The income-tax-free club now covers 42.2 per cent of the nation’s 9.754 million families. But middle earners just outside the tax-free zone are caught in a new personal tax pincer, with 134,000 breadwinners being pushed up the scales from 30c to 40c despite Labor claiming it would “increase the take-home pay of all taxpayers”.

Brendan Nelson lost his last hope of remaining leader through two tactical decisions. One was threatening to purge his front bench. In the party meeting, Nelson denounced destabilisers and promised retribution Several Liberals who might have voted for him, even people Nelson did not necessarily have in mind, were now fearful.

Barnaby Joyce, the maverick elected leader of the Nationals in the upper house this week, says he is unable to provide Mr Turnbull with a commitment to hold the Coalition line on all issues. “At times there will be issues that there will, possibly, be a difference on, so on this occasion I humbly decline,” Senator Joyce said today.

Some Liberal MPs this week pointed to Labor’s Crean leadership experience and say they just wanted to “end the agony”. Some who changed their support from the original safe option of Brendan Nelson as leader said they did so at the last minute because they realised a vote in his favour now would only be tested again in a month or two.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has accused Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull of irresponsibility for contradicting the Reserve Bank governor about the financial crisis. Mr Turnbull today appeared to criticise Glenn Stevens’s choice of the words when describing Australian banks’ position in relation to troubled overseas institutions.

Senator Joyce, who has crossed the floor to vote against the Coalition more than 20 times since he entered the Senate in 2005, said his new position as the Nationals’ Senate leader would not alter his ways. “I am who I am by the grace of God, and I’m not going to change,” he said.

The commonly held view among political junkies like myself is that the racy bits of ‘The Costello Memoirs’ have already been published in the papers. John Howard did it in the library with the candlestick. So why bother shelling out $55 to read what amounts to 380 pages of filler?

West Australian premier-elect Colin Barnett has today unveiled a 17-member cabinet featuring three Nationals MPs and an independent, Liz Constable. The Liberals formed a minority government this week after gaining the support of the Nationals in the state’s hung parliament.

The Opposition Leader has decided he cannot place Joe Hockey in the workplace relations role because he held the portfolio during the Howard years. Mr. Turnbull is also likely to dump key Brendan Nelson supporters and reward several ambitious backbenchers who backed him in this week’s leadership ballot with posts in the outer ministry.

Unlike his predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull has a real prospect of leading the party back into office. The decision to call a party meeting at short notice for a leadership vote, which backfired spectacularly for Brendan Nelson, typified the misjudgements that characterised his brief tenure in the top job.