The pond should have mentioned the other thing that lifts the spirits, a weekly serve of the Beast, with Caitlin Cassidy standing in for the venerable Meade last Friday, and offering an array of follies...
The pond doesn't care a fig for the likes of loudmouth Kyle and influencers, but there's always a reptile-related yarn.
Take this one about the dog botherer ...
If you’ve been on News24’s Facebook page lately, you would have been greeted with a banner proclaiming “The fight for the right”, with smiling images of Angus Taylor and Pauline Hanson. “So Sky is openly campaigning for both right wing parties now?” one commenter asked. Not exactly.
The banner is promoting a documentary by Chris Kenny, investigating who will win the battle for rightwing voters. Kenny appeared to have unfettered access to One Nation, including a lengthy sit-down with Hanson and the new MP for Farrer, David Farley. This, of course, while Guardian Australia and the ABC have been banned from her press conferences.
“Right now people are dismayed by the major parties,” Kenny opened. “They’ve been let down by pandemic overreach, net zero and energy zealotry, record immigration and a cost-of-living crunch.”
The hour went along in a similar vein, with hard-ball questions to Hanson such as “you’ve been abused, you’ve been mocked, yet you keep going … why?” and, “are you still lonely?” The testiest moment came when Kenny quizzed Hanson on whether she would admit her 1990s comments about Australia being “swamped by Asians” were wrong. “If you were wrong about the migrants back then, you could be wrong about the migrants now,” he mused.
Hard hitting journo? A stick of fairy floss would have more substance, and be sugar sweet too.
What a twit he is, and that's much of the dog botherer floss the pond could take, and so the pond felt mightily pleased at being able to kick his weekend offering to the intermittent archive kerb ...
Productivity plummets in the ‘do not disturb’ nation
A sample will do, as another example of what the dog botherer calls productivity and a boon to the economy ...
Running around asking softball questions, rabbiting on and on and on about this and that and the other is a form of productivity?
If getting disturbed by the dog botherer is the way to productivity, please do not disturb. Being in that sort of third world country has its charms...
Sadly when the pond looked around for alternatives, the dog botherer almost looked appealing.
The Angelic one had decided to go off on a Catholic mission...
Push to legalise commercial surrogacy in Australia risks creating a human trade
Australia’s altruistic surrogacy system could be quietly traded away for a US-style commercial model. Critics warn proposed laws will effectively legalise buying and selling children.
By Angela Shanahan
The pond did its best to care, but collapsed into a bog swamp of indifference.
The poor possum was feeling incredibly defensive...
I can just hear the nay-sayers. Critics like me are blithely dubbed religious moralists, banished to the outer reaches of pause fundamentalism and ignored.
What does "pause fundamentalism" mean?
Colour the pond clueless.
Is this an example of creative reptile productivity at work? Or perhaps the AI sub-editor was reaching for "pious fundamentalism"? Likely the pond will never know.
All the same, the alternatives to hand almost made the Angelic one look appealing.
It was wall to wall Gina's pampered pet.
Polonius can usually be relied on to be boring in his prattle, but this weekend he was mind-numbingly tedious ...
The header: Labor faces threat as ‘squeezed middle’ voters turn to One Nation; Roosevelt called them the ‘forgotten man’ and Menzies the ‘forgotten people’. Now Australia’s working and middle-class voters are finding a new political home, polling reveals.
The caption for a couple of clowns imported from MAGA America: One Nation’s Luke Herdegen celebrates with supporters after his party claimed victory in the Secret Harbour by-election. PIC: Paul Garvey
Which Roosevelt? Is it possible that Polonius is unaware there were a couple who were president? Why should the pond have to run off to the full to overflowing intertubes to learn he was referencing a pinko socialistic prevert?
As for the text, Polonius and the rest of the reptile mob don't seem to realise that the more they talk up Gina's pet, the better for her.
It gets even worse when Polonius thinks the cure is to wander down memory lane, like a rapidly aging old codger:
My contract as an academic at a university in Melbourne ended in 1975. But the impact of the economic downturn towards the end of Gough Whitlam’s Labor government was still extant and unemployment, interest rates and inflation were high. It was a difficult time for many Australians, particularly the private sector.
The 1982-83 recession had little personal impact on me. During this period I had an effectively tenured job in the commonwealth public service. Sure, regular pay increases decreased in amount at times. But life was secure.
It was different in 1991-92 when I had to survive in the marketplace without any long-term security with high inflation and interest rates and increasing unemployment.
The point being that recessions – and times like now when the cost of living is increasing, real wages are diminishing and interest rates and inflation are high – hit hardest at the private sector.
Right now the rich and well-off are doing fine, as is evident to anyone who follows the lifestyles of men and women who feature in the various rich lists. To them, increases in energy, fuel and food prices are of little moment. Rents are irrelevant and all but a few houses are affordable.
At the other end of the socio-economic ladder are Australians in receipt of direct government payments – pensioners, welfare recipients and the like. Their payments/incomes are low. But they are adjusted to take inflation into account.
After that opening, designed to prove that in his time Polonius had known suffering and was down wit those who still suffer, and never mind the way he's traded himself into a handy gig at the Sydney Institute, earning a living trolling for wealth patrons:
There is something of a myth about the poor living in social housing. In some sense they are fortunate. They have secure accommodation, provided they abide by the rules of their tenancy, and do not have to look after maintenance. Also, those on low incomes who own properties have a degree of security not experienced by renters. Those Australians who suffer most when rents are high are individuals on low incomes who depend on the private housing market.
The private housing market persecutes renters? Why that sounds almost socialistic, almost Franklin D.
Just to make sure we know it's about Pauline, there came another snap: One Nation leader Pauline Hanson celebrates the party’s Secret Harbour by-election seat win in WA. Picture: Facebook
That was the last snap to interrupt the Polonial prattle, as he carried on with the suffering, as if to the working class born.
Would Ming the merciless get another mention? Might as well ask if climate change is going to produce some unnerving situations in the years ahead...of course it is; of course Ming will turn up, with the FDR issue finally solved ...
Economist Robert Carling, in a recent Centre for Independent Studies report titled Leviathan on the Rampage, estimated that nearly half of Australian voters are dependent on government payments for their income.
Life is quite different for those with low incomes who are not in receipt of government payments for wages, welfare and the like.
More socialist thinking! Polonius suffering along with low income earners.
All well and good, as Polonius came up with a novel theory.
It was anti-Semitism that drove people to One Nation ...
As I, among others, have argued, the initial surge in support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party took place between December last year and early February this year. This is evident in an analysis of Newspoll that reflected the terrorist attack on the Australian Jewish community at Bondi Beach on December 14.
This was regarded by many as an attack on Australian society in general. One Nation’s support has increased since then, as witnessed by its victories in the federal by-election in Farrer in southern NSW and in the West Australian state by-election in the southern Perth electorate of Secret Harbour. One Nation also performed well in the South Australian state election in March.
Of all the far-fetched reasons for Pauline's enhanced presence, that surely takes the cake.
Back in November 2025, Gina was ready to get things rolling ...
Umami-rich marbled beef from the brand, named after Australia’s richest person and her daughter Ginia, retails at more than $100 a kilogram. It is more at home in the world’s high-end restaurants than in a sandwich press.
But its presence in Hanson’s office as part of a carefully curated media stunt showed that Rinehart was already playing a part in One Nation’s expansionist push, which has been gathering pace over the past six months.
Soon after the dinner, Joyce – who is one of Rinehart’s most loyal friends in the Australian parliament – announced his defection from the Nationals to One Nation, confirming his move on radio in Tamworth in early December on “Macca’s” 88.9FM breakfast program.
“I think I almost had to declare those steaks – I didn’t realise they were wagyu, they were very, very nice,” Joyce joked.
Looking up to make eye contact with the studio camera, Hanson piped up as if in a commercial: “2GR! 2GR!”
In the clip, an impeccably made-up Hanson is wearing a blue-and-white check shirt branded S Kidman and Co – another of Rinehart’s companies. And later that day she boarded the S Kidman and Co private aircraft to hitch a ride home to Brisbane alongside her fellow NSW One Nation senator Sean Bell.
The flight was not declared in line with Senate rules until many months later, after the Guardian had contacted Hanson’s office asking about her travel arrangements that day. (Graudian)
And so on, and Tamworth's ineradicable shame knew that the way to stay relevant was to borrow all the far right policies the lizards of Oz have been espousing for decades.
With Gina's money to hand, the hair-dyed ranga could embark on attention-seeking stunts ... again per the Graudian,
The point?
“The aim of these types of manoeuvres by more fringe, or formerly more fringe, political actors is to shift the Overton window and move the parameters of public political debate rightward,” she said.
Richards said Hanson’s rise in popularity meant her decisions between now and the federal election couldn’t be ignored, or dismissed as attention-grabbing.
“What [Hanson’s] doing is building international far-right alliances and signposting them,” she said.
Researchers for the anti-fascist group the White Rose Society suggested their meeting served the “attention economy” with a shared hostility “against non-white people”.
The selling card has always been about furriners causing the ruination of everything, climate science being a nonsense, mixed with hostility, anger and resentment (fear is behind everything).
This routine has been peddled by many who saw the way and the light offered by mad King Donald.
In his usual way, Polonius sounded completely clueless and turned to others with a degree in cluelessness:
South Australian Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas immediately saw the significance of the result for his party. In an evident defence of the Australian working class and middle class, he said: “I don’t like it when I see people associated with the progressive side of politics sneering at those who wave the flag or wrap themselves in the flag. I would rather us celebrate patriotism and recognise it at its best, a representation of what Australia is really about when we think about providing opportunity to others.” Malinauskas understands that One Nation is a threat to Labor as it is to the Coalition. So does NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns, who faces an election in March.
That's exactly the inauthentic blather that makes voters turn to One Nation. She's offering what the doofuses Malinauskas and Minns are offering, just with more ferocity, and she has the Liberals so terrified, the best the beefy boofhead can do is pinch her fags policy, hoping to get everybody back on to smoking nail coffins at a fair price.
Interviewed by Nick Bryant on ABC Radio National Saturday Extra on August 29, Hawker commented that One Nation voters overwhelmingly used to vote Liberal although some of the longer-term supporters would have voted Labor in the past.
Hawker said “only about 17 per cent of the people who are now coming over to One Nation … now come from the Labor Party”. He said Senator Hanson’s supporters “don’t feature heavily amongst the poorest in Australia or the wealthiest – they’re in what we call the squeezed middle”.
According to the Utting research, One Nation supporters “feel that immigration is the big issue that is holding Australia back”. Hawker said for One Nation voters immigration was an economic issue but for some it was also a cultural issue.
The problem for Labor is that an increasing number of voters called the “squeezed middle” could move away from Labor to One Nation. That seems to have been the case in the once safe Labor seat of Secret Harbour.
One Nation’s threat to the Coalition is well-known. However, as Kemi Badenoch has demonstrated in Britain, the Conservative Party, according to some polls, has won back support from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party and is now narrowly behind Labour.
In her book on the May 2025 election titled Earthquake: The Election That Shook Australia, Niki Savva revealed that Labor Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke believed that Labor would form a majority government after the 2025 election. But Savva reported that “Burke was convinced he was about to lose his once-safe seat of Watson” in western Sydney – presumably because of opposition from the extreme left and some radical Muslim groups.
This never made much sense and Burke was comfortably returned. The threat to Labor is likelier to come from what Hawker refers to as the “squeezed middle” and working class who feel that Labor no longer stands for what they believe in.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.
It's just as likely that One Nation voters come from News Corp tabloid footy readers, who notice on page one that everything is ruined, Islamics are everywhere, furriners are stealing their daughters, and what's wrong with coal and gas, NT and deep north toad style?
And just as likely they live in the bush, imagining that Barners is authentic when he's really only been an accountant and a pollie.
We've been here before ... and the pond trusts that correspondents have been up to speed reading Adam Morton in the Graudian ...Albanese’s resources minister celebrating the Beetaloo carbon bomb is a hell of a choice. Labor can’t say it wasn’t warned.
And as Polonius had a little side dish for the Australian Daily Zionist News, why not try Arwa Mahdawi's Ben-Gvir posts Palestinians on conveyor belts to detention camps. The world is silent.
Unfortunately, dealing with the Oz hive mind, running silent is the default mode ...
The pond realises that diligent herpetology students will have already followed yesterday's link in the pond, and have now staggered off to a rest home.
But the pond promised it would endure the "Ned" Everest climb, even if's more yammering on the same topic ...
The pond could have taken the Paul Garvey road, and strolled into Inside the social media ‘dark arts’ that fuelled One Nation’s shock win; Labor claims an organised One Nation network swamped its messaging in the Secret Harbour by-election; others say the party missed the point.
Polonius would have been shocked to discover an online world of festering fear and loathing ...
And so would quaint old "Ned", who thinks endless blather is some sort of analysis ...
The header: Nation eyes contest dominated by a clash between Albanese’s Labor and Hanson’s One Nation; Once dismissed as a fringe protest vote, Pauline Hanson’s party is now emerging as an alternative to the Coalition and Labor. Many of its voters say they won’t be changing their mind amid new research revealing they’re as locked-in as Trump’s MAGA base.
The artwork frankly is designed to suggest that Pauline is the real rival to Albo, with the beefy boofhead's mob a no show. Well played Frank: A contest dominated by Anthony Albanese’s Labor v Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is ‘an alarming, divisive and potentially disastrous event for Australia’. Artwork: Frank Ling
As the pond suggested yesterday, "Ned" will waste at least 11 minutes of a reader's life, and offered a link to prove it, Nation eyes contest dominated by a clash between Albanese’s Labor and Hanson’s One Nation.
But there was one real tragedy with the archived version, and that's the inability of the archive to capture all the fancy gifs and astonishing stats that the reptiles wheeled out in support of Gina's pet.
So there is something to be gained by plunging back in ...
A pivotal result from the survey is that many One Nation voters are “locked in”, perhaps similar to Donald Trump’s MAGA loyalists. A total of 52 per cent rate themselves 10 out of 10 “absolutely certain” to vote One Nation at the next election and won’t be dissuaded. Another 26 per cent rate themselves eight or nine out of 10, meaning they are “firm” for One Nation.
Those who can be persuaded to leave One Nation are in the 22-27 per cent zone of current One Nation voters. That gives Coalition leaders Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan some hope of detaching such voters, but to this stage they are not penetrating.
Given the opportunity to show off Moorice's spawn, a 'leet investment banker down with working class folk, the reptiles naturally went with the fake ranga ... NSW One Nation Leader Mike Newman says Australians feel there is “change coming” with the rise of One Nation.
"Ned" was in a state of panic about the "eruption":
The survey sample was 1014 One Nation voters and held in August. It provides a detailed profile of One Nation voters, when they went to Hanson and their reasons, their political beliefs, how they see One Nation as a party, their attitudes towards the Coalition and Albanese government and the prospects of defections from Hanson’s party. The 83-page report is possibly the most detailed public assessment of One Nation’s recent eruption.
This is where the reptiles began to roll out compelling data ...
Not many folk agitated by anti-Semitism in that mob ...but there's a lot of mug punters up for the con job and the grifters.
Anyone who thinks One Nation will govern in style are dumber than the crowd you can find at the Longyard, out Golden Guitar way ...
There is confidence in One Nation’s governing capacity. A total of 50 per cent believe One Nation “can win government outright”. Of the rest 27 per cent reject this proposition while 23 per cent are unsure. The conclusion: half of One Nation voters see the party as a government in waiting. Indeed, they might be more confident than Hanson herself.
Hanson is the ultimate heroine, with 98 per cent of One Nation voters saying she “says what a lot of Australians are really thinking” and 97 per cent saying she stands up “for ordinary, working people”. No other political leader remotely generates such fidelity from party supporters. These are deeply emotional ties.
Asked if One Nation held the balance of power in the House of Representatives whether they would support the party going into coalition with the Liberals and Nationals, 64 per cent supported this view but 10 per cent opposed. On a coalition with Labor, the figures were 74 per cent rejection and 10 per cent support.
Asked about preferences, 74 per cent of One Nation voters said they would preference the Coalition as against 9 per cent preferencing Labor. Yet 74 per cent remains far below the flow of Greens preferences to Labor, now running in the high 80s. There is no prospect of any Coalition-One Nation preference arrangement matching the Labor-Greens model so vital in delivering a Labor government.
Not seen enough of the ranga peril yet? Hold the sub-editor's beer ... and remember to label her as a veritable Jeanne d'Arc ... Senator Pauline Hanson, ‘the ultimate heroine’, at the official launch of Wounded Heroes Australia 24-Hour Challenge for FNQ veterans and Defence families. Picture: Shae Beplate
On with pumping up the results ...
"Voters see One Nation as expressing the attitudes that most approximate their own feelings about Australia. Her supporters see Hanson as authentic. For them, she is the real deal.
“I think we will see three parties on the right, two on the right and one on the hard right. My feeling is that in the near future One Nation is going to be the principal right-wing party in this country.
“I think the next election is going to be a values contest primarily between Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party.
“We haven’t seen anything like this in our lifetimes and you would probably have to go back to the Second World War or earlier to see something this significant on the right side of politics.
“Of course, on the left we have seen major shakeouts from the Labor Party during the 20th century, but what’s different now is that the Liberals are feeling the full brunt of it.”
Published polls show One Nation remains strong, though its support may have reached a ceiling. This week Newspoll had One Nation leading the field on 30 per cent primary vote, followed by Labor on 29 per cent, the Coalition on 19 per cent and the Greens on 13 per cent.
The Redbridge-Accent Research poll in The Australian Financial Review had roughly similar results with Labor at 29 per cent, One Nation at 28 per cent and the Coalition at 22 per cent. Its two-party preferred split had Labor still in an election-winning position.
The reptiles decided that demographics was the next port of call ...
Rustics, men and old farts!
Who'd have guessed, but if you believe Polonius, they're all dedicated anti-Semites.
"Ned" sounded gloomy about the beefy boofhead and the Canavan caravan ...
His message is that Labor faces a historic mission: to defeat the populists now on the march. Yet Albanese quickly found Hanson’s ability to turn his words against him. Current omens point to a coming Albanese-Hanson battle.
Hawker says: “The government and Anthony Albanese must engage Hanson. The Liberals and the Nationals won’t get too involved in this fight. It will come down to a battle of ideas and values between Labor and One Nation. This is a clash between two conflicting views of the world and Australia.”
Politics is now dominated by two struggles – the battle for ascendancy on the right between Hanson and the Taylor-Canavan coalition – with the outcome having a decisive impact on the election contest between Labor and the forces of the right wing. Labor believes if Hanson is ascendant on the right most Australians will shun a change of government. This is buttressed by the reality – if One Nation leads the Liberals on primary votes, Liberal preferences will spray everywhere, with many Liberals reluctant to preference One Nation.
"Ned" then proceeded to confirm that the reptile and the Hansonite agendas were one and the same ...
Significantly, One Nation voters mainly support the party because of its beliefs (45 per cent) more than they feel other parties have let them down (34 per cent) while those saying their support is because of Hanson are 20 per cent, suggesting Hanson is more a catalyst than the essential factor.
This is not a right-wing rebellion. It is, in fact, a fracturing of right-wing opinion, a hardening of sentiment and a decisive shift further right. It is the Liberal Party that has lost a sizeable section of these voters.
The survey reveals that 70 per cent of One Nation voters supported another party at the 2025 election or did not vote at all. The 2025 election functions as the trigger for turning voters away from the Coalition.
Of these new One Nation voters, 38 per cent defected from the Liberal and National parties and 17 per cent from Labor, while 9 per cent did not vote or cannot recall their previous vote.
Cue another graph showing how hard up these voters were, confirming that their stance had nothing to do with bigotry, hate and a devotion to populist authoritarianism (irony alert):
A total of 91 per cent believe the nation is “on the wrong track” compared with 2 per cent saying it is heading “in the right direction”.
This points to profound disillusionment and resentment. It contrasts with polling of all voters from last month showing 62 per cent said wrong direction, with 24 per cent opting for right direction.
Asked to nominate why Australia was on the wrong track, One Nation voters nominated immigration (39 per cent), cost of living (35 per cent), politicians and government (32 per cent), the economy and debt (26 per cent) and housing (17 per cent).
Their feelings of financial pain are fundamental. Two out of three One Nation voters say their household finances are worse than three to four years ago, with 41 per cent saying it is “a lot worse”, 27 per cent saying “a little worse”, 18 per cent recording “about the same” and only 14 per cent feeling “better off” at all.
(One voter reported in these words: “Every year the power bill goes up and never down, whatever they promise, I’m not asking for handouts. I worked, I paid tax my whole life. I bought this house.” Another said: “I just didn’t think this is where I would be at my age, sitting with a calculator working out what I can afford at the shops.”)
Sorry, the pond must have missed that bit about "Ned" recycled the Zionist riff that was being being peddled by Polonius. You know ...
As I, among others, have argued, the initial surge in support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party took place between December last year and early February this year. This is evident in an analysis of Newspoll that reflected the terrorist attack on the Australian Jewish community at Bondi Beach on December 14.
Probably it's the way that the Bondi beach terror attack made power bills go up.
Tired of getting endless mug shots of the ranga?
Yearning for a shot of Tamworth's undying shame, as he turns up in an AV distraction?
Sorry, the reptiles are always ready to show off Pauline ... One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce says his party is pushing to expand early access to superannuation to help Australians with the cost-of-living pressures. “If you’re able to get money out and it’s an arduous process … they tax you at 17 to 22 per cent,” Mr Joyce told News24. “That’s actually higher than later on.”
Beginning to see a pattern?
Barners might be diligently working to wreck superannuation, but it's the bottle ranga that scores the visual:
The only way to combat Hanson is to abandon the notion that as a protest party her backers will eventually get disenchanted. On the contrary, this is now a frontline political and ideological battle. Hanson doesn’t have detailed policies but this misses the point. Voters know what she represents.
Hanson believes in ideas once deeply rooted in Australian character and life. Her authenticity originates in the annals of our history. She backs economic protection, hostility to so-called mass migration, scepticism about multiculturalism, hostility to climate change action, coal and gas over renewables, rejection of identity politics, ditching “welcome to country”, scepticism towards free markets and hostility towards elite progressivism.
Hawker says: “We are seeing with One Nation a hearkening back to a different era. But 75 years ago many of these ideas were pretty much mainstream, including in the Labor Party. And it’s her apparent authenticity that gives her the edge over the Liberals. She has simple cut-through messages that are easy to accept and require critical thinking to reject.
“Our research shows the principal issue is immigration but the major parties can’t really come far enough to meet Hanson’s concerns on immigration. They can’t do enough to satisfy her voters.”
Ah, the good old days of the White Australia policy, but what's the talk about immigration? How could Polonius get it wrong?
The white Xian nationalist mob at work, though the pond was surprised at the number of atheists in the data. Perhaps gun owners don't feel any need for god, not when they have the power of a god in their hands ...
Back to the bigotry, of the kind you can find in the bush more than the big smoke, where a multicultural society is a given, and the chance of deporting enough to return the country to a monoculture (whatever that means) was lost long ago ... unless they go full ICE, and turn to war criminals to lead the charge:
The survey, however, reveals two categories of Hanson voters and this is the chance for the Coalition. They are the “rusted on” who have been with Hanson for more than five years, who are almost certain to stick, and a far bigger group of “new arrivals” who have defected to Hanson within the past year and are 41 per cent of her voters. This group is far less impressed and less attached.
Asked whether a credible Liberal Party might be able to win them back, 35 per cent of the “new arrivals” agreed while only 14 per cent of the “rusted on” agreed. Asked whether they were certain to vote One Nation at the next election, only 40 per cent of the “new arrivals” agreed while 82 per cent of the “rusted on” agreed.
Only 44 per cent of “new arrivals” see Hanson in “very favourable” terms while 85 per cent of the “rusted on” see her this way.
On the issue of “like” and “dislike”, One Nation voters are highly polarised. The person they most like is Hanson (95 per cent), followed by Ben Roberts-Smith (69 per cent), the VC winner now subject of war crimes allegations, with Barnaby Joyce next (62 per cent). For One Nation voters Roberts-Smith is a hero. Joyce is a distinct asset. While Hanson supports Trump her party is split, with Trump sinking to a 55-42 unfavourable/favourable rating. The old-style Hanson loyalists still admire him, not the new arrivals.
It goes without saying that they love Tamworth's shame and an alleged war criminal.
Just see how funny the alternative looks... Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faces mounting pressure to sharpen Labor’s national strategy. Picture: Jason Edwards / NewsWire
That snaps a reptile classic. What a funny looking man he is, how they're all laughing at him... what a cue to form an intense dislike of him, and sure enough, the reptiles know their hive mind.
All their diligent work mocking Albo has paid off in spades (the shovel kind, not the other) ...
As Liberal leader, Taylor, has a steep climb ahead of him. One Nation voters find against him 32-52 on a favourable/unfavourable rating. But 16 per cent have no view or have never heard of him. Indeed, when asked if they had heard of Taylor, 30 per cent said “some” and 40 per cent said “a little”.
Asked if Taylor represented traditional Liberal values, 55 per cent agreed (but only 6 per cent strongly agreed); asked if he would cut immigration, 49 per cent agreed (but only 10 per cent strongly agreed); asked if he had policies and ideas for the future, 38 per cent agreed (but only 4 per cent strongly agreed). The survey concluded that Taylor had “potential but almost nothing is strong”.
On these results Taylor needs to rethink his media strategy since he lacks the firepower to pull voters back to the Liberals.
Canavan suffers from lack of recognition from One Nation voters, with 43 per cent saying they have seen nothing of him or are unsure of who he is. Yet he rates better than Taylor, scoring 37 per cent both sides of the favourable/unfavourable ledger.
What a remarkably well informed bunch they are, and now stand by for a snap of Paddie, because he's the next to feature in an AV distraction ... Defence Industry and Pacific Islands Minister Pat Conroy says One Nation’s immigration policies “can’t be believed”.
Sheesh, the pond got that one wrong. No way the reptiles were going to show off Paddie, not when they had an image of Pauline to hand.
On the Liberal Party, 68 per cent of One Nation voters say it is “deeply divided” and 59 per cent say it has “no clear policies or direction” – not an optimistic summary. However 27 per cent of One Nation voters – one in four – report that a “united, credible Liberal Party would be likely to win back their vote”. Asked what policies the Liberals would need to get voters returning, immigration headed the list.
Finally, the survey dissects the profile of Hanson’s voters. The gender split is sharp – 62 per cent men and 38 per cent women. The age profile is dramatic, with 56 per cent older than 50 and only 17 per cent in the younger 18 to 34 age group. A majority of 61 per cent report they are still working. They tend to be homeowners, with 77 per cent owning their home and only 17 per cent being renters; the breakdown shows 42 per cent own their home outright while 35 per cent have a mortgage.
One Nation has penetrated every state, its strongest being Queensland (27 per cent) and its lowest being NSW and Victoria, both on 20 per cent. A total of 55 per cent live outside a capital city; the farther from the capital city, the stronger the One Nation vote. The profile is strong Anglo-Australian profile with 88 per cent speaking only English at home. Their religion falls essentially under two categories – 59 per cent Christian and 33 per cent no religion.
One Nation voters are middle-income earners and being financially squeezed. An income breakdown by quintiles shows they are poorly represented in the lowest and highest earning quintiles but are concentrated across quintiles two, three and fourth, covering the income range $60,000 to $195,000. A typical One Nation household has an annual income of $101,000. Tradies are the heartland of One Nation support.
With the election not due until 2028, the politics will probably get more volatile. But a contest dominated by Albanese Labor v Hanson’s party would be an alarming, divisive and potentially disastrous event for Australia. We are being warned: the nation is on the brink.
Didn't "Ned" start with a snap showing just that, a contest between Albo and the ranga? So the lizard Oz is alarming, divisive, and promoting a potentially disastrous event for Australia? What's new?
As the pond has gone so far down this path, might as well fling in the lizard Oz editorialist ...
The pond wanted that in because it shows just how much the lizard Oz and One Nation sing from the same song sheet.
Say it again to make it clear...
But rather than deal with the issues of low productivity, big government spending and $1 trillion in debt, Jim Chalmers has been more determined to play politics with perceived intergenerational inequity on house prices and accumulated capital wealth. Combined, these are the pressures that have pushed a large number of voters to One Nation.
Why all that's like reading the lizard Oz any day of the week, and the same goes for the next bit ...
Roll that around on the tongue.
The pond couldn't imagine a more succinct summary of the position of the reptiles.
It's as if the One Nation mob had been fed a steady diet of Dame Slap, the dog botherer, the canny Cranston, and Geoff, always chambering a birdshot round ...
Half of One Nation voters see the party as a government in waiting. Kelly writes that Senator Hanson backs economic protection; hostility to so-called mass migration; scepticism about multiculturalism; hostility to climate change action; coal and gas over renewables; rejection of identity politics; ditching “welcome to country”; scepticism towards free markets, and; hostility towards elite progressivism.
If that's where the beefy boofhead is headed, into a bidding war with Pauline, he's on a hiding to nothing ...
And in the weekly debrief, here's a strategy designed to make Vlad the impaler and Chairman Xi nod approvingly ...together with News Corp's approval, via state regime media Faux Noise ...
