Now former Prime Minister Paul Keating isn’t holding back on what he thinks about New South Wales Labor and the people who’ve been running it. The former Prime Minister says the party’s becoming infected by what he calls “sicko populism”. He’s pointed the finger at a string of past secretaries, including Mark Arbib and Karl Bitar. But it’s the man who’s tipped to be the new leader in New South Wales John Robertson who’s copped the biggest blast from him.

 

Just a week after Brisbane’s Lord Mayor Campbell Newman made his audacious bid to lead Queensland’s Liberal National Party, the LNP is now in the middle of a bribery scandal. The state’s corruption watchdog is investigating claims that the party’s president offered a sitting MP a plum job if he vacated his seat for Mr Campbell. Now both men denied that any inducements were made.

 

Syria’s government has resigned in the latest bid to try and curb pro-democracy protests, in which dozens of people have been killed. President Bashar al-Assad will address the nation soon to announce that he’s lifting the emergency law and apparently also lifting restrictions on civil liberties. Tens of thousands of people have flooded the streets of the capital Damascus to show their support for the embattled leader.