Bernard Keane

There’s something for everyone in the Prime Minister’s rather vague announcement about extending the right to request flexible working arrangements to parents returning from parental leave — everyone, that is, except the opposition.

A significant gender gap divides Australian voters in their attitudes toward Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard, a major polling project by Women’s Agenda sister site Crikey and Essential Research has found.

An odd result emerged from recent polling on gender issues, Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard.

Things have changed somewhat in Canberra since late 1966, when the prohibition on married women in the Australian Public Service was lifted after eight years of consideration by men.

The press gallery will be happy: there’s been a leadership spill, a prime minister dumped, mass cabinet resignations, plenty of action.

You don’t hear much of Louis Mountbatten these days, but he’s not forgotten at Deniliquin RSL.

There are probably very few people left who still doubt Julia Gillard’s toughness.

Voters support the government’s NDIS levy and prefer Labor’s paid parental leave scheme over the Coalition’s, Monday’s Essential Report shows.

As in previous budgets, a huge chunk of Wayne Swan’s savings are actually tax rises or the closure of tax loopholes.

See if you can spot a pattern among the following appointments by the Abbott government.

When Tony Abbott secured the Liberal leadership in late 2009 he had nothing to work with; he’d won the leadership by a single vote, his party was hopelessly divided over the issue of climate change, he was facing a popular prime minister who’d seen off John Howard, Brendan Nelson and then Malcolm Turnbull.

The angst over the lack of women in Tony Abbott’s cabinet is one of the more perplexing political reactions of recent years.