Paul J. Berating

Today's Top Stories

⚡ Top Story

Guardian Australia · Nino Bucci and Tom McIlroy

Two Australian states prepare to resettle children from Syrian detention camp with most bound for Melbourne

Four women and nine children expected to return to Australia on Thursday with all apart from a mother and her child expected to go to VictoriaGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAuthorities in two Australian states are preparing to resettle children returning from squalid detention camps and life under Islamic State rule, as at least some of their mothers face possible criminal charges.Four women and nine children are expected to return to Australia on Thursday, with all of them apart from a mother and her child bound for Melbourne. Continue reading...

Nine children, four women, one Hercules — and seven years of governments of both colours pretending the geography was the problem. The kids didn't pick the parents and didn't pick the camp, but Canberra spent half a childhood deciding whether they were Australian enough to come home. Four prime ministers, one tarmac. Took us long enough.

SMH · Rob Harris

'F the lot of youse': Inside the deep political bitterness of the Farrer byelection

Discontent in Griffith is hardening around One Nation as voters in the Farrer byelection turn on both major parties.

'F the lot of youse' is what the bush sounds like when politeness finally runs out. Forty years of fly-in, fly-out government and Canberra's response will be another minister at a saleyard wearing borrowed boots.

SMH · Paul Sakkal

Tony Abbott in frame for top Liberal Party job

Abbott’s potential ascension to a top role in the Liberal Party would place him in his highest-profile political position since he led the nation.

Abbott back in frame for the top job — the Liberals have looked at the smoking ruins, sniffed the petrol on his hands, and decided what the place really needs is someone with arson experience. Menzies built a broad church. This crowd's auditioning the bloke who set fire to the last one.

Michael West Media · AAP

Islamic State-linked families to return to Australia

A group of 13 people with links to the terrorist group Islamic State have confirmed plans to travel to Australia after years in a Syrian refugee camp.

Thirteen people coming home and the press releases will write themselves on both sides — Burke gets to look firm, the Coalition gets to look outraged, and the actual question of what we do with citizens we created and then forgot about gets shouted over by the chorus. We exported the problem to a camp in Syria for years and called it foreign policy. Now the bill's arriving in the mail like every bill we pretended wasn't ours.

SMH · Matthew Knott

Takaichi flies in, Canberra flies blind

Japan's first woman prime minister visited Australia and Canberra produced a handshake, a press release, and not much else.

Takaichi flies in, flies out, and the communiqué reads like a Christmas card from a cousin you've never met. Japan sent its first woman PM and we treated it like a stopover at Tullamarine. Hawke would have had Nakasone at Kirribilli with the prawns out. This mob managed a handshake and a hashtag.