Abbott’s instinct will be to support the Commissioner, and Heydon’s instinct will be to hang on. This is a mistake: it seems unlikely that he will survive past the end of this week, and he should resign as quickly as possible. His career is also unlikely to survive, whether he answers the questions raised about this issue or not.

I wanted to pick up on Michael Brull's recent post at Overland on the proposed Royal Commission into child sexual abuse. I think there are likely to be a number of structural and systemic issues likely to dog the Commission and its aftermath, and they are worth looking at.