These days, I no longer avidly follow horse racing. But every now and then, I read about an outsider that bolts to the front at long odds and, despite the best efforts of the favourites, will not be run down.

Using this analogy, many of the inner-city electorates in Australia are becoming like electoral racetracks for bolters. The latest byelection for the state seat of Melbourne, to be held on Saturday week, is a case in point. Much to the chagrin of many Liberals, the party is not even fielding a candidate. This has much to do with Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu avoiding the potential suggestion that his support is flagging after only a year in office. It's not what most Liberal supporters want to see. They want the party of initiative and enterprise having a go in seats like these.

Labor is trailing just behind the Greens in early polling and the seat will almost certainly be determined by preferences from a party that is just three years old: namely, the Australian Sex Party.

At the last federal election, Labor bled badly to the Greens in many inner-city electorates because it had abandoned an emissions trading scheme. Now, the Greens may be bleeding because of their failure to agree to something other than a carbon tax and their recent refusal to give the Gillard government any kind of asylum-seeker deal that would save countless lives. So where will these voters go? Not back to Labor, that's for sure. They left the ALP years ago seeking more progressive policies. And Labor's current bagging of the Greens is more likely to send Labor voters into the arms of emerging progressive parties like the Sex Party, rather than back to the fold.

Queensland Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie has revealed that he is unlikely to implement changes to the infamous “gay panic” defence, despite recommendations to do so earlier this year from a special committee set up to investigate its presence in the Criminal Code.

In a further blow to the state’s gay and lesbian community, Blejie told ABC Radio last week that he didn’t think the recommendations were necessary.

“It’s been used twice in relation to same-sex, you know, homosexual [advance], where it’s now got this messaging of homosexual or gay panic defence. It’s not,” he said.

“It’s not a priority to change it.”

Labor has snubbed gambling reform candidate Stephen Mayne in how to vote material now being distributed for the Melbourne state byelection.

Mr Mayne has hit back, saying he would preference the Greens’ Cathy Oke ahead of Labor in the close race many tip to land Ms Oke as the first Green in the lower house.

Mr Mayne said the Labor how to vote card favours “the reactionary religious right” ahead of the Greens.

“This is a progressive inner city seat,” Mr Mayne said. “They should change it [the card] ahead of election day.”

Labor’s literature, which does not identify other candidate’s party ties, asks voters to put Democrat David James Collyer second and Australian Sex Party candidate Fiona Patten third.

The National Museum of Erotica opened in Canberra for a short time in 2001 but closed soon after, leading many to wonder what happened to the collection.

For the past 20 years, Robbie Swan and Fiona Patten have been collecting erotica - everything from Australia's first vibrator to a 200-year-old Japanese pillow book.

"We have over 400 pieces," Robbie told Ginger Gorman on 666 ABC Canberra's Sunday program.

"We're trying to put together an archive of Australia's erotic industry... that tracks how erotica developed in Australia. What are its roots and where it is going."

The collection includes images, art works and objects.

"It's not just sex products" said Robbie.

"Erotica is actually captured in things like postcards from people - lovers between each other, innocent photos that were taken of people having a ball or party in the 1920s... even things like little keepsakes that people made for each other that carried an erotic significance."

One of Australia's top female political leaders has told young women facing sex discrimination at work to ignore it and it will "just disappear".

South Australian Liberal Opposition Leader Isobel Redmond offered her advice on how to handle sex discrimination in the workplace, including avoiding taking action under the law, during a women's leadership function in Adelaide.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick rejected Ms Redmond's suggestions, saying that if complaints were not lodged, behavioural change would not take place.

And federal Minister for the Status of Women Julie Collins said Ms Redmond's comments were unacceptable.

At a gathering of about 150 women at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia event on Monday, audience member Sophia MacRae, 39, told Ms Redmond that after being elected in 2010 to the Norwood Council in Adelaide's eastern suburbs, and through her work with not-for-profit lobby group the Bicycle Institute, she "feels there is some inequality there".

"What would be your advice for a younger woman dealing with that, when it's not just the fact that your older colleagues have more experience but you can sense that there is a little bit of discrimination involved as well?" she said.

Ms Redmond, 59, told the gathering to take the easy path and ignore discrimination.

Any device connected to the internet such as a computer, smartphone or tablet could soon have its web history logged and retained for up to two years by telecommunications companies for law enforcement purposes under reforms being proposed by the Gillard government.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon announced last Friday that the federal government would review national security legislation, part of which concerns preserving telecommunications data.

Roxon said she had asked the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to consider the potential reforms through public hearings and emphasised that referring them to the committee was the beginning of the review process, adding that the government would "be seeking diverse views" before determining which reforms to pursue.

A terms of reference for the committee is yet to be released, but a draft copy circulating around parliament which Fairfax, publisher of IT Pro, has seen indicates that the committee will be asked to look at a controversial data retention proposal for telcos. A spokesman for Nicola Roxon said it would be released when it was finalised by the committee.