Insights

Every waterway has its own unique character. So it is with Pittwater, which is enjoyed by thousands of locals and visitors every year. With Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park along its entire western shore, a verdant backdrop adds to the aesthetic pleasure. Small beaches and bays beckon, as clean tidal water delivers abundant opportunities for those aboard a kaleidoscope of craft.

Consumers are used to different people paying various amounts for tolls and air fares. Now, a home improvement giant is going to charge customers individual prices, writes Michael Baker.

Pope Francis has already become a favourite of progressives with his fairly open-minded statements on homosexuality and birth control. But that adoration may go into overdrive now that he has adopted a new role as an environmental crusader.

This is an edited extract from Dog Days: Australia After the Boom by Ross Garnaut. On shelves nationally November 18 ($19.99, Black Inc.)

'It was a fiasco. Rudd's sergeants and lieutenants frantically sought votes. A detached Rudd sat calmly in his office signing cards to his constituents.'

When I was in Australia last week, I dreamed about my old red bicycle that I hadn't thought about in years. It was a clunky one-speed bike I'd bought off a senior sorority girl when I was a freshman. I went to college in California and the bike was my only form of transportation; I didn't have a driver's licence and I didn't really care. In my mind, the bike gave me a certain freedom that the slaves to the car didn't have. Once, although everyone said I was crazy, I cycled to San Francisco. And when on Friday nights my friends all piled into someone's Honda to head to dinner in Palo Alto, I made my way there alone on my bike, gliding past the palm trees on Palm Drive that never got less exotic. The bike moved so much more slowly than everyone else's wheels but to me it was my Batmobile: I controlled the motion and speed; I arrived and left on my own time; I set my own rhythms.

Georgie Crozier thought she was mentally ready to investigate child sexual abuse in the churches. As a nurse and midwife, she had coped with cases of rape and incest, and heard heart-wrenching stories. But nothing could prepare her for the sheer horror or scale of what happened to thousands of young Victorians in orphanages, schools and church settings over decades.

I hesitate to confess these things, but I ride a motorcycle and occasionally, on a Saturday morning, get the urge to mount up and burble off to find a sizzled sausage for breakfast at a charity stall.

Like every other public organisation, the mighty BBC is feeling the pinch. Tightening budgets, well-publicised efficiency drives, and substantial restructuring have transformed the organisation behind the scenes. Front of house, there has been a sharp year-on-year decline in the number of hours of drama going out across all of the BBC's networks, a trend already in place before the bubble of Olympic coverage affected the statistics.

The US sharemarket is not in a bubble despite rising to record highs this year, the vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, said as she flagged a continuation of the central bank's unprecedented bond-buying program.

Paladin Energy made a loss of $US40 million in the September quarter, despite improving the performance of its flagship mine.

Rio Tinto could emerge with a bigger slice of Mongolia's Oyu Tolgoi project, as funding delays threaten to squeeze other partners' hold on the lucrative copper and gold mine.

The great Australian dream slips out of reach for a generation of first home buyers. PAGE 8

Some of David Jones' biggest shareholders are preparing to use next week's annual meeting of the upmarket retailer to agitate the board to reinstate outgoing chief executive, Paul Zahra, in the top job.

Shares in takeover target GrainCorp slumped on Friday over speculation that Prime Minister Tony Abbott is reluctant to support the $3.4 billion bid launched by the US grain trader Archer Daniels Midland.

Investors are expecting the fight for Warrnambool Cheese & Butter to escalate to dizzy heights of $9.50 or even $10 a share.