial definition of old?"

"You're far too young, your Excellency," she responded, while Prime Minister John Howard, who recently turned 65, retorted: "Certainly not!"

General Jeffery's patter included telling Fisheries Minister Ian MacDonald that one of his important responsibilities was "to find a good trout spot", while to Sports Minister Rod Kemp he said: "I'll guess we'll see you at the Melbourne Cup!"

He was forced to prompt new ministers where to sign after Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer nearly scrawled his signature in the place reserved for the head of state.

"I thought the minister was taking over the role of Governor-General there for a moment," he said as an embarrassed Mr Downer left the huon pine table used for the signing.

I'm cheating here. The link below is a review of events at the Melbourne International Arts Festival. I've only included three paragraphs.

The voice of fundamentalist Christian moralism may be one that is heard in Australia when a vote is required, but its simplistic and sclerotic conservative influence seems to have spread through the nerve fibres of the national psyche like root rot in a botanical garden.

Thank God - ironically - for the voices that have been heard over the past few weeks at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. Animal-like and angelic, these voices test out the height and depth of human desire way beyond our banal political prescriptions for lower interest rates, the phobic monologue on our country's security.

Sad to say, in this increasingly conservative and prosaic Australian society, voices as complex and vigorous, as fantastic and exciting as these may begin to sound incomprehensibly foreign.