FORMAL acknowledgement of the first Australians as the original owners of the land is now de rigueur for Rudd Government ministers and MPs. It usually goes something like this: ``I would like to recognise the original owners of the land upon which we meet and acknowledge them as the oldest continuing cultures in human history.’‘

It is intended as a heart-felt gesture of respect and has been received well by all concerned. But it is now being uttered so often and in such a pro-forma way, whether it be at the start of a National Press Club address, or an opening of one event or other, it has begun to ring hollow.

Even among strong supporters of the Aboriginal cause, there is a sense that the acknowledgment, sometimes trotted out with all the emotion of an instruction to stow your tray table and put your seat-back in an upright position, is devaluing the poignancy of Mr Rudd’s historic apology to the Stolen Generations.

Today’s battle is over who’s responsible for the gridlock in the Senate. Join us here from 2pm for live coverage of the House of Representatives Question Time.

Question Time Live: 11/03/10

The NSW government have released a set of recommendations that would place responsibility for the work of a grubby network of international paedophiles and child exploiters on a handful of innocent visual artists.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday the Attorney-General John Hatzistergos said the NSW government would support new legislation that makes a “clear legal distinction between pornography and art” in order to protect victims and make it easier for police to prosecute cases of child pornography and exploitation

With plans to scrap the defence of “artistic merit” while asking artists to fork out up to $500 per image for Commonwealth classification, Hatzistergos’ recommendations are taking a stab at a group, who up until 2008 had stayed fairly shy of scrutiny in Australia.

Don’t you hate it when you see an advertisement on television that you love or you think is really clever, and then a week later, you discover that the ad has been taken off the air because of complaints.

It can be frustrating sometimes, obviously complaining doesn’t guarantee that an ad will be banned but it does highlight how we can take something’s very seriously.

I remember not long ago the Hyundai “Toddler” commercial that showed a little toddler taking his Hyundai out for a drive. Along the way he stopped to pick up a female hitchhiking toddler and the two of them headed to the coast where he later impressed her with his surfing skills by riding a massive wave.

Where the heart dares to tread, politicians’ chequebooks follow in an election year. Tony Abbot embraced his (sort of) inner feminist on Monday announcing his proposed maternity leave plan that would see women paid up to $150,000 for six months’ at home after their baby is born.

This, on the heels of Kevin Rudd’s maternity leave proposal that offers women the minimum wage of $544 for 18 weeks, due for delivery in January in 2011, is surely good news for women and men keen to do their bit of our nation’s population growth.

But in this mad scramble to win the hearts and minds and bank accounts of “working families” have Rudd and Abbot paused to consider whether maternity leave is necessarily a positive thing for women?