The latest federal leader of the Nationals, Matt Canavan, appeared at the National Press Club last week, but anyone hoping for some substance behind the spin left disappointed.

The Senate Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy saw some remarkable public exchanges last week, with the propagators of planet-threatening fossil fuel misinformation confronting scientists in Canberra.

Another COP has concluded in Brazil, with petrostates and their corporate allies ripping up the global road map leading us away from fossil fuels, encouraged by the absence of the USA and with China failing to take the opportunity to step into the vacuum. President Lula's hope that the nearby presence of the lungs of the world (otherwise known as the Amazon) might focus the minds of attendees proved forlorn. The fire which broke out in the final days of negotiations said it all.

With the Australian federal parliament in recess, and in the wake of an American election won with a campaign of lies amplified by social media, a Senate committee spent a day last week publicly discussing the Albanese government's (probably doomed) bill to combat misinformation and disinformation.