Is that because Gessen is a strident critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin?

I know who scares me, and it isn't Masha Gessen.

How come the unions are not screaming bloody murder at the failure of this government to save jobs and Hazelwood Power Station?

Is it because it's a Labor government? Hypocrites.

The government is to subject Landcare and the environment to the old pea and thimble trick.  

In 2014, Tony Abbott took more than $300 million from Landcare to establish the Green Army. Mr Turnbull is now to abolish the Green Army to fund his deal with the Greens that included just $100 million for Landcare.  

After this policy shuffle it seems Landcare volunteers and the environment are the big losers.

I trust the wise heads in our government, which ostensibly supports the free market, will oppose the $1 billion subsidy to miner Adani. The money will go towards the cost of a $2.2 billion railway line to serve the forthcoming Carmichael coal mine.

A Coalition government, true to its lights, must not support a project whose economics are too weak to obtain the funds needed from the commercial banking sector and which will destroy swathes of our most productive farmland.

If the government's aim is to use subsidies to create jobs, then supporting Adani will be a waste of money. There are not many jobs in modern, highly automated mining.

Statutory minimum sentences were never intended to operate as mandatory sentences, which require a judge to impose a fixed or minimum sentence irrespective of the individual circumstances of the case.

Instead, the Sentencing Advisory Council recommended, and the law provides, a limited set of special reasons where a judge can depart from the statutory minimum, in order to avoid an unjust sentence.

For example, the law has long recognised that offenders who agree to provide evidence that will secure the conviction of another, should receive a discounted sentence.

This is because the administration of justice often requires evidence from one offender to convict another. There would be no incentive for an offender to co-operate with authorities if a mandatory sentence applied.

Similarly, the set of special reasons acknowledges other compelling circumstances, such as the offender's mental illness or intellectual disability. These provisions do not represent a "get out of jail free card".

Data analysis by the Sentencing Advisory Council found that, even prior to the scheme, offenders who committed serious injury in circumstances of gross violence typically received an imprisonment sentence far longer than the statutory minimum non-parole period now in place.

The fact that judges have regard to the special reasons provisions demonstrates that the law passed by parliament is being properly applied by the courts.