In which Lloydie of the Amazon and Dame Groan act as pond filler, a little spackle as it were ...

 

A thoughtful friend sent along this cover to the pond, thinking it might be a conversation starter ...

Undoubtedly droll, and from some kind of time warp... but as one is before the courts and the other also completely contemptible and disgraced, the pond was forced to move on to the reptiliana of the day ... and what grim pickings there were, with the Future Fund's fate producing grapes of reptile wrath ...

Down at the very bottom, those who clicked to enlarge, or with an eagle eye, might have looked past the Future Fund catastrophe to spot Lloydie of the Amazon team tagging to keep the nuke saga alive ... 

Apparently Lloydie's now so slack he needs help to turn in copy, but the pond thought the mighty duo might deliver an epic thrust, a nuking as it were, and so tuned in ...

Labor’s nuclear pact withdrawal ‘a catastrophic strategic mistake’, business wants future option
Business leaders urge the Albanese government to include nuclear as a future energy option, joining criticism of Labor’s withdrawal from an international nuclear collaboration.

Imagine the pond's disgust when Rosie and Gra Gra of the Amazon managed just a two minute read, or so the reptiles say, starting with A view from inside France’s Nogent-sur-Seine nuclear power plant in November. Picture: AFP

Inside the plant? In days past the pond would have called that an EXT WS.

What followed could kindly be described as a beat-up, a stirring of the pot until something interesting arrived ...

Business and industry leaders are urging the Albanese government to include nuclear as a future ­energy option, warning “we shouldn’t tie one arm behind our back”, as Labor’s withdrawal from an international collaboration on next generation nuclear power is labelled a “catastrophic strategic mistake”.
Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles defended the government’s decision to reject an invitation from the UK and US to join a new agreement to speed up the deployment of nuclear technology to help decarbonise industry and boost energy security, declaring Labor wouldn’t go down a civil nuclear industry path.
The major parties accused each other of being an “embarrassment” over their respective energy policies, after the UK was forced to correct a media release that stated Australia was “expected” to sign up to the Generation V International Forum.
Australia has been a member of the Gen IV pact since the Turnbull government joined up in 2016 and, through the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology ­Organisation, has worked on collaborations on generation four nuclear energy systems and research and development projects.
But government sources said because Gen V had a big focus on expanding the nuclear civil industry, it was becoming less relevant to Australia and the nation would not be a member.
Australia may be involved as an observer.
The man responsible for negotiating the nation’s entry into the Gen IV pact, Adi Paterson, said the withdrawal from the collaboration would be seen by allies as “an act of deep confusion”.
“It is a catastrophic strategic mistake. It is crazy and disappointing,” Dr Paterson, a former ANSTO chief executive, told The Australian.
“It means we don’t just have a ban (on nuclear power) in Australia today but in 12 to 20 years time. We are breaking collegiality with allies and friends on ideological grounds. This is not how to do soft diplomacy.”
Dr Paterson said Australia’s entry into Gen IV had been welcomed by both sides of politics, noting forum events had been held in Australia and ANSTO had made a valuable contribution with research on reactors and storage of nuclear material.

Ah, the good Dr Paterson ... he once helped nuke South Africa.

The main point of the whole thing seemed to be a chance to cut to the dog botherer in a cross promotional video clip blathering on in his usual way about climate zealots ...

Sky News host Chris Kenny discusses Australia’s position at the COP29 meeting in Baku and what the UK must think of their “little” renewable “zealot” from down under. “I think the UK knows renewables leave you short, that's why they're expanding nuclear,” Mr Kenny said. “How they must laugh at the earnest little renewables zealot from down under.”

Talk about a serve of stale bread and beer ...

Australia’s three leading big business and industry groups, the Business Council of Australia, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Australian Industry Group, all backed a technology agnostic approach to the country’s future energy mix.
“We don’t think there should be a legislative barrier to nuclear,” ACCI chief executive Andrew McKellar said.
“It shouldn’t be prohibited as part of the future energy mix, but if it was to be included it should be economically viable. It’s an outcome that should come from the market, not through some artificial stricture or action of government. From a business point of view, we don’t know what our circumstances will be in 10, 20 or 30 years … and we shouldn’t tie one arm behind our back.”
Ai Group chief executive Innes Willox said while nuclear doesn’t appear viable today, it may become so in the years ahead.
“Given how rapidly technology is evolving, it would be counterintuitive to simply rule it out as a future energy source,” he said.
BCA chief executive Bran Black noted the lobby group had consistently called for a technology-neutral approach to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Peter Dutton and his MPs attempted to use question time to make the Albanese government look isolated on the issue.
Defending the government’s stance, Mr Marles said nuclear was the single most expensive form of electricity in the world today, would cost Australian households an extra $1200 in their bills and it wouldn’t come online for another two decades.
“Even then it’s only 4 per cent of the grid,” he said. “That’s what the ridiculous proposal that has been put forward by the Leader of the Opposition represents.”

That's it, that's all they managed? ...while nuclear doesn’t appear viable today, it may become so in the years ahead.

Credit where credit is due for that yarn about how much has been done, but much remains to be done ...

Ah Rosie's still an X'er, that says a lot ... apparently there's no blue sky in her life.

Meanwhile, the immortal Rowe joined the nuke debate ...

The pond did take a squiz at the other reptile offerings of the day ...

Nah, yeah, nah. Jack the insider taking on Fitzy, two tossers in search of a teacup? Pass. 

Petulant Peta, facilitator of a notoriously inept leader in a wayward government, taking a potshot at government? Ferget it, the pond's correspondents might mutiny. 

And between Eric and Judith, the pond would do its duty with the Groaning, but what a pity the reptiles aren't focussed on the United States at the moment.

Never mind Dr. Oz, the latest of the weird TV personalities with a taste for quack solutions and quack cures to be given the nod, it seems buyer's remorse has clicked in, in all sorts of places... (NY Post paywal)

Naturally the Beast was quick to gloat (paywall), and it reminded. the pond of a piece by David A. Graham for The Atlantic that was heavily laden with irony as Graham celebrated buyer's remorse ...Washington Is Shocked, Just shocked, I tell you. (archive link).

At a rally in Las Vegas in September, the reggaeton star Nicky Jam came onstage in a Make America Great Again hat and endorsed Donald Trump. “We need you. We need you back, right? We need you to be the president,” he said. But after a comedian at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden last month called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage,” the singer—whose father is Puerto Rican and who was raised partly on the island—had second thoughts.
“Never in my life did I think that a month later, a comedian was going to come to criticize my country and speak badly of my country, and therefore, I renounce any support for Donald Trump,” Nicky Jam said.
He had no right to be surprised. Trump himself had previously gone after Puerto Rico—he punished its leaders for criticizing him after Hurricane Maria, and sought to swap it for Greenland—but even if Nicky Jam had missed or forgotten that, he had to know who Trump was.
Nicky Jam was ahead of the curve. Since the election, Trump has moved swiftly to do things he’d said he’d do, and yet many people—especially his own supporters—seem stunned and dismayed. This is absurd. Surprise was perhaps merited in late 2016 and early 2017, when Trump was still an unknown quantity. But after four years as president, culminating in an attempt to erase an election he lost, Trump has demonstrated who he is. Somehow, the delusion of Trump à la carte—take the lib-owning, take the electoral wins, but pass on all of the unsavory stuff—persists.
In an article about how Trump’s transition is “shocking the Washington establishment,” Peter Baker of The New York Times writes: “Nine years after Mr. Trump began upsetting political norms, it may be easy to underestimate just how extraordinary all of this is.” He’s right that the aberrant nature of the picks may be overlooked, as I have warned, yet it is also true that the actual unpredictability of them is overestimated.
On K Street, Politico reports, health-care-industry lobbyists can’t believe that Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. They were “expecting a more conventional pick,” even though Trump emphasized Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda late in the campaign, and even though Kennedy said that Trump had promised him control of HHS. To be sure, Kennedy is a shocking and disturbing pick, as Benjamin Mazer and my colleague Yasmin Tayag have recently written for The Atlantic, but his nomination should not come as a surprise—especially for people whose entire business proposition is being highly paid to advise clients on how Washington actually works. (The influence peddlers reportedly hope that senators will block Kennedy. The fact that they’re still waiting for someone else to solve their problems is further evidence of how little they’ve learned, years into the Trump era.)
Meanwhile, the New York Post, a key pillar of Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing media juggernaut, is similarly jittery about the Kennedy choice. Back when Kennedy was a thorn in President Joe Biden’s side, threatening to run against him in the Democratic primary, the Post’s editorial board was all too happy to elevate him. Now the board condemns his nomination and tells us that it came out of a meeting with him last year “thinking he’s nuts on a lot of fronts.” The columnist Michael Godwin, who beamed on November 9 that Trump’s victory “offers the promise of progress on so many fronts that it already feels like Morning in America again,” was back a week later to complain that “it’s not a close call to say” that Kennedy and Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for attorney general, are “unfit” for the roles.
The lobbyists and editorialists are in good company, or at least in some sort of company. On Capitol Hill, Republican senators say they are shocked by many of Trump’s Cabinet picks. Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who notoriously professed surprise when Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, is “shocked” at the Gaetz nomination. Gaetz’s House Republican colleagues are “stunned and disgusted.”
Reactions to Pete Hegseth’s nomination as secretary of defense are less vitriolic, if no less baffled. “Wow,” Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told NBC. “I’m just surprised, because the names that I’ve heard for secretary of defense have not included him.” Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was even blunter. “Who?” he said. “I just don’t know anything about him.”

And so on, and the pond was just shocked, shocked the pond tells ya, and speaking of RFK Jr. it was remiss of the pond not to run that now notorious snap ...

Everybody loved RFK Jr being made to eat humble pie, or at least a serve of crap. King Donald I really knows how to make his subjects suffer ... while pitiful Johnson looked like a lapdog wondering why he wasn't allowed a seat at the table, so he too could eat crap with RFK Jr....

What looks they were and thanks to BuzzFeed, the pond was treated to an alternative view of the scene, and a sign of baldness in the court of King Donald I, with lapdog Johnson still desperate to get into the picture ...

The baldness? There were a couple of variations to hand ...

 

That's what it's come to in America, hair watching as a national sport, and speaking of lapdogs at the court of King Donald I, Luckovich celebrated these lapdogs, though for some strange reason their ratings seem to have slumped (some are calling it the 17% solution, or perhaps the 38%):

Okay, okay, if you want those still staying strong, doing their best not to be supine lapdogs, head off to The Bulwark for stories such as Entering Our Crank Era... 

Yes, the brain worms are now running the show, and while it provokes despair in some, the pond is filled with delight, each day a new novelty item, each day a new crank hovering into view.

With great reluctance the pond must leave that cavalcade of clowns in their circus car and stay true to Dame Groan, though in the great scheme of epic groans, many will think this offering is in a minor key, or even a bit of ephemera, as passing as the movement of Petey boy from chairman of the board to a spot in the rearview mirror,  or from the airport floor ...

Dame Groan was in doom and gloom mood, but according to the reptiles she spent only three minutes of the hive mind reader's time announcing the end of the world: ‘May as well close it down’: This is the end of the Future Fund, It’s Jim Chalmers’ big chance to put his loopy ideas about ‘reinventing capitalism’ to become a ‘values-driven’ system into practice. Labor has never really liked the Future Fund because it’s a reminder of Peter Costello’s success.

The last thing Dame Groan needs is values ... and so the reptiles offered a snap of Satan and his helper as a starter for the groaning ...Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher hold a press conference about the final budget outcome in September. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

Such is the current state of the pond's perversity, neigh depravity, that the pond took an unholy delight in sipping from a fragrant cup of Dame Groan's tears ...

The Treasurer and the Finance Minister are changing the mandate of the Future Fund to “support national priorities”.
The mandate will be adjusted to fit in with the Labor government’s pet projects – housing, green projects and infrastructure.

Eek, not greenie projects, not anything to do with climate change and science and all that zealotry ...

Ah, the sweetness of salty tears, and so Dame Groan turned apocalyptic drama queen, but in very truncated form, with Dame Groan seeming to lose her mojo in all the despair ...

It may sound dramatic, but this is the end of the Future Fund. I’m pretty sure David Murray and Peter Costello, former chairs of the fund, will agree. The final outcome is only too clear.
Instead of the chair and the guardian focusing on getting the best returns for taxpayers, the ultimate owners of the fund, they will now be obliged to consider making investments in the preferred government areas.
The claim that “the fund will provide strong returns to the government’s balance sheet while supporting national priorities where it can” is of course a complete crock. If there were these strong returns currently available while supporting national priorities, then these investments would already be made.
But projects in these areas generally require government subsidies to make their economics work. Does it make any sense for the Future Fund to commit funds to projects which only proceed with government backing?
Strictly speaking, the subsidies should be netted out; otherwise, there is just a nonsensical circularity going on.
Take the National Broadband Network as a case in point – a substantial investment in infrastructure which is a preferred government area. Had the Future Fund invested in the NBN, massive losses would have had to be brought to book because the investment is a complete dud. It wouldn’t be able to sell its holdings because there would be no buyers.
When the industry super funds were approached to invest in ­social housing, only the chair of Cbus put his hand up, while the representatives of the other funds shuffled in their chairs. Everyone knows that investing in social housing won’t generate superior returns – it’s the nature of the ­investment. It should be undertaken on the government’s own balance sheet.
It’s not clear why Jim Chalmers, who presumably is leading this change in mandate for the Future Fund rather than the hapless ­Finance Minister, Katy Gallagher, believes this radical change is necessary.
After all, there is the Clean ­Energy Finance Corporation, the National Reconstruction Fund and Housing Australia. Perhaps it is his big chance to put his loopy ideas about “reinventing capitalism” to become a “values-driven” system into practice.
As for the idea that the chair of the Future Fund and the guardians were fully consulted about this change, well yes. It’s the government calling the shots; any objections would have been duly noted and then overlooked. But at least Chalmers and Gallagher have a sense of humour when they claim that “the government remains committed to the fund’s independence and commercial focus”.

At this point the reptiles interrupted to provide a snap of Petey boy smirking in his pork chop way, looking very chairman of the board ...Future Fund’s then chairman Peter Costello at Future Fund HQ in Melbourne in 2019. Picture: David Geraghty

Why that one? There were much better snaps of Petey boy in his prime to hand in the archive ... smirking away ...

Never mind, Dame Groan finished off her apocalyptic groaning in fine, albeit short form, style ... more a lap of the pool than a marathon

The fact is Labor has never ­really liked the Future Fund. It was testament to the success of our longest serving treasurer, Costello, who was able to achieve zero net government debt. Those were the days.
Using in part the proceeds of privatisation – note here the opposition of Anthony Albanese’s wing of the Labor Party to privatisation – the Future Fund has grown into an international powerhouse with a reputation for shrewd decision-making. It regularly receives ­exclusive invitations to participate in profitable deals.
A key here is the independence of the Future Fund from the government of the day: this has been critical to the building of the fund’s reputation.
The parties it deals with know that the chair and the guardians are driven by seeking the best returns, not taking orders from the government of the day.
The total value of the Future Fund currently sits around $230bn. Last financial year, the rate of return on assets was above 9 per cent. Its average rate of return over the fund’s life has been 8.3 per cent per annum. It has a wide spread of assets, both local and overseas, and the returns have beaten most other funds in the market. (I’m sure many readers of The Australian would have been more than happy to park their money in the Future Fund.)
It has been a huge success, decreasing the value of government net debt in a very substantial way. The Future Fund is the commonwealth’s largest single financial asset.
But Chalmers has other ideas. His world view is one in which investments are directed by the government to preferred areas, in part relieving the government of making its own investments. It’s a highway to poor outcomes as returns disappoint and some projects fail altogether.
It might make more sense to simply close the ­Future Fund, fold the assets into the government’s balance sheet and let the government spend like crazy until all the money’s gone. It’s not far off what is being proposed.

Indeed, indeed, but why not get the Future Fund to nuke the country, and thereby save the planet? 

Just a helpful suggestion to console Dame Groan in her drama queen despair...

Yes, this day the pond has largely been about nothing, but as the immortal Mr Pooter established, nothing has its charms ...

April 5.—Two shoulders of mutton arrived, Carrie having arranged with another butcher without consulting me. Gowing called, and fell over scraper coming in. Must get that scraper removed.
April 6.—Eggs for breakfast simply shocking; sent them back to Borset with my compliments, and he needn’t call any more for orders. Couldn’t find umbrella, and though it was pouring with rain, had to go without it. Sarah said Mr. Gowing must have took it by mistake last night, as there was a stick in the ‘all that didn’t belong to nobody. In the evening, hearing someone talking in a loud voice to the servant in the downstairs hall, I went out to see who it was, and was surprised to find it was Borset, the butterman, who was both drunk and offensive. Borset, on seeing me, said he would be hanged if he would ever serve City clerks any more—the game wasn’t worth the candle. I restrained my feelings, and quietly remarked that I thought it was possible for a city clerk to be a gentleman. He replied he was very glad to hear it, and wanted to know whether I had ever come across one, for he hadn’t. He left the house, slamming the door after him, which nearly broke the fanlight; and I heard him fall over the scraper, which made me feel glad I hadn’t removed it. When he had gone, I thought of a splendid answer I ought to have given him. However, I will keep it for another occasion.
April 7.—Being Saturday, I looked forward to being home early, and putting a few things straight; but two of our principals at the office were absent through illness, and I did not get home till seven. Found Borset waiting. He had been three times during the day to apologise for his conduct last night. He said he was unable to take his Bank Holiday last Monday, and took it last night instead. He begged me to accept his apology, and a pound of fresh butter. He seems, after all, a decent sort of fellow; so I gave him an order for some fresh eggs, with a request that on this occasion they should be fresh. I am afraid we shall have to get some new stair-carpets after all; our old ones are not quite wide enough to meet the paint on either side. Carrie suggests that we might ourselves broaden the paint. I will see if we can match the colour (dark chocolate) on Monday.
April 8, Sunday.—After Church, the Curate came back with us. I sent Carrie in to open front door, which we do not use except on special occasions. She could not get it open, and after all my display, I had to take the Curate (whose name, by-the-by, I did not catch,) round the side entrance. He caught his foot in the scraper, and tore the bottom of his trousers. Most annoying, as Carrie could not well offer to repair them on a Sunday. After dinner, went to sleep. Took a walk round the garden, and discovered a beautiful spot for sowing mustard-and-cress and radishes. Went to Church again in the evening: walked back with the Curate. Carrie noticed he had got on the same pair of trousers, only repaired. He wants me to take round the plate, which I think a great compliment.

November 21, Thursday.—Lloydie called and said we must nuke the country now, no time for dillydallying. Dame Groan dropped in her card, advising that there was absolutely no future. Wondered if we really should have her for dinner. She seems a decent sort of chap, if decidedly eccentric.

Must tell the reptiles to liven things up a little ...if there's an apocalypse coming it should be more lively than what Lloydie andDame Groan currently offer ...

And that left the pond the chance to close with the infallible Pope, though it seems that it's a little late to be contemplating the Ruddster as the carnival of clowns looms closer ...

Is there nothing that hair can't do?

Lloydie of the Amazon and the Angelic one's lesser half are present, but it's the Lynch mob who saves the reptiles' honour ...

 

For some reason, the bouffant one, aka the lesser half of the Angelic one, seems to have gained a third wind, and led off the alleged news in the digital edition of the lizard Oz, together with news of reptile surprise that anyone should pay attention to the ongoing genocide in Gaza ...

Shanners was also on hand in the comments section, fulminating away, but it was the return of Lloydie of the Amazon to address the issue that had the pond cock-a-hoop with excitement ...

And why not be wildly excited?

Of course the pond was going to read Lloydie, top of the far right digital world ma, especially as the alternatives included Dame Slap rabbiting on about juries in her usual tedious way ... but, spoiler alert, the pond was soon to be hugely disappointed.

Even the reptiles rated the outing a mere two minute read ...

Energy Minister Chris Bowen pulling us out of nuclear just as everyone jumps in, The Albanese government is sabotaging Australia’s longstanding and deep involvement in next-generation nuclear research, just as the world is getting serious about the emissions-free technology.

The opening snap wasn't encouraging, especially as it was the only one. (Apparently the reptiles couldn't be bothered finding an image to nuke the story). Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen at the launch of COP29 Azerbaijan. Picture: Renewable Energy Council Asia Pacific/Facebook

Yes, yes, we readers of reptiles know what Satan looks like, get on with it ...

The Albanese government is sabotaging Australia’s longstanding and deep involvement in next-generation nuclear research, just as the world is getting serious about the emissions-free technology.
We have been an active member of the world’s leading small-scale nuclear research group but not, it seems, anymore.
Chris Bowen has effectively said he will pull Australia out of the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) just as it moves from research to deployment phase and our major allies pour billions of dollars into research and development.
The GIF was established in 2001 as a co-operative inter­national endeavour seeking to test the feasibility and performance of fourth-generation nuclear systems, and to make them available for industrial deployment by 2030. It brings together 13 countries – Argentina, Australia, ­Brazil, Canada, China, France, Japan, Korea, Russia, South ­Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States – as well as the European Atomic Energy Community, representing the 27 EU members.
The Australian flag is displayed on the cover of the GIF’s 2023 annual report. Our involvement is detailed in a full page. Our contribution involves research into high-temperature reactor projects, along with contributing research in support of molten salt reactor projects.
The annual report said Australia “continues to be a committed and co-operative member of the Generation IV International Forum for the joint development of the next generation of nuclear technology, which is vital for the future of the nuclear energy industry and for the sustainable development of the planet”.
It says that while Australian government policy continues to prohibit the civilian use of nuclear energy in the country, “it continues to recognise that nuclear ­energy is a mature technology used to deliver reliable electricity in many countries, with zero greenhouse-gas emissions at the point of generation and low life-cycle emissions”.
It says the AUKUS security partnership with the UK and US will enable Australia to leverage nuclear-powered submarine expertise.
“Announcements by the Australian government in early 2023 indicated continuing support for the program, including the formation of a dedicated agency to manage Australia’s efforts,” the report said.
The GIF said a focus for Australia in its role as a member of the forum continued to be “the mutual benefits reaped from international co-operation in programs that underpin the next generation of nuclear technology”.
The existing GIF framework agreement expires on February 28 next year and the policy group agreed in 2023 to develop a new framework agreement for those parties mutually willing to continue collaborations. Russia is being excluded from the new group.
Bowen’s comments on Tuesday make it clear we are getting out of the nuclear business at a time when our major allies are preparing to double down.

Yep, that's all he wrote ... what on earth is going on in the Amazon with Lloydie?

And so the pond turned to the Angelic one's lesser half in the hope of discovering a better level of rage. 

The bouffant one promised much, what with "climate zealotry" in the header, and the promise of a three minute read: Chris Bowen’s rebuffing of Ed Miliband’s UK-US civil nuclear pact reveals Labor’s climate zealotry, Chris Bowen’s argument against joining the US and Britain’s civil nuclear pact is, put simply: London has only 1633 hours of sunshine on average. Rainy Melbourne has 2362 hours, and sunny Perth has 3229.

Tragically, the bouffant one's effort was littered with meaningless snaps, beginning with an obscure British leftist, UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband speaks at the UK pavilion at the UNFCCC COP29 Climate Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan. Picture: Getty Images

The illustrations began to flow and to look increasingly weird. First a little text flinging about puerile:

The Albanese government’s argument for rejecting a UK Labour and US Democratic Party appeal to join a global move to speed up the spread of civilian nuclear energy and cut carbon emissions has left Labor looking contradictory, confused and embarrassed.
The invitation from Australia’s closest allies and AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine partners has also confirmed the ALP’s zealotry and ideologically driven climate change policies.
What’s more, the arguments put forward by Richard Marles and Chris Bowen for rebuffing the invitation to join the UK, US and more than 30 other leading nations were, respectively, unconvincing about the need for Australian expertise in nuclear industry and, frankly, puerile in arguing that even Melbourne is “sunnier” than London.

Yes, yes, but that weird snap please ... Chris Bowen and Austrian Minister for Climate Action Leonore Gewessler at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Picture: Instagram @lgewessler

You'd think the reptiles would have at least cropped out that reference to the highlight of the day, the presentation of the Net Zero Industries Award, with said award signalling unseemly climate zealotry. Why the mere mention of the concept of net zero, let alone an award for same, can set some reptiles off into a frothing, foaming, frenzy.

Then came just a couple of pars ...

There’s no doubt UK Energy Minister Ed Miliband dropped the Albanese government into the radioactive waste when he publicly declared Australia was “expected” to join the UK and the US as “allies” in the enhanced civilian nuclear proposal, but the response was, again, ill-prepared, illogical and condescending.
What Miliband did was raise an expectation Australia would go beyond its existing “observer” status on the international forum and force the Energy Minister and Acting Prime Minister into the open to justify refusing to talk about nuclear energy based on policy grounds.

... followed by another snap of Satan, as if the reptiles were acting as Satan's publicity handlers,  Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen during a meeting with ministerial pairs at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Picture: UN Climate Change/Kiara Worth

Why is the pond obsessed with the snaps? Well, the Angelic one's lesser half might be feeling his horsey oats, but the porridge he served up was tediously predictable, oats for the hive mind ...

There was also the political context where, within 24 hours of launching a pre-election personal attack on Peter Dutton and the Coalition’s proposed nuclear energy policy, Labor was scrambling to recover from the confusion and contradictions in rejecting the allies’ appeal.
The UK and US set out a perfectly logical and compelling argument for an enhanced climate change policy of speeding up civilian nuclear energy to cut carbon emissions, provide secure, firm power and encourage industry to create jobs and prosperity while decarbonising their processes.
It was an eloquent argument for developing nuclear power that forced the Labor Party to address the policy and the politics.
“Nuclear will play a vital role in our clean-energy future. That is why we are working closely with our allies to unleash the potential of cutting-edge nuclear technology,” Miliband said.

For peculiar reasons, the pond actually heard the mutton Dutton blathering on, "eloquently", and yet the matter of costs for an industry, which in Australia, unlike the US or the UK, would be a start-up, were never mentioned. 

We're still waiting and if you go looking all you can find are ancient worries ... all to do with those unmentionable costs ...

Where is the perfectly logical and compelling argument, the eloquent argument in relation to costs as a reason to abandon renewables, and attempt a hugely expensive nuking of the country to save the planet? 

Crickets, but here's another snap of that obscure gung ho leftist, a strange infatuation for the reptiles... UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband. Picture: Getty Images

Apparently the reptiles now have extraordinary faith in a UK leftist who doesn't much mind matters of cost, at least if the costs have nothing to do with the wretched state of the UK budget ...

In parliament Marles said Labor would not be signing the agreement because we “don’t have a civilian nuclear industry”. Marles ridiculed the Opposition Leader for wanting to just burn a piece of uranium to make power.
But, as Defence Minister last year announcing the Australian participation in the nuclear-powered submarine program, Marles boasted about 20,000 civilian jobs in South and Western Australia as the government geared up for the submarine project, including training, skills, exchanges with the US and the UK, and university places.

That's apparently the best the reptiles have got. Nuke the subs, so we must nuke the country, and and now we must pause for another snap, this time Satan's deputy, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles. Picture: Kym Smith

This apples and pears routine about nuking the subs means we must nuke the country doesn't make any sense. 

The pond isn't inherently adverse to the notion of nuking the country if it happened to be cost-effective up against renewables, and feasible in the time span, but we never get any of the hard details, just emotive blather of the bouffant one kind ...

Tens of thousands of jobs depend on the proposed AUKUS nuclear submarine project and yet there is “no civilian nuclear industry” in Australia.
Bowen’s response from Baku was worse politically: a flat-out “no” to the signing and, as if the nuclear ban in Australia is like the Ten Commandments and written in stone, a nuclear industry was “outlawed”.
Bowen then proposed that Australia is much sunnier than the UK and has advantages with solar power that the UK does not and therefore small nuclear reactors were unviable in Australia.
The argument was: Put simply, London has only 1633 hours of sunshine in an average year. By comparison, Australia’s least sunny capital city is Melbourne with 2362 hours, while our sunniest capital city, Perth, has 3229.
Hence, solar panels would answer Australia’s energy needs without recourse to nuclear.
Of course, Great Britain is smaller than Victoria and doesn’t have the transmission challenges of a nation at least 20 times larger and the oil-producing desert state of the United Arab Emirates, which has even more sunshine, has embarked on nuclear power.
Cost of living, particularly the cost of energy, is going to dominate the election campaign, and Labor is going to have to get its story straight on nuclear and Dutton if it hopes to do better than this week.

Actually the reptiles are going to have to get their story straight on nuking the country if they hope to get it done. 

Start with the costs and a feasible implementation plan. The pond is patiently standing by, ready and willing to install that SMR in the backyard at the drop of a hat ...

It was left to the Lynch mob to restore some respectable craziness to the reptile slate, with Why can’t the left produce successful women leaders like the right?,Julia Gillard said her exit from politics was inexplicable without taking gender into account. So too did Hillary Clinton in 2016. Perhaps the more obvious reason is that the progressive faith in gender before talent has given us women who just aren’t very good.

Accordingly to the reptiles it was a five minute read, and the crazy was strong, and reminded the pond of the deep sense of pity it feels for the Lynch mob students.

It began in usual reptile way with the figure to be demonised ...Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

In a way the pond felt frustrated, what with there being so much crazy doing the rounds - the pond had wanted to slip in a mention of that third rate provincial lawyer and professional humbug, Morning Joe, who recently headed south to Florida to kiss King Donald I's ring and then dressed it up as if he'd been at the Yalta conference (credit John Berman). 

After all that talk of fascism and Adolf, it was time, Neville style, to wave a scrap of paper in front of the cameras. What a pathetic excuse for a human bean, but thanks to the change to daylight saving, and a lack of desire, the pond can now avoid the pirated versions of the show dropped on to YouTube.

And then there was Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, and Noel Sims in Popular Information offering 13 things everyone should know about Pete Hegseth. 

The crazy is strong in that one, just a sampling will do:

Hegseth said the United Nations should be shut down
In a May 28, 2020, video, Hegseth said the United Nations should be eliminated:
Stop debating about, like, do we do a little bit less at the U.N.? No. Just get rid of the U.N. Just get rid of it. It is a poisoned body, it is an anti-American, anti-Israel, antisemitic institution that's now bonds together to gang up on us, to gang up on the West. And what use does it have?
Hegseth has a tattoo associated with white nationalists. 

Hegseth has a tattoo on his bicep that says "Deus Vult," Latin for "God wills it."

The phrase, which has its roots in the First Crusade, has been appropriated as a rallying cry for white supremacists. The tattoo, according to the Associated Press, resulted in Hegseth being "pulled by his District of Columbia National Guard unit from guarding Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration" because he was viewed as a possible "insider threat." Hegseth acknowledged he was excluded, but claimed it was because he had tattoos with Christian imagery. 
Hegseth is a member of a Christian supremacist church
Hegseth is a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC). Doug Wilson, CREC’s founder, openly ascribes to Christian nationalism, wrote a book praising the antebellum South as an idyllic multiracial Christian society, and said that women should not have the right to vote. Wilson and his wife have written books implying that rape within marriage is impossible and several women in Wilson’s Moscow, Idaho church community have accused him of protecting their abusers.
Hegseth has been reported to be in good standing with the church. He is also involved with the Association of Classical Christian Schools, a Christian private school network co-founded by Wilson. His children attend a school in the network and he co-authored a book in 2022 with the network’s president, David Goodwin, about how such schools can save kids from leftist indoctrination in “government schools” and elite universities. Hegseth has degrees from Princeton and Harvard.

But no, the pond must make do with a standard serve of misogyny from the Prof ... 

Here the pond suggests that if there's someone who has never seen it, this is obligatory viewing to create the right mood ...

 

Now read the Prof's version ...

 In the US presidential election campaign there were several decisive moments when you knew Donald Trump had won it, and Kamala Harris had lost it. What was yours?
The “Harris is for they/them; Trump is for you” viral ad? The refusal of Harris to podcast with Joe Rogan? Trump’s “Fight! Fight! Fight!”? Harris not being able to explain how her presidency would differ from Joe Biden’s?
In my home, it was when the Democrats aired the commercial they called “Julia Roberts Reminds Us – Your Vote, Your Choice”. It will be remembered as possibly the most ill-conceived 30 seconds in campaign history.
Two couples are about to enter the semi-privacy of the voting booth. One of the MAGA husbands is certain his wife will do the right thing but encourages her just to be sure: “Your turn, Honey!”
But the two 50-something women, while they are wearing Trump merch, are secretly pro-choice. This is the brilliant Democratic twist.
Using telepathy and a nod, the women vote for Harris-Walz. Their husbands need never know. The right of their daughters to abort any grandchildren moves stealthily a step closer. They will make abortion great again.
“Did you make the right choice?” asks hubby. (“Choice”. Geddit?)
“Sure did, Honey.”
“Remember,” says Roberts, reaching peak condescension, “what happens in the booth, stays in the booth.”

Would that what happens in the Lynch mob's mind stayed in the Lynch mob's mind, but now he was off and racing, with a gigantic video clip to spur him on, As the fallout from Kamala Harris’s brutal loss to Donald Trump continues, all eyes now on the celebrities who supposedly endorsed her. It has since been revealed that these celebrity endorsements may not have been as genuine as they appeared, with new information regarding the big sums of money paid out emerges.

If the pond might be so bold, Harris is now a distant memory, with all that is promised entrancing the world ... you know, so many crazies, so many hints of what's to come...

It might be handy to offer Harris as a distraction from what's currently unfolding, to live in the past of the election campaign, and the Lynch mob shows how it's done by providing TMI on the domestic front ...

My Texan wife, a centre-right Trump sceptic, felt caricatured and infantilised by the ad. While she has never liked Trump, multi-millionaire actress Julia Roberts guaranteed that she would vote for Harris “over my dead body”. And that we can never again watch the Pelican Brief (good film, underrated).
Harris went on to lose women aged 45-64 by a point (49 to 50 per cent). She lost white women by eight points (45 to 53 per cent). She lost white women without a college degree (which we assume were those targeted in the Roberts commercial) by a stunning 28 points (35 to 63 per cent).
How is it that a campaign fronted by a woman of colour had such little appeal with women of pretty much any colour? Compared to Biden in 2020, Harris lost ground among every demographic. Sixty-five per cent of Native Americans voted for Trump. Voice proponents in Australia take note.
In the same week Harris lost the presidential election, another woman of colour, Kemi Badenoch, was elected leader of the British Conservative Party.
The Tories are the most successful electoral machine in European history. Four women have led them. Three have been prime minster. One was a great, world historical figure: Margaret Thatcher. Two have been failures: Theresa May and Liz Truss.
The British right has become comfortable about the sex of its leaders. In contrast, the British Labour Party has never had a woman lead it. But, like progressive parties all over the West, it is obsessed with gender politics. Ditto Australian Labor.

The reptiles were determined to help out, not with a snap of that great promoter of English misery, Maggie, but instead Julia Gillard and Kemi Badenoch. The reptiles set them up and the pond feels compelled to note them:

Yes, the Lynch mob is obsessed with gender politics:

Julia Gillard both bucks and confirms a truth about the left and gender. She was our first/only female PM. But Australians were never quite able (or allowed) to see her without using some gender lens. Her greatest moment was a complaint about Tony Abbott’s misogyny.
When Kevin Rudd toppled her, Gillard said her fate was inexplicable without taking gender into account. Hillary Clinton’s failure in 2016 was similarly excused: Americans were just not ready for a woman president (despite more voters backing her than Donald Trump; she lost in the electoral college). Perhaps the more obvious reason is that the progressive faith in gender before talent has given us women who just aren’t very good and/or aren’t very popular.
Harris was next into the trap set by her base. Unlike Clinton, she was savvy enough to suppress her claims to power based on identity. Like Clinton, she still presented an unpersuasive case for her leadership skills.
I grew up in 1980s Britain. While the left lacked all cohesion, it was united in a deep and enduring hatred of Thatcher. What drove it into frequent two-minute hates was Thatcher’s gender.
When she died in 2013, her left-wing haters declared, vocally and in graffiti: “Ding dong the witch is dead.” If Kemi Badenoch becomes PM, gender will be multiplied by race and the left will demonise her on two metrics. Badenoch will become – for some, she already is – a race and gender traitor.
These identitarian loyalty tests are not applied by the right to its female leaders. Sex and race matter much less to a conservative. “Can she do the job?” is often the first question.

Ah Maggie, cue snap, Margaret Thatcher acknowledges applause at the end of the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool.

Apparently it never occurs to the Lynch mob that it might have been Maggie's policies and their ultimate outcome - the currently impoverished Britain - that might have been the cause of some irritation with Maggie. 

You know:

From the crisis at Thames Water, a company created by her naively pro-monopoly privatisation programme, to the precarity and spiralling cost of renting a home – both products of her curtailment of tenants’ rights and council housing – her policies’ flaws, limits and unforeseen consequences are ever more apparent. Less directly but just as damagingly, her hostility to the EU, to taxing the rich properly, and to most state services except the military, set this country on a path towards today’s European isolation and public and private poverty. Thatcher was elected prime minister largely because she promised to reverse national decline, an approach Starmer is trying to emulate. But along with the Tory successors she so influenced, she can now be seen as having caused such a decline instead.
Why is this so rarely said? The passage of time has certainly helped her reputation. The diminishing amount that is widely remembered about her reign – her victories over the miners and the Argentinians, her electoral landslides, economic boom and commanding manner – has fixed her in the public mind as a divisive but essentially successful prime minister. Her government’s failures and ineffective periods, for instance, the terrible recession that her policies created in the early 80s, or her vain attempts to reverse progress towards racial and sexual equality through reactionary legislation, are largely forgotten. Instead, she has become a free-floating signifier of strong leadership, untethered from much of her actual record.

Strange, no mention of gender in all that, but then the Lynch mob goes on to a category error ...

Yep, pity his poor students, especially if they're in the different and other strands of life, as the Lynch mob hares off down the woke track ...

To be woke is to sacralise women, people of colour, LGBTQI+ people, Indigenous people and the disabled. This has created an impossible standard for an aspiring leader, who happens to belong to any one of these groups, to pass: “they/them” must advance a progressive social justice agenda and be electable. The US presidential election exposed the weakness of this strategy.
The Democrats needed Harris’s race and gender to do the heavy lifting that her basic competencies could not. The ready-made progressive excuse for her electoral wipe-out was that American voters were not worthy of the Era of Joy she would initiate. They were variously too misogynist, deplorable, racist, victims of misinformation … to get on the right side of history.
The sanctimony needed to maintain this interpretation is a big ask. But the left keeps paying it. The consequence is an electoral strategy that does not work. Voters just don’t prioritise identity in the way the left needs them to. Woke politics is an election loser. Progressives cannot easily translate cultural power (in schools, universities, Hollywood and the media) into political power. This drives them nuts.
The dominance numerically of women in schools and universities, for example, should supply endless great left-wing women leaders. It hasn’t yet. Leaders in the European Union increasingly represent a gender parity. But it is the conservative values of women such as Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Marine Le Pen in France, Beata Szydło in Poland and Badenoch that confound left-wing identity politics.
How we educate girls might have something to do with this. Progressive educators do a lot of head-patting: “It’s great you march for Palestine!” “Your climate activism is inspirational!” “Smash the patriarchy!” “You go girl!”

It wouldn't be a Lynch mob outing without trotting out another heroine ...Angela Merkel

Sssh, don't mention the state of the Volkswagen, and more generally the German economy, or the wretched uselessness of the country in the face of Russian aggression ... all seeded by Merkel, especially via her love of Russian gas.

In much the same way, it's best to ignore the stacked deck that Harris, black and female, faced as a result of the delusions of an old man, who offered himself as an interregnum leader, and then stayed on the burning deck for far too long, poisoning the chalice for any succession (and incidentally buggered up Gaza and Ukraine in the process) ...

But the pond digresses, and should give space to a final bout of full weirdness and abject crazy from the Prof ...

Young conservative women, on the other hand, must learn how to argue against this faux-liberation orthodoxy. They learn the art of politics and how to lead in a way too many progressive women do not. Conservative women may be fewer in number than their opponents on the left. But they may be better trained.
The great progressive betrayal of progressive women is to render them less resilient. As left-wing doctrines have secured campus dominion – from DEI and decolonisation to safe spaces and preferred pronouns – the mental health of young women has collapsed. There is credible evidence that young conservatives are happier in life than their liberal peers. There is a tragic irony in that.
The centre-right Angela Merkel was schooled in how to survive the infantilisation of East German socialism; she became the most powerful woman in the world.
Harris was raised in the warm bosom of Californian progressivism; she became the weakest presidential candidate in American history – and Julia Roberts’s contracted sanctimony was no help at all.
Timothy J. Lynch is professor of American politics at the University of Melbourne.

The pond has no idea who studies under the Lynch mob, but as the pond has said before, and will keepy saying, they have the pond's deepest sympathies ...

And so to end with a regret ... there was simply no way for the pond to invent a segue to either the immortal Rowe or the infallible Pope of the day, so here they are, ungarnished but still prime ...

In which Mein Gott steals the show, but there's a Groaning for the faithful and a short offering from the Angelic one's lesser half ...

 

The big news is, of course, the parrot having his wings clipped, after having graced Sky News and many lizard Oz mastheads over the years ... and so the pond was most anxious that the lizards of Oz had preserved his legacy, his many scribbles for the rag, vital links that should never be lost, but instead preserved in aspic for all time ...

Oh dear, cleansed, wiped, disappeared into the ether or off to the corn field.

Never mind, the pond doesn't like commenting on matters before the court, but does occasionally wonder what it must be like for people who build a career on being closeted. Such a strange, arcane way to live a life, and yet a testament to the way that bigotry still flourishes, not least in News Corp ...

On then to the reptiles du jour and beyond the plucked bird sightings, it was a fairly tepid assembly ...

The pond had anticipated that Dame Groan would be in a complete rage, face contorted, drool dripping from lips at the mutton Dutton refusing to join in the foreign student cap, but she was strangely silent, and obsessed with super ... what a wise, discrete, wily old bird she is ...

The pond decided that this was the moment to visit Mein Gott, out and about yesterday, and in a splendid rage ...

It's unfortunate that Mein Gott always arrives after the pond has completed its herpetology studies for the day, but better late than never ... made especially joyous with this being Mein Gott's first appearance since the pond's recent medical episode ...

Better still, the reptiles assured the pond it was only a four minute read ...Bowen, others should be ashamed of our $650bn renewables disaster, Australia’s renewables disaster has been created because Chris Bowen and the state ministers did not start with a budget. Instead, they set out their aims with no idea of the cost. And they actually started constructing without a proper cost plan.

Even better than that, Mein Gott's piece opened with a splendid audio visual offering,  featuring the usual Sky News (Au) cross promotion and captioned ...

 Global mining giant Glencore has intervened in Australia’s energy debate, arguing the country will need to use coal for longer in order to keep prices down and remain competitive. “This is partly in response to the election of Donald Trump, but also to what it calls a global shift in the attitude towards coal and its role in the global energy transition,” Sky News Political Reporter Cameron Reddin said. “Its Chief Executive has gone on a blitz in the media here in Australia where he mounts the case for keeping coal in the system for longer, believing there is now a global shift underway that is more open to using coal as a transition fuel towards renewables, rather than something that needs to be phased out in the immediate term.”

What a tempting sight it was, essence of black gold clutched in paw ...

Clean, dinkum, virginal Oz coal. It took the pond right back to the golden era of Oz coal ...

Grand days, and now forget the disaster confronting the planet, on with the renewables disaster ...

Since Federation, Australian ministers on both sides of the parliament have made major mistakes and misleading statements. But nothing in our history matches the looming renewable energy conversion financial disaster.

We now have financial details of the project from one of Australia’s leading cost assessors, Frontier Economics.

When last July Chris Bowen announced that $122bn would be needed for his renewables program to 2050 he did not include around $100bn in essential costs including an artificial economic return boosting mechanism. But that’s turned out to be just the start.

Every reptile tale needs villains, and here they are, Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Wodonga, Victoria. Picture: Adrian Black/AAP Image

Thanks to the mighty Ted, Mein Gott is on top of the disaster, and produces a flurry of figures ...

The Bowen calculations are based on “net present value”, or NPV, which involves calculating the final cost and adjusting it back to the current dollars. But commercial infrastructure projections work on what will actually be outlaid. Frontier have now done those outlay calculations to 2050 for the governments and now the public.

Frontier calculate that the nation faces a $650bn outlay to 2050.

On my calculations, by 2050 much of that $650bn investment must be scrapped. We then start again because the renewable facilities have a limited life. It is a potential national disaster and the consequent huge power price rises created by the $650bn cost will destroy the economies of Victoria and NSW, including their social welfare programs. There are better ways to reach zero emissions, and we must find them or follow the US under Trump.

This disaster has been created because Bowen and the state ministers did not start with a budget. Instead, they set out their aims with no idea of the cost. And they actually started constructing without a proper cost plan.

It is possible that the protests by farmers and landholders attempting to stop the hated networks being constructed will delay the projects sufficiently to avoid the worst of the disaster, so enabling a better plan to be worked out.

I was alerted to the Bowen error and the $650bn looming outlay by Shadow Minister for Energy Ted O’Brien when in a public speech on Friday claimed there was a hole in the Bowen figures that was much greater than $100bn.

Because of the national importance, the nation must look at just how a $122bn project becomes $650bn and then must be substantially replaced between 2050 and 2075.

To understand how Bowen and the states got it wrong, and we ended up with a $650bn “temporary” project, I have to take you back to a series of decisions made by federal and state governments. First a decision was made that Australia should be 82 per cent renewables – wind, solar, hydro and batteries – by 2030.

Second, when the costs and returns were added up the cost of some of the renewable investments, including some transmission lines, could not be justified.

So, the state and federal governments devised a system which I would call “rigging the books”. But they would justify it by saying carbon savings had a value which must be counted in the project.

So to the problem of illustrating the rant, and this time the reptiles came up with Some solar panels installed on homes in Mt Barker, near Adelaide.

Pretty tragic, and sure to set Mein Gott off again ...

And so, a transmission network hypothetically costing $100m would be given a carbon credit, which would reduce its “cost” substantially and justify investment. Frontier calculates that some $80bn of the $650bn came from these carbon credits.

The carbon credits made uneconomic projects economic.

But of course, the bunnies – Australian consumers and industry – don’t get the credits, so must pay the full amount via electricity costs and/or taxpayer subsidies.

Then Bowen and the state ministers put forward futuristic demand projections which included substantial amounts of power required for green hydrogen and a huge up take of electric cars of around 97 per cent. Because electric electricity prices set to skyrocket to fund the $650bn outlay, Australians will not be able to afford electric cars.

And the price of electricity will drive industries wanting to use the network out of the country. Green hydrogen looks like a mirage. That means that the $650bn estimated cost will give us too much power capacity, further boosting future power prices.

It's true huge amounts of power will be required for artificial intelligence and data storage, but the big companies involved in this industry are usually not using the national networks overseas and certainly will not do it in Australia. They set up their own power generation, usually via nuclear, and if they’re not allowed to use nuclear in Australia they will simply invest in offshore storage and computer management. The large corporations do their sums (not Bowen’s) and nuclear is far cheaper.

At the next election, voters will need it to decide whether Bowen or the large corporations like Amazon have done the correct nuclear sums. O’Brien and the Coalition say nuclear is part of the solution.

Frontier do not tackle the nuclear issue but use the assumptions and requirements set out by the Australian Energy Market Operator. They do not make recommendations but have been commissioned to work out the best way to achieve the rules set by Bowen and the state ministers.

Accordingly, the AEMO set up a production grid that would be required to achieve the aims of Bowen and the state governments. Coal was phased out by 2050. Again under the rules endorsed by Bowen and the state governments gas becomes vital in providing the power that is not generated by renewables. Huge amounts of gas will be required under the plan and are costed in the Frontier sums.

That means either we either use Victoria’s immense low cost gas reserves, overcome the NSW gas mess, turn to South Australia and/or pipe the gas down from Beetaloo in Northern Territory. The Victorian government has endorsed the use of massive gas generators but find it politically impossible to drill the wells required to make sure its immense gas reserves are permeable.

Who is Mein Gott's hero and chief spicy sauce? Ask no more, it's Super Green Solutions founder Sean Cochrane. Picture: Shae Beplate

Figures, figures, figures, it's Mein Gott on figures steroids ...

Frontier’s $650bn calculation included both construction and operating costs. I do not estimate how much of the $650bn must be replaced after 2050. They do their sums on the basis of real outlays. They also provide NPV equivalents in some areas.

Frontier calculations does not factor in WA and Northern Territory.

Frontier give very detailed estimates of all the various contributors to the costs and among the big figures are onshore wind $202bn; Offshore wind $54bn; solar $39bn – pumped hydro $14bn; utilities storage $31bn. In all – the capital costs are $350bn. The remainder of the $650bn are led by operating costs and carbon credit rigging.

Now the real figures are out, they can’t be concealed by using NPV figures.

As for the costs facing the planet because of climate change, the pond regrets that punters must look elsewhere. There's plenty out there ...

Perhaps The Conversation, perhaps UN News, perhaps the World Economic Forum ... whatever, just don't trouble Mein Gott and rest of the reptile hive mind with trivia of that kind...

There's another plus to Mein Gott. 

It means that for one day at least the pond can avoid the doings in the United States in the newly formed court of King Donald I, though there are many temptations (paywall)... what with Uncle Leon always on hand to stir up trouble with the attendant lords, there to swell a progress or start a scene or two...

Sheesh, forget the back biting, note how that Beastly photo montage is worthy of the lizard Oz ...

And the pond doesn't have to pay attention to the epic failures of the Biden administration when it comes to Ukraine and Gaza. The immortal Rowe can do all that hard work instead ...

And now before turning to Dame Groan, the pond thought it might toss in an offering from the bouffant one. 

Shanners, the lesser partner of the Angelic one, rarely features in the pond, but this is, so the reptiles say, just a two minute read, and it addresses the nuking of the country to save the planet: Nuclear debate may wedge ALP between rock and hard place, Labor has confirmed two clear lines it will pursue through to next year’s election: Peter Dutton personally and the cost of the Coalition’s proposed nuclear energy policy.

There was one of those half-baked snaps to start ... Labor are ready to go to war with Peter Dutton over his nuclear costings.

It's so bad, such an appalling monstrosity, it can only be AI at work. 

Is it? Is this AI at work in the lizard Oz? If so, there's an abundance of the artificial, and bugger all signs of intelligence. 

There's no credit, perhaps because who would want a credit?

On the other hand, it perfectly encapsulates what the bouffant one has to offer by way of argument and insight, a slackly cobbled together effort, feebly attempting a little FUD and alarmism...

At the beginning of the final parliamentary sittings for 2024, Labor has confirmed two clear lines it will pursue through to next year’s election: Peter Dutton personally and the cost of the Coalition’s proposed nuclear energy policy.

Where possible and at every opportunity, Labor’s leaders are seeking to combine a common theme of “risk” for both attacks, and there is no sense that Richard Marles, Jim Chalmers or Tanya Plibersek – in Anthony Albanese’s absence – feel that the “risk” can be overstated.

Having thought for too long the Liberal leader was unelectable, the ALP has woken up to evidence in polling that he is closing in on the Prime Minister and the Coalition is overtaking the government.

The Treasurer started the first sitting day of the last session squeezing in claims at every chance that Dutton was “risky, reckless and arrogant” – in one interview mentioning “reckless arrogance” four times in just two sentences.

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil went one further in parliament, declaring Dutton’s “nasty negativity and reckless arrogance” would be a threat if he “becomes leader of our country”.

Marles, as Acting PM, attacked both Dutton and the Coalition’s nuclear policy as risky, repeatedly declaring nuclear energy was “the single most expensive form of electricity which exists in the world today”.

“Which is why the biggest risk to the household budgets of every Australian is the prospect of a future Dutton government,” he said.

The Environment Minister blamed the previous Coalition for the need to prolong coal-fired power stations for 20 years and attacked the opposition for “the fantasy of nuclear energy”.

Expect to hear much more of the same from Labor over the next two weeks and into next year – yet these arguments are not without risk.

For a start, the obsession with Dutton personally and the use of the term “Dutton government” and “if he becomes prime minister” elevates the Opposition Leader to the same level as Albanese and concedes a danger they now see of a possible election loss. They may be denigrating Dutton but they are telling the public they fear his leadership and think he can win.

The grounds for attack on the nuclear energy policy also concede ground and limit the arguments against nuclear to cost. Marles, Chalmers and Plibersek all focus on a claim of a $600bn cost for nuclear that is clearly open to dispute, as is Labor’s renewable energy cost.

The limits on the attack on nuclear – which was deemed to be a great Coalition weakness – are created by Labor’s support for a nuclear-powered submarine fleet housed in Western Australia that can’t be described as “dangerous” and clear evidence that Dutton’s “carbon emissions-free nuclear” has strong support among younger voters because it doesn’t add to greenhouse gas emissions.

Labor can’t say nuclear is dangerous because it wants nuclear submarines in Australian waters, nor can it say nuclear contributes to climate change. Cost is the only argument – and that’s at least debatable.

Impeccable logic. Nuclear subs are exactly the same as an SMR or an old fashioned nuke plant. Just think of a nuclear sub afloat in an earthquake site in the Hunter Valley and you can see how it works. Who could argue with that?

Before turning to Dame Groan, the pond would like to celebrate this blog's dedication to poetry, thanks in particular to one contributor. 

While turfing out old correspondence the other day, the pond came across this singular offering from distant days of yore, and hopes it will provide ongoing inspiration ...

Perhaps not as good as the pond's poetry corner, but still, scribble on valiant poet, all is not lost in the era of the Mango Mussolini ...

And so eventually to Dame Groan, and where's the harm? 

The reptiles assure the pond it's only a four minute read, and it's a chance to let off a mighty groan, even if the pond has absolutely no interest in the topic. 

The pond hopes that some of the pond's correspondents will take a view, but if they respond with sullen silence, that's not the pond's problem.

How will we solve the industry super funds problem?

There is no chance that a Labor government will ever deal with the fundamental problems confronting the super industry.

Rich despair in the usual way, but the thing that consternated the pond was the dismal illustration, with repetitive caption There is no chance that a Labor government will ever deal with the fundamental problems confronting the superannuation industry, writes Judith Sloan.

A nest egg? Really? 

Who comes up with this iStock kind of crap? Is this yet another example of AI at work in the reptile hive (see above)? 

Suggest money and an egg to the machine, and you come up with this kind of runny scramble? Oh tragic remnants of a long lost lizard Oz graphics department ...

On the upside there were no more visual interruptions to the epic Groaning ...

It’s a topic the Albanese government has assiduously avoided: the role and regulation of industry super funds. Apart from singing the praises of these funds while concocting various means of further protecting them, the silence has been deafening notwithstanding a range of obvious problems, both for the members and in public policy terms.

The most recent manifestation has been the failure of Cbus, the very large industry fund covering the construction industry, to efficiently and sympathetically deal with members entitled to death or disability benefits. Its chair is Wayne Swan, former Labor treasurer and now party president.

The numbers affected by the recent cases of mistreatment are substantial. It is estimated some 10,000 members were forced to wait, often for inordinate periods, for claims to be settled. The fund, in turn, blames the third party contracted to administer claims.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission wasn’t buying this buck-passing, and Cbus may be fined up to $50m for its failure to appropriately serve its members. Initially, the CEO of Cbus, Kristian Fok, was too busy to appear before a Senate committee dealing with retirement incomes. But he eventually found the time and offered up an apology of sorts.

There are still several unanswered questions arising from this incident. Who pays the fine? Is it the members of the fund who will have to stump up? Should it be the owners of the fund – the construction unions and the employer associations? What about the trustees themselves?

This episode raises a range of more fundamental issues that have not been adequately dealt with for many years, by both Coalition and Labor governments. The one exception is Senator Andrew Bragg, who has been highlighting the concerns for some time. The problems with the system are legion.

Superannuation funds are not regulated as corporations but by a separate Act. There are two regulators that deal with superannuation: the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and ASIC. This divided regulation is not ideal.

The equal representation model of governance that applies to industry super funds is highly celebrated by union and employer association officials who benefit from the arrangement. But the reality is that having underqualified trustees – and that is being kind – of a fund with many billions of dollars under management is a problem. The fact that trustees are simply appointed rather than elected by the members is another.

Some funds compensate for this deficiency by co-opting external experts on to their investment committees. This begs the question of what the trustees do.

The recent addition of so-called “independent” trustees – something that has been advocated for years – makes a mockery of the adjective. The appointed independent trustees almost invariably have close links to the Labor Party. Increasingly, industry super funds look like retirement homes for retired Labor politicians.

The industry funds are effectively owned by the sponsoring unions and employer associations, but they have never contributed any capital. This is in contrast with the retail funds that bring capital with them. It is one reason the payment of fines is such a vexed issue.

Take the case of the trustees of an industry super fund overseeing misconduct who then do nothing. A court imposes a fine, but it is the members themselves who must pay the fine even though they have had no say in electing the trustees and have no scope to boot out trustees who are not up to the job. It is complete vacuum of accountability.

The funds have tried to get around this knotty issue by arbitrarily imposing an administration fee on members taken out before the member contributions are added to their accounts. This administration account is then seen by the trustees as essentially free money, to be used for sponsorships, marketing, donations to worthy causes – anything, really.

One example was the “investment” by AustralianSuper – the largest industry fund – and several others to establish a new online newspaper, The New Daily. Given that trustees are governed by the sole purpose test contained in the legislation – to maximise the retirement incomes of members – it was close to inconceivable how this expenditure could be justified.

However, we were told there was nothing to see, that the money was taken from the administration accounts of the funds. As it turned out, the “investment” was a complete dud, and the funds sold out as soon as possible to another entity within the superannuation landscape.

The pond thinks that Dame Groan has been given the chance of a long, uninterrupted Groaning, but must interrupt to report a strange affair. 

The pond's partner insisted that the pond watch the highlights of several European soccer matches, not for the the sport, about which the pond is clueless, but as a way of observing the composition of the teams. 

Even to the pond's untrained eye, there seemed to be a considerable number of players who varied from ancient Nordic or European stereotypes. Apparently many have remarked on the phenomenon.

The pond's partner followed up by reminding the pond that over 45% of NRL and 48%of NRLW players were of Pacific Islander background.

And then came news of this hammer blow this very day in the lizard Oz ...

Say what? He fellow travelled with the greenies and the country will stay swamped with furriners ruining tertiary education?

Where's Dame Groan when she's badly needed? 

Off Groaning about super, which probably deserves a Groan, but not when the Groaner's remarkable campaign about foreign students is under direct, dire threat. 

Did the old biddy take her eye off the ball? Will the Groaner ever get around to ravaging the mutton Dutton? 

The pond isn't holding its breath, as it finishes off this day's Groaning ...

As far as this type of spending is concerned, however, APRA has been asleep at the wheel for many years. In fact, it is close to impossible to find out about sponsorship deals and their justification, for instance. The payments made to sponsoring unions and employer associations are also well concealed.

The Labor government has attempted to maintain this lack of transparency as well as give the industry funds a free pass when it comes to remuneration disclosures. It is ironic that industry super funds try to hold listed companies in which they invest to higher standards of governance than they themselves uphold. There are very uneven gender balances in many industry funds as well as some trustees with inordinately lengthy tenure.

It is impossible to escape the impression that the trustees behave as if the money belongs to the funds rather than the members. It’s one reason the funds make it difficult to withdraw money, as well as their relative lack of interest in dealing with retired members.

The sheer size of the superannuation industry – now almost $4 trillion under management – raises complex issues. There is a widespread craven dependence of listed companies on superannuation funds as their major investors. Relatively inexperienced staff members of superannuation funds, ESG checklist on hand, are regularly calling the shots for companies.

In fact, the size of the superannuation industry raises issues about financial stability as one bloc controls such a large swathe of capital. The fact the funds are not regulated like corporations is another concern.

There is no chance that a Labor government will ever deal with the fundamental problems confronting the superannuation industry. The industry super funds were always a solution to the existential problems confronting the trade union movement. As the number of union members dwindles, both absolutely and relative to the size of the workforce, the influence of the industry super funds expands. Labor is never going to upset this apple cart.

Sadly, the Coalition has shown very little spine either. When confronted by the dilemma of raising the superannuation guarantee rate from 9 to 12 per cent, the Coalition government folded, afraid the funds would launch a hostile political campaign.

The reality is that 9 per cent is high enough, particularly if early withdrawals for home purchases are precluded. And much more attention needs to be given as to how superannuation is taxed – we have a terrible arrangement, particularly the taxing of contributions – as well as the development of sustainable retirement incomes products. I just wouldn’t hold your breath.

And so to finish up with the infallible Pope of the day, still in the grip of the rapture.

The pond understands many men are infatuated with the great snatch, especially when, Matt Gaetz style, teenage girls are featured...