Karen Middleton Established ahead of last year’s marriage-equality vote to quell conservative fears, Philip Ruddock’s long-awaited report has called for religious exemptions from discrimination laws to be scrapped.

Alex McKinnon As the media, politicians and those with a vested interest scaremonger over the housing market, the reality is far less bleak – for those who aren’t renting, at least.

Sophie Boot While Snowy Hydro has declared its readiness to develop the massive Snowy 2.0 expansion, the federal government has yet to decide on its economic feasibility.

Maxine Beneba Clarke

Melissa Lucashenko’s latest novel, Too Much Lip, exhibits a sharp defiance inspired by the author’s discovery of a gutsy family matriarch. She talks about family, country and mysterious mergings of fact and fiction. “I’ve only once started a novel I didn’t go ahead with. A novel is a huge undertaking, so I’m loath to rush in. It’s like waiting for fruit to ripen. There’s a certain berry that ripens at Easter, and there’s no point looking for it at Christmas time.”

Anne Summers Australia needs government. Unless there is urgent action, we will be entering the third decade of the 21st century more directionless and unfocused than we have ever been, at a time when global politics is in chaos. This is not the time to be drifting, hanging on to hope that our (economic) luck will continue to hold. If it is the case that these feckless and mostly fear-based politics have really taken hold only within the past two federal election cycles, they should not be so difficult to dispense with. Especially as voters now seem able – and willing – to apply the bullshit detector more liberally than they were inclined to in the past.

Paul Bongiorno The fact is they believe, as does John Howard, that the Opposition leader is the chink in Labor’s armour and they will keep attacking Shorten in the hope that wary voters will not risk him. Except negative views of the Labor leader pale into insignificance when compared with the disgust at the government’s disunity and dysfunction over the past five-and-a-half years. One marginal seat-holder pointed to swings of up to 30 per cent against the Liberals in New South Wales byelections and in the Victorian state election. Another Liberal says: “We are fucked, fucked, fucked.”

Richard Ackland

What a pleasure it is that HBO’s Succession is being streamed by Fox Drama, even if you do have to creep past the After Dark Monsters from the Sky News lagoon to get there. This is a blistering satire of a media mogul family, so closely reminiscent of the Molochs as to be entirely recognisable. The ancient, desiccated media tsar, Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox, is surrounded by offspring squabbling over the trust and who will take the reins of his junk-laden empire.

We know, now, a little more of what the election will look like. We know that it will be desperate. We know the Morrison government will do anything to win, except develop policies that address the concerns of the electorate. The stories are already being placed. In The Daily Telegraph is spurious legal advice that says Labor’s “softened border policy” would invite criminals into Australia.

Hamish McDonald Drug policy reform in Portugal, from pill testing to decriminalisation, may provide a model for Australia. Lisbon’s ‘dissuasion commissioner’ Nuno Capaz talks about understanding drug use as a medical, rather than a moral, issue.

Hamish McDonald Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou bailed in Canada; Donald Trump’s lawyer jailed.

Dave Faulkner In his final review for the year, Dave Faulkner looks back at the best Australian albums of 2018 that he missed along the way.

Andy Butler Surprisingly, proximity to Patricia Piccinini’s unsettling hybrid forms brings the darker themes of painter Joy Hester’s work to the fore, in the joint exhibition Through love... at TarraWarra.

Elizabeth Flux A walk through the mind of MC Escher with Oki Sato, from Japanese design studio Nendo.

David Moyle

Patrick Hartigan Subsistence labour in a small village in Slovakia teaches a valuable lesson about the relationship between time and work.

Paul Connolly With a world ranking of 27, Kyle Anderson has hit the bull’s-eye as a professional darts player.

Cindy MacDonald Test your general knowledge with our weekly quiz.