Australia's BC - Before Copenhagen
I wonder whether we will come to look at the Rudd prime ministership in terms of its BC phase, and what happened thereafter. "BC" stands, of course, for "Before Copenhagen".
Kevin Rudd seemed at the top of his game in the run-up to the climate change summit. The opposition was in turmoil, the conventional wisdom was that Tony Abbott's climate change scepticism would condemn his party to political oblivion and the Australian prime minister was set to play a key role in Denmark. From the government's viewpoint, it was full steam ahead towards the climate change election.
Yet Copenhagen was deemed a failure, Kevin Rudd was not such as consequential figure as he would have hoped and climate change scepticism has become increasingly intellectually and politically fashionable ever since.
So as I head back to Britain for a short break, perhaps the big running story in Australia since Christmas has been how Kevin Rudd's popularity has slipped.
The home insulation debacle has hit the government hard, though this week's poll - and I've never been in a country, by the way, where polls shape the news to quite the same extent - suggested not quite as badly as the prime minister feared. Still, he has been in full self-flagellation mode for much of the past fortnight, saying sorry at every turn, and on Australia's highly influential commercial talk-back radio shows, to boot, a medium he has shunned since entering office.
The economic growth figures for the last quarter - a very healthy 0.9% rise in GDP for the December quarter - have given the government some much-needed favourable headlines. Yet the higher-than-expected growth also means that interest rates will almost certainly rise a couple of times before the next election.
Anyway, I wanted to revisit some of the blogs over the past few months, and to deal with some of your comments:
I still stand by them, although the whaling row with Japan has provided the biggest diplomatic spat, and Peter Garrett, the main author of the disastrous home insulation scheme, has generated more headlines than the Nationals Senator Barnarby Joyce - but only just....and the coast is now pretty much clear for Senator Joyce to accelerate ahead.
With 118 comments and still counting that one really got you going, as identity questions so often do. Peter Fitzsimons of the , and a fervent campaigner for a new flag, recalled quite a neat story the other day. A bunch of Aussies are on their way to Lansdowne Road in Dublin to watch the Wallabies play Ireland. How does it feel to have the Brits occupying a corner of your flag, asks one of the locals. How does it feel to have the Brits occupying a corner of your country, comes the Aussie reply.
Could it be a commercial success, we asked. Yes, is the answer. It took $A2.6m ($2.4m: £1.6m) in its first week at the Aussie box office.
Multi-racial Melbourne suffers blow to reputation
That blog got the most comments, which is the yardstick often used to judge the success of a post, but not necessarily a good one. You wanted more figures and you wanted more context for the figures. Between 2007-8, the Victoria police recorded 1,447 robberies and assaults against Indians. The Victoria Police say Indians are over-represented in robberies. I'll try to get more.
The one-day international crowds just kept on getting worse, and then the Twenty20 bash-fests were sell-outs. I confess to not being much of a fan of the microwave form of the game, but the home-run-style hitting of young gun David Warner is a wonder to behold. Was DiMaggio that good for the New York Yankees?
I really enjoyed your comments about where Barack Obama should visit to get experience Australia in a nutshell. 
I loved Euroloo's suggestion of the local Westfield. Michael W, I could not agree more with you more about the improving beer situation in this country - and thank goodness. Just as in America, the micro-breweries are a saving grace. Jane Salmon suggested Tarongo Zoo in Sydney, which may well be spot on. I'm being told the first family will, indeed, pay a visit to the zoo for the obligatory koala photo-opportunity.
Going back further, we asked whether voters would take to an American-born politician, Kristina Keneally, as the Premier of New South Wales, the country's most populous state. Well, a recent poll suggested she has become the most popular state premier in the country, although the Labor party in NSW is seen still as toxic.
I should have blogged on the counter-terrorism white paper which the Rudd government released earlier this month. Kevin Rudd has been accused of exaggerating the threat of "home-grown terrorism" to divert attention away from the home insulation debacle. It's a subject, I'll return to.
I should also have blogged about the government's annual report on indigenous affairs. Obviously, we filed on that story, and, again, it's not as if the problem is going away. I also want to do more cultural stuff, honest Whitlamite. There's so much good culture around at the moment. ACDC, the Adelaide Festival, Opera Australia's Tosca, Baz Luhrmann's A Midsummer Night's Dream, another Opera Australia production. Bliss is coming up, an operatic adaptation of Peter Carey's novel. Then there is the much-anticipated arrival of the great Tom Jones.
On that note, I'm off to the green, green grass of home. Catch you later, as they say in these climes.
I'm 
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