At the start of the first episode of season five of The Wire, Bunk and his cop mates use a photocopier as a fake polygraph to fool a credulous young crim.
As the routine goes down, Bunk's mate observes Americans are a stupid people, by and large. We pretty much believe whatever we're told. And then later Bunk adds The bigger the lie, the more they believe.
This isn't anti-Americanism, though for a 2005 show, it's prescient enough about the mess America is currently in.
After all, Bunk is just recycling Herr Adolf and we all know what the Germans made of believing the big lie.
And what might be said of the hive mind produced by the lizard Oz, save to say that the longer the lie is repeated, the more the jihad works.
And that's where the pond starts today, with newly anointed jihadist, the canny Cranston, tag teaming with Brownie at the top of the "news" section ...
That splash gives the reptile game away ...
BRACE FOR AN IRATE RISE Chalmers defends plunging house prices as living standards flatline Treasurer admits tax reforms a factor in house price fall but vows no change Jim Chalmers has conceded his tax reforms helped drive house prices down yet refused to change course, even if the damage to the property market worsens. By Greg Brown and Matthew Cranston
Just note the comical graphic at the head of the jihad to see the propaganda intent...
Not to be outdone, reliable jihadist Geoff was on hand just below, eager to add to the bad news, and blessed by another snap making Jimbo look silly ...
Jim Chalmers’ inconvenient truths, as economy runs on fumes Jim Chalmers has added social media to his growing list of things that make his job harder.
The pond highlighted these jihadists because it's Thursday and so the pond is going to do a bunk on a couple of the contributors on the extreme far right, both beavering away for the Daily Zionist News.
The pond has never much bothered with petulant Peta, and this bleat ensured an ongoing lack of attention...
The Bondi Beach massacre inquiry is a sham unless it’s reopened We owe the dead the truth, and unless this royal commission urgently reopens hearings and takes evidence from politicians and senior leaders, we will have failed them. By Peta Credlin Columnist
The petulant one was backed up by another contribution, though the pair seemed hopelessly confused and contradictory ...
What's the point of this incessant ongoing campaign?
Partly it's to keep up the incessant drum beat, in a way that will sustain the jihad for months. Never mind any contradictions, just keep it running like that campaign to ruin the Voice.
More importantly, as the pond has suggested a number of times, if the Commission doesn't come up with recommendations suited to the reptile agenda - at this point it seems that agenda will only be satisfied if all criticism of the government of Israel and its ethnic cleansing activities in Gaza, the West Bank and southern Lebanon is banned - then the mother of all jihads will be launched over the holiday season break, ensuring a happy Xmas for reptiles.
The pond is so over it that it couldn't even muster the strength to head off to Haaretz to hear the latest news about the ethnic cleansing and the apartheid system currently being deployed in Israel.
And with that issue kicked to the corner, the pond couldn't muster much interest in much of anything else.
Savaging Telstra is like being given a free hit with a photocopier acting as a polygraph:
Telstra outage: The next ‘long fuse’ may have already been lit How a single system failure has exposed the wider, hidden risks within Telstra The release of an investigation into Telstra’s network outage marks an important turning point for chief executive Vicki Brady. By Eric Johnston Associate Editor
And the pond could only wish Samer a happy time as he contemplated the Iran folly ... what with economic D-day having given way to the bombing of weddings as a solution.
Besides, his piece was an import from The Times, a reminder of the dreck served up by locals on a Thursday ...
The pond could at least use that as an excuse to slip in a Luckovich, what with Herr Adolf a running theme today ...
Sameh did his best to sort it all out in his final gobbet ...
Say what? It's now all about getting the mad Mullahs to go back to the MOU, which was a confession of the abject failure of this war of choice, with the hope of getting a few concessions, like ... we didn't really mean for you to be in control of the strait, we meant more that we wanted a sock puppet government of the Venezuelan kind, so we could make out like bandits on a colonial oil junket, just to help climate science with a final epic push to the two degree mark.
Speaking of climate science that set the tone for a serve of pearls of wisdom:
The pond is pleased the pearls included a reference to the joys of AI (and the data centres the bots need) because it did enjoy this double-edged 'toon by Jennings in The Graudian ...
Apart from being on the road to hell, what's the point of these pearls?
It's the usual, forget net zero, forget climate science, forget renewables ...
The government’s commitment to high-cost and intermittent energy sources that cannot meet the growing demands of AI data centres is made worse by Canberra’s bizarre insistence (until recently) on the kind of energy that is unsuited to data centres.
The pearls that subsequently dropped were just window dressing, an elaboration on that theme ...
The government’s likely demand is that AI not replace a single union member’s job in this country or undercut their conditions. And its 2026 budget assault on savings and investment, as we know, will penalise high-risk and high-return investments across the economy, with the government and its bureaucrats to police a narrow carve-out for some start-ups. Chalmers describes AI as the “next wave” of technological change “that has now arrived”, giving the impression that it has materialised out of thin air. But technological change is a by-product of innovation and risk-taking by entrepreneurs in search of profits, with investors and consumers – acting through free markets – the ultimate judge of their success or failure. A government that is hostile to entrepreneurs and believes bureaucrats rather than markets should allocate resources will only stifle, rather than foster, this process. Yet Chalmers believes “we” – meaning our politicians and bureaucrats – can somehow micromanage the AI revolution to maximise its productivity benefits and eliminate its costs and risks altogether. This is rubbish. I don’t pretend to know whether the AI revolution will prove to be a big bang or a whimper. But if it proves to be the former, it will – like every previous positive structural shock we have experienced – cause considerable economic pain.
For no particular reason the reptiles flung in an AV reminder that the best way of dealing with a moronic desire to use black roofs in a sunburnt land is to deploy solar panels ...Treasurer Jim Chalmers confronts Australia’s first one trillion dollar national debt
Golding caught that spirit ...
For man who confessed to not having the first clue about the AI revolution, this Pearl delivered a number of inane pearlers...
The pain is not something governments can wish away or abolish but inevitably accompanies – indeed is the reverse side of – the economic benefits these episodes bring. China’s economic renaissance at the end of the 20th century is a case in point. We became one of that country’s most important suppliers of iron ore, coal and other commodities while benefiting enormously from its low-cost exports. This shock lifted growth, productivity and living standards in this country, but also led to the elimination of many jobs in the manufacturing and textile sectors. Bob Hawke and Paul Keating understood that this was a package deal. If the benefits were going to be enjoyed by the many, the costs would have to be borne by the few. Rather than micromanage this process as the Labor Left and unions wanted them to do, which would’ve killed it off and left us poorer as a result, they encouraged it by largely getting out of the way. Their reasoning was that the bigger the economic dividend we could earn from our expanding trade ties with China, the more rapidly displaced manufacturing workers would be re-employed elsewhere. And for those unable to do so, growing government revenues would easily fund targeted safety nets. While AI is a different case, the same logic applies if it does end up cutting a swath through our white-collar industries. That remains a big if, given we cannot predict the future (as Treasury has demonstrated recently with its rent and house price guesses). If Treasury were doing its job, it would have rejected the idea of an AI policy framework that could somehow capture the benefits of this technology in a cost-free way.
Did the pond need any further evidence to add to the mountain that proved that the French clock devotee and the dinkum drinker lived in reptile minds rent free? Not really ...Paul Keating and Bob Hawke. Picture: Getty Images
The pond thought another Golding was more to the point ...
After that came a reminder that the real point was standard climate science denialism, with net zero the usual reptile sticking point ...(sorry, people of Nepal, sorry Pacific islanders)...
It would be telling the government to support structural change, whether from AI or any other source, by cutting corporate tax rates to attract investment; lowering spending to take pressure off interest rates; increasing the flexibility of the labour market; abandoning net zero to bring down energy costs; and making sure specific help is available for affected workers. Who knows, perhaps the latter could be allowed to dip into their superannuation savings to fund necessary retraining?
A master stroke, yet another way to make sure that super will never serve its intended purpose, though on the evidence people do tend to have a certain longevity, at which point super might be handy to help offset a miserable, miserly pension.
Towards the end, this Pearl did attempt a minor billy goat butt ...
I am not suggesting we should disregard wider AI risks; for example, to copyright holders and consumers.
But that butt was immediately met by another butt ...
But where possible these should be dealt with under existing laws rather than creating a parallel, AI-specific, legal regime. When a possible technological revolution beckons, we have a simple and inescapable choice.
And so a climate science Luddite was able to fling around with wild abandon the notion that he was besieged by Luddites...
Do we embrace it, trusting that the benefits it will bring to the many – in the form of higher productivity and living standards – will outweigh the dislocation and pain it inflicts on the few? Or do we resist it, putting the protection of every threatened job ahead of the interests of the rest of the community, like modern-day Luddites? Chalmers, in his characteristically muddled way, thinks we can have the best of both worlds. When a treasurer is incapable of acknowledging trade-offs as obvious as this one, perhaps he should be looking for another portfolio. David Pearl is a former Treasury assistant secretary.
Not bad for a man who confessed in a muddled way characteristic of reptile contributions, I don’t pretend to know whether the AI revolution will prove to be a big bang or a whimper.
This offerer of pearls of wisdom probably brings the same intellectual depth to his understanding of climate science...
And so to wrap up proceedings with an immortal Rowe, bringing together EVs and RBA ...
And as the pond has reached season five of The Wire in its retrospective season, why not offer that opening scene?
The craven Craven today did his bit for the Australian Daily Zionist News, with an attack on Richard Flanagan, which coyly avoided tagging Flanagain as anti-Semitic by labelling his position on the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank this way: In fairness to Flanagan’s positions, they may not be positively antisemitic. Instead, they may represent a different form of Jewish dismissal. This is asemitism.
Such a stupid man - he was never a passable academic - and that's as much as the pond will say, but here's the link for masochists ...
Meanwhile, the propaganda side of the rag carried on, with the canny Cranston seeming to have taken over from Geoff Chalmers as head of the hit squad ...
The pond will list off the contributions for the pleasure of masochists not sated by the craven Craven:
EXCLUSIVE Chalmers’ correction hits home: Treasury to answer for ‘rosy’ price forecasts Former Treasury officials say the department’s predictions of the budget impact on property growth could have been nothing more than ‘guesses’, as the nation’s biggest bank downgrades its forecasts. By Matthew Cranston and Lydia Lynch
Put it another way ...
Sorry vulgar youff.
But then the pond paused because a new name - or so it seemed to the pond - had joined the reptile hit squad ...
It was originally presented as COMMENTARY, later rebranded to ANALYSIS:
Crucial questions Treasury must answer about its CGT reforms If Treasury’s assumptions are wrong, the budget CGT changes may produce very different outcomes from those the government promised.
The pond likes to encourage new members of the hit squad - anything to boost the lizard Oz gene pool - and did admire Frank's artwork, though it wondered yet again when Frank will stop taking credit for these visual monstrosities and let AI take the blame.
It's such crude propaganda, worthy of Der Stürmer...
Don't expect the pond to offer more, there's the link above for veteran masochists ...
As for Brycki, it was just another form of hustle, as the tag at the end of the piece revealed:
Chris Brycki is the founder and chief executive of online investment adviser Stockspot.
Yes, the reptiles had offered a rare treat to Brycki's business, a link outside the hive mind, an exceptional honour where punters might discover the joys of online investment advice:
Sharemarket investing done for you We set up and manage your sharemarket portfolio to help you achieve your financial goals.
Nah, not really.
There could be found a note on the new member of the hit squad:
Below all that, the reptiles offered their own temptation to punters - get rich with reptile advice:
Want to build real wealth? Our free newsletter delivers investment strategies, smart superannuation tips, property insights, and the insider tactics wealthy Australians use to get richer. Sign up here.
Nah, even more not really.
And the pond thought replicating that "sign up here" link unwise, lest some innocence take the bait and waste their schekels on getting poorer.
If the hacks are so good at doing investments and getting richer, why are they trapped pandering to the hive mind?
The reptiles also remembered that there was an election coming in Victoria and Gina's pet needed another boost:
Jacinta Allan’s secret levy revealed to full cabinet in June, 2024 Cabinet documents have exposed a bitter internal Labor blame game over who kept Victoria’s secret $8bn rail levy hidden from the public for years. By Anthony Galloway
Back on the extreme far right, Dame Slap was out and about, as is her wont on a Wednesday ...
It was a hearty - if unhealthy, in the manner of a reptile jumbo burger - mix of 18C hate (an ancient reptile whine), together with predictable guff featuring transphobia, Greenies fear and loathing, blather about the Reef, net zero, the Voice and a pro forma brand of black bashing as the triumphant conclusion.
Do the reptiles really think that blathering about international treaties, in the way that some rage at "cosmopolitanism", is going to have an impact over and above the daily realities of getting by?
Apparently so, because Dame Slap decided to join the Canavan "black coal batters" Caravan, and in the process pumped up Pauline:
There are good treaties and practical treaties. However, much of the international treaty business is a shameless racket used by activists to bypass parliamentary democracy. Hanson and Canavan do us a great service in calling it out.
Besides, the pond had "Ned" to hand, but before being bored out of its gourd, the pond wanted to offer a little teaser, if only because the headline touched on another mad King Donald triumph ...
The header: US influence is the big absentee at this year’s Pacific forum; The fact is Australia’s neighbours do not fear disappointing Canberra in the way they fear disappointing Beijing.
The caption for the reptiles' nightmare: Anthony Albanese probably had high hopes to improve regional security at the 55th Pacific Islands Forum. Picture: AFP
It could be worse.
Imagine if the mad king actually took an active interest in the Pacific, as he's done with Venezuela, as noted by Paul Krugman ...
So Pacific nations have been spared for the moment a dose of vile stupidity and instead can sink into the rising seas as a side benefit of the mad king's climate science denialism.
That noted, this should properly be the bromancer's turf, but if Aldi can make a living offering "lookalike" brands, so can the pond ...
A week ago Anthony Albanese would have looked forward to this week’s session of the Pacific Islands Forum at Koror, Palau, with optimism. He reasonably could have hoped the 18 heads of government who attended would further improve regional security and Australia’s close relationship with its Pacific Islands partners. Instead, the Prime Minister is scrambling to minimise the fallout of China’s payback after the 2022 PIF sidelined Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s general security proposal for the region. Beijing had considerable grounds to think its interest in the region would be at risk again at this year’s forum. The forum’s host, Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr, planned to pursue a resolution denouncing the Chinese missile test that landed in the waters between Nauru, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu in July. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale wanted to secure a general regional security agreement that would have undermined elements of China’s bilateral security agreements while uniting much of Australia’s bilateral security agreements. As an ally of Taiwan, Palau would be giving some prominence and access to Taipei, which China had undermined at the two preceding forums.
At this point the reptiles offered an audio distraction, but thought so little of it, it was just a one line link:
LISTEN NOW: Island meltdown: China’s massive blow-up rocks the Pacific
The pond made the error clicking on the link and found it was more of the usual, with the notion implicit that climate change had done nothing to harm island paradises ...
One of the chief pleasures of not offering reptile audio and AV distractions is not getting bogged down in desperate attempts to attract a wider audience ...
If you linger too long on the main page, you score that overriding pop up, but the pond wasn't tempted and headed back to the Pacific for the bad news ...
While it is difficult to prove that China has sabotaged the leaders meeting, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters sees good reasons for believing President Xi Jinping’s fingerprints are all over the last-minute chaos in Koror. The first shock was the departure of Wale, who flew back to Honiara to deal with an unexpected leadership challenge from a cabinet colleague. Wale has pursued a new relationship with Canberra that has rolled back some of the gains China has made in Solomon Islands since the latter switched from diplomatic recognition of Taipei to Beijing in 2019. It is difficult to believe the challenge to Wale’s leadership at home was not encouraged by the Chinese mission in Honiara, which maintains close links with the former government and its supporters. Other notable absentees in Koror include Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, Kiribati President Taneti Maamau, Samoan Prime Minister La’auli Leuatea Schmidt and Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Jotham Napat. Each of these is significant in their own right, though for different reasons. Fiji is the hub of Pacific regionalism and the anchor for Australian-Pacific Islands security arrangements as demonstrated by the signing of the recent bilateral defence treaty. Kiribati also has close ties to China since switching recognition to Beijing in 2019 and has a proposed constitutional amendment that would prevent it from switching back to Taipei at any time in the future. Former Samoan prime minister Fiame Mata’afa was instrumental at the 2022 forum in mothballing China’s regional security proposal. Yet La’auli has taken a softer line on China. Napat has curried favour with Beijing by watering down the on-again, off-again security agreement between Vanuatu and Australia. With five key Pacific leaders absent, it’s doubtful any measures concerning China will be effectively pursued at Koror.
Chairman Xi's already copped a deserved pounding for the way he's hidden the disaster in Tibet, and here was more fear ...Australia’s neighbours do not fear disappointing Canberra in the way they fear disappointing Beijing and Xi Jinping. Picture: Vladimir Voronin
It was time for a final brief gobbet of fear...
While much of this will be seen as a challenge to the successes Australia has achieved in its co-operation with its regional neighbours, the reasons rest more with the broader Indo-Pacific and global geopolitics. The fact is Australia’s neighbours do not fear disappointing Canberra in the way they fear disappointing Beijing. They know Australia will always be there for them. Our neighbours are aware that, whatever disagreements they might have with Canberra, Australia would not punish them in the way China could and would. Thus the mismatch between friendship and fear at play in Palau is not whether middle power Australia can hold the line against great-power China. The critical question is: Where is the great-power balance? The US, the other Pacific great power, is not only missing in action, it also is antagonising the region’s microstates. The Trump administration has gloried in disrupting the rules-based order, celebrated the asymmetries of power politics and pursued policies that put at risk core regional aspirations such as the Paris Agreement’s climate commitments, regulation of deep seabed mining and environmental zones for fisheries protection. China’s capacity to influence the region through subliminal fear is possible because there are no credible consequences. It is difficult for Canberra to be Washington’s deputy sheriff when no one believes there is a sheriff. Richard Herr is a former honorary director and adjunct professorial fellow at the Centre for International and Regional Affairs at the University of Fiji.
And that was that, as the mad Sheriff disappeared into a cloud of puffery and smoke ... and the pond could reveal the reason it went there ... as the perfect segue to the immortal Rowe ...
Then it was time to bore off socks and stockings with a natter by "Ned"...
The header: How Howard’s realism rewrote the rules on borders; Border protection is the most singular defeat suffered by the progressive movement in this country over the past 30 years.
The caption for the allegedly period snap: An army helicopter being assembled on the tarmac of Christmas Island airport before assisting SAS soldiers heading out to MV Tampa in August 2001. Picture: News Corp.
The pond doesn't know why it bothers to stay loyal to "Ned", especially as he occasionally indulges in wayward triumphalism, as in Border protection is the most singular defeat suffered by the progressive movement in this country over the past 30 years.
Given the recent tragedy in Nepal, the pond could offer an immediate variation: Action on climate change is the most singular defeat suffered by the progressive movement in this country over the past 30 years, and what a triumph that's been for the planet. You're welcome Nepalese people.
Besides, correspondents will realise from the header alone that they have been here very recently, what with the pond recently having featured the bromancer's mea culpa ...
Why I was wrong about the Tampa affair John Howard was right and ahead of the game. All countries now want to control their borders. The nation is in his debt.
It is the 25th anniversary of one of the decisive events in our history – the landfall denial of the MV Tampa that saw a showdown between the compassionate acceptance of open borders and the principle of national sovereignty vested in the control of borders. The Howard government’s decision to deploy the military in August 2001 to stop the Tampa disembarking on Australian territory with more than 430 asylum-seekers became a global drama that polarised attitudes towards John Howard as prime minister. The consequences of that event still resound in Australia and in other jurisdictions. It was driven by Howard’s conviction that the Tampa be denied by any means of executive power while his opponents invoked the moral and universal obligation on rich nations to welcome asylum-seekers arriving on their doorstep. The politics of Tampa were primal and brutal. Australia was under virulent assault from global opinion makers. The risks Howard ran to impose his will were astonishing. At several points Howard could have been thwarted or defeated. In the cause of sovereignty he chose an extreme solution that came with a cost in humanitarian concern. At the time nobody foresaw the full legacy – that Howard would establish an iron law of Australian polity rejecting asylum-seekers arriving by boat and that, a generation later, this would be envied by many democratic nations. Ultimately, the issue was settled by public opinion. Howard’s stand – the strong man as populist – was one of his most popular decisions as prime minister. When the Rudd-Gillard government tried to reverse Howard’s policy it was crushed by public hostility. When the Abbott government embraced Operation Sovereign Borders – to stop the boats – it championed the Howard precedent.
The pond should have also mentioned nausea at the triumphalism, though the point of "Ned's" natter is obscure.
Do the reptiles think this repeated wandering down memory lane will boost the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way?
More to the point, it will surely boost Pauline as the strong woman as populist. Is that the hidden reptile agenda?... Australian SAS troops preparing to depart Christmas Island for MV Tampa. Picture: Megan Lewis
Does "Ned" have any doubt? Nah, he's in true blue, ridgy didge red-headed ranga turf ...
Anthony Albanese, once an open-borders exponent, has now signed up to Howard’s doctrine. Border protection is the most singular defeat suffered by the progressive movement in this country over the past 30 years. Yet much of the left, while vanquished on the issue, remains defiant and unrepentant. By 2001 asylum-seeker arrivals were part of a criminal and lucrative people-smuggling industry. In the previous three years more than 8000 people had arrived by boat. Papers were going back and forth from cabinet searching for an answer. Immigration minister Philip Ruddock told the author: “We were under attack from people-smugglers.” When the Tampa sailed over the horizon it was a threat and an opportunity for Howard. Under captain Arne Rinnan, the Tampa had collected the asylum-seekers from a stricken boast and had set course for Indonesia. The flashpoint for the Howard government came when the asylum-seekers “threatened” the captain – in Rinnan’s words – demanded he change course to Christmas Island and entry to Australia, and warned they would jump overboard unless he complied. “We couldn’t tolerate that,” Howard said. Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet head Max Moore-Wilton said: “Australia had to draw the line as a nation.” Howard’s office chief, Arthur Sinodinos, said: “Ministers felt ‘if we cave in to this, how could we possibly explain it to the Australian people?’ ” Ruddock later told ministers there was intelligence that a pipeline of 10,000 people were waiting to come from Indonesia. The cabinet was rock solid – every senior minister was committed: Peter Costello, Alexander Downer, Peter Reith. Denying landfall was filled with hazards. Howard was making up policy as he went: “I knew it was a risky decision.” What would happen to the asylum-seekers, already facing medical issues? The government tried to get Indonesia to accept the boat, but Jakarta shut its door. The captain, having initially followed instructions, finally decided to defy authorities and entered Australian waters.
A snap of the lying rodent interrupted the triumphalism ... John Howard announces SAS troops had taken control of the MV Tampa. Picture: News Corp
It was a minor pause, a little pandering to the heroic subverter of humanitarian care ...
It was assumed outside the government that Howard would crack at this point. Instead, the national security committee ordered the SAS to board the Tampa and take control of the ship. Howard’s blood was now up. With the politics moving into hysterical mode, Howard defied the UNHCR and insisted that none of the Tampa people would land or be processed in Australia. Yet he came to the brink of defeat in the courts. In a farcical situation, Federal Court judge Tony North, who had found against Howard in the waterfront case, now found against him in the Tampa case – a ruling that would have destroyed Howard’s entire position. On appeal, the government won 2-1 in the court. The upshot: the human rights lawyers had failed to stop the government. Facing another crisis Howard and his ministers had to decide: If Australia was saying no, who in the world would take the Tampa boatpeople? After days of alarm and desperate diplomacy, the answer came: New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark took 150 and Nauru accepted 280, with Howard and Ruddock unveiling the Pacific Solution, a new legal and administrative model that said asylum-seekers could be sent to Pacific nations for processing. While ALP leader Kim Beazley supported the deployment of the SAS, he opposed Howard’s Border Protection Bill. Explaining the supreme principle on which he acted, Howard told parliament: “Every nation has the right to effectively control its borders and to decide who comes here and under what circumstances, and Australia has no intention of surrendering or compromising that right.”
In his usual pompous, ponderous way, "Ned" embarked on a listicle ...
There are four conclusions. First, as an island continent Australia has a geographical advantage and a political expectation it will protect its borders, a situation few other nations enjoy. Second, the Tampa was not a rejection of refugees but an insistence that Australia would accept refugees only in an offshore program. In the decades before 2001 Australia had been generous in accepting more than 500,000 refugees including from all races – largely in offshore processing in co-operation with the UN – the core point being government control of the program. It was the critics who said Australia must now accept the reality of global people movements and accept the arrival of asylum-seekers by boat who really aspired to a radical change in refugee policy, a change that Howard rejected.
The reptiles interrupted the listicle to call in the troops one more time ... Armed SAS troops head out on a barge to MV Tampa. Picture: Megan Lewis
... and then "Ned" maintained the ranga rage ...
Some advocates, however, pretended the Tampa decision was a one-off – that prioritising compassion in this case would have no “pull factor” legacy when the entire history of asylum-seeker experience in Australia and globally ran to the contrary: nations that signal acceptance get more people arriving. This was the reality that undercut the moral appeals. Third, Tampa was a significant factor in Howard’s 2001 election win, notably when linked to the 9/11 terrorist attack on America. Howard agreed it was a “major issue” in the campaign that also saw Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party virtually obliterated. But the government warrants condemnation for the disreputable ploy of linking boatpeople with terrorists. Fourth, many prominent critics accused Howard of racism and of regressing to an old-fashioned quasi-White Australia bias over the Tampa event, a claim confounded by the reality: safe borders created the conditions for an expanded offshore legal immigration intake. This was the chief and enduring public policy legacy. The permanent migration intake increased from 74,000 to just under 160,000 while Howard was PM. During Howard’s first three years in office, net overseas migration averaged 86,000 annually, while in his final three years the average was 188,000 – an astonishing increase. The big lift came in the second half of the Howard era, after 2001, when immigration expanded rapidly with a marked boost in the nation’s racial and cultural diversity, with more Asian and more Muslim migrants. This is fundamental to Howard’s legacy and was achieved with remarkably little political unrest about immigration policy. That many progressives still cannot concede this reality testifies to their inability to grasp the political dynamics of Tampa – it meant every PM had to master the people movement test and that border protection was the necessary (but no sufficient) condition for successful, expanding immigration.
Put it another way: those who think the lying rodent introduced a new level of fear of furriners, which has culminated in the perils of Pauline, can only stand back and admire the way that reptiles of the "Ned" kind blather about "successful, expanding immigration", when in reality there's now a canker in the core ...and every week reptiles of the Dame Groan kind rail at the disasters arising from immigration.
They can't even get their nonsense into some kind of order.
And so, in the absence of Wilcox, to end with the rare treat of a Golding, providing not just an analysis of the ranga, but also of "Ned" ...
The pond has long believed that the Dutch are a strange tribe - being in Nederland and being made to watch a sitcom and wonder why everybody else in the room was laughing was probably what did it - and as further evidence, Lubach has returned, and offers subtitles so that English speakers can enjoy this peculiar cult ...
If you're deluded enough to think that spring starts on a given calendar day, you might be plunged into a deep depression by the fear mongering at the lizard Oz.
EXCLUSIVE Sydney heading for 18pc annual home price crash House prices in the nation’s biggest market are falling at a rate on track to deliver the largest annual decline in 40 years, with data centres to drag on the economy. By Matthew Cranston and Mackenzie Scott
Vulgar youffs rejoicing at a better chance to get into the property market should think again, or better still, just STFU.
There were graphs and arrows plunging precipitously and gloomy, grimacing faces, and so why not vote for One Nation?
There was an interactive too, which plunged the pond into gloom because the key activity - studying real estate prices as if you were reading the Nine rags - couldn't make it into the archive...
INTERACTIVE National property prices: how has your suburb fared? FULL LIST | Just nine of the 1057 suburbs across Sydney and Melbourne experienced price growth over the winter period as sellers face the start of the spring selling season on the back foot. By Mackenzie Scott
Dammit, the pond's old suburb, Camperdown, had suffered a massive, incalculable loss of -2.7%!
Gloom, gloom, gloom.
More gloom followed in the third of the triptych of sorrows ...
ECONOMY Chalmers’ AI hopes dashed by Treasury advice Treasury warns AI will not fix Australia’s record-low productivity slump The AI boom fuelled hopes of transforming Australia’s economy and fixing a long-term decline in productivity. New advice to the Treasurer has dampened the hype. By Perry Williams
The pond immediately turned to the immortal Rowe, always eager to help out the tech bros...
Over on the extreme far right, the Australian Daily Zionist News welcomed a new contributor ...
The reptiles never tire of stout-hearted defenders of ethnic cleansing and an apartheid system. Don't anyone dare say an unkind word about the ADF in Gaza and the West Bank.
And Max was in full triumphalist Trumpian mode ...
It wasn't good enough to take on the wretched Canucks, it was time for a war with China!
...That scrutiny should extend to the Iranian oil that is frequently rebranded as Malaysian and sold to Chinese buyers. China’s reported oil imports from Malaysia vastly exceed what Malaysia itself reports exporting. That discrepancy ought to be a warning for banks involved, especially since China purchases roughly 90 per cent of Iran’s exported oil. More pressure from Treasury could help keep them from ignoring it. Treasury’s latest action suggests the US may finally be moving beyond chasing Iranian shell companies toward threatening the foreign financial infrastructure that keeps them alive. That would be a meaningful break with the approach of past administrations. But for it to be a success, the campaign needs to be sustained – and it needs to reach China. Max Meizlish is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies. He has worked in the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. This article was first published in The Wall Street Journal.
Strange that the bromancer should leave the war with China to the WSJ, but whatever.
Has there ever been a bigger or better defender of democracies than mad King Donald? Have a sip with Max ...
The pond was reminded of John Hanscombe yesterday in The Echnida...
When Donald Trump signed one of his first executive orders of his second term, renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America in January 2025, the world gasped. It hadn't seen such arrogance since Benito Mussolini declared his ambition to turn the Mediterranean into an Italian lake in the 1930s. Fast forward to last week and Trump's executive order renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America" was met with a global shrug. Even his musing that he might similarly rename the Pacific or Atlantic garnered a collective 'Whatever'. Not only has the US president squandered American prestige with his disastrous war with Iran, he's used up his shock value. Flooding the zone with outrageous distractions - Lake America timed to draw attention from the six-month milestone of the Iran war - has worn thin. Even investors have grown weary of jumping at every bombastic broadside Trump posts on Truth Social. Last month, Business Insider said markets had become numb to the president's social media posts. Wall Street, it said, had come to think of his aggressive missives as background noise. The wild swings in crude oil prices on the back of Trump's social media posts we saw a couple of months ago have calmed down. Trading houses which signed up for advance notice of Trump posts at great cost must now feel a little scammed. US voters aren't paying much attention either, with record numbers disapproving of the way Trump had handled the war and the domestic economy. He can rant and rave and rename until he's blue in the face but if no one's paying attention he might as well be the old man shouting at clouds. London-based financial intelligence website TACT explained why the world has tuned out to Trump: "What began as fearful but intent listening, then morphed into stunned incredulity, has now become dismissal. Statements made one day are brazenly, seemingly without irony, and unapologetically reversed the next. Threats are issued and then diluted. Red lines appear and disappear almost at random. At this point, many governments, markets and foreign observers no longer treat pronouncements from Washington as reliable indicators of policy at all." There are signs this reality - that few still take him seriously - is slowly dawning on Trump himself. Weeks out from the mid-terms, with support for the Republicans circling the drain, the president is already playing the blame game. If they lose the House of Representatives, he tells anyone still listening, it won't be his fault, it will be theirs. All reality shows have a shelf-life and Trump's second term is no different. What was once novel has grown stale. The roasts and insults no longer shock. The boasting, bragging and name-calling which once appalled reasonable people now fall on deaf ears. We once shouted at the TV; we now check our phones or hit the mute button. We've heard it all before. The Trump show has become boring.
Meanwhile, Geoff was chambering a round explaining how it was time to turn to Gina's pet ...
See how the reptiles help out with the Pauline agenda by way of a teaser trailer:
Sure, it was couched as a warning, but what Geoff meant was that the major parties should get on board with the reptiles' agenda, as envisioned by Pauline, or else ...
One Nation, which has made hay of Labor’s struggles to fix the migration system and cost-of-living and housing crises, is preparing for all scenarios, including Albanese calling an early election from August next year. While Albanese’s first choice is to run full-term to May 2028, One Nation campaign boss James Ashby doesn’t want to be caught on the hop.
That talk of the migration scene paved the way for a classic Dame Groan, and if you think today is the first day of spring, you might have been surprised that the old biddy stayed in classic one trick pony mode ...
The header: ALP migration cut is more slogan than substance; Don’t let Brit holiday makers off the hook on regional employment requirements. That’s one of several ways the Albanese government could tackle the immigration system mess.
The caption for the cynical, smirking prat: Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is having trouble restoring order and control to the migration program. Picture: Bianca De Marchi/AAP
The grumpy old chook was primed to rail at those bloody furriners ruining everything ...
You know the line: the Albanese government has reduced net overseas migration by 45 per cent. It will be taking a balanced approach to refining the immigration settings while acknowledging the important role played by skilled migrant workers. Those are the talking points. The truth is the Home Affairs Minister is having a great deal of trouble ensuring that the target for the NOM of 245,000 this financial year is reached and 225,000 in subsequent years. Recall here that the NOM is the difference between long-term arrivals and long-term departures, where long-term is defined as at least 12 months in a 16-month period. Changes to visa requirements can alter the number of arrivals, although they need to be quite radical to change the number to any significant degree. Hiking up visa fees, something the government has done, also can have a marginal effect on arrival numbers. For those already in the country on temporary visas, however, the challenge is even greater as the scope for temporary visa holders, with the help of lightly regulated migration agents, to game the system to stay is considerable. The government needs to focus on both sides of the equation. So let me help here and outline a series of sensible changes that will bring down the NOM while making sure immigration is beneficial for all of us and not just for sectional interests. It is important that the addition to the population flowing from immigration is reduced, and quickly. Not only is the pressure on housing and other resources unacceptable, the stress on social cohesion is also palpable.
The old biddy is here to help, what with the pristine virginal sands of our beaches littered with Brit-sourced cockroaches ... Backpackers lap up the delights of destinations such as Bondi Beach There are no requirements for British passport holders to undertake regional employment. Picture: Monique Harmer
You filthy vile polluters of exquisite locations, you bloody useless Brits, with your ancient delusions of empire and your devotion to pies served with dead horses!
Let me start with working holiday makers. Their number has exploded from 41,000 in mid-2022 to 237,000 earlier this year. This surge in numbers is principally the result of a special deal obtained by the British government, which enables British passport holders to secure three visas, each of one year’s duration. There are no requirements for them to undertake regional employment. The first obvious change is to reinstate the requirement for regional employment for all working holiday maker visa holders. Six months in a 12-month period would seem appropriate. British working holiday makers currently are working in bars in Bondi and driving Ubers in Melbourne, not picking fruit in the regions. While the number of international student visas has levelled off in recent years, the total number is still excessive. Earlier this year, there were more than 600,000 student visa holders plus another 267,000 on graduate visas. This latter figure has more than doubled from the pre-Covid figure, with the number of secondary applicants rising more rapidly again. There are several changes that can be made to the rules governing student visas that would cut the number of applicants as well as reduce the amount of gaming that goes on. Changes to enrolment – from a university course to a vocational course, for instance – would not be permitted, leading to cancellation of the visa. Any further visa application would need to be made offshore.
As for universities, the pond knows for a fact that you can stray onto a campus, and suddenly be confronted by the most terrifying sights ... furrin students, looking un-Australian, deviant and with terrorist intent ... Nearly 74,000 family members were attached to temporary graduate visas in Australia at the end of June. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper
The pond doesn't know why the old biddy is so obsessed with the different and the other, it would probably require a degree in psychology or a bout of post-grad Freudianism or an extended college induction into nativism, but then the malignant chook would gloat that nativists had been pushed out of any chance of a degree by the invading horde ...
Only international students undertaking PhD level study would be allowed to bring partners and children. All other international students would have no right to attach secondary applicants to their visas. This would align Australia with several other countries that admit large numbers of international students. There may be a case for abolishing graduate visas altogether. It is not unreasonable to expect international students to return to their home countries once they have finished their studies. To be sure, there are some courses that require a subsequent year of internship or equivalent to qualify, so there may need to be some exceptions. Bear in mind here that about one-third of international students undertake courses in commerce/business/management, double the proportion of local students. These courses generally do not require formal internships after graduation. The number of skilled employment temporary residents also has exploded, with the most recent numbers recorded at 260,000. Employers can sponsor workers with skills on the skilled occupation list, with visa holders able to stay for at least four years. The distinct impression is one of an unwillingness on the part of employers to train local workers, resorting instead to the easier option of importing already trained workers. The content of the list is difficult to understand, with more occupations simply being added over time. But it is telling that there is no accelerated pathway for imported construction workers given the clear shortage of tradies across the country. Increasing the minimum salary that migrant skilled workers must be paid also should be considered as a policy option. Reducing the humanitarian intake to its long-term level of 13,750 a year is a sensible change. This would cut the intake from the current figure of 20,000 plus community-sponsored refugees. While this change was floated and then ruled out by the Albanese government, the sheer size of the fiscal drain associated with the refugee intake makes this a compelling adjustment. According to Treasury figures, those on humanitarian visas impose a lifetime fiscal cost of $367,000 each. Restricting the number of new entrants is one thing; getting those on temporary visas to leave is another thing. Deducting New Zealanders who have a right to be here, there are about 2.3 million temporary visa holders living the country. Setting a target of the ratio of temporary visas to the population – 5 per cent, say – would be a good policy guide.
As always, this sort of rant allows the reptiles to drag in a relevant News24 rant ... Sky News host James Macpherson says the number of people on temporary visas has gone from 1.9 million to 2.9 million under Anthony Albanese.
Sheesh, did the pond say News24?
Dammit, it will always be Sky Noise down under to the lizards of Oz and to the pond, because how else can you keep living in the past, preferably the 1950s, when Ming was king, as Dame Groan produced a final gobbet of groan ...
Australia is essentially seen as a soft touch, with temporary migrants able to legitimately string out their residence for well more than a decade. Why pay a people-smuggler when you can simply fly in? Illustrating this mess is the rapidly rising number of temporary migrants on bridging visas; the total number exceeded 400,000 this year. There are several changes that would accelerate departures, including insisting on offshore application for visas, including for family and parents. Bridging visas would not be available to those waiting on a visa decision. Making sure the administrative tribunal follows government policy prescriptions is also important but may require legislative change. Allowing a convicted failed asylum-seeker to stay in the country because of “visa stress” should simply not be permitted. For all its talk, the Albanese government has done very little to fix the mess that the immigration system has become. The reluctance to offend the left of the party or take on the vested interests, including universities, parts of the business community, the states and some ethnic groups, has led to an increasingly shambolic system. It’s a long way back to an orderly and controlled migration program that serves the national interest. Implementing the changes outlined above would be a good start.
Could the reptiles top a standard groaning?
Of course they could. The bromancer was in full recantation mode, and the reptiles gave him a bloody big splash ...
Making full use of AI, the pond turned Forgive me Father Lying Rodent, for I have sinned, into the terminology appropriate to the Catholic confessional, Ignosce mihi pater, mus mendax, nam peccavi.
The pond proposed a dozen Hail Mary's and ten Our Fathers as an expression of full repentance and contrition
The header: Why I was wrong about the Tampa affair; Howard was right and ahead of the game. All countries now want to control their borders. The nation is in his debt.
The caption for the lying rodent in full flight: John Howard announces to the parliament that Australian SAS troops had taken control of the Tampa, August 2001. Picture: Newscorp
Brothers and sisters, before beginning the reading of the bromancer, can the pond begin - with proper respect for his devout Catholicism - with a reading from the bible, thanks to this site.
Admittedly it's not the pond's preferred KJV, but tykes think that's a heresy, so no matter ...
Deeply moved, the pond plunged into an example of Xianity in action ...
In the case of the Tampa incident, 25 years ago, John Howard established effective border control for Australia. At the time I thought he badly over-reacted to a small situation, but he was much more right than wrong. As a consequence, there’s little illegal immigration to Australia by boat. The lasting tribute to the policy is that both sides of politics enforce it today. But it was an incredibly messy, confusing process with lots of missteps, which is typical in democratic politics. Tampa evolved thus: a boatload of 438 mainly Afghan asylum-seekers left Indonesia bound for Australia. The boat got into trouble and was rescued by a Norwegian flagged vessel, the Tampa. Under normal practice they should have been returned to safe harbour in Indonesia. But the people on board threatened to harm themselves or the crew if not taken to Christmas Island. That would mean getting to Australia and settling here.
Almost immediately there came an AV distraction featuring an exquisitely framed bromancer ... Greg Sheridan on the 2001 Tampa affair.
As the remorseful prophet spoke, lashing himself for his thought crimes, the pond turned again to the bible...
Yea, verily, that imported Pom, the onion muncher, was full of piety and a fear of furriners...because back in the day we never took action to stop those invading Brits ...
The Howard government took unprecedented, determined action to stop the Tampa landing at Christmas Island. It sent the SAS to take control of the Tampa. Alexander Downer secured the agreement of Nauru and the people were transported there for refugee claims to be processed. The Howard government was determined nobody would get to stay in Australia permanently through arriving illegally by boat. A tiny number of the Tampa people eventually came to Australia but Howard killed the people-smuggling business to Australia. The policies were unravelled under the governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, and the boat flows started again in earnest. Remarkably, Tony Abbott repeated Howard’s success, ending the people-smuggling trade a second time. Labor learnt its lesson and has subsequently embraced the Howard-Abbott policies. So Tampa was a turning point in modern Australian history, a turning point for the Howard government, and prefigured the kinds of policies virtually every advanced Western nation would eventually attempt to run in relation to illegal arrivals.
But have they, did they?
Aren't we under a terrifying seige?
Surely, it's time to turn to Pauline, or perhaps to what virtually every advanced Western nation would want for those pesky, difficult, uppity furriners ... another bible reading ...
Just look at the hordes, fear them! Asylum seekers on board the MV Tampa in 2001.
Why if the laws of the sea hadn't been ignored, right now they'd be littering our virgin beaches...
At this point, the bromancer allowed himself a teeny weeny billy goat butt ...
These issues were then, and remain now, vexed and complex. Although I think Howard, for whom this column has the greatest admiration, got the policy basically right, there were two or three very bad elements to Australian government behaviour at the time. They were bad then and they remain bad in retrospect.
Hush now, regrets there might be a few, but no need to go into any of that tasteless, unsavoury business.
Stay strong, stay true to your deeply felt and held Xian principles, and do a reverse pike billy goat butt in the form of a "However" ...
However, let me not hide in the shadows. I judged Howard far too harshly at the time and I was wrong about the basic need for national governments to assert full control over their borders. Partly, my mistake, like a lot of commentators, was to fail to recognise the change in the nature of the refugee phenomenon. I was a child of the Cold War and refugees were mainly folks escaping communist tyrannies. The first issue I ever wrote about as a journalist, the first issue I became passionately involved in myself, was trying to help our South Vietnamese allies and friends after their nation was invaded in 1975 by the North Vietnamese Army, with Chinese and Russian backing, while we and the Americans had deserted our brothers in arms. Buddhists, Catholics and anyone associated with the former South Vietnamese government were persecuted by the communists. This was put into the shade by the communist genocide next door in Cambodia, but the situation in Vietnam was severe enough. Our worst prime minister, Gough Whitlam, refused to take more than a tiny handful of South Vietnamese, even among those whose lives would be compromised or forfeit because of their association with Australia. Whitlam demonised the Vietnamese refugees and famously declared: “I’m not having those (expletive) Vietnamese Balts coming into this country with their religious and political prejudices against us.”
And yet it turned out that in the long run Gough was right, at least in the eyes of the bromancer, the lizard Oz hive mind, Pauline and the lying rodent ...
No need for any of those wretches to infiltrate the country ... Armed SAS troops leave Christmas Island and head out on a local barge to the Norwegian ship Tampa. Picture: Megan Lewis / The Australian
At this point the pond might recount the tale of a child who left a Cambodian camp to cross the seas on a rickety boat, obtaining both a medical and a law degree, and offering much to the country in the process, as do all those workers who keep public health care and the hospital system afloat, but no time for any of that ...
The United States led a magnificent international campaign to resettle Vietnamese refugees, who have been a fantastic success in Australia. This paradigm followed the pro-refugee sentiment in Europe after World War II and the collective feeling of searing regret and remorse that affluent nations had done so little to help Europe’s Jews in the 1930s. However, applying that paradigm to people movements in the 21st century was out of date, wrong on the facts, unworkable and morally confused. This century has seen massive movements of predominantly Muslim populations from North Africa and the Middle East. Some have certainly experienced persecution. Others are driven by economic considerations. Some exhibit desperation. This can be born out of persecution or poverty at home. But there can also be “positive desperation”, the unbelievable reward of living in an affluent welfare society as opposed to a poor society.
At this point, the much sinning bromancer was tormented again, and his mind filled with gnawing doubt ...
Although I now think the Howard government was right to assert border control, and some of my columns at the time were mistaken, I’d have two substantial criticisms of the government’s actions at the time that still stand. First, it needlessly demonised the individuals on the Tampa, who were distressed human beings. Second, it was either unbelievably slack or some of its members, not Howard, were actively knowing in publishing an untrue story that another boat carrying asylum-seekers threw their children overboard to force the navy to rescue them. The children overboard story was not important in Howard winning the subsequent election but it wasn’t true. Governments should be sedulous in telling the truth.
But judge ye not what we have done, not when we can blame others ...
Here are some other facts worth noting. The Norwegian government harshly criticised Australia at the time. Yet Norway welcomes 500 UN-assessed refugees a year, compared with Australia’s 20,000.
But do we? Will we? Didn't the pond read in Dame Groan that the current government, hounded by Pauline and the reptiles of Oz, are heading towards Norway?
Reducing the humanitarian intake to its long-term level of 13,750 a year is a sensible change.
Otherwise we'll be flooded ...Armed SAS troops departing Christmas Island for the Norwegian ship Tampa. Picture: Megan Lewis / The Australian
And here the bromancer showed his truly Xian humanitarian heart ...
Most importantly, no human being died in the Howard operation, or in the later Abbott operation. Yet when Labor softened these policies and the boat trade resumed, hundreds of people drowned making the illegal journey. So who is the true humanitarian? Also, the Indonesians couldn’t say this publicly but they were actually happy, first with the Howard operations, even more so with Abbott’s. This was evident in their quiet co-operation with elements of both sets of policies. I had the great pleasure of interviewing Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono several times when he was president of Indonesia. At the end of his tenure, a person in his administration, as close to the president as any human being could be, told me off the record how happy the president was with Abbott’s policies because they solved the problem, for Australia and for Indonesia. In all Western nations courts have undemocratically hindered democratic governments from taking reasonable policy actions, a huge part of the problem.
Final thoughts?
Well as any Xian brought up on the Crusades knows, a little bashing of Islamics never goes astray in the hive mind ...
Finally, while the overwhelming majority of Australia’s Muslims are good citizens, unregulated Middle Eastern immigration to Western countries has not been an unqualified success. The long traditions of Islamist antisemitism and extremism have posed real problems. All countries now want to control their borders. Howard was ahead of the game. The nation is in his debt. Greg Sheridan is The Australian’s foreign editor.
There endeth the lesson and the pond can now revert to that earlier talk of tech bros ...
For those wondering, a friend forwarded this news of Wilcox ...
For worried souls, the tower of newspapers in the background has gone, which is just as well, because it's always the right o'clock for a good nuking or World War III ...
