Liberals, Lamingtons and Kevin Rudd's 'longest' interview
November has been a blur. We've had Tigermania in Melbourne and Malcolmmania in Canberra - and both have ended with a crash. Add to that the 10th anniversary of the republican referendum, a hike in interest rates, Schoolies week on the Gold Coast, the national apology to Forgotten Australians and former child migrants and - it was hardly Frost/Nixon, but we reckon it is the longest interview Kevin Rudd has given since coming to office in 2007 - and it's been a pretty hectic month.
It ends, of course, without the deal on an emissions trading scheme which Kevin Rudd hoped to have in place before the Copenhagen climate change conference. The deal negotiated between the government and Malcolm Turnbull handed a staggering $A127bn ($116bn; £70bn) to industry in the form of various sweeteners, but the opposition rebels still will not swallow it. They reject the scientific case for anthropogenic climate change, and believe the ETS will be ruinous for a resources-based economy. But will their opposition be ruinous for the Liberals? Manifestly, according to Malcolm Turnbull, who launched an attack over the weekend on the "climate change deniers", as he calls them, who were intent on wrecking the Liberal Party and leading it to an electoral catastrophe. So outspoken and vitriolic was his attack that it probably scotched any remaining hopes of retaining the leadership. That will now surely pass - or should that be hospital pass? - to Joe Hockey after the Liberals meet on Tuesday morning. Hockey will then likely block the enactment of the ETS until after Copenhagen - thus providing Kevin Rudd with a trigger to call a snap election. So will the prime minister pull it?
SCHOOLIES: Schoolies, the annual post exams binge drinkathon, was an experience. It also threw up some startling statistics - pun unintended. Since 2000, the number of alcohol-related hospital admissions amongst 18-24 years olds has increased by 130%. More remarkably, it is now estimated that alcohol-related problems account for 80% of police work in Australia. There are calls for the drinking age to be raised to 19. What do you reckon?
SPORT DEBATE: The blog on the funding of elite sports, and whether Australia should retain what might be called its Olympian "Midas focus" got fogged out by the emissions debate. It's an interesting and angry debate. On the sports front, .
AUSTRALIAN JOURNALISM: On the night of all those front bench mass resignations from the shadow cabinet, Australia's journalists gathered, mobiles and Blackberrys in vibrating hands, for the annual Walkley awards, the Oscars for Aussie "journos". You can read the full list of winners . But a few stand-outs for me were Jo Chandler of The Age, who won the commentary category for ; Sarah Ferguson and the team from ABC Four Corners behind Code of Silence, the headline-making documentary on player behaviour in rugby league; and Tracy Grimshaw from Channel Nine's A Current Affair for a riveting interview with Matty Johns, the former player at the centre of the Four Corners investigation. Gary Hughes of The Australian won the gold award for his coverage of the Victorian bushfires, of which he and his family were victims. Briefly leaving the smouldering ruins of his house, he borrowed an old laptop to file his first dispatch. The most moving part of the ceremony was when his wife and daughter were presented with three Walkleys trophies, which replaced those burnt in the fire.
BEST FOOD EXPERIENCE OF THE MONTH: I have to say that the Lamingtons on offer in the foyer of Parliament House on the morning of the national apology were an absolute delight. In a year of economic sugar-hits from the government, here was the real thing.
QUOTE OF THE MONTH: "I'm as rapt as a dunny roll." The words of a gentleman I interviewed on the first morning of the Australian Masters on the outskirts of Melbourne, as he savoured the prospect of seeing his golfing hero, Tiger Woods. When I asked him to translate for British listeners - a dunny is Australian slang for toilet - he said he was as happy as a dog with two tails...
I'm 
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