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Vale Leunig

Michael Leunig, master of weaponised whimsy, found community in aloneness

For 55 years, Michael Leunig’s illustrations helped make sense of a sometimes crazy world. Now he is gone.

  • Karl Quinn

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Independent senator Lidia Thorpe in the halls of Parliament House this morning.

It’s always been risky to bellow from the press gallery, Lidia

The last time anyone shouted from the press gallery, an abject apology was required to save the offender from trial by parliament. What now for Lidia Thorpe?

  • Tony Wright
Bill Shorten and wife Chloe after the Labor veteran delivered his valedictory speech.

Shorten condemns ‘quicksand of name-calling’ in fond farewell

Even Opposition Leader Peter Dutton conceded Bill Shorten would have made a great prime minister.

  • Tony Wright
Shadow Transport Minister Bridget McKenzie.

The remarkable hide of Bridget McKenzie

Dutton may have a glass jaw, but the same can’t be said of McKenzie, who will not let her own chequered record deter her from her pursuit of the prime minister.

  • Nick Bonyhady
Bill Shorten dancing.

The best of the worst of Bill Shorten’s zingers

Comedian Shaun Micallef, who benefitted from the former Labor leader’s one-liners more than anyone, said “I owe him a great debt.”

  • Nick Bonyhady
Senator Lidia Thorpe wore a “Gammin” t-shirt in the Senate on Monday.

Lidia Thorpe’s gammin was Charles Dickens’ gammon. Really, no porkies

Gammin is used by Indigenous Australians to describe fakery. The word, also written as gammon, was used in the same way by Charles Dickens.

  • Tony Wright
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Staff at the Soviet embassy in Canberra are recalled after Vladimir Petrov’s defection to Australia in 1954.

Bugged, bombed and burned: The Russian embassy’s turbulent times

The Russian embassy in Canberra has never offered comfort. But the Soviets refused to move in the 1970s. Now the Russians have to stay put.

  • Tony Wright
Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong in the Senate at Parliament House in Canberra

Wong in full flight on housing attack as Labor, Greens scramble for moral high ground

The foreign minister disposed of the diplomatic gloves as she lashed Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather over his party’s blocking of the government’s signature housing bill.

  • Lisa Visentin
How did the poor thing reach such a despondent state that it would barely be out of place on the yardarm of a ship emerging from a hurricane?

Miserable fate awaits flag that battled worst Canberra could deliver

Australia’s bravest flag, ripped by the elements and failed by a mechanical contraption, faces being cut into small pieces and dumped in the garbage.

  • Tony Wright
They smiled, they laughed, they whispered.

Rift? What rift? Morrison and Hawke put their bromance on display

When the clocks struck 2pm in Parliament House on Tuesday, Scott Morrison and Alex Hawke knew all eyes would be trained on them.

  • Matthew Knott

Original URL: https://www.watoday.com.au/topic/political-sketch-1n7i