In which Our Henry is again sent to the archive, with Penbo, Killer of the IPA and the onion muncher filling the void with more void ...

 

It was inevitable that the fate of the former prince now known as randy Andy would preoccupy the reptiles early this morning, with much navel gazing.

What struck the pond isn't so much the way that the Trumpenstein files have roiled the Poms as the way that King Donald and his deeply corrupt band of courtiers have merrily rolled along.

The reptiles do love a Royal scandal, what with King Donald just being a poseur, low rent, naff monarch ...

Typical of the reptile coverage was cackling Claire's celebration, The lonely courage of a woman who brought down the Establishment, which, in heroic Jack the Insider style, managed to make not a single mention of King Donald or his merry band of Nutlicks - and no matter all the fuss about Giuffre working at the King's Mar-a-Lago spa.

Luckily, as an unrepentant republican, the pond can duck and weave around all the reptile hysteria. 

That the House of Windsor is depraved is hardly news for those who remember the good old days of that unrepentant Nazi, the Duke of Windsor, dodging out of being King Edward VIII for a bit of American divorcee crumpet.

Instead the pond's tour of duty on a Friday takes in Our Henry, but there's a problem.

Each week of late there's a tendency for Our Henry to go full, blaring Zionist, and so it is this day.

A taster shows him at work:

That's more than enough already, especially with that wretched uncredited collage setting the tone at the get go ...

The pond usually resolves to send the hole in bucket man off to the intermittent archive, limiting itself to recording the moments when the pompous hole in bucket man swallowed an encyclopaedia of classical and philosophical references ...

This week's outing was very low key, but included ...

As the great German intellectual historian Reinhart Koselleck observed, “historically prototyped” words are natural Kampfbegriffe (battle-concepts), readily wielded not for dispassionate description but for combat.

And ...

Nothing more starkly illustrates this dynamic than the increasingly widespread use of the term “Zio”. Its rise directly reflects the constraints under which the hatred operates, specifically the fact that its target – Jews as Jews — cannot be openly identified without social cost. As with Harry Potter’s Voldemort – an embodiment of absolute evil who can be referred to only as “He Who Shall Not Be Named” – the word itself becomes unsayable.

Say what? Harry Potter? 

While some might think this lowers Our Henry's tone, surely it proves that the great polymath is comfortable with the highest of high culture, and the lowest of the low ...and so can always Sauron on to new trans-loathing highs.

And that's why Our Henry can show roam from potted Potter to showing his Orwellian chops...

That it comes in the throes of demonstrations eerily recalling the “Two Minutes Hate” sessions in George Orwell’s 1984, where “a hideous ecstasy of vindictiveness, a desire to kill, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current”, only raises that menace to even greater heights.

But limiting Our Henry to this sort of smug display of his superior, neigh Nietzschean, embrace of a master intellectual morality leaves the pond struggling to fill up the space.

Cue some counter-programming.

If you'd said the pond would be quoting Thomas L. Friedman in the NY Times, the pond likely would have sued you for defamation, but here we are ... Netanyahu Plays Trump and American Jews for Fools — Again (*archive link)

That's just a taster. In his usual way, Friedman goes on and on and on, but it's all there at the intermittent archive.

Amongst the many links in the Friedman piece, there was a reference to a relatively recent pond favourite in Haaretz, by Ehud Olmert, living PM level proof that referencing ethnic cleansing isn't being anti-Semitic  ... A Settler Drive to Ethnically Cleanse Palestinians Is Underway in the West Bank. Israel's Security Apparatus Is Complicit (*archive link)

Again it's just a taster, though anyone who goes the full hog can experience the weird sight of Olmert proposing there were no discernible war crimes in Gaza, while calling out the West Bank's assorted war crimes and unfolding ethnic cleansing.

As a result of these distractions, the pond also consigned Vic Alhadeff's Jewish Australians no longer feel safe in this country to the intermittent archive.

The best Vic could manage was decidedly middle-brow, the sort of reference you might pick up from an ancient school reading list:

In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus Finch says: “You never really understand a person until you climb inside his skin and walk around in it.” In other words, understanding that when Jewish Australians call out the surge of antisemitism, it stems from generations of historical trauma and learned experience.

Give the pond a call Vic, when you've come to an understanding of ethnic cleansing, stemming from generations of historical trauma and learned experience, and please, in the meantime, do your best to emulate Our Henry and read some Potter.

And with that clearing of the decks, the pond could turn to other Friday pleasures ...

First up was croweater Penbo, foreseeing doom and gloom in the state with a deep fear and loathing of eastern staters...

Penbo could be swallowed in just two chunks ...

Does this mean that the Adelaide Writers' Festival can go on to more glorious episodes? Seems so ...

Of course the pond only takes an interest of the thoughts of the great aunts still stuck on the verandah as a way of pandering to the regions ... suffice to say, it all felt eerily familiar ...

Take it away Penbo ... celebrate cancel culture in the land of the crows ...

And so to Killer of the IPA, and the pond wanted to use Killer to make a couple of observations about the new form of reptile representation.

Firstly the reptiles have taken to putting the author's name at the very top of the piece, for no apparent reason, except that it's change and this sort of window dressing must be good.

And immediately down below the uncredited wretched collage, which likely should be blamed on AI, there's now a new space for the comments and for Google ...

This means you could just click on the comments and not even bother reading Killer of the IPA, which must be a win-win for the hive mind.

Killer can't be blamed for having 0 comments at time of writing - the pond is sure devoted members of the hive mind will join in his bizarre celebration of freedumb boy.

What's revealing is the desperate new desire by the reptiles for engagement via Google.

Didn't anyone tell them that with a strict paywall, there's no point having the lizard Oz as a preferred source on Google unless you're a paid up member of the hive mind?

So Google is going to drive recruitment for the hive mind?

Too tragic ...

And so to the rest, in copy and paste form ...

And yes you can begin a sentence with "and", and especially when Killernomics is your game ...

And as Sydney University economist Christian Gillitzer recently pointed out, the top rate is a driving force behind the nation’s infatuation with negatively geared property, as high earners rationally flock to what is practically the only tax strategy left to reduce their taxable income.
The top rate also snuffs out opportunities for foreign investment, as big multinationals learn what their highly skilled staff would face if they relocated.
When I lived in Washington DC, Americans were shocked when I explained that not only was our top marginal income tax rate 47 per cent but it applied for every dollar above $US125,000 ($177,280) a year. A similar earner in high-tax DC faces around 34 per cent marginal rate, and only 24 per cent in zero state income tax Florida and Texas. The top US federal income tax rate of 37 per cent doesn’t apply until income reaches $US609,000.
As a measure of redistribution it’s a fool’s errand. “Many of the wealthy don’t pay the top rate, it’s actually mainly the wage earners who can’t manage their tax affairs to reduce their taxable income,” Robert Breunig, an economist at ANU, tells me.
And it doesn’t even raise much money. “If you cut the top rate you’d actually raise more tax from around 15 per cent of taxpayers who are currently on the top rate on our estimates,” Breunig adds.
One of many empirical examples; the British Labour government increased its top income tax rate on capital gains to 24 per cent in 2024, only to see receipts tumble more than 20 per cent.
The federal government will attack Wilson’s suggestion as “looking after the big end of town”. If it is, the town is now an entire city. The number of top-rate taxpayers has exploded from fewer than 300,000 in 2008, when the top rate first settled at $180,000, to around a million last financial year. And inflation near 4 per cent is pushing tens of thousands of additional taxpayers into the top bracket every year. If the top threshold had been indexed to inflation since 2008 – a dignity many Western governments afford their voters – it would sit around $280,000 today.
The government will trot out the tired claim that Australia’s top rate is reasonable by OECD standards, which tendentiously includes numerous economically sclerotic European nations in the list that should, economically, be treated as one. That same list of nations also reveals the federal government’s reliance on income tax is, alongside Denmark, the highest in the world.
In the Asia-Pacific region, which matters to us, Australia’s top rate is the highest, embarrassingly even besting supposedly communist China’s 45 per cent. New Zealand has a top rate of 39 per cent and doesn’t even tax capital gains.

Excellent stuff, and we're likely to see many more tales of woe and talk of the suffering of the filthy rich, and the urgent need to follow the disunited states down the rabbit hole of profound economic inequity ...

Don't just trust the pond, read Forbes' Income Inequality Is Surging In the U.S., Oxfam Report Shows...

Very tasty, as the reptiles interrupted Killer of the IPA with an AV distraction ...

Chalmers ‘in denial’ as ex- RBA boss criticises Labor’s inaction on boosting the economy
Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson discusses former Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe...
more

The pond confesses it didn't have the first clue who this Laura was, but she did the right thing by featuring Freedumb Boy and that Lowe aiming low ...

It set Killer off on a final gobbet of Freedumb rapture ...

Loosening the income tax noose doesn’t require lifting the GST, among the most annoying refrains in Australian public debate. Cutting federal government expenditure, the fastest growth since the 1970s outside the pandemic, offers plenty of scope to entirely “pay for” income tax cuts, including streamlining the out-of-control NDIS, which Wilson admirably noted.
IPA research last year found emissions reductions-related programs were chewing up at least $9bn a year, alone enough to fund sizeable cuts to the top rate, and surely a ripe political target for a Coalition that has recently disavowed “net zero”.
The traditional definition of recession – back-to-back quarters of declining GDP – isn’t relevant in a nation that annually floods its labour market with hundreds of thousands of new workers. GDP per capita has shrunk in 10 of the past 13 quarters: this is a severe recession already, on the measure that actually matters.
Revelations this week that real wages have fallen “for the first time in two years” hide the true extent of the decline. The CPI doesn’t include the cost of bracket creep, home loan interest rates or even the price of dwellings.
If the government wants to improve living standards and encourage more productive investments, the most obvious lever it has is trimming the top rate of income tax.
Not many Liberals have had the guts to start a fight over the top marginal tax rate. Wilson has admirably helped defeat proposals to increase tax on super and dividends; his arguments to cut income tax are even stronger.

Meanwhile, the poor lad has already begun to learn walking backwards... (here's an intermittent archive link as a way of avoiding the Graudian's campaign for email addresses with menaces):

There's going to be great fun in the next few months ...

And so to a final note. The pond wanted to draw attention to this outing by Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic ...

No, It’s Not Back to Business as Usual
Marco Rubio was more civil than J. D. Vance had been, but the message to longtime allies was the same.

That link should work as a share, let the pond know if it doesn't, because this is only a taster ...

Just like last year, I watched the most important American speech at the Munich Security Conference in the overflow room, sitting on the floor, underneath the speakers. This is the best place both to hear the speech (otherwise the room is too noisy) and to watch the faces of people gathered around the screens. The prime ministers and presidents sit in the main hall, but plenty of other people attend the conference: security analysts, lieutenant colonels, drone engineers, deputy defense ministers, legislators, and hundreds of other people whose professional lives are dedicated to ending the war in Ukraine, bringing peace to Europe, and projecting security in the world.
Just like last year, this group was hoping to hear how the U.S. administration is planning to contribute to these projects. And, just like last year, audience members were disappointed.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Saturday’s key speaker, was more civil than Vice President J. D. Vance, who in 2025 attacked and insulted many of the European governments represented in the room. But Rubio’s speech had many of the same goals. He did not mention the war, or imply that America would help Europe win it. He did not express the belief that Russia can be defeated. He did not refer to the democratic values and the shared belief in freedom that once motivated the NATO alliance, and that still motivate its European members. Instead, he offered a vision of unity based on a misty idea of inherited “Western civilization”—Dante, Shakespeare, the Sistine Chapel, the Beatles—which would fight against the real enemies: not Russia, not China, but rather migration, the “climate cult,” and other forms of modern degeneracy.
The speech worked like a Rorschach test. If you wanted to hear some positive news, you might have been satisfied by the emotive expressions of unity. But one of my German friends clearly heard a “dog whistle” to the German far right. I spoke with a couple of Poles who noticed that the list of great men and great artworks failed to include anyone or anything from their half of the European continent. An Indian colleague was alarmed by the praise for colonialism. In Rubio’s repeated references to Christianity, a lot of Americans heard a shout-out to Christian nationalists. And many, many people noticed the oddity of the attack on migration, coming from a son of migrants.
In the hours and days afterward, I did not meet a single person of any nationality who thinks that the American-European relationship is returning to business as usual. Rubio did not say that, and obviously did not want anyone to believe it. Neither did Elbridge Colby, the U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, who also appeared in Munich. Colby, speaking at a public event, instead promoted the emergence of a “Europeanized NATO” that can defend itself, by itself, with America perhaps offering a theoretical nuclear umbrella. He dismissed the “cloud-castle abstraction of the rules-based international order.” He said that no one should “base alliances on sentiment alone.” This is the message that the Trump administration has been sending all year, and it has not changed.
That message comes with some profound contradictions. Just after Munich, Rubio flew to Bratislava and Budapest, where he heaped praise upon Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister. President Trump, he told Orbán, is “deeply committed to your success,” a clear reference to upcoming Hungarian elections that Orbán is on course to lose, if the vote is conducted fairly. Many have noted that Orbán has a record of corruption and electoral manipulation, that he puts pressure on judges and independent journalists (hardly any of the latter are left in Hungary), and that Rubio himself signed a letter denouncing the Hungarian prime minister for “democratic erosion” back in 2019.
But in the light of the American message delivered in Munich, the visit was also inconsistent. Orbán, like the far-right leaders in Germany and France who have close ties to Vance and the MAGA establishment, opposes European rearmament. Orbán is not merely seeking to block the emergence of a “Europeanized NATO”; he operates as a de facto spokesperson for Russia inside the European Union.
In practice, Orbán’s Hungary creates a major security headache for everybody else. Russians are waging a horrific, damaging, costly war on Ukraine. They have sent drones into Europe, staged regular cyberattacks, and cut undersea cables in the Baltic Sea. Does the United States really want Europe to unite and fight these threats together? If so, why is the Trump administration supporting someone who opposes this project? Europeans can’t help but wonder if the American goal is rather to encourage a divided Europe that can’t defend itself against anyone...

Stop right there Ms Applebaum. 

All that talk of Orbán’s authoritarian Hungary reminded the pond of a reptile favourite.

Recognise this lickspittle fellow traveller with authoritarians?

The pond doesn't have time to go into all the servile, self-serving pandering and sycophantic Orbán worship indulged in by the onion muncher over the years, and will instead just note Benjamin Clark in Crikey in May last year ...

Tony Abbott’s position in Orbán’s Hungary is untenable

If Tony Abbott is to inherit Liberal Party elder statesman status, he needs to reconsider some of the company he keeps — starting with his affiliation with the Danube Institute.

Inter alia ...

Last year, it was revealed by Hungarian media that BLA has “spent more than half a billion forints [A$2.16 million] of public funds to pay foreign guest lecturers and writers” and that “several guest lecturers were asked to write articles that would positively portray the Orbán government in the United States”. Crikey makes no inference that Abbott has received such payments or that his writing or public statements have been influenced by them. Abbott has registered his Danube Institute role, among other activities, on the Australian government’s foreign influence transparency register.

Even so, Abbott’s position with the institute, and his repeated praise for Orbán, ought to be scrutinised by the Australian media far more often. Morally, any association with such an illiberal, increasingly undemocratic regime is highly suspect. And is it appropriate for him to serve on the Australian War Memorial board, an institution dedicated to celebrating those who fought for democracy and freedom, while simultaneously getting into bed with a state apparatus that increasingly represents the opposite?

Last week, Orbán’s party Fidesz introduced legislation to the Hungarian Parliament that would empower the government to monitor, penalise and ban organisations it designates as a threat to national sovereignty. Critics have suggested that, if passed, the bill could shut down all independent media and politically engaged NGOs in the country. Is this company you really want to keep, Tony?

Abbott’s affiliation is particularly hypocritical given his staunch support for Ukraine. He once threatened to “shirtfront” Vladimir Putin, and while he might have misspoken, no-one questioned his sincerity in repudiating the Russian warmonger’s imperial landgrab. Abbott has recently criticised Donald Trump’s embrace of Russia, accusing the president of living in “fantasy land”, and urged Europe to step up its support to Ukraine.

Yet Orbán is now the key blocker in Europe for doing so. He is holding out against progressing Ukraine’s application to join the European Union, among other roadblocks. Other EU states are now seeking ways to sideline his recalcitrant regime to put further pressure on the Kremlin.

While I was in Budapest, tension over Ukraine’s EU ascension question was palpable. The government is holding a referendum, a frequent tactic of Orbán as he knows his older voting base is more likely to turn out, on whether to continue holding up Ukraine’s application. Fidesz has put up propaganda posters across the city, which are being graffitied by young locals.

This puts the Western conservative coterie that has coalesced around the Danube Institute in an awkward position. Most of them are purportedly pro-Hungary and pro-Ukraine. Murray has called out Joe Rogan for not sticking up for Zelenskyy. O’Sullivan’s X posts suggest he is sceptical of Trump’s “peace” agenda.

But with Orban increasingly running cover for Putin in the EU, how long can they square their circle of affiliations? How can Abbott threaten to “shirtfront” Putin while bear-hugging his new pal Orbán?

Crikey put a series of questions to Abbott, including whether he had received payment or payment in kind for any of his activities with the Danube Institute and/or Hungarian Conservative, whether he had any concerns about Hungary’s role in blocking EU support for Ukraine and, if so, whether this raised any concerns regarding his continued affiliation with the Danube Institute. We did not hear back before deadline.

If respect for democracy, free speech and the rule of law isn’t enough to dissuade them, perhaps a commitment to what remains of Atlanticism and Western security cooperation could. Abbott and his international pals should resign from the Danube Institute on principle, if not in disgrace.

And yet, thanks to all the supplicants in the Murdochian hive mind, the onion muncher keeps on getting away with it.

And so, feeling deeply soiled, and suffused with self-pity with having waded yet again through the reptile sewers, time to wrap up with a few celebrations of Albo's mob ...

In which petulant Peta goes full Pauline, there are surprising dissenters, and Dame Groan lands with yet another "we'll all be 'rooned" to help out Freedumb boy ...

 

"What fresh hell can this be?", to conscript a possibly real quote from the real Dorothy Parker.

Thursday in the lizard Oz is always a special form of hell, but to mangle the quote into discernible reality, it should have read "what stale hell can this be?"

There was petulant Peta, top of the world ma on the digital far right of the lizard Oz, sounding triumphantly Pauline...

Liberals’ turn is right on track with voters’ views on immigration
New research reveals voters have shifted right on immigration and other key issues, backing Liberal leader Angus Taylor’s focus on protecting Australian values
By Peta Credlin
Columnist

As stale as the onion muncher blathering on about the Judaeo-Xian tradition.

No need to recycle the hate, fear mongering, bigotry and dog whistling, the intermittent archive can take care of that ...

Spoiler alert, the pond ruins the ending, as the petulant one sounded triumphant in her final flourish ...

...What this tells me is that election results have more to do with how people view leaders and leadership; it’s leadership after all that most shapes most people’s views on most issues. For the Liberals, in other words, the problem is less that voters have moved away from them but that they have not provided much leadership on the issues voters care about.
Quite apart from the fact that the Liberals in 2025 inexplicably failed to campaign for their energy policy or against Labor’s unrealised capital gains tax policy, plus failed to hammer the fact that government policy had exacerbated the worst fall in living standards in the developed world, the key factors in their humiliation were the collapse of TV in shaping people’s political perceptions, the rise of social media (in which the Coalition was largely MIA) and antipathy towards Dutton who, however unfairly, the study showed had the least voter appeal in its history.
Far from needing to persuade the Australian public that migration numbers are too high and that all migrants must accept Australian values, what this says to me is that on immigration, Taylor is pushing on an open door. Based on the best available data, promising to protect the Australian way of life is exactly what voters want – as well as what our country needs, as the Bondi massacre has put up in flashing neon lights.
Meaning that far from being too right-wing for the electorate, for the first time in years the Liberals are actually taking voters where they want to go.

In short, and in essence, go on beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way, go the full Pauline, go in hard, boots and all, rage at furriners, take the hate ball from her and run with it up the guts...

Why is this deeply ironic?

At this very moment, even Barners was trying to hide ... in plain sight, in a lizard Oz EXCLUSIVE.

EXCLUSIVE
‘What are you asking me for?’: Joyce swerves from Hanson
Barnaby Joyce has refused to endorse his leader Pauline Hanson’s broad criticism of Muslims, in the first sign of division within the new One Nation team.
By Greg Brown and Elizabeth Pike

That's more than enough of that from Tamworth's enduring, ineradicable shame, but you could have knocked the pond over with a feather when the Canavan caravan joined in the cock-crowing chorus ...

(In view of the Graudian's desire to extort email addresses, here's an intermittent archive link)

And Brownie took to the extreme far right of the hive mind to cry to the clouds, even though petulant Peta was posing as Pauline in drag ...

Leader’s true colours? A nasty shade of prejudice
Hanson shows conservative voters her true colours with Islam smear
Hanson’s latest controversy is hardly surprising given her record over a 30-year political career, but it carries far more weight given the extraordinary rise in One Nation’s popularity.
By Greg Brown
Chief political correspondent

It was only a two minute read, and Brownie ended with a note of caution.

It seems that, thanks to the likes of petulant Peta egging on the fuss - let's not forget the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way trying to match the mutton Dutton's electorial triumph - Pauline will thrive:

Hanson’s latest controversy is hardly surprising given her record over a 30-year political career, but it carries far more weight given the extraordinary rise in One Nation’s popularity. The latest Newspoll showed the grievance party had a primary vote of 27 per cent.
New Liberal leader Angus Taylor has made a solid start in moving to win back the Coalition’s conservative base without veering into the same rhetoric of Hanson, arguing migrants need to support Australian values and making the point that most do.
Anthony Albanese’s tough language on ISIS brides this week is perhaps a sign he is aware of the need to reassure voters he is putting Australians first, given Hanson’s resurgence. The major parties have historically served Australia well and both Labor and the Coalition must ensure they are responding to the concerns of voters or there is every chance One Nation will continue to thrive.

But not in Melbourne?

What else? Well the headlines were all about the ISIS issue, but a 'toon will take care of that ...

Only Jack the Insider bothered to take a dive into the Trumpenstein sewers ...

The Epstein files: Snorkelling with the great and the good-for-nothing
From British ambassadors to tech billionaires, the Epstein files reveal an extraordinary roster of influential figures who crossed moral lines to socialise with a convicted child abuser.
By Jack the Insider
Columnist

Jack did an incredible job ... of avoidance.

Jack's singular success, his astonishing achievement?

Many names were mentioned, and yet when the pond did a word search for King Donald, there was nary a single mention. It's there in the intermittent archive for anyone wanting to check ...

Not one ... and yet ...

Well played Jack, your kissing cousins at Faux Noise are likely full of admiration and feel free to swim in the sewer with them, you won't smell a a thing ...

What else? Well the pond has already had the pleasure of seeing the weird spectacle of freedumb boy promoted to a pay grade above his level, and there he was in the lizard Oz ...

BOLD AGENDA
Top income tax rate ‘punitive’, Wilson declares
The Coalition’s new Treasury spokesman Tim Wilson argues the nation’s economic settings need a ‘complete reset’.
By Greg Brown

Bold? 

Just look how startled he looks in that wretched graphic illustration at the top of the "save the filthy rich" yarn, typical of the decline and fall of the lizard Oz graphics department ...

That's more than enough of that. The intermittent archive can take what's left of the little remaining.

But do pause to admire that look. It says he doesn't quite believe where he's landed, and the pond couldn't believe it either.

Perhaps it was an ancient reflex, inherited from ancient stone age times, but the pond found it completely implausible ... though to be fair, freedumb boy was looking after the rich ...

Once again the immortal Rowe was present with a prescient portrait, if inclined to be a tad cruel ...(the pond simply couldn't bear to note the rat tail details in those in and out trays, or the beefy boofhead at the door, seemingly interrupted in mid-consort with a redhead).

The major surprise? How little attention the reptiles paid to that other scandal, one right down their jihad alley but surprisingly absent at the top of the digital edition ...

Never mind, if the pond wants a denunciation of the satanic Jimbo, it will always turn to a beloved professional, one with a cult following amongst pond correspondents ...

The header: Jim Chalmers’ mowing your grass: real wages shrink while the Treasurer talks them up. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the Anthony Albanese government’s economic strategy is heading off the rails.

The caption for the miscreant, looking all smirky and shifty, caught on the hop in the snap: Treasurer Jim Chalmers at a news conference in Logan in Brisbane’s south on Wednesday after the national wages data was released. Picture: Adam Head

It's only becoming clear now that we're heading off the rails?

Hasn't the old chook been groaning about how we'll all be 'rooned for months and months? Did she have little faith in her prognostications?

Bizarrely, considering it was a heralding of disaster of train crash proportions, Dame Groan could only muster three minutes for this assault.

Apart from celebrating her evocation of Winnie, there's no need to put a gloss on it, what with the Groaning being very standard and best left to pond correspondents ...

It was not the result the government was hoping for.
The fastest-growing sector for wages was health and social assistance. For the December quarter, public and private wages grew at the same pace. But over the year, public wages growth significantly outstripped private sector wages. In fact, public sector wages have been outstripping private gains for some time.
According to the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, the result was a tad disappointing, but it had been worse under the Coalition – that is, if the figures are very carefully cherrypicked. There must come a time when Chalmers gives up the faux, odious comparisons with the performance of the previous government that was voted out nearly five years ago. But just not now. Jimbo is the living and breathing example of that famous saying of Winston Churchill: “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

The release of the December quarter figure for the Wage Price Index pointed to annual wage growth of 3.4 per cent in 2025. Over the same period, headline inflation was up to 3.8 per cent, depending on which figure you used. In other words, real wages fell over the year and by a significant margin.

How could the pond resist? Come on down Winnie, sock it to the pond:

Quote Origin: Success Is Going from Failure to Failure Without Losing Your Enthusiasm

Inter alia ...

Thanks honest Abe, and the pond moved to the rest of the groaning with a full loss of enthusiasm ...

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the government’s economic strategy is heading off the rails. The Treasurer held the truly naive and unsubstantiated view that real wages could be dictated by the government because the labour share of output was too low and needed to be adjusted upwards.
Generous award increases granted by the Fair Work Commission as well as substantial pay rises in agreements for public sector workers would set the pace for higher real wages. The fact that productivity has gone backwards since the election of the Labor government in 2022 is seen as largely irrelevant.
But we need only look at what’s been happening to unit labour costs – real unit labour costs rose by 1.5 per cent, according to the most recent National Accounts (September quarter 2025) – to understand why the Reserve Bank is worried about what is going on in the labour market and the inflationary pressures that are around.
Of course, Anthony Albanese, is working from the same talking points as Jimbo. He declared last year that the period of high inflation was over and it was plain-sailing from that point – oops, spoke too soon.
He’s not having a bar of the patently obvious proposition that government spending is contributing to the uptick in inflation – and the associated fall in real wages – and objects to anyone making the obvious point. Evidently, former RBA governor Phil Lowe is so yesterday’s man that we shouldn’t take any notice of his warnings on the dangers of excess government spending.

The reptiles did provide one visual interruption, but it was only that mystifying message that haunts the reptile pages like a Sydney cockroach, or rat tails in the in-tray ...

It was but a brief, entirely meaningless pause as Dame Groan headed into triumphantly teary gloom, as she always does ...

Albanese even fell into the trap of claiming that “when it comes to savings, we’ve produced $114bn of savings, including $20bn of savings in the mid-year forecast – that makes a substantial difference.”
If he had been paying attention to last week’s Senate estimates (and Senator Paterson’s grilling of Finance Minister Katy Gallagher) he would have realised that this is a gross figure and the net figure entails additional spending of more than $114bn. There has been some reallocation of spending, but overall, the public sector is pumping more dollars in and adding to aggregate demand.
The labour market is looking decidedly unbalanced. Too many unnecessary or low-value jobs being created in the public sector or funded by the taxpayer. Public sector wages being driven up by fiat – think childcare and aged care workers. Difficulties for private sector firms, particularly small ones, recruiting staff and being forced to increase pay offers to attract anyone. Rising rates of business failure. All up, a recipe for low productivity, inflationary pressures and higher interest rates.
This was never a good plan by the government, and it looks as though it will end in tears.

Oh yes, we'll all be 'rooned ...

And so to end with with a note on the Streisand effect, and a host that YouTube's sub-titling insists should be known as Colbear.

When the pond last checked, Colbear's interview with Rep Talarico had garnered c. 6.183 million views on YouTube.

Colbear's usual ratings in his time slot?

Last quarter 2025 the show averaged 2.42 million...

Well played CBS lawyers, well played Bari's team...

And so slowly, inexorably FTA TV drives itself into oblivion to conform to the wishes of the demented, 'second childhood' King.

The Streisand effect always puts the pond in a good mood, despite Wilcox's insistence that the pond ends this day's reptile observations on a downer and a bummer. Are you listening Jack? 

In which "Ned" produces the ultimate test, and Dame Slap goes redhead ...

 

Trust the Graudian to try to frighten the pond with terrifying stories of the boogeyman under the bed, and threatening to emerge and deliver fresh mayhem and chaos ...

Will Tony Abbott return to frontline politics? The Liberal party’s most polarising figure can imagine a way
Dan Jervis-Bardy
Chief political correspondent
The former PM is open to resurrecting his parliamentary career, if Angus Taylor does what Peter Dutton wouldn’t and actively drafts him in

Incidentally, that's an intermittent archive link because all too often of late the Graudian has been lumping access with this extortionate demand ...

Sorry, the pond refuses to use Google, wayward owner of blogger and in terminal AI decline, nor the pandering Apple (Tim Apple is such a suck), and won't surrender its email address, even though it has several anon accounts devised for such blackmail attempts.

Instead the pond will turn to its usual herpetology duties ... and what a dismal day it is.

As predicted, the reptiles are now in full campaign mode ... with Brownie and Crannie leading the way ...

PUBLIC SECTOR JOBS CRACKDOWN
Taylor’s Liberals ready to wage war over economy
With Labor set to come under further pressure over its second-term record when wages figures are released on Wednesday, Angus Taylor unveiled a frontbench team he said would be focused on cutting waste and boosting productivity 
By Greg Brown and Matthew Cranston

How dire is that triptych collage, which verges, in terms of look, on some Liberal trinitarian view of life.

But together with the cardigan bashing, there was a secret terror bubbling to the surface ...

Mood of the Nation survey
Polling reveals reasons behind One Nation’s rise
Pauline Hanson defends ‘good Muslims’ statement, as polling shows reasons for One Nation rise
Voters are searching for an alternative party to back, polling shows, as Pauline Hanson defends statements she made questioning whether there were ‘good Muslims’.
By Elizabeth Pike

There's a Melbourne joke that can go with that ...

Ah Melbourne, wet one day and deluded the next ...

It was way past time for the reptiles to wheel out their heavyweight to offer sage advice on the best way to bore the country to tears, with the beefy boofhead possibly a willing student ...

The header: Angus Taylor’s ultimate test: to absorb and project leadership mentality; New Liberal leader Angus Taylor has outlined his mission to restore living standards and protect Australian values

The caption for an unfortunate snap of mouth open and nothing to be heard: Opposition Leader Angus Taylor announces his new Shadow Cabinet. Picture: NewsWire / John Appleyard

It was the ultimate test for pond correspondents: absorb "Ned" while projecting a semblance of retained sanity.

There was a twist to this ultimate test: the pond doubts that there's a single reptile that ever looks at the pond, or notes its constant whining and moaning about the AI slop that serves as visual distractions, a relief from the tedium of wading through the drivel.

But somebody must have decided to take a stand, because for a full five minutes, "Ned" droned on without a single visual distraction, making the scaling of this particular Everest exceptionally burdensome ...

In his opening remarks, new Liberal leader Angus Taylor has signalled the principles that will define his mission – he will run on economics, culture and values – and his selection of the shadow ministry puts a priority on communications and electoral impact.
Taylor is confronting the heart of the Liberal crisis – the loss of conviction and the need to bring people back. He starts with the dual priorities: “to restore our standard of living and protect our way of life”. The two are fused together.
Taylor wants an economic agenda that delivers better economic growth, improved real wages and a better life for people, but he ties this to a social and moral stance: less state control, more incentive for aspiration, less government spending, less taxation, lower inflation, cheaper energy, individual choice and higher private investment. This is a sharp philosophical divide from Labor.
Of course, the actual policies are critical. But if this is the philosophy, there is plenty of scope for significant differences between the Coalition and Labor. The point is that before the policy rollout, people need to know your direction and your convictions. This absence was a disastrous omission from Liberal policies at the 2025 election; witness higher taxes and higher immediate deficits. Taylor now seeks to address this weakness.
Taylor and his deputy, Jane Hume, come with political baggage from the last election. Their admission of past mistakes was essential in their opening remarks. The real point is that Taylor will succeed or fail not because of his past mistakes but judged on what he does and says as leader.
There is an axiom about the Liberal future. The party cannot regain office without reclaiming its credentials as the party of superior economic management. That imperative is behind the new and long economic team starting with Tim Wilson as opposition Treasury spokesman.
But remember, Taylor as leader still will be the chief driver of economic policy. There is no alternative – the economic mantle must be reclaimed from Labor, otherwise the Liberals stay rotting in opposition.
Pivotal to this test is how the philosophical rift in the party plays out given the populist conservatives have kept beating the drum for more radical economic change, apparently a reversion to protectionism, hostility towards free trade, support for government intervention and a resurrection of a “making things” industrial base. It resembles Labor dogma to a distinct extent.
Taylor now seeks, for unity’s sake, to bring these people inside his tent, the decisive step being Andrew Hastie’s role as opposition industry spokesman, where Hastie will face serious pressure to perform.
Taylor’s pitch to the public offers a blend of economics and culture: “We must restore Australia to a country where life is affordable, where our kids can buy a home, where you can raise a family, and where there’s a fair go once again, where we’re a nation of strength and unity, where we unapologetically defend Australian values.”

Confronted with this sort of drivel, the drivelling "Ned" made an observation ...

It is easy to dismiss this as dross. 

Well yes, but as soon as that came, there had to be a Billy Goat Butt, which the pond is thinking should become the BGB Exemption ...

But it’s essential when voters who have deserted the party say it no longer stands for anything. Taylor, naturally, put housing and immigration up in lights, but also childcare. Immigration is a priority but filled with risks.

Sheesh, it's past time for a breakfast tea or at least a relieving 'toon ...

"Ned" carried on with the burden of helping transform the beefy prime Angus boofhead from down Goulburn way into a contender ...

Taylor enunciates two principles: numbers have been too high and standards have been too low. In short, the program fails to maximise the national interest. He puts up in lights the security and cohesion argument, saying: “If someone wants to import the hatred and violence of another place to Australia – the door must be shut.”
This follows the open displays of hatred and calls for violence from one group of Australians towards another group that have diminished our society in recent years. Taylor praises our immigration program and says he doesn’t seek to be One Nation-lite. To clarify his stance, Taylor should stress two points: that his immigration reform is aimed at restoring public confidence in the program and that he will work in co-operation with the ethnic communities. The message should be a program that doesn’t discriminate on race or religion but insists on tests relating to security, values and cohesion.
There is a long array of cultural options – some easy, some challenging – that Taylor will consider. This basket relates to one flag, support for Australia Day, opposition to an Indigenous treaty, law and order, ongoing reform of the education curriculum, gender as a biological construct, religious freedom, upholding the liberalism of equality for all against the divisions of identity politics and promoting shared values against the drift towards tribalism.
Economics and culture aren’t mutually exclusive. They fit together. Those people saying cultural issues aren’t important don’t get it – the public cares about values while Australian conservatism, the base that Taylor needs, is deeply immersed in questions of culture and values.

The pond should note that there was one visual intrusion, but it was, in the usual reptile way, entirely mystifying, and besides devoid of any human interest ...

Readers of the tree killer edition, frustrated by clicking on a link in "Ned's" column to no avail, might have found this web version online - if they'd only realised that it's hard to put a live link into tree pulp ...

Electoral tactics are vital – and this arena is littered with false trails. Here are the big two: that Taylor’s main job is to arrest the rise of One Nation or, alternatively, that his main job is to fight the teals. Wrong and wrong.
The Liberals can recover only by resisting the rise of One Nation and winning back some of the teal-held seats. The party must do both – it will never form government again unless it makes progress on both fronts. This is basic politics and arithmetic. Ask yourself: what happens to the Liberal Party if it outflanks Pauline Hanson but is left with no voice in most of urban Australia, where it currently holds nine out of 88 seats? In that scenario it has no future.
Fortunately, Taylor and Hume are alert to such reality, with Taylor saying he doesn’t think of the challenge in terms of “left, right or centre” and Hume saying: “We’re going to take the Liberal Party forward. Not left. Not right.” In practice, some policies will pitch more to the right, others more to the left, and some will constitute an amalgam. The key is to win votes both ways.
In an interview last year with the author Taylor pledged himself to a Liberal Party based on the Howard formula of two traditions – classic liberalism and conservative belief. This means a broad-based party. Taylor called it: “Two traditions, one future.” He dismissed the push from sections of the conservative right for the Liberals to follow the tactics of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and US President Donald Trump. “Our task is not to mimic what we see overseas,” Taylor said.
He argued the Howard framework offered flexibility, a means of preserving internal unity, maximising an appeal to the public and providing a wide policy spectrum that included growth, enterprise, family and community. Asked how important it was for the Liberal Party to retain these two traditions, Taylor said: “It’s not the Liberal Party, if we don’t.” Of course, everything depends on the quality of policy and persuasion.
The ultimate test for Taylor, as the new leader, will be his ability to absorb and project the mentality of leadership. But there is also a collective test for the centre right and the Liberal Party. The new leader will require unity and time, both denied to Sussan Ley. Was Ley given a fair go? Of course not, yet the partyroom vote was decisive for change.
For Taylor and his new team there will be no easy recovery road. The party will need the toughness and nerve to stick by the new leadership. Taylor has unveiled a shadow ministry of sweeping change but with a balance across the party. The risk to Taylor lies with unrest from the populist conservatives who always wanted Hastie in the top job.
The reality, however, is that the party must hold together from this point – it may be the Libs’ last chance.

The last chance? Always with the doomsday interest in the apocalypse?

...you ran out of gas
Down the road a piece
And then the battery went dead
And now the cable won't reach...
It's your last chance
To check under the hood
Your last chance
She ain't soundin' too good
Your last chance
To trust the man with the star
'Cause you've found the last chance Texaco
The last chance...

After that, the pond felt no qualms sending this off to the intermittent archive ...

The use of AI at university may present an opportunity to reshape higher education
Students using ChatGPT to cheat aren’t the real problem – they’re exposing how universities reward the wrong skills for an AI world.
By Adam Bridgeman and Danny Liu

AI might represent an opportunity to reshape higher ed, but damned if it's doing the lizard Oz's illustrations any good ...

Really reptiles? You can't even instruct AI on how to come up with an interesting visual distraction?

The pond also feels comfortable consigning TS to the intermittent archive ...

‘Woke’ politics fuelling arts sector antisemitism, Archibald winner Tim Storrier warns
The leading Australian painter claims ‘woke’ ideology has created an alliance that marginalises Jewish artists, with cultural institutions showing ‘moral cowardice’ when they are targeted.
By Rosemary Neill

Only a wanker of the first water would pose for that sort of photo while deploring the "woke".

Just look at it full screen ...

What a prize preening, posing loon of the most abject, sublimely ridiculous kind, proud to be a paw under chin folly ...

Even worse, that mention triggered the pond's contractual requirement whenever the word appears ...

Please don't blame the pond for pointing this out in the matter of TS ...

And so to the bonus, but first a little mood and tone setting as the lizard Oz editorialist carried on yet another reptile jihad in a way only the reptiles can ...

Morally confused?

Sssh, don't mention the ethnic cleansing ... after all, it's the Australian Daily Zionist News ...

And now the pond reluctantly offers Dame Slap, but proposes there's a good reason for paying attention: the MAGA cap wearer should be treated as a dead canary in a coal mine, warning of dire events to follow.

Just as her MAGA devotion helped plunge the disunited states into an era of madness, so she now proposes to go full redhead ...

The header: Out-of-touch judges are driving mainstream Australian voters towards One Nation; Those attracted to One Nation simply don’t care if ‘rights’ dreamt up by our own High Court mean pro-Palestinian firebrands such as Lees and Grace Tame have to be given the run of our streets to spout words that are steeped in violence.

The caption for the uncredited inane collage: Pro-Palestine activists Josh Lees, left, and Grace Tame, right could be one of the best things to happen to Pauline Hanson, centre, and One Nation. Picture: Supplied

Just meditate on that header:

Out-of-touch judges are driving mainstream Australian voters towards One Nation

Credit where credit is due. 

Out of touch MAGA cap wearers in the lizard Oz are doing their level best to drive the Liberal party and the beefy boofhead to adopting One Nation policies, in a desperate attempt to see who can reach the bottom of a bottomless pit of hate, envy and bigotry.

See how it's done .. (sssh, no mention of ethnic cleansing)

Josh Lees could be one of the best things that ever happened to One Nation. Every time he and his ragtag bunch of professional protesters start chanting “Globalise the intifada” or “From the river to the sea”, every time Grace Tame does her Greta Thunberg impersonation by screaming similar slogans to the cameras, another cohort of otherwise peaceful Australians is surely deciding they have had enough.
Many voters showing new support for One Nation may not live within cooee of the Sydney streets taken over by the extremists taking advantage of our laws to spread division. But, still, they may have had enough. While new Liberal leader Angus Taylor may prove to have more spine than his predecessor, it’s clear that many Australians don’t think mainstream politicians are doing enough to re-establish Australia as a socially cohesive country.
So, they’re throwing their lot in with One Nation.
It was ever thus. Not just in Australia but all over the world, average voters think their elites have let them down. Migration and law and order are the big two hot-button issues where a combination of out-of-touch political leadership and a legal system that favours abstractions over common sense have driven mainstream voters to populism. Increasing numbers of voters are sick of social cohesion being wrecked by judges and politicians who tell them they are rednecks. Rednecks who simply don’t understand the brilliance of the judge-made laws or the undemocratic international conventions that increasingly allow extremists to flout the laws politicians pass.
Those attracted to One Nation and its global counterparts simply don’t care if “rights” dreamt up by our own High Court mean pro-Palestinian firebrands such as Lees and Tame have to be given the run of our streets to spout words that are steeped in violence.
Those looking anew at One Nation aren’t ruminating over the finer points of the implied freedom of political communication; they just want the violence and division to stop.
And so, they turn to someone who also doesn’t lose sleep over the niceties of international law, Pauline Hanson.
That the increasingly nonsensical claims of the left would fuel the growth of populist parties on the right was so completely predictable, the big remaining question is why and how did we not see it coming?
The relentless rise of One Nation and the exponential growth in social division that is coming our way could so easily have been headed off a long time ago.
The simple application of historically tried and true policies about sensible control over migration, tough but fair crime policies, less zealous climate policies and planning laws that let a lot more houses be built a lot cheaper would have avoided the looming left-right battles to come.

This dull snap is the point at which Dame Slap gets truly weird, NSW Chief Justice Andrew Bell Picture: John Feder

See how Dame Slap uses the legal system as a battering ram, in a way which Pam Bondi and King Donald might admire ...

The judiciary, here and overseas, has much to answer for. Abstract judgments untethered from common sense have made a mess of attempts to fashion immigration and other laws that maintain social cohesion.
In Love v Commonwealth in 2020 our High Court found that two men serving jail terms for crimes of violence who were born outside Australia, were foreign citizens and had never been naturalised, could not be deported because they were descendants of Aboriginal people.
The judges’ justifications for setting aside the operation of our migration laws in this case ranged from Justice Michelle Gordon referring to “the deeper truth”, of a “connection that is spiritual and metaphysical” to Justice James Edelman who wrote of “essential meanings”, “metaphysical constructs” and a “powerful personal attachment to land”. It seems no matter how wacky the claim, some judge will fall for them.

Put it another way ...

And put it another way Dame Slap did, because blondes four legs good, and furriners two legs bad:

As we learned last week, two more murderers and three more sex offenders have been granted bridging visas after the High Court’s NZYQ decision.
Home Affairs officials told Senate estimates that of the 335 people on so-called NZYQ bridging visas right now, 15 had convictions for murder or ­attempted murder and 98 had convictions for sexual offences. That’s up from 13 murderers or ­attempted murderers and 95 ­convicted sex offenders since the department last released figures less than a year ago. Only 14 people had low-level or no criminality.
The NZYQ decision overturned the longstanding Al-Kateb v Godwin case, which would have allowed the NZYQ cohort to be deported or at the very least detained indefinitely. The High Court gets a prize for judicial activism but not much for common sense.
The judicial wrecking ball that has undone controlled migration is not confined to Australia. Politicians in Britain despair at how European and UK courts have interpreted article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article eight, which protects the right to private and family life, has been used to protect law-breakers from deportation sufficiently frequently that even that most famous of lefty lawyers, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, is calling for it to be reformed.
Judges can be gullible on other matters, too. NSW Supreme Court judge Belinda Rigg fell for the arguments of Palestine Action Group leaders when she allowed the activists to lead a march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge last year. Rigg referred with apparent approval to Lees’s views on why that protest should be allowed, saying Lees had “compellingly” explained the reasons “he believes there is an urgency for a response to the humanitarian situation in Gaza”. She continued: “Mr Lees regards it as highly desirable in the current circumstances that the public assembly is authorised so as to provide structure, support and safety to those who participate.”

Okay, it was just the usual snowflake whining, a standard blonde assembly of grievances about foreigners, with the remedy implied ...

It wouldn't be a reptile outing without a visual reminder of all that terrifies the hive mind ... (sssh, no mention of ethnic cleansing): Demonstrators at Town Hall Square, in Sydney CBD, today, during a protest organised by the Palestine Action Group Sydney. Picture: Justin Lloyd

And that sent Dame Slap off on her final rant, with the onion muncher making a guest appearance ...

This march occurred before the December massacre at Bondi, so perhaps Rigg would not be so gullible today about the balance between protesters’ rights and the right of Jews to be free from incitements of violence.
The problem is not just that judges make mistakes. Many of them know nothing of public policy so perhaps we should expect their mistakes. It’s more that they are not accountable for their errors to voters and their errors are almost impossible to rectify until a higher court gets hold of them.
That is the reason judges should not be given these powers – they don’t have the skills to exercise them properly. When former prime minister Tony Abbott criticised Justice Rigg’s decision as “political”, Chief Justice of NSW Andrew Bell jumped on him. Bell may have won the debating points for pointing out that the judge was simply following a statute but he missed the real point Abbott was making. Which is simply that judges should not be given these powers. Politicians should make these judgments.
A recent poll by The Guardian found 62 per cent of respondents nationally supported stronger police powers to curb protests, with 38 per cent strongly supporting such moves. That captured nearly two-thirds of Labor voters, three-quarters of Coalition voters and even 38 per cent of Greens voters nationwide. Only 17 per cent of people opposed enhanced police powers to curb protests.
Hanson may find herself featuring in an upcoming speech by the NSW Chief Justice, who appears to have a fondness for slapping down people on the right. Abbott copped it this year in Bell’s annual address to open the 2026 legal year. Last year, Bell whacked Donald Trump and Elon Musk at his 2025 address. Will One Nation be next?
The hubris of judges and other elites is a powerful reason for One Nation’s inexorable rise. When elites ignore commonsense concerns in favour of abstractions and damage social cohesion as a result, it should come as no surprise that disgruntled citizens – the new “forgotten people” of Australian politics – turn to those who promise a return to order and discipline.
It used to be said that Robert Menzies won so many elections because he was prepared to steal Labor policies to do so. Current politicians trying to fend off One Nation could do worse than follow his example.

Dame Slap quoting the Graudian? 

Guess they have her email address now and can spam her to their hearts' content ... as the pond signs off with an immortal Rowe portrait of the beefy boofhead which will echo down the ages ...a nice tribute to a lost star, mingled with a tribute to a dropkick loser...

It's always in the detail ...