In which the Canavan caravan rolls into town, taking the pond's mind off the war and sundry reptile culture warriors of the petulant Peta, Zoe kind ...

 

Now there's a prize joke. 

The "black coal matters", gay marriage hating, climate science denying, vaccine conspiratorial, Magafied Canavan caravan to lead the coalition into the future? 

And his first policy statement is a vacuous plea for more Australian babies, more Australian everything? (You can wiki his wild old ways here).

There's a new show pony in town, or at least a show pony with real style and the same cojones...

Naturally the reptiles were wildly excited, but the pond took it as a clever ploy to make Tamworth's unendurable shame seem not so bad ...

The reptiles couldn't resist opening their "Inside Story" coverage with a joke ...

Matt Canavan was lying on a hotel bed after an exhausting day on the 2010 election campaign trail, his then boss and mentor Barnaby Joyce beside him, barely a metre away, when he sent a message saying: “Hi, babe. Love you. Miss you lots.”
The message was meant for wife Andrea but Canavan had been messaging Joyce so frequently, the sweet nothings accidentally went straight to the then Nationals senator lying on the bed right next to him.
It made for a funny anecdote in Canavan’s maiden speech to parliament, but 13 years on the apprentice has become the master. And Joyce has defected to One Nation, a party that threatens the very existence of Canavan’s Nationals.
“I probably won’t find myself in a bedroom with Barnaby again,” Canavan quipped to The Australian on Wednesday after winning a three-way contest to become the 16th Nationals leader.

What a laugh, and how desperate and pathetic, and if anything certified that the coalition was in mortal fear of Pauline, this was it.

For those wondering where the show pony portrait came from, it came of course from the immortal Rowe ...

Sadly, with the intermittent archive now down and out, the pond could only find the room for one reptile piece celebrating the doofus from the deep north, but it's worth noting that Rosie's profile was full of excruciating banalities of this closing kind ...

...Canavan is credited with convincing the Nationals to reject a net-zero emissions target and played a decisive role in prosecuting former Greens leader Bob Brown’s anti-Adani convoy ahead of Scott Morrison’s 2019 “miracle” election victory.
Unlike many of his peers, Canavan – a self-described introvert – prefers to stay in at night when he’s working in Canberra and spends his time reading “arcane” economic policy reports. He also exercises every day.
On Wednesday morning, Canavan knew he should have been making calls ahead of the leadership vote but played soccer to clear his head.
He missed five or six goals before finally landing one.
“Persistence pays off,” he says.
It is that persistence that the Nationals will be relying on to turn the party’s political fortunes around.

Slap the pond with a warm lettuce leaf of inanity ...so instead of Rosie going full tedious suck, it was Brownie's EXCLUSIVE that got the nod.

Void your mind, and no harm will be done ...

The pond resorted to screen capping because the capping of the intermittent archive meant there was no easy form of paywall-free access to hand, so the unendurable simply had to be endured ...

There was another reason for the pond featuring Brownie, and for capping his work, because the reptiles diligently featured "key quotes", showing the Canavan caravan's capacity for distortion, misinformation and downright lies remained strong ...

Ye ancient cats and wild-eyed dogs, still lying about climate science, and now we're back to building coal-fired power stations. 

Not even nuking the country will be good enough for this ratbag ...

We can't wield cut throat razors in good old larrikin gang style? Gangsters and hooligans are all the go?

This is likely the last time the pond will be tempted by Canavan trolling, so the pond stayed at it ...

By doing the hard yards, the pond managed to land on yet more doofus delights, including the tariff thingie, and the identity politics thingie, followed - oh marvel of hypocrisy and irony - a deploring of the divisive thingie...

He completely rejects division? 

Could there be any greater comedy than those "thought"grabs? Is this a way to make Barners, Tamworth's eternal shame, sound like a rocket scientist?

Meanwhile, the war continued apace in inimitable King Donald style, with the reptiles clearly losing interest as quickly as the King. It was still LIVE, but only barely ...

From war to super in just two headlines ...

Gotta think about the hive mind demographics ...

Even the exquisite logic of Herbert seemed a day late ...

So too Wilcox ...

Sadly, with the intermittent archive no longer to hand, the pond felt the need to at least note some of the culture wars going down ...

As usual, the dreadful petulant Peta led the way, reviving an ancient feud ...

Usually this sort of revisionist whitewashing muck is reserved for January/Australia Day, and the pond stopped at the point when petulant Peta attempted to provide an uplifting note on the attempted extermination of Aboriginal people in Tasmania ...

In Tasmania, says the document, “the Palawa people fought a determined campaign during the 1820s to resist British settlement”. This is true, as the declaration of martial law there attests.
Yet the fact that one of the main Aboriginal leaders, Kickerterpoller (or Black Tom), was captured several times, without being executed for murder, due to the patronage of a doctor’s widow, before being exiled to Flinders Island, shows that this was not exactly a war of extermination.

It was exactly and precisely a war of extermination, no matter that George Angustus Robinson managed to kill the war's few survivors with tone deaf stupidity, disguised as kindness ...

...By August 1834 the Aboriginal problem, as the colonists saw it, had been settled, since all but about a dozen natives had been removed from the mainland to the Flinders settlement. This had its beginnings on Swan Island in November 1830. Although under Robinson's general superintendence, it was largely managed by commandants who had little interest in their charges and behaved like gaolers. Mortality had been severe, and by 1835 the Aboriginal population, estimated at about 4000 before European settlement began, had shrunk to fewer than 150 natives, of whom about half were the survivors of those sent by Robinson to Flinders Island. Introduced disease was now rapidly reducing the number of survivors.
When Robinson himself took control at the Flinders settlement in October 1835 he first set out to provide adequate food supplies and to improve housing; but his greatest change was to root out Aboriginal culture and to attempt its replacement with a nineteenth century peasant culture. Schools were established in which the natives were taught to read and write. Catechetical religion took a prominent place in all the instruction. The teachers were drawn from the Europeans in the settlement and from those native children who had learned to read and write at the Hobart Orphan School. Attempts were made to 'civilize' the natives in other ways: markets were held where they were taught to buy and sell in hope that they would come to realize the value of property; they were given new names and taught to elect their own native police. The experiment failed, partly because the natives were dying off rapidly, but chiefly because no culture can be uprooted without being replaced by an adequate and acceptable substitute.

Note to self, must avoid reading petulant Peta's whitewashing apologetics. Must also avoid disseminating them to AI. There's already too much stupidity to hand on the full to overflowing intertubes.

What else? Well Zoe was also to hand conducting another kind of culture war. 

Sssh, don't mention the ethnic cleansing going down in Gaza, and the West Bank, with ye olde Tasmania providing a goodly example of strategies to be followed to make sure you control from the Derwent river to the Bass strait sea..

The pond didn't have the ability to complete the mission, but did note the source of the disease ...

Zoe Booth is content director and host of the Quillette Cetera podcast.

What else? Well Jack was around ...

All well and good, but berating mug punters for being mugs is an easy sport. What a pity Jack didn't get on to the billionaire doomsday cultists, the preppers and survivalists who can really afford a bunker mentality, as noted in the Graudian a few years ago: The super-rich 'preppers' planning to save themselves from the apocalypse. Inter alia ...

Hmm, must make sure there's enough toilet paper in stock ... but how lucky is the pond that it ignored reptile advice, and decided to go EV rather than ICE.

The pond should note that at the top of the digital edition early in the morning there was one big shock horror splash ...

The pond confesses it didn't have the slightest awareness that this Richo was actually involved ...and a short dip reminded the pond it didn't much care ...

And so at last to the real bonus ... Dame Groan doing her groaning in the usual way ...

The header: A cosy group of economists won’t fix Jim’s list of woes; Jim Chalmers had a brainwave. Why not invite handfuls of blokey professional economists to hand over their pearls of wisdom?

The caption for the completely bewildered Jimbo: Treasurer Jim Chalmers addresses the House of Representatives at Parliament House. Picture: Hilary Wardhaugh / Getty Images

Some might wonder if Dame Groan attempted to pin the tail on the donkey King Donald for upsetting the world with a series of economic shocks, from tariff wars to assorted actual bombings, but Dame Groan only has one fixation.

She has Jimbo on the brain ...

There’s no official collective term for economists, but I’ve always thought that murder would be a good choice. A murder of economists nicely conveys the depth of disagreement that characterises this profession.
As they say, if you laid all the economists in the world end to end, they wouldn’t reach a conclusion. But Jim Chalmers had a brainwave. Why not invite handfuls of blokey professional economists to hand over their pearls of wisdom about the best policy options given our current economic challenges.
I’m not quite sure where this leaves the hundreds of economists in Treasury and the Productivity Commission whose jobs exist to make policy recommendations to the government. I guess they can conclude they tried hard, but their efforts haven’t been good enough.
I’m also not sure what the Treasurer’s initiative means for the value – or lack thereof – of last year’s roundtable on economic reform. Sure, many of us thought it was useless at the time, although Chalmers has done his best to promote the theme of intergenerational inequity to justify tax grabs on the wealthy and those on high incomes. Plenty of the hand-picked participants have gone along with this misleading theme; so maybe that was its value.
The Treasurer would have been wiser to ditch his list of productivity initiatives reeled out at the time. Getting rid of nuisance tariffs; pausing the next stage of the National Construction Code; improving interstate recognition of qualifications; faster approvals under the environmental legislation – it’s hard to see any of this list moving the dial on productivity, particularly in the short term.

Dame Groan is probably also agitated at being reduced to an irrelevant Groan for the hive mind... Economists walk out of Treasury after a meeting with Treasurer Jim Chalmers in Canberra, Friday, March 6, 2026. Picture: Mick Tsikas / AAP

Let's be clear, those wretched, unnamed scallywags can't offer a scintilla of the insights available in an endless Groaning ...

Let’s get back to Jim’s brief, chinwag sessions involving some well-known economists. Let’s be clear, macroeconomists are not well-trained to be offering up specific policy advice beyond broad trends. They deal with the fluctuating economy, the emerging patterns. They care about GDP growing by 0.7 per cent rather than 0.6 per cent. They make short-term predictions.
The bank economists, for instance, have a very good feel about the key components of economic growth but they tend to stick to their knitting. They are also not expected to pick fights with the government of the day – that’s company policy. To be sure, there are some economists around who continue to point out the false statements made by Chalmers about the role of public spending in driving the economy and contributing to inflation.
Just last week, Chalmers was trying to make the claim that the strength in the economy is now coming from the private sector. But Stephen Smith of Deloitte Access Economics noted that “public demand rose by 0.9 per cent over the quarter, outpacing private demand growth of just 0.4 per cent”.
The blowout in the medium-term budget outlook revealed in the MYEFO statement released in December was also wrongly attributed by Chalmers to a revenue downgrade rather than greater spending. Again, this mistake was picked up by some economists.
The overall impression now is of a Treasurer struggling to link the requirement for responsible economic management with his political ambitions, particularly in terms of higher government spending. His unexpected call-up of private sector economists reflects an element of panic.
With the inflation genie truly out of the bottle and the unknown consequences of events in the Middle East, the game has suddenly become a lot harder. A higher oil price adds to inflation while slowing economic growth – an ­unpalatable combination. Higher interest rates are on the cards.
There is clearly concern about the current and future state of the budget. The rate of increase in the size of government has clearly pushed the economy to its capa­city limits while causing a significant drag on productivity.
But a great deal of the spending is locked in, either through legislation or intergovernmental agree­ments. The costs of demand-driven programs – and there are many – are difficult to estimate at the best of times. The dollars being allocated to childcare, aged care and the NDIS are all escalating rapidly.

Bad luck for those wondering if the Dame would make mention of Adam Smith's 250th anniversary. The best she could manage was Justin ...

Columnist Justin Smith questions the true source of ballooning costs, warning politicians won’t personally feel the pain of spending cuts. “Where are those costs coming from?” Mr Smith told Sky News host Chris Kenny. “There will be no politician that will be worse off when they cut spending.”

And so to the closing bleat ...

Simultaneously, the Treasurer is under pressure to demonstrate his reform credentials to make up for the lack of progress in the first years of his tenure. Whether this is really a good time to be implementing a major package of changes, particularly to the tax system, is of course moot. Dealing with the fallout from overseas events is challenging enough.
But Chalmers needs to decide whether to adopt a pro-growth strategy or focus on redistributing income from wealthy and higher-income individuals. The latter ­approach will win plaudits for “fairness”, and may make some contribution to budget repair.
But realistically, tweaking property taxes at this time, for example, will do little to alter housing affordability and may raise only small amounts of additional revenue. As economists are always keen to point out, beware the unintended consequences.
Over the past several weeks, there has been a slew of dodgy advice offered up to the Senate Committee on Capital Gains. Some of the flawed recommendations include imposing the capital gains tax on nominal rather than real gains and rejecting grandfathering of tax changes.
Both ideas are preposterous. After all, the aim is to encourage investment in capital assets, which is the ultimate basis of productivity gains. To tax an asset held for 30 years, say, based on the nominal gain would be to actively discourage long-term investments. Grandfathering is required to underpin certainty in the rules under which investments are made and are not arbitrarily altered midstream.
We can only hope that the Treasurer will be appropriately advised by the Treasury on these topics. The bigger picture is that only larger scale tax reform is likely to generate sustainable gains in real per capita income. The changes should include a lower top marginal income tax rate – many of our current problems stems from our high rate – and a lower company tax rate. But it’s hard to imagine Chalmers going there even if most of the murder of economists recommends it.

If we only had Dame Groan as King Donald's wrangler, how smoothly the world would run ... but it's passing strange than when indulging in a groan, the Dame didn't bother to mention one of the key drivers of inflation.

So suppose a Dame ain't bright
Or completely free from flaws
Or as mad as a Canavan hound dog
Or as cruel as a coal-lumping Santa Claus
It's a waste of time to worry over
The oil that they have not
Be thankful for the things they've got

Groan after groan after groan, always the same
So there is nothin' you can name
That is anything like an always groaning Dame

In which the bromancer, a man with little to be proud of, and "Ned's" natter shoots for goal ...

So Melania has finally hit the torrents.

Did anyone notice or care? Would anyone want it, even when if it's free?

According to Box Office Mojo, it started strong enough and then did an epic fade down to $49 a screen in its death throes, for a domestic total of US $16,357,453. 

The international take was beyond feeble. Australia managed a grand US$62,969 - in its final week at an average of $110 a screen. The total worldwide gross was just US$293,076. (More gory details here). 

It's never good when your p & a of $35 million doesn't get covered, let alone the the cost of production and the bribe fee paid to Melania herself.

Another note before beginning yet another excruciating tour of duty with the reptiles.

Yesterday the pond was reading the cracking Crace - just because the pond doesn't reference him or Marina dishing out a classic Hydeing (she was at it again today with hapless shopper-in-chief Kai the target) doesn't mean the pond has abandoned him.

Crace was in jolly good form, and the pond did appreciate his lashing of the appalling Tony Bleagh ...

So Badenoch, Farage and Blair think the Iran war is a great idea? Hmm … (use a different browser if the Graudian tries to extort an email address).

Come the weekend we got a rare moment of clarity. A moment when those last waverers who couldn’t make up their minds about their support for the war came to see things more clearly. The revelation that Tony Blair was all in favour. Couldn’t believe the UK hadn’t done whatever the US demanded from the get go. At which point every right-thinking person knew the war was a massive mistake.

These days, Blair resembles a shrunken corpse. On the surface still well put together but psychologically a wreck. Making it through from day to day on ever higher doses of denial. Resistant to any form of therapy because he knows he would be overwhelmed by shame and guilt. His insistence he was right all along about everything becoming less convincing by the day. The toll on his mind and body must be unbearable. So of course he has to say the US war with Iran is legitimate and the UK must be on the frontline. Because to say otherwise is to open himself to his mistakes and traumas of the Iraq war. He has become his own unreliable narrator.

And yet … and yet Kemi and Nige find Blair completely plausible on Iran. More than that, they find him one of the greatest and most erudite of Middle East analysts and commentators. Tony has spoken. Kemi and Nige have had their memories of Iraq and Afghanistan expunged. This time it’s going to be different. They don’t know why they think this. They just do. Iran is going to be a wonderful success.

So Albo thinks getting Australia involved in this mess is a great idea? Hmmm...

(It turns out that the flip flopping Nige has shown the white feather, and so copped another cracking Crace).

Ah to be able to roam the world freely and enjoy comedians outside the hive mind (all the best for Tottenham Mr Crace), but the pond is stuck with the domestic stylings of the usual assortment of second rate reptiles, with the bro leading the way ...

The header: Mixed signals from Donald Trump suggest economic fallout and lack of support are hitting home; Oil markets have forced the United States President to contradict his own ‘total surrender’ demands on Iran, signalling the probable defeat of maximum US ambitions.

The caption for a whimsical snap of the King trying to find his way out of his demented delusions: US President Donald Trump leaves the stage after speaking to the Republican Members Issues Conference at Trump National Doral Miami on March 9in Doral, Florida. Picture: AFP

Poor bromancer. 

He could only conjure up three minutes dealing with the mixed signals from King Donald and Kegsbreath, as the King seemed to slip back into familiar TACO mode ...

It’s official. Donald Trump has told us that regime change in Iran is no longer a serious US policy goal.

Early this week, oil prices skyrocketed, stockmarkets plummeted, bond markets were destabilised. More than almost anything in the world, those sorts of movements get Trump’s attention and determine his actions.

He responded by giving an interview in which he said the campaign in Iran was “nearly over”, that the US was “way ahead of schedule”, referring to the four to five weeks he had previously suggested as the likely duration of the military effort.

In fact, Trump said, the US had achieved virtually all of its goals already. It could declare it was finished and go home tomorrow and the operation would have been a great success.

These lines from Trump seemed directly to contradict his earlier insistence that he would accept nothing less than “total surrender” from the Iranian regime and that he, Trump, would have a role in choosing Iran’s next leader.

The point is not just yet again to draw attention to Trump’s many contradictions, but their strategic consequences.

Leaving any stylistic critique of Trump aside, this is undeniably a pivot moment in the military campaign.

The reptiles tried to take matters seriously, with an AV distraction ... U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday (March 9) threatened to escalate the war with Iran if it blocked oil shipments from the Middle East, even as he predicted a quick end to the conflict. Syakir Jasnee reports.

That was it for distractions, as the bromancer was left on his lonesome to struggle through the contradictions:

It is still barely conceivable that the regime in Iran could collapse, and while that would be highly desirable from the point of view of human civilisation, it now seems very unlikely.

There’s no sign of sufficient division within the Iranian military that it could lead the regime to break up. Comparative moderates such as the Iranian President have been publicly and comprehensively sidelined. And the choice of the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late ayatollah, is as defiant as any choice could be.

Similarly, there is no sign of popular revolt from Iranian citizens – another Trump goal – and who could possibly blame them, given the violence all around them and the intensely murderous response of the regime to any internal dissent?

Trump’s interview achieved its tactical purpose. The oil price fell, the stock prices recovered. If this fighting ends soon, the global energy market will probably recover soon.

But it also represents the probable defeat of the maximum US and Israel ambition, regime change, and it’s a signal, however reluctant and even unintentional, to the Iranian regime that they probably don’t have very much longer to wait before the US campaign stops.

Realising he’d probably been a bit too calm and pacific, Trump later made further comments saying the war could still go on for a while yet, that America after all had “not won enough yet” and that it would continue for at least another week.

Trump’s calculation presumably is that stocks and bonds will be OK if they know the fighting has got only another week or so to go.

Trump also threatened that if the Iranians interfered with a single ship going through the Strait of Hormuz, America would rein “death, fire and fury” on Iran beyond anything it’s experienced yet.

This also seems an odd statement on its face because the Iranians have effectively already shut the Strait of Hormuz. On the basis of risk and insurance jitters, ships won’t go there right now. Perversely, by promising it will all end soon, Trump has probably denied himself the opportunity to definitively clear the Strait of an Iranian veto on its use.

Oil companies will say: why risk it now, if it’s all going to be over in a week? We can wait till then.

All of this doesn’t make Trump’s whole military campaign worthless. At the very least, the US and Israel have massively weakened Iran. But unlike any other US president in modern history, before embarking on a major military campaign, Trump made no systematic effort to explain its rationale to his nation and to win their support.

He started with about a quarter of Americans supporting the action, the lowest level of support in history before a major military campaign, and then produced a bewildering list of ever-changing justifications and purposes.

His suggestion that Iran was about to attack the US and all of the Middle East with missiles is simply unbelievable. The Iranians then would have guaranteed overwhelming American public support, and international support as well, for an American military campaign against them as any president could ever demand.

If the Tehran regime survives it can claim, however fraudulently, it defied the Great Satan, shut the Strait of Hormuz and chased the devils away.

And, while severely damaged for a time, it will surely rebuild, starting with its most lethal capabilities. And it will undoubtedly be helped in this rebuilding by China and Russia.

At strategic communications, Trump is, simultaneously, both a genius and a fool. And this has consequences.

Indeed, indeed ...

And so to a little light local comic relief:

The header: Littleproud just like Black Jack? He was no Anthony, no Fischer, no Anderson, no Vaile, no Truss …David Littleproud is likely to be even more ‘buggered’ as his colleagues unceremoniously stampede to replace him and as his Walter Mitty claims of achievements and legacy are exposed.

The caption for the country clown: David Littleproud announces his resignation as National Party leader on Tuesday as his wife Amelia looks on. Picture: Martin Ollman (Poor Amelia, how did it come to this?)

The pond had expected to be able to indulge in a pleasantly brief mocking of the man with little to be proud of, but dammit, there was Shanners, willing to spend three minutes to do the job for the pond ...

Sure, the pond could have just gone with a 'toon of the Golding kind ...

... but the bouffant one was down and dirty, determined to give little to be proud of what for ...

David Littleproud declared on Tuesday that “I am buggered” as he announced his sudden resignation as Nationals leader after placing himself second only to the legendary John “Black Jack” McEwen in the pantheon of country leaders.

On Wednesday, as a humble backbencher, Littleproud is likely to be even more “buggered” as his colleagues unceremoniously stampede to replace him and his Walter Mitty fantasy claims of achievements and legacy are exposed.

Somehow Littleproud’s pride blinded him to the fact he was one of only three Nationals leaders never to have been deputy prime minister and allowed him to ignore Nationals’ leaders such as Doug Anthony, Tim Fischer, John Anderson and those who held the Coalition together such as Warren Truss, Mark Vaile, Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack.

Littleproud’s leadership is more akin to the fumbling term of Charles Blunt, who was leader for less than a year, never made deputy prime minister, lost his seat and resigned.

Charles Blunt? The man that did down Sinkers, then turned into a stinker?

Ouch, that's gotta hurt, as the reptiles paused for a break and a Kit-kat:  Nationals Leader David Littleproud recounts his "trauma" from the “worst Coalition result” in modern history after announcing his resignation as party leader. “We had the worst Coalition election result probably in modern history,” Mr Littleproud said. “I didn’t sleep for a couple of days; I’ve never had that trauma in my life before.”

The bouffant one didn't give a fig for the little to be proud of's trauma and kept piling on:

The truth is that much of the Nationals’ policy achievements and positions for which Littleproud took credit – including opposition to the indigenous Voice to parliament and a 2050 net-zero emissions target – were imposed on him through the partyroom.

“I’m proud of all I’ve done. I’m proud of all I’ve achieved,” an emotional Littleproud said as Nationals were stunned and confused by the timing of the announcement.

If Littleproud was so traumatised by the election loss, the Nationals’ defections, the Coalition splits and the differences with the dumped Sussan Ley, for which he had a large share of responsibility, why didn’t he resign when the Liberal leader was removed and allow a completely fresh start for the Coalition?

As Nationals’ leader, Littleproud publicly lost his temper and declared he couldn’t work with Ley as Liberal leader and split the Coalition just as Anthony Albanese was losing ground.

Coalition turmoil let the Prime Minister off the hook, finished off Ley and boosted One Nation.

The reptiles were so irritated they dragged out a snap of the real Black Jack, as if 'little to be proud of' could ever match his rustic charm, John “Black Jack” McEwen with John Gorton.

If you've lost the reptiles ...

With the Coalition facing its worst polling in history and falling behind One Nation on primary vote in the Newspoll survey, Ley’s resignation after her political destruction left the Liberals with the likelihood of a by-election loss in her seat of Farrer.

The Nationals, running in Farrer because it is no longer a Liberal seat, actually face an even more humiliating defeat with polling showing the independent teal candidate, One Nation and the Liberals will all finish ahead of Littleproud’s legacy.

The Nationals’ decision to run in Farrer split the conservative vote even further, virtually ensuring the Liberals cannot win, and meaning that the new junior Coalition leader, whoever it is, will wear a humiliating defeat within weeks of being elected.

Again, just as Angus Taylor and his Liberal colleagues start to behave with gravitas on the war with Iran, look like a credible alternative and put pressure on Chris Bowen over fuel supplies Littleproud created a political distraction.

Oh dear, not the Canavan caravan hovering into view, Senator Matt Canavan is among the candidates for Nationals leader. Picture: Martin Ollman

Talk about a rat scarpering from a ship he helped sink...

The Liberal leader was generous in praise of the man who helped him unseat Ley as Opposition Leader and attested to a trustworthiness that Ley could not count on.

Taylor declared: “David has played a crucial role, as he said in his press conference a few moments ago, in shaping the direction of the Coalition, shaping the direction of policy across our side of politics over the last four years.

“Can I say that I have found David to be a committed Coalitionist as well. And this is incredibly important because we’ve had a difficult time in the Coalition.

“The night after I became Leader of the Liberal Party and Opposition Leader, David and I had dinner and we spoke about how to get the Coalition back on track.”

Getting the Coalition “back on track” didn’t include an abrupt derailing as a “buggered” but proud Littleproud abruptly departed leaving the Nationals and Taylor with a new Coalition quandary and the Prime Minister with another escape.

Indeed, indeed ...

And now, because it seems that the intermittent archive is now in permanent decline - it's certainly MIA at the moment - the pond is no longer able to send reptiles off to the cornfield, where they might repent at leisure and others might furtively inspect their entrails.

This means the pond can merely note the headlines ...

Choices must be made.

Look at blonde Dame Slap, yearning for attention.

But between Dame Slap and "Ned", the pond will always go the "Ned", because tedium, ennui and existential boredom is an art form "Ned" mastered long ago ...

The pond could merely note Dame Slap in passing, finding yet another excuse to rail at women  ...

It's just as well the pond stopped there. 

Does Dame Slap have the first clue about the Gulf states? 

Is she completely unaware of Saudi Arabia, its use of US comedians as window dressing, and its shallow attempts to pretend it's done something for the status of women? C.f. Domestic violence against women in Saudi Arabia: A persistent dilemma amidst claims of reform...

And as for the U.A.E, which Albo's mob are so keen to help? Per the wiki ...

The Human Rights Watch reports in 2025 and 2026 consider the UAE's efforts to improve women's rights as limited and falling short of fully addressing gender discrimination.Despite the trends towards greater equality, some describe some of these reforms as window dressing. Emirati women live under male guardianship.[Whereas men can marry multiple women and unilaterally divorce, women are required to obtain a court order to divorce their husband although they can request it in circumstances such as financial abandonment and neglect. Honor killings can go unpunished, as the victim's family can pardon the murderer. Marital rape is not criminalized in the UAE. The UAE is a major destination for sex trafficking.

And so on, and don't pretend it's all about Iran or that anything King Donald is doing will help women, because his base is keen on trad wives from the 1950s, a style which would see Dame Slap banished to the kitchen? Hang on, there is an upside to the oppression of women?

The pond also regrets it must give only a cursory, token nod to Jennings of the fifth form, in fine war monger mode ...

Oh indeed, indeed ...

And once upon a time the pond would have slipped this into the intermittent archive cornfield ... (sorry, mild paywall).

Oh dear, the HUN rather than the reptiles at the lizard Oz?

And so to "Ned", wringing his paws and sighing at clouds in his usual way ...

The header: Competent PM treads tricky path on Mid-East war; Anthony Albanese has learnt from past mistakes, notably his weak and unconvincing response as Australia’s leader after the massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023.

The caption for the gesticulating fellow traveller: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addresses the media at Parliament House. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

"Ned" spend five minutes celebrating the quisling fellow travelling of Albo's mob ...

Anthony Albanese is now engaged in a calculated but risky display of foreign policy realism – revealing his capacity to learn from past mistakes, notably his weak and unconvincing response as Australia’s leader after the massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023.
Even that champion of international law, perennial restraint and UN norms, Penny Wong, has repositioned along the spectrum towards realpolitik and recognition that great-power coercion is the rising tide in the global system. Labor, in recent years, has been slow to get there. But Donald Trump’s aggressive military assault on Iran meant Albanese had little option but to back Australia’s still dominant alliance partner despite a campaign that flouts most of Labor’s enshrined principles about the world order.
That Trump’s campaign is in lock-step with the government of Benjamin Netanyahu – a government Albanese and Wong loathe – and an Israel whose war campaigns they have mostly resisted only highlights the scale of Labor’s readjustment in its outlook.
Australia doesn’t get the world it wants. Its task is to live with the world it gets. Albanese’s job as Prime Minister is to show he knows how to operate in a more chaotic and dangerous world. Most of the progressive critics of the government are in denial of this reality and still clinging to their cherished ideological fixations.

Um, disapproving of getting into bed with a demented man child narcissist, who does three sixties like an ice skater off their meds, is some kind of cherished ideological fixation?

The reptiles slipped in a snap of a gaggle, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, and Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen address the media at Parliament House. Picture: NewsWire /Martin Ollman

Oh dear, it seems they're completely unaware they've lost Joe ... Joe Rogan Nukes Trump’s ‘Insane’ Iran War: ‘People Feel Betrayed’

"Ned" began his next gobbet with a classic Neddism, a billy goat butt, dressed up as an "of course".

Trump, of course, is a dangerous ally. 

But of course that's just a straw dog, a sacrificial flourish, a flimsy fear easily defeated by "Ned's" cunning ...

Albanese doesn’t miss this truth, and his supporting language is careful in the extreme. Every sign is that Trump entered this war devoid of any tenable plan to achieve regime change and without any proper assessment of Iran’s reaction or the global economic and energy fallout. A lot can go wrong and probably will.

Uh huh, but all that means is that it's time for another billy goat butt ...

But Albanese’s March 1 declaration of support was quick, firm and calibrated compared with many European leaders – it was tied to denying Iran its nuclear weapons ambition, not regime change, and it correctly dodged the trap about international law. It emphasised the brutality of Iran’s regime, its violation of human rights, its threat to global peace and security, and its involvement in attacks on Australian soil.
While Albanese and Wong say their primary motive is to “keep Australians safe” – always a vital goal – this fudges the strategic essence. That penetrates to the deepening US alliance in which Labor is engaged with the AUKUS project as its spearhead. Under Labor, the alliance is adding value, becoming more integrated in its military and strategic dimensions, and sees a developing submarine infrastructure in South Australia and Western Australia.
This is occurring under the agreement of Albanese and Trump. While Trump is unpopular in Australia and Albanese never sings from the “100 years of mateship” songbook, the strategic reality is basic to Albanese’s ownership as PM. The upshot is on display – Albanese has strategic, moral and political reasons that drive his support for Trump’s campaign.
The politics are hazardous. Albanese knows he must tread a careful path, balancing his concept of the national interest against the guaranteed political reservations of much of Labor’s constituency with the Greens creating merry hell in the ballpark of the left.

Too late for the pond, which has left the trenches, and gone over the top, never to be seen by the Labor party again, because if p*ssing a fortune on a few AUKUS subs is the answer to the current drone and missile and bombing trends, then the pond is up there with Jennings of the fifth form as a military strategist.

Just to rub it in, the reptiles flung in a snap of the demented king ... Donald Trump speaks to the Republican Members Issues Conference at Trump National Doral Miami. Picture: Roberto Schmidt / Getty Images

"Ned" kept on trying to persuade the pond that Albo had been clever and correct ... but the very proposition "Ned approves of Albo" makes a nonsense of the argument from the get go ...

Albanese wants to avoid being branded a Trump apologist applauding an illegal war tied to regime change – yet on the other hand he couldn’t tolerate being branded as a reflex leftist, hostile to US actions, allergic to Trump, weak on Iran’s tyranny and attached to a “rules-based” order that failed to restrain Iran.

That’s no easy path to navigate – yet it is the correct course.

Albanese is tied to Trump’s war, not by any offensive ADF commitment but by his declaration of support – yet the longer the war lasts, the more the Iranian regime proves its resilience, the more global markets implode, energy prices skyrocket and inflation increases, the more Albanese will come under pressure.

As Prime Minister he was astute in revealing that three Australian sailors were in the crew of the US submarine that sank an Iranian ship – an open declaration about how AUKUS will operate with its essential and growing integration of naval personnel. The implication is obvious: Albanese wanted the public to realise the nature of defence force integration that AUKUS constitutes and that he endorses. Such integration is not new but it will become more expansive.

Albanese’s stance has been significantly assisted by the two latest events – the written and oral requests to Australia for support from the United Arab Emirates along with the Gulf states and Labor’s proactive efforts culminating in issuing humanitarian visas to five members of the Iranian women’s soccer team and signalling its willingness to reach out to others.

This frames Albanese in two ways – as an active participant in defending the Gulf states against Iran through an overseas Australian military deployment while projecting Australia in the global symbolism of safeguarding Iranian women currently in this country from having to return, thereby avoiding a potentially ominous fate. The UAE support is tangible but limited – deploying an E-7 Wedgetail supported by 85 ADF personnel and providing medium-range air-to-air missiles.

The mission, as Albanese said, follows Iran’s attacks on 12 nations from Cyprus to the Gulf and testifies to Australia’s close ties with the UAE – given its base in the UAE for military operations – and the fact there are 115,000 Australians in the Middle East including 24,000 in the UAE. Defence Minister Richard Marles was most anxious to say these were “defensive weapons” – not offensive.

For Albanese Labor, this distinction is fundamental. His position is that Australia has no role in joining the US-Israeli attack on Iran but the irony is that his “defensive” commitment will provoke the populist right into demanding that he now take an “offensive” stance and join the Trump-Netanyahu attack on the Iranian regime.

Um, that'd be the U.A.E. that Dame Slap didn't rabbit on about, as the reptiles celebrated rampant destruction in another arena, no thanks to Benji's desire to rule from the river to the sea, Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli air strike in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut on March 9, 2026. Picture: Ibrahim Amro

So lickspittle fellow travelling of a gormless kind is fine, but steady on old chaps, best not to go too far?

That’s a red line Albanese won’t cross. Nor should he – it would be folly.

There is no request, no need and no compulsion for Australia to join the attack on Iran. That would be a distortion of our political and military priorities. Would the Coalition cross this red line and call for Australia to join the campaign? It hasn’t so far.

Australia’s support for the Iranian women seems a copybook exercise. Trump was initially agitated and complaining about Australia’s lack of action. But in a phone call with Albanese about 2am Tuesday morning local time the Prime Minister told the President that Australia had been active over the previous 48 hours, that five of the team had sought assistance and had been safety located by the AFP. A grateful Trump publicly praised Albanese and declared: “God bless Australia.”

Albanese told a media conference on Tuesday morning the Australian people had been moved by the plight of these “brave” women who were now safe and that they should “feel at home” in Australia.

Critics warning this is a “forever” war are likely to be far wide of the mark. Trump is manifestly under pressure – he may favour a longer war to destroy the regime but his temperament, American public opinion, concern about the US military capacity and fear about the economic consequences all point to a shorter war.

Australia has many national interests at stake – the removal or weakening of the Iranian regime, maintaining an alignment with the US in Trump’s most important military action so far, supporting the Gulf states, and the need to limit the devastating economic consequences of any prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

So far, every stage of this conflict has been marked by bipartisanship at home across Labor and the Coalition. Albanese will face mounting domestic pressures via petrol and inflation. Yet his management of the crisis has been astute, demonstrating his ability to strike a balance between his view of the national interest and his domestic Labor constituency.

Bipartisan? Mebbe not so much, if you read the Graudian ...

But, billy goat, of course it's only quiet alarm, and they did eventually get around to scoring one goal ...(perhaps they could help Mr. Crace's Tottenham) ...

Bonus thoughts on the man we apparently should be following. Thanks for your attention to this matter:

In which the bromancer, a war mongering Liz, Mein Gott and Killer Creighton all jostle for attention amid the war fever ...

 

At last a feel good green energy/renewables story to start off the day, courtesy Politico (sorry, the intermittent archive is playing up this day)...

Just the thing to come in handy if there's an oil crisis!

But that chance to escape the miseries of the war was crushed when the reptiles turned up to play this day ...

Luckily the reptiles were right on it, and finally headlined a matter which should have been attended to earlier, without King Donald needing to claim the headline ...

It's all very odd, considering this MAGA man attracted the applause of the likes of Laura Loomer with this proposal ... (sorry, likely paywall, and the intermittent archive is currently down)

Talk about a warm glow and a sharing sense of caring for the sisterhood ...

Down below in the hive mind it was all war, war, war ...

Eek, not travel insurance! 

War is hell.

Over on the extreme far right, the bromancer led the way, but he was starting to wobble like a snowflake jellyfish  ...

The header: Iran’s defiant message turns heat back on Trump; The balance of risk in this whole operation is starting to move back to Trump. This odious regime has not run out of will power and self-belief.

The caption: Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pictured during a protest marking the annual al-Quds Day on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Picture: Saeid Zareian / Getty Images.

Strange, the pond had thought the mad Mullahs would just flap around a bit, hold up white flags, and head off to the ICC to be tried for domestic crimes (if only King Donald recognised the ICC).

It seems that they might be a bit stubborn, but the bromancer did his best to sound all in...

The selection of Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to be Iran’s new supreme leader is a defiant, in-your-face, maximalist and rejectionist move by the government in Tehran. It contains several messages, some explicit, some implicit.
First of all, it’s a public declaration of will. This odious regime has not run out of will power and self-belief. This Iranian dispensation survived eight years of grinding, brutal war with Iraq, at a time when Iraq had tacit support, especially intelligence support, from the West.
Its primary goal has always been regime survival. The calculus behind the US and Israeli military strikes has been in part to convince the regime that its best chance of survival lay in coming to some arrangement with Washington – ditch the nuclear program, ditch terrorism, make a deal.
But the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which now clearly runs Iran, so far is not remotely interested in that option. So the choice of Mojtaba represents a determination to defy Washington and Jerusalem.
It’s a message to the Iranian people as well; essentially a message of government continuity. Most Iranians will be very unhappy about this. They greeted the death of the old ayatollah with joy partly because they thought it meant fast and fundamental change to their government and, as a result, their lives. No such change is forthcoming yet.
However, the IRGC has also been sending messages to other elements of the Iranian state leadership and these are messages of contempt.

And what about the message from Pete Hogsbreath?

The bromancer made a double appearance, flinging around the word "cowardly", entirely fitting thanks to his many years in uniform fighting the good fight, thank you for your service, sir: The Australian's Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan details how the Albanese government is behaving “cowardly” amid the US-Iran conflict.

As for that old rule about not assassinating heads of state? Fergeddit ...

The poor old Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, and some of his civilian colleagues, keep saying, in public, to regional neighbours that the Iranian military won’t attack them any more. Pezeshkian even apologised to Gulf countries for the attacks they had endured so far. Almost as soon as his words were uttered they were overruled by IRGC leaders and judicial figures, and the drones and missiles kept flying at Gulf countries and other neighbours.
Pezeshkian is exactly the kind of relative moderate the regime would have put up as the notional leader if it had been at all interested in compromise. In fact it treated him with contempt, happy to humiliate him publicly and repeatedly.
What about Mojtaba? He himself has a long history with the IRGC. He also has a taste for luxury accommodation and the good life, like so many senior figures in allegedly revolutionary regimes (the classic text on this dynamic is still George Orwell’s Animal Farm). He doesn’t have credentials as a religious scholar comparable to his father. Reports are that the IRGC bullied the Assembly of Experts into choosing Mojtaba, perhaps exactly because Donald Trump had said he would be unacceptable.
So this is a big vote of confidence in Mojtaba, right? Well, not necessarily. So far, one result of the military attacks on Iran has been to reveal, and to accelerate, the complete control of the state by the IRGC. The IRGC obviously thinks it can control Mojtaba. But there are other dimensions as well.
By naming Mojtaba so brazenly, in obvious defiance of Trump, the IRGC knows it’s put a huge target on his back. Both US and Israeli forces will surely now make killing Mojtaba a high priority for however long the conflict continues.

Next came a reminder of that other war hero... President Donald Trump speaks during an event in Washington. Picture: Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP Photos

The bromancer was troubled by a sense of a tear, a rupture in the MAGA force ...

Unless the IRGC has Mojtaba hidden in the deepest possible bunker, with his whereabouts known by the smallest possible number of people, with only analogue communications available, mainly whispered conversations and perhaps the odd cryptic handwritten note, the IRGC surely knows it has radically shortened Mojtaba’s life expectancy.
And if he holds on past a ceasefire with the US, then surely the Mossad is still likely to get him in the end. Perhaps the IRGC is quite sanguine about creating a new martyr for Shia legend, while its leaders remain as anonymous as possible. Their hope, surely, is that they can outlast Trump, not to win a victory, but just to survive. No regime on Earth more thoroughly deserves to be ousted than the Iranian regime, but their chances of outlasting Trump’s resolve are not negligible.
The balance of risk in this whole operation is starting to move back to Trump. The Iranians have succeeded in closing the Strait of Hormuz and disrupting the Gulf oil trade. The price of oil is skyrocketing. Stockmarkets around the world are plunging.
Trump began this war with quite low support for it among the American people. The MAGA base is ambivalent and anxious, not enthusiastic. This is especially so among extremist nut jobs such as Tucker Carlson, but he and other opponents of the operation on the right have huge social media followings, mainly among the MAGA crowd.
You can take your pick of polls but about a quarter, or just over, of American voters supported the war at its outset, which contrasts with strong majority support for George W. Bush’s intervention in Iraq.
Trump is saying publicly that he wants total Iranian surrender and nothing less will do. He’s threatening to send in ground forces, though this is almost certainly a bluff. It’s just conceivable that a lightning-fast US special forces incursion, to take possession of the 400kg of uranium enriched to 60 per cent, which Iran is believed still to possess, could be extremely popular. But it would also be unbelievably difficult and dangerous.
The midterm elections are already looking pretty dreadful for the Republicans. They will almost certainly lose the House of Representatives and could lose the Senate.

Never mind, here's a snap of someone to be assassinated, what with him being a president n'all, y'all, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian during a joint press conference alongside Armenia's Prime Minister in Yerevan, August 2025. Picture: Karen Minasyan / AFP

The bromancer wrapped up by sounding a gentle alarum ...

That would make the last two years of Trump’s presidency much more difficult, and much less productive, than the first two years have been. All of Trump’s domestic advisers are urging him to get back to domestic politics and focus on the economy. A Democrat House in the midst of global economic dislocation could even move once more to impeach Trump.
Therefore, there’s a certain logic in thinking Trump goes on for a certain period longer – one week? Two? – from his point of view hopefully eliminating Mojtaba, then declares victory and goes home.
If he does this, even without achieving full regime change, he will have transformed global geo-strategic equations. China and Russia have lost three important allies – Venezuela, Syria and Iran; for, whatever happens, Iran is massively weakened out of all this.
Higher oil prices could help the Russian economy, and indeed higher energy prices also help Australia. Beijing and Moscow may also be pleased to see the depletion of the US stock of hi-tech missile interceptors and the like. But the broad authoritarian axis they were building has suffered serious blows.
Trump is good at declaring victory and moving on. He’s also well capable of overreach. The days ahead are critical.

Never fear bro, Liz was on hand, and she had just the right solution.

The header: The US has a missile problem – can we rise to the occasion? Operation Epic Fury has exposed strains in the US missile stockpile and defence industry. Australia has a rare opportunity to strengthen the alliance by becoming a key producer of missiles.

The caption for the tremendously revealing and informative snap: US missile launches during Operation Epic Fury have highlighted pressure on Western stockpiles. Picture: AFP

What an excellent idea. There's simply not enough death and destruction reigning down from the skies. (Then the long absent lord rained down brimstone and fire and Liz's missiles and all was well).

Instead of devising ways of protecting ourselves from such destruction, why not help spread it around the world?

Thanks Liz, you're an ideas winner ...

As Operation Epic Fury enters its second week, it is manifestly obvious that Donald Trump’s “Arsenal of Democracy” is running low.
The US, Iran and Israel appear to be locked in a race to the bottom of their respective missile stockpiles. Last week Israel estimated that Iran held about 2000-2500 ballistic missiles. Since the beginning of Epic Fury, Tehran has launched over 800 ballistic missiles at Israel and its neighbouring Gulf nations. In recent days, Iranian launches have fallen some 90 per cent as the US effectively targeted Tehran’s missile production and stockpile assets. But the effort to cripple Iran’s strike capability has drained US resources.
Washington’s missile stock is not getting replaced at the pace and scale our global environment demands. The ledger does not look great, with a widening window of opportunity for Chinese strikes on Taiwan – a war certainly much closer to home for Canberra.
Within days of Epic Fury, the limits of the US missile (and interceptor) stockpile were exposed. Indeed, the operation has revealed the true extent of a strained and quite deficient US defence-industrial base.
This should ring alarm bells for Australia – our principal provider and security underwriter is under strain. And in Trump’s world, America comes first.
This is Australia’s opportunity to bolster its strategic utility to Washington and position itself as America’s “missile man”. It is now or never. Canberra must take advantage of this situation and deepen the alliance by enabling diversification of America’s industrial base. By producing missiles, especially key components such as solid rocket motors and interceptors, Australia can directly support US power.
Washington is moving quickly to redress shortfalls in its munitions-industrial base. Recognising L3Harris as the leading producer of rocket motors for priority missiles and interceptors, the US government has announced it will take an equity position with a $1bn investment in the company’s rocket motor division.
L3Harris manufactures many of the critical components for in-service ADF guided weapons. For example, our government is spending over $8bn dollars to acquire both Standard Missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Not a single skilled job will be gained in Australia as this money passes offshore. Moreover, we’re unlikely to receive these missiles until Washington has replenished its rapidly dwindling stockpile.

The pond can't emphasise enough how pleasing it was to read Liz's plan for world mayhem, fuelled by dinkum down under diggers, perhaps even crow eaters,  The Port Wakefield plant will assemble Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System rockets for Australia and its allies.

What an excellent shed. What an excellent snap of a shed. What a shed to bring woe to the world!

Meanwhile, Liz was still in full war monger mode ...

Through partnership with the very entity the US government has backed, Australia has a low-risk opportunity to bolster its strategic position with Washington.
This would embed into the alliance a robust element of self-sufficiency and offset any future concerns or demands for lifting Defence expenditure in Australia. We would simply point to our defence-industrial base as an enabling element of US power.
Australian missile manufacturing would inject true resilience into Washington’s military-industrial footprint. Australia’s geographical proximity to the Indo-Pacific theatre creates a value proposition that is unmatched for Washington – forward-based stores and trusted, scalable, industrial capacity.
Australia’s politically stable environment and skilled workforce make us an obvious choice. Canberra has a golden opportunity to address insufficiencies plaguing US missile inventories, while at the same time fortifying itself as an indispensable ally. To do this, Canberra must evolve from its modest ambitions and move beyond the aspirations of an assembler to that of producer.
Supply chains and stockpiles have long determined who wins wars. Diversified and resilient industrial bases will ultimately set competitors apart in future wars. Yet Australia’s missile course remains more of a “framework” of a plan.
The government celebrates plans to manufacture up to 4000 missiles a year by 2029. The new Port Wakefield facility is the first outside the US to produce Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems. The government has been quick to produce media releases patting itself on the back, lauding the facilities role in supporting defence resilience and “reducing supply chain dependence”.
More recent operations in Gaza, the Red Sea and Iran have also illustrated that Washington’s most immediate replenishment needs have moved beyond shorter-range, ground-based rocket systems to the higher-end, interceptor munitions. But, again, we are not manufacturing missiles, Australia is assembling them. There is a monumental difference. The government’s grand plan is merely a slight of hand with crafty wordplay.
Signals of deeper integration between the Australian and US defence-industrial bases are not being seized by Canberra with the tempo that our strategic environment demands. For example, take the Precision Strike Missile. The US has just confirmed the first combat use of PrSM occurred during Operation Epic Fury, and it certainly performed.
Australia has an agreement with Washington to work towards the “co-development, co-production and co-sustainment” of PrSM, but the government appears averse to deviating from the established plan: PrSM is simply not the priority it should now be.
Australia should learn the right lessons from Operation Epic Fury, and do so quickly. Billy Hughes often stated “the price of vigilance is readiness”. In the late-1930s, Essington Lewis urged government to partner with Australian industry to prepare and stockpile for war. The true strength of a nation is its ability to sustain an industrial base in days of war.
Progress might be under way to move us from missile assemblers to missile producers, but it simply must accelerate. The Albanese government should be positioning Australia to strike, ready for the next war.
Elizabeth Buchanan is a senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. She is the author of So You Want to Own Greenland: Lessons from the Vikings to Trump (Hurst, 2025).

No doubt the bromancer shed a little tear of joy after reading all that.

Excellent work Liz, bomb 'em all, the long, the short and the tall, and only with complete destruction may the citizenry come to enjoy the pleasures of freedumb and democracy. 

It's the King Donald way, and it's great to have you on board.

And so to a tragic miss. 

Thanks to a correspondent's reminder, the pond had hoped to be able to draw attention to Dame Groan celebrating the Adam Smith anniversary, notes on which could be found in assorted places, including Reuters, From 1776 to 2026: Adam Smith's lessons for the global economy (The pond would have referenced others but the intermittent archive is currently down, and the pond does like to avoid paywalls).

Sadly the old biddy went MIA.

Instead the pond hopes that turning to a vintage, day-old, microwave reheated serve of  Mein Gott will do as a celebration of the dismal science. He can usually manage a groan with the best of the old chooks.

But first the pond would like to suggest a little reading bonus.

Who cleverly designed a back-up in case things went wrong? Per the ABC ...

Federal Government to spend $94 million stockpiling fuel in the US

Yes, it was the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way, at the height of the speaking in tongues, liar from the shire's government...

How he chortled with glee at his cleverness ...

"I signed an agreement with the United States to access their reserves, simply because we don't have the storage space here in Australia right now," Mr Taylor said.
He said moving the storage reserve to Australia was a "priority" and that work to begin expanding domestic capacity would be done as soon as possible.
The Government began talks with the United States to access its reserve last year to increase supplies to meet the 90-day minimum required under international agreements.
At the time, before the coronavirus pandemic saw prices plummet, Mr Taylor said building a storage facility in Australia would be too high a cost.
"The opportunity to buy and establish a fuel reserve is an extraordinary one now with these historically low fuel prices," he said.
"The storage costs are small compared to the fuel cost."

In the original story at the ABC, Albo noted the immense stupidity of this, and what a relief to discover that we have more than enough fuel to last until early April if completely cut off from the world (thanks Graudian).

She'll be right mate.

Mein Gott was on the job, in a way only Mein Gott can be ...

The header: Is the US-Israel attack on Iran a bid to stop China controlling world oil?; China has stockpiled one billion barrels of oil while Australia faces potential fuel shortages following the US-Israel attacks which could reshape Middle East energy control.

The caption for the snap: Fire breaks out at the Shahran oil depot in Tehran after US and Israeli attacks. Picture: Getty Images

Mein Gott attributed the basest motives to corrupt Benji and King Donald. It wasn't about freeing the Iranian people, it was all about the oils, because thanks to the reptiles, everybody had refused to go renewables and EVs and such like ...

The attack on Iran’s oil storage highlights what the US-Israel attack on Iran was arguably really about – the control of the Western world’s oil.
Clearly, Israel’s main motive was its own protection, but the United States’ role was also part of a global oil strategy, when considering the dangers created by China and Iran, which were combining to gain great power over half of world oil supplies.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see the importance of a series of events that took place in the past three months.
First, the year 2026 opened with US forces conducting a large-scale strike on Venezuelan infrastructure, and a pre-dawn raid to capture Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores. It soon became clear that access to Venezuelan oil was a vital part of this strategy. It was a first step in a potential Iran strategy.

The reptiles flung in a bit of war porn ... Missiles have been hitting Iran for more than a week now. Picture: AFP

It was only a three minute read, but Mein Gott knew all about supply and demand ...

Second, a month later, China, Iran and Russia conducted joint naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. These exercises highlighted the growing military co-operation between the three nations in what is a global energy chokepoint.
The Gulf region holds 50 per cent of the world’s oil reserves, and about 20 per cent of the entire world supply of oil is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz.
Then, the US Navy began its major military build-up in the Middle East, with two aircraft carrier strike groups deploying or already present in the region to prepare for a potential conflict with Iran.
China buys about 90 per cent of Iran’s oil exports. This accounts for roughly 15 per cent of China’s total crude imports. Accordingly, Iran is a critical energy source for China, but it also provides a lifeline for the Iranian economy, given the international sanctions. The Chinese oil purchases also assist in funding Hezbollah and Hamas.
Iran announced it was switching to the Chinese global positioning system, which would have resulted in China gaining a major communication role in key global oil supply operations.
More seriously, Reuters reported in the weeks before the attack by the US and Israel that Iran was close to a deal with China to purchase supersonic missiles. The missiles have a range of about 290km and are designed to evade ship-borne defences by flying low and fast. Their deployment would significantly enhance Iran’s strike capabilities and pose a threat to US naval forces.
China and Iran were about to control a significant proportion of world oil supplies. Unconfirmed reports say delivery of the missiles was days away when the US decided to attack.
If the reports are correct, then the US had to act swiftly or China and Iran would be dominant powers in world oil supplies. Iran’s stalling tactics in the negotiations were designed to delay any US strike until after the missiles were in place. The US moved just in time and took the risk that China would aid Iran’s defence.
China did not help Iran. Many believe China has been humiliated in the region. Russia has already been greatly diminished. Their combined power is greatly reduced, but not eliminated.

Who better to talk about sovereign capability than a representative of the mob who thought it would be a good idea to put Australia's oil reserves in the USA? Opposition spokesman on industry and sovereign capability Andrew Hastie. Picture: Martin Ollman

Inspired by the pastie Hastie, Mein Gott entirely overlooked that little matter of the Oz oil reserve in the USA ...

The US and Israel have become in effect the two great oil powers in the Middle East. Iran appears to be alone and the enormous oil fires in Tehran illustrate the story.
But Iran clearly intends to fight for as long as it can. Those nations which understood and prepared for oil shortages will be fine. Foolish nations will not.
For example, China is prepared for an oil crisis and has stockpiled a reported one billion barrels – enough for 100 days in a Pacific naval war or a Middle East crisis.
Australian politicians have badly let the nation down and must take full responsibility for our shortages.
After my earlier comment last week, Andrew Hastie reminded me via a text that in 2018 he and former senator Jim Molan commissioned a review into our liquid fuel security, and Hastie criticised refinery closures. (Molan served in the army for 40 years and Hastie served as a troop commander in the SAS, and was deployed to Afghanistan.)
If fuel shortages hit Australia – and cutbacks have already started – then politicians who did nothing back then and are doing nothing currently should hang their heads in shame.
Like China, we should have storage of at least 100 days’ supply and the refineries to process it. If we have shortages, an angry nation will demand our politicians do their job to act in the national interest.

Splendid stuff, and even weirder was this note in Axios, Scoop: U.S. dismayed by Israel's Iran fuel strikes, sources say (sorry, possible paywall)

Israel's strikes on 30 Iranian fuel depots Saturday went far beyond what the U.S. expected when Israel notified it in advance, sparking the first significant disagreement between the allies since the war began eight days ago, according to a U.S. official, Israeli official and a source with knowledge.
Why it matters: The U.S. is concerned Israeli strikes on infrastructure that serves ordinary Iranians could backfire strategically, rallying Iranian society to support the regime and driving up oil prices.
Driving the news: The Israeli air force's Saturday strikes created large fires in Tehran, igniting flames visible for miles and blanketing the capital in heavy smoke.

• The IDF claimed in a statement that the fuel depots "are used by the Iranian regime to supply fuel to different consumers including its military organs."
• An Israeli military official said the strikes were intended in part to tell Iran to stop targeting Israeli civilian infrastructure.

Behind the scenes: Israeli and U.S. officials said the IDF notified the U.S. military ahead of the strikes.

• But a U.S. official said that the U.S. military was surprised by how wide-ranging they were.
• "We don't think it was a good idea," a senior U.S. official said.
• An Israeli official said the U.S. message to Israel was "WTF".

WTF indeed, what with King Donald lusting after all that oil, but credit where credit is due, what an astonishing scheme to plunge the world into chaos and confusion.

Finally the final question. 

Could Killer manage to get through an entire outing without mentioning Covid? 

It seemed easiest to screen cap Killer, who to be fair was outside the war zone, fighting a different kind of fight.

But the pond refuses to let Killer drift silently into the night, lost in the fog of war. 

If Killer turns up, the pond will always turn up ...

Yes, dammit, if you're naughty, AI will get you, and soon enough you'll be reading Killer AI (*IPA patented).

Sadly it was nowhere near the fun that a tribute to Adam Smith by Dame Groan would have been, but to answer that question about Covid.

Killer did avoid mentioning masks and vaccines, but he finally did wish a pox on those who did it easy in the pandemic:

Finally, there’s more competition for jobs than the official unemployment figures would suggest too. In addition to the 636,000 workers who were formally counted as being unemployed in January, an additional 1.2 million people aged between 18 and 75 say they would like a job but don’t meet the strict definition of unemployment.
The government will seek to couch what is likely an industrial relations matter as an issue of discrimination, by amending the Equal Opportunities Act. Victoria handed its industrial relations powers to the federal government decades ago, so the policy probably won’t survive constitutional challenge in any case.
Modern economies had the technology to work from home before the Covid pandemic, yet the practice was rare. Perhaps it will be again if AI wipes out jobs that can easily be done at home. The laptop class, who benefited the most from WFH policies during the pandemic, while most other workers suffered, should be careful what they wish for.

Admirable, and yet again no mention of Killer's day job at the IPA, though when thinking about that, the pond imagined it would be an immense pleasure to be able to WFH if there was the slightest chance of being trapped in an office with Killer and the rest of the IPA loons...

And so to the immortal Rowe to wrap up proceedings with a Kingly hole in one in the blood and oil tournament.