The pond regrets missing any number of key events while sojourning in the deep south, not least Kez's ditties, and not least Paul Hogan calling Pauline Hanson a pelican, and the pelican invoking the ghost of Norman Gunston as the spirit of dinkum Australia.
The pond doesn't expect Hanson to share the pond's meta, post-ironic, post-reflexive, post-modern understanding of Gunston and the Aunty Jack show, which led decades later to the pond taking up residence in the mighty 'Gong, sharing space with hordes of cackling cockies.
Suffice to say that she's much thicker than the average house brick, deeply dumb and deplorable, though you're not supposed to say such things for fear of a raid by the thought police.
If the little Aussie bleeder, voice of the Illawarra, is the new standard bearer for dinkum men, then it's time for them to get out a big box of tissues and a cutthroat razor: Paul Hogan has reportedly called Pauline Hanson a ‘pelican’. Please explain?
The pond also missed out definitive proof that Jewish activists can be even more problematic and irritating than Islamic activists: Cairo Takeaway secures court win over pro-Israel activist who claimed he was ‘completely vindicated’ after settlement
Talk about a desperate attempt to distract from an ongoing genocide, a bit like reptiles sticking heads in sand about assorted heat domes.
On the upside, while down south, the pond did finally learn the meaning of a headlock, an insight that apparently escaped barking mad Moira: Moira Deeming misunderstood meaning of ‘headlock’ but won’t apologise to Matthew Guy for assault allegation, Victorian Liberal MP says interaction with her colleague left her fearful and confused
How long before she finds her true home amongst the gum trees and One Nation?
And damned if she was the only one fearful and confused, because the pond did its best to dig up some Commie swines and socialist preverts down south, but came up short.
As for the reptiles, the pond cared not one whit or jot ... but the pond is pleased to note that over the past month google alleges that the pond went way past a million views ...
It's all nonsense of course, just a bot counting bots in an inane way typical of AI - the real number is in the thousands - but the pond does appreciate those who hung in for the tabloid trash filler. The numbers fell away, but some showed remarkable intestinal fortitude, no doubt boosted by the chance of sighting a Kez contribution, or some other offering from a lark-inclined correspondent.
Speaking of regrets, the pond also apologises for returning on a Thursday, always low rent day at the hive mind, but wot the hell, time to resume the dance.
Sheesh, did the reptiles have to offer "Ned's" natter as the first chance to do the lobster quadrille?
The header: Can Anthony Albanese win where Keir Starmer failed? Albanese is not Starmer and probably won’t resemble Andy Burnham either. But the shared policy overlap between these parties of the left cannot be missed.
The caption and the unfortunate credit for the wretched collage: Can Anthony Albanese, left, succeed where Keir Starmer, right, failed so spectacularly? Pictures: News Corp / AFP. Artwork: Debbie Schipp For that banality, the reptiles offered a credit?
As for "Ned's" dance card number, it's an entirely specious comparison between two different parties in two different countries, but it's an easy layup for the ponderously pompous pedant, and as a bonus, it's so wretched the eternal natterer could only manage a five minute read.
The tone was set by the gigantic billy goat butt in the sub-header: Albanese is not Starmer and probably won’t resemble Andy Burnham either.
So what's the point?
Well the natterer has to fill up those column inches, and the pond silently endured:
The Albanese government, elected in 2022, has been a superior political performer to its British counterpart under the failed leadership of Sir Keir Starmer – but the British experience contains lessons in Australia both for the progressive left and for Albanese Labor.
Starmer ran a far more left-wing government than Albanese with much less political acumen. It was marked by two ideas above all – the assumption that a sustained greater role for state power was the key to a better economy and society, and that a steady transition to progressive cultural values would promote human flourishing.
These assumptions faced a virulent backlash from the parties of the right – Reform UK and the Tories – but they also provoked alarm and concern from the left itself. Albanese shares many of Starmer’s policy assumptions but he has been far more pragmatic for far longer. Yet, like every Labor prime minister, Albanese ultimately will be defined and judged by the quality of his Labor reformism and this raises the question: can Albanese devise a successful centre-left agenda that works in the current age of disruption?
Can Albanese succeed where Starmer failed so spectacularly?
Just to add to the idle speculation, the reptiles dragged in a snap of the man fitted up as being a Sir Keir clone, Anthony Albanese and speaks at the CME breakfast at The Westin. Picture: NewsWire / Colin Murty
The pond found it hard to take, especially as "Ned" resorted to his old trick of quoting the thoughts of others:
Starmer faced a political assault on two fronts – by the right-wing populist party of Nigel Farage, still leading in the polls, and by the extreme left Green Party under Zack Polanski, campaigning against climate delay and timid politics and espousing quasi socialism. Starmer was the wrong man for the times – in an age of super-polarised, ideological politics he operated as a political bureaucrat, making his removal probably inevitable.
In their account of the Starmer era, Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund capture his immobility: “The prime minister liked to work alone in the upstairs room they called the Thatcher study. The Iron Lady stared down at him over the first weeks of his premiership; disturbed, he had the picture taken away. If she could have spoken, she would have told them that the prime minister was reading. That, as much as the deathly hush, was the biggest mystery of the new No. 10. For hours, Starmer sat alone, rigid with monastic intensity.”
Andy Burnham will not be sitting alone. He is a social creature. Britain’s new prime minister likes people and people, so far, like him. Virtually every profile of Burnham reports that his skill lies in pleasing people and that he adjusts his message to the audience.
While being popular after Starmer is an imperative, Burnham’s mission is to confront the nation’s economic crisis. There is a favourite and disrespectful joke told about Burnham: A Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walk into a bar and the bartender asks: “What will you be having, Mr Burnham?”
The next caption featured a stunning insight, down there with "Ned's": Keir Starmer was forced to resign as the Prime Minister.
It's true it's a devastating insight into the paucity of "Ned's" insights, but is that any reason to keep on reading?
He inherits a government relieved but in disarray. Its centre-left governing ideology hasn’t worked. Under Labour, Britain is a high tax, high spending, redistributionist government with weak economic growth, poor productivity and struggling living standards. It is undermined by high energy prices arising from its successful decarbonisation, a flawed and unpopular immigration policy, suffers from an inflated welfare sector, a highly regulated labour market, and a culture of identity politics embedded across many institutions.
What was the problem? Was it Starmer’s ineffective leadership or Labour’s social democratic model?
In truth it was both.
The lesson of the past two years is writ large. British Labour is a strange blend of economic nostalgia, revived faith in state power, net-zero rigidity and a divisive culture based on identity characteristics. Burnham arrives having previously been a Westminster MP and with strong ideas about devolution, winding back Whitehall’s power and strengthening the regions.
Perhaps he will benefit from low expectations. The Economist magazine wrote: “Mr Burnham’s instincts do not appear to lean towards a convincing program either. One reason is his chameleon-like nature. Britain’s next prime minister twists with the wind and panders to the people in the room. At a time of extraordinary technological and geopolitical change, Mr Burnham tells voters that he can turn back the clock on 40 years of neoliberalism.”
Burnham will surely begin with a message of dramatic change – but change based on the future or the past?
Much of Britain’s problems lie in the system of government itself. The structure is ill-suited to the economic, technological and knowledge-based explosions of the coming decade. Too much policy is about protecting the public from change and its consequences, not maximising the opportunity and community benefits from change.
This from a rag that has studiously attempted to resist both climate science and the digital revolution, and still carries on with a tree killer edition? You could get a coffee for the price of the weekend rag if you were mug enough to pay full price for the folly.
Hang on, must show off Andy, Andy Burnham delivers a speech at The People’s Museum in Manchester, England. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images
And that was that, a grim final gobbet from "Ned" in his usual Chicken Little, the sky is falling, doomsayer mode ...and wouldn't ya kno it, he resorted to Tony Bleagh as a truth teller ...
Maybe Burnham will provide the ultimate answer. Of course, Britain’s problems are deep-seated with the previous long-serving Tory government bearing much of the responsibility.
But Labour is now politically ascendant and purports to put its stamp on the country.
Albanese is not Starmer and probably won’t resemble Burnham either. But the shared policy overlap between these parties of the left cannot be missed. In this age of disruption and populism, centre-left politics in the West is moving further left. Britain demonstrates this and Australia seems to be moving in that direction.
In his recent essay Tony Blair got it right – the times are calling for bold policies from the radical centre, not the extremes of the left or right. Incrementalism won’t do the job. The public is after change and that puts the ideological beliefs of the left and right under searching pressure.
Albanese won’t be going the way of Starmer’s forced resignation. Indeed, his political position remains stronger than many of his opponents realise. But the parallel issue for Australian Labor cannot be missed: does Labor’s policy model and ideology still work for Australia in the 2020s?
Oh just go suck on a Board of Peace, and have a European heat wave just at the time Bleagh pretended climate change wasn't a thing, and dammit the pond refuses to miss out on the infallible Pope that turned up during the pond's away time...
Oh dear, he mentioned the unmentionable.
As for the rest of the reptile pack, the pond refused to add this to its dance card, but at least the pond could add it to the intermittent archive for those who cared:
Beijing has not enacted another domestic law. It has asserted a right to judge conduct occurring inside other sovereign states.
By John Coyne and Geoff Wade
What did they expect from a dictator running a one party state, but at least the archive seems to be continuing to work...
Unfortunately, that made room for the swishing Switzer, a man who could make the tango seem like a serve of rhubarb crumble (once a staple of UNE college kitchens back in the day).
The header: How Malcolm Turnbull’s 2016 election disaster started Liberal fragmentation. This was the moment many Liberal supporters began to conclude that Howard and Costello no longer represented their interests or values.
The caption for the snap of the self-regarding wondrous gesticulator with crooked lip: Malcolm Turnbull announces his victory in the 2016 Federal election. Picture: Braden Fastier
Look, the pond is always up for a bout of Malware bashing, but unfortunately when it's done by a dickhead the size of the swishing Switzer, there's a danger that the pond might be made to feel a trace of sympathy for Malware.
The opening line in this version of the blame game perfectly posed the problem.
Ten years after squandering Tony Abbott’s commanding electoral majority, Malcolm Turnbull still has the chutzpah to rant and rail about the Liberal Party.
Qué? The short lived onion muncher's reign did much to squander any regard for the Liberal party, and the loons that followed him didn't help, and not just Malware.
Currently it's a carnival of clowns, with the latest dropkick loser, the beefy boofhead, casting around to blame his predecessors: Liberal frontbencher calls for party ‘rebrand’ after drop in polls, prompting ridicule from Labor; Melissa McIntosh’s comment comes after Angus Taylor’s claim Morrison government ‘breached trust
So why shouldn't Malware join in the fun?
The swishing Switzer has to reach far back into time to drag up Ted Heath, and remind the pond that it still has a CD of Ted conducting classical music. (Please, call the maestro Edward, and it's not that bad).
Never mind, the swishing Switzer has an extraordinary talent for making himself unlovable, so the pond endured:
Like Heath, Turnbull possesses an extraordinary talent for making himself unlovable, sustained by the conviction that he has been right about almost everything and his successors wrong about almost everything.
Never mind that Turnbull’s prime ministership, from 2015 to 2018, marked the beginning of the Coalition’s long electoral fragmentation. The disappointing 2016 election, a decade ago on Thursday, was more than a poor result. It was the moment many traditional Liberal supporters began to conclude that the party of John Howard and Peter Costello no longer represented their interests or values.
The party of little Johnny and the man who didn't have the ticker?
The man who managed to lose his own seat as well as government?
What bizarro world does this Switzer live in, as the reptiles interrupted with a snap... Malcolm Turnbull with members of his ministry. Picture: Andrew Taylor / AAP Image
If you want a re-write of political history, the swishing Switzer is your man:
The most significant legacy of the election lay elsewhere. Nearly a third of Australians voted for minor parties and independents, foreshadowing the fragmentation that has since transformed Australian politics. Pauline Hanson returned to the Australian political theatre and One Nation, widely dismissed as a spent force, secured four Senate seats. This was on Turnbull’s watch.
How did Turnbull, a sophisticated, highly intelligent and self-made man who had seemed so assured when he deposed a first-term prime minister only nine months earlier, come so close to defeat?
Much of the answer lay with Turnbull himself. His justification for replacing Abbott in September 2015 – a case oddly echoed at the time by influential conservative commentators, such as Miranda Devine – was that he would broaden the Coalition’s electoral appeal and restore stability after years of leadership turmoil.
By this time the pond has so many bruises on its toes from doing the dance with this clumsy clodhopper that the snap of Ted merely felt like another elephant treading on foot: Sir Edward Heath at No. 10 Downing Street
Can someone put that creature in a headlock?
In the next gobbet, the swishing Switzer tried to pretend there's some weird brand of liberalism that embraces Ming the Merciless and the madness of the onion muncher:
The deeper problem was that Turnbull himself was not, in Thatcher’s parlance, “one of us”. Long regarded as what Robert Menzies would have dismissed as a “little-L liberal”, he was viewed by the conservative grassroots as aloof, patrician and disconnected from mainstream Australia.
His enthusiasm for more ambitious climate policies and changes to superannuation unsettled many traditional Liberal voters who had expected something very different from a Coalition government. His positions on tax reform also shifted repeatedly, leaving an impression of hesitation rather than conviction.
No wonder the election campaign became a debacle. Having triggered the first double-dissolution election in nearly three decades over legislation to rein in corrupt unions, Turnbull scarcely campaigned on workplace reform.
Labor performed far better than expected, though the result was hardly a ringing endorsement of Bill Shorten. Henry Kissinger’s famous observation during the Iran-Iraq war – “It is a pity both sides can’t lose” – neatly captured the public mood. Britain had just voted for Brexit, Americans would soon elect Donald Trump, and many Australian voters had likewise grown disillusioned with both major parties.
The reptiles interrupted with the man who, so it seems, so it's alleged, ruined everything: Malcolm Turnbull meets locals on July 7, 2016 in Brisbane. Picture: Tertius Pickard / Getty Images
Malware did much that was wrong - destroying the NBN at the whim of the onion muncher for starters - but this is just a silly form of specious revisionism, a casting about for a victim in the blame game (as if the pond would lift a finger to argue in Malware's defence).
The election fatally weakened Turnbull’s prime ministership. Although he remained in office for another two years, he did so as a diminished leader, increasingly constrained by colleagues who had lost confidence in his political judgment. Within two years, they did to him precisely what he had done to Abbott. It was a reminder of one of politics’ oldest laws: those who seize power by the sword should never assume they will not perish by it.
Looking back, the 2016 election was less an aberration than a warning. It was not simply a disappointing Liberal result; it marked an inflection point in Australian politics. The Coalition retained office but the election exposed a growing disconnect between the Liberal Party and many of its traditional supporters.
A school of thought holds that Turnbull, as a progressive Liberal, helped preserve the party’s affluent metropolitan seats in Sydney and Melbourne. That’s a fair point, although that trend became far more pronounced after the 2019 election.
Luckily dragging the wooden Sir Keir into the blame game heralded the final gobbet, Keir Starmer resigned as the British Prime Minister in June
And inevitably the final gobbet proved the ineffable stupidity of the swishing Switzer ...
Turnbull will be remembered as an inconsequential prime minister who invites comparison with another British prime minister.
No, not the aforementioned Heath but Keir Starmer. Both entered office amid enormous expectations before leaving behind little in the way of lasting achievement or reform. Both also left office to the relief of much of the electorate.
Yet even the outgoing Labour prime minister has one distinction Turnbull can never claim. He won a landslide. Turnbull inherited one and nearly squandered it.
Tom Switzer is presenter of the Switzerland podcast.
That's the best distraction the reptiles can offer for the current woeful state of the Liberal party under the beefy boofhead?
Not bloody Starmer again!
What limited imaginations and references this antediluvian hive mind has.
Please allow the immortal Rowe to celebrate the way forward:
And so to a great relief, because Dame Groan was out and about this day, and as usual, we're about to be entirely rooned:
The header: Albanese government faces real estate downturn as new tax policies begin. While Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers will assume everyone will move on from their tax changes, one danger looms large.
Sadly there was no credit for the truly hideous collage, so AI can take the blame: A major downturn in the housing market would be a huge hit to the Albanese government.
As usual, Dame Groan was determined to find disaster at every turn, which perhaps explains why she drags Houdini into her wriggle and squirm escape act:
The wrinkle of the “widow’s tax” still hasn’t been sorted, but the Treasurer assures us that he’s on to it. It’s a bit like his assurance that the capital gains tax and negative gearing wouldn’t be changed – not convincing, in other words.
What happens to anyone affected in the meantime through a death or divorce is anyone’s guess.
But the changes to the capital gains tax and negative gearing are now law, and so Albo and Jimbo assume that nearly everyone will just move on. For Labor, it’s a numbers game. There are not many voters directly affected by the new tax imposts, so the politics are auspicious. Let’s not forget here that the Albanese government is diabolically bad at policy but good at politics.
But here’s the thing: there is one major stumbling block that could really disrupt the best-laid plans of the two men. And this is a major correction in the real estate market – dare I even use the word “crash”. (A correction is usually defined as a price decline of about 10 per cent; anything significantly above that is a crash and is also associated with much lower numbers of transactions in the market.)
The reptiles decided to share the odium: Housing Minister Clare O'Neil says collapsing auction clearance rates are “a market correction”.
Here's the thing, and the pond says this as someone who actually owns a property in the inner west of Sydney.
In what universe is a block of land containing an aged Victorian era structure worth squillions, or at least a couple of million? How can anyone afford to get into that market, unless they happen to be a lawyer or a doctor, and even then not your average solicitor or GP?
It’s clear that a major downturn in housing prices has begun. In June alone, home prices nationwide fell by 0.4 per cent, the biggest fall since 2022. In Sydney, prices fell by 1.2 per cent and in Melbourne, by 1 per cent. Even in some of the better-performing smaller capitals, house prices are beginning to soften.
Now the Prime Minister declares that this is “great news” because it favours young first-home buyers. He may want to think this one through.
If house prices are falling, who wants to rush in to buy if prices will be a whole lot lower in six or 12 months? And what happens to the supply of suitable homes for purchase when property prices are falling? They simply dry up as owners hold off on putting their properties up for sale.
We see this in recent house auction data. Not only has the auction clearance rate fallen below the magic 50 per cent mark, but the number of auctions is also far fewer than just 12 months ago.
The figures for housing approvals in May are also worrying. Total dwelling approvals fell 1.1 per cent, the third month in a row. Approvals for private sector dwellings excluding houses – that’s higher-density housing – fell by 10.4 per cent. Note here there is a considerable time lag between approval and completion of new homes. Not all approvals lead to construction.
The widely held view now is that the Albanese government’s target of 1.2 million extra homes by 2029 will not be met, with a shortfall of at least 200,000.
Only a shortfall of 200k? In the pond's view, that would be a miracle. And what of all the wretched apartments into which the rats are being packed, or the hasty "innovative construction" being backed by loons of the Minns' kind, structures that will be lucky to last twenty years before they need major overhauls?
Minns Labor Government backing innovative construction to build more homes faster
As Minns hoes into inner city public housing for a quick fiscal fix, he's determined to make replacement housing in the donga look like the sort of ticky-tack to be found everywhere in the United States, preferably in the path of a tornado.
Don't get the pond started, as the reptiles flung in an anodyne snap that didn't prove anything: Total dwelling approvals, fuelling developments such as Armstrong Creek in Victoria, fell for the third consecutive month. Picture: Getty Images
And so to the final gobbet, wherein Dame Groan came to a prospect that set her salivating, an economic crash, and the country flung into a depression.
What joy for the old biddy ...
Let’s be clear here: this figure is not quite made up, but it’s close. Assumption upon assumption drives the outcome. Change the assumptions and the result looks very different. And let’s not overlook the fact here that Treasury is also suggesting that the combined impact of the tax package will lift the rate of home ownership by only 7500, on average, per year – that’s trivial – and there will be 35,000 fewer homes built as a result.
You think Albanese might have learnt his lesson about the folly of relying on modelling. It was Reputex modelling that told us all that electricity bills would fall by $275 per year. Yeah, right. He was happy to turn his back on that when it suited him.
He might end up doing the same thing with the Treasury modelling when he is dealing with the economic fallout of a real estate market crash.
