Bolt blogs again, Hadley lashes Wilkie, welcome Melinda Tankard-Reist

Ray Hadley slams Andrew Wilkie over his pokies backdown, Janet Albrechtsen's favourite footballer, and Melinda Tankard-Reist fires up the feminists. Here's what Australia's most powerful Megaphones have been up to over the past week.

Andrew Bolt

The man we named our most powerful Megaphone last year has returned from a four-week sojourn and is again blogging like a man possessed. Today, Bolt attacks Andrew Wilkie and Julia Gillard for buckling on poker machine reform. He also muses on what the sinking of a luxury cruise ship off the Italian coast says about modern manners and the impact of the "feminist revolution".

"Does the desertion of the captain and the frantic every-man-for-himself scramble on the sinking Costa Concordia prove that chivalry and duty are dead in these self-obsessed times?" he asks.

Ray Hadley

"It's hard to know where to start," the 2GB mornings host blustered this morning. "We had another boatload of illegals arrive yesterday. This government continues to exist with its head stuck up its bum on the issue of illegal boat arrivals."

He then turned his sights to Andrew Wilkie, who yesterday announced he is willing to allow a delay in the introduction of a mandatory pre-commitment poker machine scheme until after the next election. The Tasmanian Independent had repeatedly threatened to withdraw support from the Gillard government unless the scheme was legislated by May.

Hadley's no fan of mandatory pre-commitment, but he's outraged by Wilkie's about face.

"Politicians rank as the lowest of the low when it comes to keeping their word," he thundered, "but Wilkie and that weasel Peter Slipper have taken politics to a new low."

Hadley then speculated that Wilkie may have stitched up a deal with Labor to ensure his re-election in 2013.

Janet Albrechtsen

Megaphones Watch had never picked Janet Albrechtsen as a football fan. Yet The Australian's answer to Ayn Rand devotes her column today to Tim Tebow, the Denver Broncos' no-drinking, no-cursing, no-funny business quarterback. Tebow has become famous in the States for celebrating victories with a spot of on-field prayer – a habit that has infuriated some tweeters and commentators (such as Fairfax's Peter Fitzsimmons).

Albrechtsen thinks the criticism of Tebow exposes the smugness and intolerance of irreligious liberals.

"Just by being a nice clean-living guy who walks the Christian talk with his missionary and charity work Tebow is one heck of a weapon against secularists who wouldn't dream of ridiculing any religion except Christianity," she writes.

Melinda Tankard-Reist

Watch out Miranda Devine: another raven-haired conservative is muscling in on your turf. Melinda Tankard-Reist, or MTR as she's widely known, has attracted attention this week by ordering a blogger who wrote about her religious beliefs to apologise or face a defamation action. The threat has sparked debate about whether pro-life women are 'true' feminists ("Feminist is as feminist does, not cuz she says she's a feminist," tweeted ethicist Leslie Cannold) and focussed attention on the activist's background and beliefs. Tankard-Reist, a regular media commentator on issues such as the sexualisation of young girls, was an adviser to hard-line anti-abortion senator Brian Harradine for 12 years.