In which petulant Peta's odious presence means the pond can only offer bits and pieces, odds and lizard Oz ends, bits and reptile bobs ...

Okay, it's Thursday, which means the lizard Oz is always ruined by the odious presence of petulant Peta.

Please allow the pond to continue to expand is reputation as a home for Murdochian lore by referencing The New Yorker ...

How the Murdoch Family Built an Empire—and Remade the News
Today, the name represents a story of profit and power unlike any other. But tracing the genealogy of Murdoch sleaze requires a long memory. (*archive link)
By Andrew O'Hagan

It's an oft-told story of depravity, and sad to say, the tabloid junk down under and the lizard Oz and that pale domestic imitation of Faux Noise aren't even mentioned, so only a few teaser trailers are required to titillate interest ...

...James was the “liberal” one, “the moral conscience of the family,” according to Sherman, or, as Wolff writes, the son who planned “to grow the Fox News brand beyond the U.S. cable market and to move it away from partisan political news.” Lachlan, the older brother and the current heir apparent, embodies a different type entirely. Like his former friend Tucker Carlson, he can be all steak and doughnuts one minute and all fiery Hell the next. After Roger Ailes was removed from Fox News, in 2016, over sexual-harassment allegations, Lachlan cut the brake lines of what was already a speeding train of misinformation, pushing American journalism further into alternative reality than even his father and his lieutenants had dared. However trashy they may have been, the British tabloids were occasionally funny, but Lachlan’s operation became something darker—a purveyor of apocalyptic doom-mongering, the sort that courses through Donald Trump’s mind, where America is a place of perpetual rape, murder, conspiracy, and terror. Lachlan, coming from a blushless world of billionaire-speak, never pretended interest in the rolled-up-sleeves world of journalism. Having outfought his siblings and aligned his father with his own vision, Lachlan now takes for granted his father’s core business insight: that great fortunes can be made from audiences who prefer their reality falsified.

And again (spoiler alert, it's the closer), after noting just how much Succession got right:

...In life as in art, it was a battle for control in which nobody truly won, because nobody ended up owning what Rupert Murdoch had spent seven decades building. The family imploded, and there’s something almost novelistic in the trajectory—from cramped newspaper offices in Adelaide and Fleet Street to Lachlan Murdoch as the custodian of a journalistic enterprise’s fetid remains. Several generations have brought it to a state of sordid dereliction.
Let’s not forget, though, that Lachlan’s Princeton dissertation was “A Study of Freedom and Morality in Kant’s Practical Philosophy.” Granted, the categorical imperative—the great Prussian philosopher’s blueprint for moral action—isn’t likely to illuminate Fox News’s festering relationship with Donald Trump, or the enterprise of turning civic life into an ongoing platform for outrage. But maybe it’s fitting that the language of freedom and morality should buckle before the family’s talent for making reality pliable. To read about the Murdochs is to gain a lesson about punitive ambition, about men who expect the world to yield to their hand-me-down egos. Lachlan has been a good son, in a way, returning to his father’s side before the old man departs, but a look at his journalism proves that he has respected only the worst parts of the family legacy. In the arc from the Gallipoli Letter to Fox News’s prime-time carnival of grievance, the Murdochs’ bleak achievement is having shown how easily morality, like truth, becomes something to be invoked when useful, ignored when inconvenient, bent when resisted, and discarded the moment it no longer pays.

And speaking of having reality falsified, please permit the pond to give petulant Peta the former prince Andy's Royal order of the boot ...

Commentary by Peta Credlin

Too left, too right? Problem is, Libs stand for nothing

The Liberal Party’s crisis is deeper than leadership: without a clear purpose or contrast with Labor, it risks being hollowed out as voters drift not to the centre, but to One Nation.

If standing for knighthoods and complete incompetence is a guide, best not have a guide.

Talk about a  headline nightmare on Oz street ...

Why do the reptiles keep on leading with a man who managed, somewhat carelessly, not only to lose government, but his seat?

Why is he seen as the magic go to man? For those silly enough to care ...

EXCLUSIVE

Reunite now: Howard urges Ley to bring Coalition parties back together

John Howard has made an 11th-hour intervention to prevent an all-but-inevitable Coalition split, telling Sussan Ley she must prioritise reunification and offer concessions if necessary.

By Sarah Ison and Dennis Shanahan

The lettuce had left the game, but there was sudden hope for the daughter of lettuce who had accepted the baton, and was desperately upholding the proud tradition of battling lettuces...

Former Liberal prime minister John Howard has told Sussan Ley she must prioritise the reunification of the Coalition and make “concessions” to Nationals leader David Littleproud if necessary, in an 11th-hour intervention on an all-but-inevitable split between the two conservative parties.

It's always the woman who has to accept the domestic violence?

Jack the Insider tried marriage counselling...

Date night failed. Hop on Jack’s Coalition couples therapy couch

When you’re losing votes to a woman who grills a steak on a sandwich maker, it’s clear the Coalition rupture is beyond trust exercises. Jack the Insider stands ready for the intervention.

By Jack the Insider

Columnist

The only notable feature in his attempt at whimsy - down at the usual insider level - was the opening snap...a desperate and pathetic uncredited collage featuring the odd couple ...

If the pond wanted a whimsical comment on what ails politics, it would turn to Wilcox ...

The point is, it's all become so unseemly and pathetic that the reptiles are at a complete loss, and the pond has become terminally bored, and so dangerously low on content.

As a result, the pond had to pretend to take an interest in the bouffant one over on the extreme right making a break from Sarah and musing on their EXCLUSIVE ...

Here again the pond could have stopped at the opening snap and the pastie Hastie ...

Instead, possessing a little ticker absent in the weird creationist spawn, the pond plunged in ...

The header: Like a Tzu in here: MPs try Art of War before sun sets on farce; Parliamentary question time has descended into political theatre as opposition MPs brandish copies of The Art of War and Othello amid the Coalition’s dramatic split.

The caption for the weird creationist spawn warrior who lacked the ticker: Liberal MP Andrew Hastie with a copy of the Art of War in question time on Wednesday. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The poor old bouffant one could only manage a three minute read, with absolutely no distracting illustrations:

Anthony Albanese sensibly pulled back from the full frontal humorous humiliation of the dysfunctional Liberals and Nationals in the second parliamentary sitting question time this week but couldn’t resist a stinging finale ­directed at the political games being played before his eyes.

With the awkward backbench seating for Nationals leader David Littleproud and his colleagues putting the reality of a Coalition split on full display – and amid continuing rumblings about the Liberal leadership of Sussan Ley – the Prime Minister grabbed the chance to take another swipe at the opposition.

The Prime Minister – aware that Tuesday’s comic antics and guffaws from government ministers and MPs skewering the fractured Coalition on the day an interest rate rise was ­announced projected the image of an uncaring and frivolous team not focused on cost-of-living plan – played down the satirical basting on Wednesday.

After seeing a report on The Australian’s PoliticsNow blog that withdrawn Liberal leadership contender Andrew Hastie had conspicuously put a copy of Sun Tzu’s ancient military strategy text The Art of War on his desk Albanese couldn’t resist. He got Labor’s leader of the House, Tony Burke, to deliver a coup de grace.

What’s more, Hastie’s parliamentary neighbour, LNP MP Garth Hamilton, had a worn copy of Shakespeare’s Othello, which contains a portrayal of the bard’s most manipulative and duplicitous character, Iago.

Sheesh, they really are a childish bunch ...

Burke detailed the defections from the Nationals and the departures from the Coalition, as well as shadow ministry insurrections, and played to Hastie’s helpful hint. That prompted his opposition counterpart, Alex Hawke, to move a gag motion that forced a division, which radically demonstrated the thinned ranks of the Liberals and Nationals.

Leaving his desk during the division, Hastie took with him The Art of War, which offers timeless advice on power, patience and the value of choosing the right time to act, or not act at all.

Barnaby Joyce milked the division as some MPs joked about the One Nation MP being “united” with his erstwhile Nationals’ colleagues during the vote.

Across the aisle Nationals MP Llew O’Brien, who has threatened to quit the party if the contentious guns and antisemitic laws are not repealed, had his own piece of performative theatre when he went and sat next to Joyce, his old Nationals leader and now its most famous defector, for a cosy chat. O’Brien went further afield to gladhand another Nationals defector, independent Andrew Gee in front of the cameras and parliamentary audience.

At the same time, in the Senate, the Liberals were moving to boot Nationals senators off parliamentary committees.

The Nationals’ leader in the Senate, Bridget McKenzie, vowed they would seek to hold on to all their committee spots regardless of the Coalition split.

“Our communities need and deserve on parliamentary committees. We pull our weight. Often, we pull more than our weight on those committees and do the heavy lifting, and we look forward to continuing to participate on the behalf of the people we represent,” McKenzie said.

During all these antics and ­pettifogging, the fate of the Coalition hinged on a letter Littleproud had sent to Ley setting out conditions for a reunification.

You mean?

After all of this Liberal Party elder, former prime minister and successful Coalition leader John Howard had some stern words for both parties and clear advice to Ley.

“My view is that both sides have to stop the pit picking over minutiae and concentrate on reforming the Coalition which is the political imperative that transcends all else,” Howard said.

“There’s no point in debating what has happened in the last two weeks and the priority must be the reforming of the Coalition.

“The Nationals are entitled to some concessions and a proper process involving decisions by the shadow cabinet and joint party room must be followed.”

Enough of the antics, minutiae and performative theatre.

Why was this deeply pathetic? 

Trained parrot as he was, that he is, all the bouffant one could do was provide an echo of little Johnny:

...the nation’s second longest-serving prime minister and Coalition leader said it was clear both sides needed to “stop the nit-picking over minutiae” and put aside the differences that arose over the past two weeks.

“Both sides have to … concentrate on reforming the Coalition which is the political imperative that transcends all else,” Mr Howard told The Australian.

“There’s no point in debating what has happened in the last two weeks and the priority must be the reforming of the Coalition.

“Conservative politics work best when there is a functioning Coalition which overall has the same views on economic policy.”

Do the reptiles think this incessant fluff gathering and navel gazing might be helping, not to mention this oft repeated, inane visual reminder of the state of things ...

Why not some real comedy gold?

Meanwhile, the reptiles had another EXCLUSIVE ...

EXCLUSIVE

Daughter of senior royal commission lawyer led pro-Palestine activism

Top barrister for antisemitism inquiry has daughter who led pro-Palestine campus protests

The daughter of the senior counsel appointed to the Antisemitism Royal Commission led pro-Palestine protests and condemned Israel’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ at the University of Sydney.

By James Dowling

Deeply pathetic and offensive, even by Australian Daily Zionist News standards, and as it's clear that the reptiles are in favour of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the pond will walk on by ... with yet another reminder of the ethnic cleansing going down, via this note from Haaretz ...

What else? In the absence of the bromancer, it was left to Jennings of the fifth form and sundry other reptiles to get their knickers in a reef knot and blather on about defence ...

For sale: one flawed defence strategy

Defence Minister Richard Marles wants to sell 68 military properties for $3bn, but it is no substitute for lifting the budget and weakens Australia’s defence capabilities.

By Peter Jennings

Contributor

The opening snap seemed to undercut his thesis, though perhaps those guns might come in handy if a few drones appeared over Melbourne ...

Oh yes, those guns will make short work of any hovering drones, though for some reason the pond was reminded of visiting Queenscliff over the Xmas break ...

Taught those bloody Ruskis a lesson - perhaps we could offer the guns to Ukraine, currently in dire straits at 25° below, no thanks to sociopathic terrorist Vlad - but sadly that was all the pond could take of Jennings of the fifth form. Off to the intermittent archive with him.

The pond couldn't take any of Jenny's contribution ...

Defence audit has three crucial faults

The Defence Estate Audit promises reform, but by cutting bases before resolving mobilisation, reserves and service roles, it risks locking strategic weakness into Australia’s defence posture.

By Jennifer Parker

She just had a vintage chopper for her opening snap ...and it was left to Ian to remind the pond of another colonial artefact that would surely have Xi shaking in his boots ...

Army ‘reform’ is a shameful retreat, a moral failure

The proposed sale of Sydney’s Victoria Barracks is not reform but retreat, risking the erasure of a living military landmark that anchors the army’s history, culture and public presence.

By Ian Langford

The image at the top of his piece no doubt terrified Chairman Xi, because it showed Australia at the top of its colonial game ...

We're supposed to be devising an armed force acting with mobility and guerrilla tactics designed to make the country secure, taking our lessons from mighty Ukraine, and making any attempt to invade too costly to contemplate?

And instead we hunger for colonial museum pieces and ancient weapons, and imagine somehow spending big on AUKUS subs delivered on a never never plan will do it for us? Good luck with all that ...

And so to the final item up for discussion, though the pond will have to pass over the rumbles fromRumbelow of The Times...

Inside the Epstein files: A dark network of male power

Reading the files is like taking the back off the world clock. We see behind the grand facade usually presented by men who run the planet, in government, academia, royalty and business, from presidents to Andrew the former prince.

By Helen Rumbelow

As usual, King Donald manages to escape with just one major reference, and then without mention of Epstein being his best buddy for a decade or more ...

In 2005 Access Hollywood recorded a conversation with Donald Trump saying, “When you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.” It was met with public condemnation, not only in Trump’s reduction of women to a seizeable part, but in his impunity. That condemnation did not reach the private messages of the network of men the files show were centred on Epstein.

Andres Serrano emailed Epstein three days after the Access Hollywood tape was released in October 2016, saying, “I was prepared to vote against Trump for all the right reasons.” Serrano is a New York artist whose photographs include those of women bound by the wrists and splattered in blood. “But so disgusted by the outrage over ‘grab them by the pussy’,” Serrano continued, “that I may give him my sympathy vote.” Epstein responds minutes later: “No good choice, how are u.”

Um, that condemnation didn't reach King Donald, nor did it reach American voters - twice! - while Chairman Rupert fondled his balls in a John Oliver way.

The pond will stick to Michael Wolff, who keeps insisting there's a lot of King Donald below the Epstein water ...

The lizard Oz editorialist managed the same feat in a lengthy rant that did as much to obscure as to reveal ...

See that?

King Donald mentioned just twice, with just a polite suggestion that he needs to do better.

Really? Shouldn't he be best, and reveal the dirt on service-evading Melania?

Never mind, it's been an itty bitty day, and the pond apologises for its itty bitty coverage, but that's what often happens when petulant Peta hovers into view...

Perhaps there should be a time out on proceedings.

The pond recently watched both parts of Wicked, and while conceding that the second part is weaker than the first, still enjoyed the romp enormously. Get lost dullard movie ponces.

It perhaps would have been better with some trims as a single four hour or so presentation, but the second part did have a nice musical outing, sung by Zeus, with impeccable, almost prescient lyrics ...

[Wizard of Oz, aka Zeus, in a throaty style worthy of King Donald, with backing by Chairman Rupert]

Take it from a wise old carny

Once folks buy into your blarney

It becomes the thing they'll most hold onto

Once they've swallowed sham and hokum

Facts and logic won't unchoke 'em

They'll go on believing what they want to

Show them exactly what's the score

They'll just believe it even more

"Wonderful"

They called me "Wonderful"

So I said, "Wonderful"

If you insist

"Wonderful"

I will be wonderful

[Galinda aka Glinda, with the Wizard]

Believe me, it's hard to rеsist

'Cause it feels wonderful

[Glinda]

They think hе's wonderful

[Wizard]

Hey, look who's wonderful

This foreclose on black renters-fed hick

Who said, "It might be keen

To build a Trumpy arts centre fully mean

And a wonderful arch 250 foot tall of gold brick"

[WIzard, spoken]

You know, we could be like a—, like a family, all on the make

You know, I never really had a family, not one totally on the take

[Elphaba, spoken]

Lucky you

[Wizard, spoken]

That's why I've wanted to give the citizens of Trumpyland everything

[Eliphaba, spoken]

So you lied to them?

[Wizard]

The truth is not a thing of fact or reason

The truth is just what everyone agrees on

You know, alternative facts supplied in season ...

[Wizard, spoken]

You see, back where I come from, we got a whole lot of people who believe all sorts of things that aren't true

You know what we call it?

[singing]

A man's called a traitor or liberator

A rich man's a thief or philanthropist

Is one an invader or noble crusader?

It's all in which label is able to persist

There are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities

So we act as though they don't exist .

Imagine the pond's shock then that Luckovich should keep on defaming witches when everyone knows that it's wizards and knavish kings that are the problem ... and more than a bucket of water is needed ...

No, no, Mr Luckovich, give Eliphaba a break ... and keep those comments and ditties flowing...

No way anyone can make a ditty out of "Ned's" pompous natter, and Dame Groan's needy whining ...

After a brief fawning over SloMo, the reptiles decided to throw the clap happy liar from the Shire under the bus ...

The intermittent archive is more intermittent than usual this day, but what the hell ...

EXCLUSIVE
Morrison’s men threw me under Brittany bus: Brown
In explosive Federal Court documents, former Liberal staffer Fiona Brown has accused Scott Morrison and his senior advisers of silencing her and destroying her career during the Brittany Higgins scandal.

Stop right there ...

Even worse, the authors?

Fiona Brown’s explosive lawsuit exposes betrayal by Scott Morrison’s office
Janet Albrechtsen and Stephen Rice

Stop right there.

For months now, the pond has considered anything soiled by Dame Slap as unreadable, and only reproducible at the risk of promoting brain damage as a lifestyle choice... 

This outing took a bigly thirteen minutes to plough through, or so the reptiles said, and the pond couldn't take it.

The pond is so far beyond matters relating to the Lehrmann scandal, as channeled by Dame Slap, that it took a considerable effort just to note this latest reptile venture.

The pond's ill-feeling towards Dame Slap was enhanced by her column this day ...

Europe’s decade of migration disorder a reminder Howard was ahead of the times
As John Howard’s prime ministership turns 30, Europe’s migration reckoning shows why his tough but fair border controls worked — and why elites ignore public concern at their peril.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

Could the pond summon the strength to indulge Dame Slap in lying rodent worship, with the bonus of bashing furriners?

Nah, that's way too much Slappingaround the head.

There's only so much bigotry the pond can stand ...

The challenges of migration – along with its costs and benefits – need to be tackled openly and honestly. When there is a vacuum at the top on issues that directly affect our lives, voters will look elsewhere for someone who speaks in plain English.

Actually the pond has always found French and Italian to be mellifluous languages, though perhaps an honest "bullsh*t" sounds more exotic in other tongues (*google bot aware). 

C'est des conneries just doesn't have the right ring to it, even when the besotted Dame proposes to be open and honest, while la porcheria sounds like an insult to a loved animal. 

Perhaps Sono tutte stronzate!" or "È una cazzata!"?

Whatever, the pond feels pleased that there have been other contributors to Australia than some Danish or Germanic blonde princess.

Luckily, after an extended absence (or so it seems) nattering "Ned" has returned to grind pond correspondents into the ground ...

With "Ned" clocking in at a mighty ten minutes, massive tedium and ennui was guaranteed. Here no ditties, no ditties here, and no hope either ...

The header: One Nation surge won’t save the right; it only helps Labor; Pauline Hanson’s surge is fracturing the centre-right — but it isn’t hurting Labor. History and polling show One Nation weakens the Coalition and entrenches Albanese.

The caption for the snap helping "Ned" promote attention to fake red hair:  Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is surging in the polls, but its rise is weakening the centre-right rather than threatening Labor. Picture: Dean Martin

"Ned" erupting about Pauline? 

Begin the great nodding off now ..

The eruption of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation to seize the polling lead from the former Coalition partners testifies to the fracturing of centre-right politics – yet the electoral meaning and policy consequences seem mired in abject confusion or outright denial.
There is no secret about the consequences. They have been on repeated display going back 30 years to the 1998 election, when One Nation polled 8.4 per cent of the primary vote and briefly threatened John Howard’s re-election at the famous GST election.
After the election Liberal federal director Lynton Crosby calculated that 67 per cent of One Nation voters came from the Coalition but only 53 per cent preferenced the Coalition in return – so One Nation operated as a net voting transfer from Coalition to Labor. A relieved Crosby post-election said Labor tacticians had seen One Nation as the potential “vehicle to The Lodge” for Labor leader Kim Beazley. Nothing has changed fundamentally in nearly 30 years.
Yet the setting is different. Our politics is far more fractured today than in 1998, disillusionment with the established political system is greater, and hostility towards the so-called parties of government is far more potent. Most analysts would probably think One Nation will poll higher than 8.4 per cent at the next federal election compared with its 1998 vote.
During the 1998 campaign, the prime minister was campaigning outside Gladesville Public School in his electorate when a One Nation worker said to him: “I hope you win.” An exasperated Howard pointed to the preference recommendation against him in his own seat and asked: “Well, what are you doing this for?” The One Nation worker said he had to follow the preference allocation against sitting MPs. Howard shot back: “How can you do this and say you want me to get back?” He felt there was a collective madness at work.
The collective madness is still at work, only on a much greater scale.

Hang on, hang on, isn't it just the collective madness cultivated by the reptiles in the hive mind?

Carry on ...

It is on display every day scattered across the right-wing media and social media in this country. The right-wing shock jocks and their legions on social media loathe the Albanese government while praising and promoting Pauline Hanson; the assumption being that “shaking up our politics” as exemplified by Hanson’s surge is the best way to threaten or destroy the dominance of Anthony Albanese.
The argument is fallacious. Backing in the Hanson vote has two sure impacts – it weakens the centre-right of politics and it helps to consolidate Albanese. Have you watched Albanese’s response? He can hardly believe his good fortune. The right-wing support for Hanson isn’t hurting Albanese, it’s helping him. It’s a rare event when your enemies are helping you, but Labor today benefits from that rare event.
If you want to grasp the madness engulfing the centre-right in this country, here is a good place to start. One Nation is a catalyst for centre-right disruption, which cynics would brand as panic. It contributes to the devastating loss of confidence within the right, it exposes the weaknesses of Sussan Ley and, in particular, David Littleproud as leaders, it was the sinister chorus to the busting of the Coalition, and it accentuates the political civil war within the right wing over policy and belief.

What's profoundly disturbing isn't "Ned's"usual level of hysteria so much as the parsimonious way the reptiles only managed to interrupt with just three snaps, starting with this anodyne one, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, whose Labor government continues to benefit from preference flows as One Nation rises. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Perhaps the reptiles thought that the smirk would set "Ned" off, but does he really need that sort of prop? 

Surely his desire to parade his preening pompous portentousness is a enough of a motiviation ...

Its real impact is revealed in the recent Newspolls and the Financial Review Redbridge/Accent Research poll that show despite the doubling and then tripling of One Nation’s primary vote, Labor’s overall lead on the two-party-preferred vote – the vote that counts – has either increased or been maintained from its huge May 2025 election victory.
The message is clear: Hanson’s revolution is primarily a vote transfer within centre-right politics against the Liberal and National parties and not a vote transfer from Labor to the centre-right. It is a crisis for the right, not a crisis for Labor.
Consider Newspoll over September to November last year when Hanson’s vote rose to the 11-15 per cent zone. At the same time Labor’s two-party-preferred lead surged to a massive 57-58 per cent to 43-42 per cent for the Coalition.
In the January poll, influenced by the Bondi massacre that saw Labor’s primary vote fall to 32 per cent while One Nation rose to 22 per cent (just ahead of the Coalition), Labor’s two-party-preferred lead was still the same as the May 2025 election. As the Bondi factor fades and Labor’s primary support rises again, the Albanese government’s two-party-preferred vote will lift again – and remember, such increases come on top of Labor’s greatest-ever result in 2025.
Consider the Financial Review poll this week that had One Nation’s vote at a mammoth 26 per cent compared with a dismal Coalition outcome at 19 per cent – yet Labor’s two-party-preferred lead was an immense 56-44 per cent, a better result than Labor secured at its 2025 victory. This was despite Hanson having the best favourability rating of any political leader – her net favourability was minus three, with Albanese at minus 10 and Ley at minus 32. The lesson: the higher Hanson goes, the more the Coalition falls and the stronger Albanese gets via the preference system.
Optimists arguing that the combined Liberal, National and One Nation primary vote shows the centre-right is threatening Labor are running a phony proposition. As explained by analyst Antony Green on his blog, it’s all about preferences. Labor enjoys Green preferences running at around 85 per cent or higher, and that’s entrenched over time. One Nation preferences to the Coalition parties don’t remotely match this. Historically, they have been in the 50s but at the 2025 election they reached 74.5 per cent, not enough to prevent a Coalition election wipe-out.
Green highlights the related problem – One Nation preferences to the Coalition parties are higher in Liberal and National seats, not in Labor seats they need to win. Here’s the arithmetic fact: the only way the rise of One Nation can become a centre-right plus is to achieve a much higher preference flow between the Hanson party and the former Coalition parties – and there is no sign of this happening.
Unfortunately, there is precious little satire about our politics today. Pity. One Nation invites satire as being a retirement centre for political has-beens and failures. It is the home for Hanson’s last grasp, for Barnaby Joyce in his desperate self-interested quest to stay relevant, and for the long forgotten Cory Bernardi, surely giddy from his repeated changes of allegiance.

Hang on, hang on, didn't the oscillating fan once welcome Barners back in the lizard Oz in Barnaby Joyce's detractors are blinded by their disdain for the man?

Wasn't Tamworth's ineradicable shame once celebrated by the bromancer?

(so loved Aboriginal folk made a pdf of it)

How the glory days have gone ...

Let’s confront the brutal truths. One Nation is not strong enough to have any role in executive government but it is strong enough to deny executive government to the former Coalition parties. It remains a grievance lobby and its recent success is driven by the rise of multiple grievances, notably anger about the divisions and ineptitude within the Liberal and National parties. It has no viable policies for office, but thrives on branding and slogans, thereby exploiting the demise of our national policy conversation while it seeks to leverage the alarming gulf between regional and urban Australia.
The prospect of a transformed centre-right with three parties – Liberal, One Nation and National – contains grave dangers for the country. It means One Nation looms larger on the centre-right in power, media and symbolic terms. It will compromise and contaminate the centre-right. While conservatives will declare centre-right voters are becoming more conservative, much of urban Australia will look at a Hanson-influenced centre-right and say “no thanks”.

Let's confront the brutal truth. 

The pond is only in this because it put a motza on the lettuce, and now we're into February and the lettuce is badly wilting, and Susssan is feeling the power of "s", Coalition leaders Sussan Ley, pictured, and David Littleproud face mounting pressure as One Nation siphons votes from the centre-right. Picture: Thomas Lisson

The poor lettuce, fancy knowing your hopes had faded to the point where the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way was your last hope...

Why it's a fate worse than that of a whale stranded on the Hume highway, and exposed to fiendish windmills.

Sadly, that was the last visual distraction, and yet somehow "Ned" seemed to think that the pond should join the hive mind and care about the fate of a party that in recent years had tossed up an NBN harming Malware, an onion muncher gone nuts for knights, and a clap happy liar from the shire as ways to ruin the country?

With a shrug, with a gesture of bewilderment and sense of loss, the pond realised it had nowhere to go but "Ned's" verbiage ...without even the distraction of a giant-sized popcorn bucket needed while watching a movie about Melania... the saltier, the butterier, the more heart-attack inducing, the better ...

The Liberals will not survive unless they regain seats in urban Australia, and the higher the One Nation profile, the more Hanson looks a rival conservative leader, the more the Liberals will be contaminated in a centre-right troika where they need to separate themselves from Hanson yet also win back the voters they have lost.
Reconstituting a viable Coalition, if possible, is one of many steps needed to salvage centre-right politics.
There is no secret about the consequences. They have been on repeated display going back 30 years to the 1998 election when One Nation polled 8.4 per cent of the primary vote and briefly threatened John Howard’s re-election at the famous GST election.
After the election Liberal Federal Director, Lynton Crosby, calculated that 67 per cent of One Nation voters came from the Coalition but only 53 per cent preferenced the Coalition in return – so One Nation operated as a net voting transfer from Coalition to Labor. A relieved Crosby post-election said Labor tacticians had seen One Nation as the potential “vehicle to the Lodge” for Labor leader, Kim Beazley. Nothing has changed fundamentally in nearly 30 years.
Yet the setting is different. Our politics is far more fractured today than in 1998, disillusionment with the established political system is greater and hostility towards the so-called parties of government is far more potent. Most analysts would probably think One Nation will poll higher than 8.4 per cent at the next federal election compared with its 1998 vote.
During the 1998 campaign the prime minister was campaigning outside Gladesville public school in his electorate when a One Nation worker said to him: “I hope you win.” An exasperated Howard pointed to the preference recommendation against him in his own seat and asked: “Well, what are you doing this for?” The One Nation worker said he had to follow the preference allocation against sitting MPs. Howard shot back: “How can you do this and say you want me to get back?” He felt there was a collective madness at work.
The collective madness is still at work, only on a much greater scale.
It is on display every day scattered across the right-wing media and social media in this country. The right-wing shock jocks and their legions on social media loath the Albanese government while praising and promoting Pauline Hanson, the assumption being that “shaking up our politics” as exemplified by Hanson’s surge is the best way to threaten or destroy the dominance of Anthony Albanese.
The argument is fallacious. Backing in the Hanson vote has two sure impacts – it weakens the centre-right of politics and it helps to consolidate Albanese. Have you watched Albanese’s response? He can hardly believe his good fortune. The right-wing support for Hanson isn’t hurting Albanese, it’s helping him. It’s a rare event when your enemies are helping you, but Labor today benefits from that rare event.
If you want to grasp the madness engulfing the centre-right in this country, here is a good place to start. One Nation is a catalyst for centre-right disruption, which cynics would brand as panic. It contributes to the devastating loss of confidence within the right, it exposes the weaknesses of Sussan Ley and, in particular, David Littleproud as leaders, it was the sinister chorus to the busting of the Coalition and it accentuates the political civil war within the right-wing over policy and belief.
Its real impact is revealed in the recent Newspolls and the Financial Review Redbridge/Accent Research poll that show despite the doubling and then tripling of One Nation’s primary vote, Labor’s overall lead on the two-party preferred vote – the vote that counts – has either increased or been maintained from its huge May 2025 election victory.
The message is clear: Hanson’s revolution is primarily a vote transfer within centre-right politics against the Liberal and National parties and not a vote transfer from Labor to the centre-right. It is a crisis for the right, not a crisis for Labor.
Consider Newspoll over September to November last year when Hanson’s vote rose to the 11-15 per cent zone. At the same time Labor’s two-party preferred lead surged to a massive 57-58 per cent to 43-42 per cent for the Coalition.
In the January poll, influenced by the Bondi massacre that saw Labor’s primary vote fall to 32 per cent while One Nation rose to 22 per cent (just ahead of the Coalition) Labor’s two-party preferred lead was still the same as the May 2025 election. As the Bondi factor fades and Labor’s primary rises again, the Albanese government’s two-party preferred vote will lift again – and remember such increases come on top of Labor’s greatest ever 2025 result.
Consider the Financial Review poll this week that had One Nation’s vote at a mammoth 26 per cent compared with a dismal Coalition outcome at 19 per cent – yet Labor’s two-party preferred lead was an immense 56-44 per cent, a better result than Labor secured at its 2025 victory. This was despite Hanson having the best favourability rating of any political leader – her net favourability was minus 3, with Albanese at minus 10 and Ley at minus 32. The lesson: the higher Hanson goes, the more the Coalition falls and the stronger Albanese gets via the preference system.
Optimists arguing that the combined Liberal, National and One Nation primary vote shows the centre-right is threatening Labor are running a phony proposition. As explained by analyst Antony Green on his blog, it’s all about preferences. Labor enjoys Green preferences running at around 85 per cent or higher and that’s entrenched over time. One Nation preferences to the Coalition parties don’t remotely match this. Historically they have been in the 50s but at the 2025 election they reached 74.5 per cent, not enough to prevent a Coalition election wipe-out.
Green highlights the related problem – One Nation preferences to the Coalition parties are higher in Liberal and National seats, not in Labor seats they need to win. Here’s the arithmetic fact: the only way the rise of One Nation can become a centre-right plus is to achieve a much higher preference flow between the Hanson party and the former Coalition parties – and there is no sign of this happening.
Unfortunately, there is precious little satire about our politics today. Pity. One Nation invites satire as being a retirement centre for political has-beens and failures. It is the home for Hanson’s last gasp, for Barnaby Joyce in his desperate self-interested quest to stay relevant and for the long forgotten, Cory Bernardi, surely giddy from his repeated changes of allegiance.
Let’s confront the brutal truths. One Nation is not strong enough to have any role in executive government but it is strong enough to deny executive government to the former Coalition parties. It remains a grievance lobby and its recent success is driven by the rise of multiple grievances, notably anger about the divisions and ineptitude within the Liberal and National parties. It has no viable policies for office, but thrives on branding and slogans thereby exploiting the demise of our national policy conversation while it seeks to leverage the alarming gulf between regional and urban Australia.
The prospect of a transformed centre-right with three parties – Liberal, One Nation and National – contains grave dangers for the country. It means One Nation looms larger on the centre-right in power, media and symbolic terms. It will compromise and contaminate the centre-right. While conservatives will declare centre-right voters are becoming more conservative much of urban Australia will look at a Hanson-influenced centre-right and say “no thanks”.
The Liberals will not survive unless they regain seats in urban Australia and the higher the One Nation profile, the more Hanson looks as a rival conservative leader, the more the Liberals will be contaminated in a centre-right troika where they need to separate themselves from Hanson yet also win back the voters they have lost. Reconstituting a viable Coalition, if possible, is one of many steps needed to salvage centre-right politics.

Sheesh, there goes the pond's ratings for the day.

Done and dusted ... but try to cobble a ditty out of that bulk-sized serve of malarkey...

What a dismal life it is for the pond these days.

The reptiles at last turned to the Epstein files, but only because they could have a go at Mandelson and former prince Andy, and then only via "agencies", when the Graudian is handing this sort of stuff out for free ...

And the late night comics have been making a meal of it all on YouTube ...

At last a chance for some revenge on the indignities suffered over the years at the hands of Microsoft, but what's taking the punishing of Apple so long?

The pond wouldn't like punters to reel away as empty handed as their heads must be feeling...

The pond was tempted by an amazing gif accompanying Mattie's yarn, featuring oodles of cash splashing and a rotating Jimbo ...

It turned out it was all AI slop front and no house, and just two minutes of blather ...

Jim’s two big goals and one big headache
The Reserve Bank has shattered Jim Chalmers’ economic credibility, forecasting the exact opposite of what the Treasurer promised to deliver this year.
By Matthew Cranston
Economics Correspondent

Uncredited AI slop surely has a place in the world, but in the end the pond decided to pass ... let the intermittent archive deal with that (but sorry, no epic gif in the archive).

Ditto the bouffant one attempting to do a "Ned" ...in just two feeble minutes ..

The Coalition had the rate rise, but Labor had the last laugh
A rate rise on the first scheduled sitting day for 2026 was a reprieve for the opposition. Yet the depth of frustration, anger and desperation in the Liberal ranks left Labor, incredibly, with a parliamentary win.
By Dennis Shanahan

The bouffant one was bitter ...

...the depth of frustration, anger and desperation in the Liberal ranks managed to overshadow what Ley and Littleproud tried, and left Labor, incredibly, with a parliamentary win on tone, tactics and strategy.

Voters will know what has happened and Labor is quietly fearful but the Liberal and Nationals’ MPs continue to be so distracted and divided that public disappointment with Albanese will not transfer to Ley/Littleproud and their cohorts.

Ley’s aggression earned her a sharp rebuke from Speaker Milton Dick for abusing her privileges and showing disrespect for him and the parliament.

The Liberals and Nationals asked the same questions and in what Chalmers described as an act of desperation, Ley tried to drag the Treasury secretary into the rate rise fight.

Ley started on the script by asking Albanese about the expected rate rise but the “new” reality became clear when the second non-Labor question came from independent Zali Steggall – who holds the seat of former Liberal PM Tony Abbott – and was not about interest rates but domestic violence.

The Liberal leader, exercising a claim on “indulgence” to respond in a bipartisan way on a sensitive topic – such as domestic violence, which Peter Dutton always did – earned the ire of the Speaker when she used it to take a political pot shot.

“It’s completely disrespectful to me, but it’s disrespectful to the house,” Dick said.

In a house where the Liberals are outnumbered by those on the crossbench and facing a government with a huge majority, it is necessary to at least keep the Speaker on side.

Under no pressure, Albanese and Chalmers batted away the questions using historical economic comparisons and would not be forced to talk about the future.

Embarrassingly, as Albanese extended question time to bleed out the opposition, Ley asked about the role of the Treasury secretary at the RBA board meeting on interest rates – a role the secretary fulfils as a Treasury representative and has done so for years – including under the Morrison government.

Chalmers described it as an act of “desperation” and “entirely inappropriate”.

On a day when treasurers are whipped and beaten, Chalmers was able to adopt the high moral ground.

Albanese, Chris Bowen and Mark Butler treated the opposition with humorous contempt. But voters just won’t get the joke.

The depth of frustration, anger and desperation the bouffant one was mildly entertaining, but sorry, the pond doesn't get out of bed unless it's a Très Difficile or grade VI "Ned" Everest climb...

On the other hand, the pond will always make room for Dame Groan and her groans and sighs...

The header: Rate decision raises questions over not just Jim Chalmers, but Michele Bullock too; As Jim Chalmers seeks to avoid taking any blame for rate rise, it’s now at the point of questioning whether Michele Bullock was really a good choice for the top job at the central bank.

The caption for yet another snap savaging: Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock on Tuesday. Picture: NewsWire

To be sure to be sure, Dame Groan was in fine form, even though it was just a three minute squawk which struggled to get up to the level of a decent groan:

It shows the desperation of Treasurer Jim Chalmers to avoid taking any blame for the rise in the cash rate that he would reference the statement by the Monetary Policy Board.
No specific mention there of the role played by excessive government spending, so he’s off the hook, or so he thinks.
He’s like the boy in the orchard stealing apples. By hiding them behind his back, he thinks he won’t be caught. Who, me? he declares. It’s just no one believes him.
I’m pretty sure that the 3.3 million mortgage holders don’t give a toss about the official statement.
For them, the higher cash rate will feed into higher mortgage rates. The period of respite – the three cuts last year – has now come to an end.
The length of this easing cycle may well be a record – the shortest ever. There are very real prospects of further rate hikes this year. This is reinforced by the bank’s forecasts of inflation for the rest of the year, which put it well above the target band.
In fact, it is not until mid-2028 that underlying CPI growth is expected to reach 2.5 per cent, the bank’s preferred target!
To be sure, the statement notes that “growth in private demand has strengthened substantially more than expected, driven by both household spending and investment”.
But even though the decision to hike was unanimous, bear in mind here that the board members no doubt carefully consider the wording of the statement and make some “helpful” drafting suggestions.
Also bear in mind that growth in private demand is adding to total aggregate demand, which includes government spending. In other words, it’s the relationship between the growth of aggregate demand, including government spending, and the growth of aggregate supply.
But talking about light-fingered children in the orchard, the governor of the Reserve Bank, Michele Bullock, looks to be lurking among the trees too.

Did anyone expect anything different? The pond has now heard so many Groans that they all blend in to one, leaving the pond with the sense that we'll all be rooned by next weekend, and it's all the fault of Jimbo, and no one having the foresight or wisdom to make Dame Groan head of the RBA, Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers during question time at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday. Picture: AAP

The pond has no idea why the reptiles gave Mattie the whirling, rotating gif and left Dame Groan plain and dowdy in a tattered coat of many whining colours...

She has adopted the completely unconvincing “on the one hand and on the other” explanation for every decision the bank has made.
She seems to be hiding some apples as well and asking the same question: Who, me? Let’s be clear, in terms of the bank’s brief to keep inflation within the annual target band of 2-3 per cent, the bank’s record has been extremely disappointing.
Prior to Covid, it was quarter after quarter of undershooting the band; it’s now quarter after quarter of overshooting, with two exceptions.
It’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that the bank has been far too timid in recent times in knocking inflation on the head while prematurely initiating an easing cycle.
The contrast with other central banks around the world is telling.
In most developed countries, core inflation is now under control and interest rate easing is in progress. Aggressively targeting inflation with rapid and substantial rate hikes has paid off in many instances.
The idea that the gains in unemployment had to be preserved here at all costs sits very uneasily with the governor’s own exposition of the costs to everyone of persistent, elevated inflation.

Oh we're not back to this again, are we?

The pond is already there, but at least it's going to be over quickly this day ...

And let’s face it, many of the government jobs that underpin the low rate of unemployment should never have been created and are not sustainable given the fiscal pressures that will eventually confront the Treasurer.
It’s got to the point of questioning whether Bullock was really a good choice for the top job at the bank.
Sure, she has spent her whole career there, but mainly in the payments side.
Her reluctance to deal with the impact of government spending – she tells us fiscal policy is independent and she doesn’t get involved there – indicates a lack of strength when it comes to meeting the goals set under the legislation.
The real advice coming out of the bank’s decision, and the subsequent press conference/Q&A held by the governor, is to hang on to your hat.
While she is adamant that she doesn’t provide forward guidance, the forecasts on inflation point to at least two more cash rate increases this year.
The sclerotic supply side of our economy and the increasing size of government mean that weak economic growth is likely to hang around too. Welcome to 2026.

Once again the pond has missed out on everything amusing and droll in the disunited States, with peak Marge madness still going strong ...

Poor Marge ...poor Kennedy centre ... but grifters gunna grift, grifters gotta grift. 

As one wag put it somewhere on the full to overflowing intertubes, the Magis' gifts magically turned into the MAGA grift, with this latest, revised accounting recently featuring in The New Yorker ...

Trump’s Profiteering Hits $4 Billion
In August, I reported that the President and his family had made $3.4 billion by leveraging his position. After his first year back in office, the number has ballooned.
By David D. Kirkpatrick (*archive link)

Never mind, it helps put things in perspective ...

Perhaps an acquired taste, only for those with a refined taste for loonacy? (Pity about the interrupting ad)

In which the pond glances at Our Henry, groans along with Dame Groan, and takes to ancient Troy's bashing of the beefy boofhead ...

 

For some reason - second thoughts, the pond knows the reason, it's the Australian Daily Zionist News, so there must be a daily serve of Zionism - the reptiles decided to let Our Henry out of his box on a Tuesday with a big splash, and an amazing gif full of terrifying pop-ups ...

No need to go there, but the older archived version - which ran late last night, while the reptiles pretended it was brand, spanking new in the morning- featured Our Henry gazing into a camera in a haunting way. (Some people should never be allowed to stream).

It was a ten minute rant, and punters will be devastated to note an unseemly lack of classical references.

The best the pond could spot was "Manichean choice" and "Manicheanism" (a couple of times), but instead of Thucydides, Our Henry offered up Lenin, Stalin, the storming of the Winter Palace, Frantz Fanon, and a Voltaire cliché:

Voltaire put it best, in his entry on fanaticism in the Encyclopaedia: it is rogues, masquerading as thinkers, who guide fanatics and put murderous daggers in their hands.

Meanwhile, in Haaretz, The IDF Admits It Killed 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza. What Other Accusations Could Turn Out to Be True? The dispute over the number of fatalities may be approaching an end, but the debate on their identities is still expected to trudge on. The Israeli public must ask itself what this belated recognition indicates about the army and the government's credibility regarding Israel's conduct in Gaza

And with the Gaza killings and cleansing going on apace ...

IDF Blocks Palestinian Bedouins From Rebuilding Their West Bank Homes Burned by Israeli Settlers, Bedouin residents of Mukhmas arrived Sunday to rebuild homes torched by settlers but were stopped by Israeli soldiers, who said the area was a closed military zone. When asked about an Israeli man who photographed the houses, a soldier responded, 'He can do whatever he wants'

Back in your box, hole in bucket repair man, and the pond will see you on Friday.

On the upside, the outburst pushed the elephants in the room down the page ...

OPPOSITION CHAOS
Ley and Littleproud in first steps to seal Coalition rebirth
By Greg Brown

A rebirth! Thank the long absent lord, the navels are working again.

That cleared room for doing what the reptiles do best, raging at the government, with Dame Groan leading the way ...

After that bigly splash came chief villain himself, pointing in a nasty way ...

The header: Labor’s spending strategy is driving up inflation; Labor’s trillion-dollar debt disaster shows the government is robbing Peter to pay Peter while ordinary families suffer the consequences.

The caption for the snap of the gesticulating Jimbo, used so many times by the reptiles that if the pond scored a dollar each time, it would be a squillionaire: Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers says public service spending isn’t to blame for a rise in inflation. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Don't blame the pond, it was the reptiles that made Dame Groan first out of the gate, it was the reptiles intent on using demeaning snaps in hideous uncredited collages, and when they prated about "economists warn", of course they had to have an economist to hand, their very own in house biddy.

What followed was an incredibly dull raging at the Jimbo, seen a zillion times before, but the pond is mindful that Dame Groan has a cult following, and it's wise to feed the cultists what they have an insatiable appetite for ...

When Anthony Albanese was asked last week whether government spending was contributing to the uptick in inflation, he immediately rattled off a list of government handouts. He talked about cheaper medicine, Medicare bulkbilling, the guarantee of three days per week of subsidised childcare.
I wondered whether he had misheard the question, but the reality is that the Labor government thinks the solution to inflation is to go long on handouts. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that these handouts are part of the problem, not the solution.
They are contributing to the unsustainable growth in government spending which, in the context of inflexible supply in many parts of the economy, is simply adding to inflationary price ­pressures.
For a short time, Jim Chalmers thought he had discovered a new secret sauce. By introducing universal electricity rebates, he figured the headline rate of inflation would be lower – this is arithmetically correct – and the Reserve Bank would do the right thing by adjusting the cash rate based on this manipulated figure.

As usual there were a few AV distractions - got to plug Sky Noise - starting with this one, CommSec’s Ryan Felsman claims there are a lot of “rate hike jitters” around the Australian share market following the release of the latest inflation data. New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has revealed inflation surged to 3.8 per cent in the year to December while the trimmed mean inflation lifted to 3.3 per cent. This means the chances of the Reserve Bank of Australia lifting interest rates next week have increased. “There’s a lot of rate hike jitters around the market at the moment on the back of that stronger than expected core inflation data yesterday,” Mr Felsman told Sky News Australia. Presented by CommSec.

Alas and alack, that only wound up the groaning to eleven:

Alas, the good folk down at the bank see through this sort of thing and concentrate on the trimmed mean figure of the CPI. But think about if Chalmers had been correct, he should have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled the rebates. He would have slain the inflation dragon while allowing the bank to cut the cash rate. How good would that have been?
But here’s the thing: it has become increasingly clear that Chalmers simply doesn’t understand how the economy works. When confronted with the unwelcome CPI release last week, the Treasurer pulled out all the talking points given to him by Treasury and attempted to tell us that black is white.
Evidently, inflation is now all about the evil workings of the private sector. It has nothing to do with government spending. After all, the RBA managed to cut the cash rate three times last year. In any case, the governor of the bank doesn’t attribute blame to excess government spending, at least explicitly. (There are quotes around from the governor that put a different spin on this story.)
Chalmers also has some weird analysis about the components of the CPI increase – housing and childcare were big-ticket items. But we are expected to believe that these changes have nothing to do with what the government has been up to.
The Treasurer is living on another planet if he thinks that the ramp-up in government spending is not making inflation worse. Just look at the figures. According to MYEFO, real government spending will increase by 4.5 per cent this financial year; it grew by 5.5 per cent last financial year. Government payments as percentage of GDP are close to 27 per cent, another record outside Covid and several years in the early 1980s.
His relocation to another planet is confirmed by his declaration that the budget is now in “better nick”. Someone should tell the Treasurer that no one cares about what was laid down in the 2022 pre-election and fiscal outlook statement which was written at a time of great economic uncertainty. Comparisons with the Coalition government voted out in 2022 are also becoming extremely stale.

Satan himself made an appearance, though he tried to surround himself with camouflage ... Australians have been told to expect to see 'a huge shift' this year towards the universal childcare system Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has long vowed to deliver

Dame Groan was terrified, or at least frightened enough, and never mind what meltdown or run on gold King Donald was provoking each day ...

The reality is that the four-year cumulative underlying cash balance provided in the MYEFO at the end of last year was negative $143bn, while the more meaningful headline cash balance which takes into account off-budget spending was negative $237bn.
But if these figures are not frightening enough, it turns out Treasury has become increasingly inept at forecasting spending. For example, there has been a close to $60bn deterioration in the overall budget position since May 2025, overwhelmingly because of higher payments. There is now no expectation that the budget will return to surplus within a decade given the very significant underestimate in payments.
There is not a sensible economist anywhere who would describe these developments as being consistent with the description of the budget being in better nick. In fact, the fiscal picture is grim and worsening, with the government either unwilling or incapable of restricting the growth of payments. Recall here that government debt is now over one trillion dollars and growing rapidly.
Take the case of childcare. The cost of the childcare subsidies has now crept into the six fastest growing government payment items – interest is the fastest, followed by the NDIS. It is hardly surprising that the cost of childcare services has grown by over 20 per cent since 2022, and by over 10 per cent in the last year, according to the CPI print. This is what happens when demand is pumped through government subsidies and supply is slow to react.
It’s now clear that the government will struggle to rein in the annual growth of NDIS payments below 8 per cent, having failed to seal an immediate deal with the state governments to hive off a separate program for children with mild autism and developmental delays.

How the reptiles love Joel - he's the new Jennie of finance - how the reptiles love rats in the ranks, so Joel made an appearance on Sky Noise... Former Labor cabinet minister Joel Fitzgibbon has warned the Albanese government to wind back public spending to take pressure off the economy as inflation soars and rate hikes loom. “Some economists today will be asking about the amount we’re spending on the NDIS in particular where you see a crowding out of the labour market, which is again putting pressure on inflation,” Mr Fitzgibbon told Sky News Australia. “At some point the government is going to have to become very very serious about winding government spending further back to take pressure of the economy more generally.”

And then it was on to the wrap up, and a final Groaning ...

In any case, it’s hard to get too enthusiastic about this because establishing another program with another name doesn’t necessarily alter the amount of government resources being devoted to disability services, with all its waste and inefficiency.
The fact is that the Labor government has taken the wrong fork in the road by stepping away from means-testing of social spending. Only by means-testing is spending targeted at those who cannot afford the services. Recall that this was the principal means former Labor finance minister Peter Walsh used to get the budget into better nick. Mind you, he saw it as both an economic and moral imperative.
For reasons that are not entirely clear, although the changing demographics of Labor voters is part of the explanation, the Albanese government has been rapidly walking away from means-testing, with the slight exception of aged care.
Why do high income earners require bulk-billed GP services? Why do families with combined incomes of more than half a million dollars require subsidies for childcare? Why should those on high incomes not contribute to the disability services needed by them or their family?

Hang on, hang on, has Dame Groan gone all perfidious socialist, with an outrageous desire to tax the rich?

Steady, steady, it was only a momentary aberration ...

The irony now is that consideration is being given to taxing people on high incomes more, including through the removal of economically justified concessions. It’s the classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, except it is actually robbing Peter to pay Peter.
With the prospect of several interest rate hikes this year, the government is peddling hard to sell the likely economic developments in a positive light. Add in the prospect of falling real wages – the growth has been very weak in any case – and it’s an unattractive picture. Were it not for the complete ineffectiveness of an opposition in tatters, the government might be on the ropes.

And the pond trusts that the cultists are, albeit perhaps briefly, satiated...and please, no blaming the pond, it was the reptiles wot did it. The pond would much rather have had other topics to hand ...

As for over on the far right, the canny Cranston picked up where Dame Groan left off ...

Treasury, RBA too close or too far apart?
Australia’s government spending has hit levels not seen in decades, prompting economists to question whether the Reserve Bank should abandon Treasury’s consistently wrong forecasts.
By Matthew Cranston
Economics Correspondent

The only thing the pond will note is the uncanny way the reptiles continue to pick the most defamatory snap to hand ...see how they recycled that one of the Guv, featured in the collage above...

And pace Our Henry, the ADZN continued apace ...

PM’s chance to reset relations with Israel – will he take it?
Anthony Albanese should make it clear during Isaac Herzog’s visit that if someone denies Israel’s right to exist, there is no daylight between this position and antisemitism.
By Anthony Bergin

Ah, but what if you thought no theocratic state had the right to exist, Mr Bergin, what then? What if you thought religion had no business running a state, what then Mr Bergin, what then?

No way the pond was going there, but that meant the pond was left with an agonising choice.

Should the pond go with the bouffant one, doing his very best to see sunnyside up?

Best hour in weeks but it’s a long way back
Liberal leader Sussan Ley and Nationals leader David Littleproud have begun talks to heal their Coalition split, but the damage may already be done.
By Dennis Shanahan
National Editor

The archived version was an earlier edition, though it still featured snaps of Black Jack and the man who crashed a Spittie, but how could the pond resist ancient Troy trashing the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way?

The header: Liberal leadership infighting threatens to deepen party’s existential crisis; Liberal geniuses scheme to topple first female leader as the party desperately needs to win back women voters who have abandoned them in droves.

The caption for that oft repeated collage (another dollar in the pond's kit?): Andrew Hastie, Susan Ley, Angus Taylor. Picture: Newswire

Ancient Troy spend a goodly four minutes bagging the beefy boofhead and laying with Ley, what with him being something of a feminista, as much as a wet reptile can be ...

So a bunch of blokes in the right wing of the Liberal Party think the answer to the party’s problem of regaining the votes of women, who have deserted the party in droves at recent elections, is to terminate their first female leader, Sussan Ley, after serving less than a year in the top job.
They plotted Ley’s downfall in the hours before attending the funeral of former MP Katie Allen, a Liberal woman who was respected and admired across the political spectrum. Their backstabbing, plotting and sheer treachery took attention away from Allen’s funeral and dominated the media last week.
With firebrand Andrew Hastie bowing out of a leadership contest for now, preferring to bide his time, the path has seemingly been cleared for Angus Taylor to seize the Liberal leadership, despite failing to convince colleagues he should get the job last year after his woeful performance as shadow treasurer.
As the men scheme to topple Ley, have they considered how voters, especially women, will view this latest act of political sabotage? At the last election, just 28 per cent of women voted for the Liberal and National parties, barely a quarter, according to the Australian Election Study. Good luck lifting that vote share.

How the reptiles love that Mafia shot of the Dons out and about, and for once the pond can't blame them ... Angus Taylor, James Paterson, Matt O’Sullivan and Andrew Hastie leave the meeting in suburban Melbourne on Thursday. Picture: Liam Mendes

What a bunch of boofheads and thugs!

Of course ancient Troy could have selected the pastie Hastie for abuse, but whatever ...

Nor do they seem to have contemplated the transition costs of toppling a leader. Leadership contests create winners and losers. Rarely do the losers depart happy; they and their supporters are usually filled with resentment and bitterness, and many seek revenge. It was ever thus in politics but the lessons are frequently not learned.
While Ley clings to the Liberal leadership, stoic and defiant, the public watch on as a pantomime plays out in public and private, and knives are sharpened. Hastie went to social media affirming he would like to lead the party but did “not have the support needed to become leader” at this time, so would “not be contesting the leadership”.
Hello? Is there a ballot for leader scheduled? No. The naked ambition of the man is not disguised while the current leader gets on with the job. If this kabuki-style statement was not enough, then Taylor chimed in, offering a paean of praise for his “colleague and friend”, noting he shared “many of his views” and was “a great asset” to the party.
This is a not-so-subtle undermining of the leader of which we have seen far too much in the past 20 years. Recall Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard? Or Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull? Or Turnbull and Tony Abbott? Or the cunning Scott Morrison, who took the prime ministership when Turnbull fell. Hastie and Taylor are repeating the destabilisation formula.
It is surprising that some Liberals seem to be taking seriously the idea of Taylor as leader. His colleagues have told this column he has a reputation for not putting in the hard work and, as shadow treasurer, seemed not to be across details of his portfolio. Why did he not return from a European holiday when parliament considered new gun ownership and hate speech laws in response to the nation’s worst terrorist attack?

At this point, the reptiles retreated to safer visual turf, a reminder of other assassinations ... Former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard attend the ALP campaign launch, South Brisbane, 2019. Picture: Liam Kidston

And at this point the pond should note others were gunning for the beefy boofhead.

This morning The Echidna popped into the pond's tray (no link, newsletter) with John Hanscombe in a whimsical mood ...

...From where I sit, it's more comedy gold than soapie or reality TV. Especially if Taylor gets the leader's gig, a prospect more likely now Andrew Hastie has removed himself from contention.
When it comes to pass - few are saying "if" any longer - the government will be chuffed. Since coming to office in 2022, it has relished every moment Taylor has risen to his feet in question time.
"The gift that keeps giving," Treasurer Jim Chalmers quipped in 2023 when Taylor muddled a question about the budget. It's hard to keep a straight face, Chalmers told the chamber, wearing a smile so bright it was reflected in the glasses of those sitting opposite. He then demolished the premise of Taylor's question.
Throughout the last term of Parliament, Chalmers ran rings around the then shadow treasurer. Every question asked would be met with ridicule, Taylor returning to his seat, shaking his head in frustration and looking as if comprehension was just beyond his grasp.
Taylor also ran rings around himself, even prompting the Coalition-friendly Sky News to list a "litany" of Taylor's errors on the floor of the House: the price of Vegemite rising by 8 per cent in month, which it hadn't; confusing monthly inflation with the annual rate; asserting half of Australia's mortgage holders were about to go from fixed to variable interest rates when they weren't: and saying he'd always supported the government's energy bill relief when he'd previously stood up calling it the worst legislation ever.
Even in government Taylor made spectacular errors. There was the smear job on Sydney's Lord Mayor Clover Moore, using bogus statistics, which prompted a police investigation. Oh, and don't forget the time he posted "Well done, Angus" on his own Facebook page.
You couldn't ask for a better leader of the parliamentary Liberal Party. If you were the Labor government, that is. We've seen less of Taylor this term. As shadow defence minister, there have been fewer opportunities to put his foot in his mouth. But as Liberal leader, he'd have to be first on his feet, to the delight of Labor.
All well and good if you enjoy easy laughs with your question time. If you believe the business of parliament should be more than comedy and canned laughter from the government benches, perhaps Taylor isn't such a good idea.

Oh come on Mr Hanscombe, gotta be able to laugh ...

Meanwhile ancient Troy kept on sounding like he wanted to be in The Canberra Times or even worse, a Nine rag, or perhaps don an ABC cardigan ...

During last year’s federal election campaign, as I noted at the time, Taylor struggled to communicate the Liberal Party’s values and policies, did little to prepare a detailed economic agenda to take to the election, and was comprehensively outgunned by Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Taylor looked weak and evasive, and his attacks fell flat.
This has been confirmed by the AES, which showed the most important issue for voters was cost of living at a time of high inflation and rising costs for households, yet Labor was judged the better party over the Coalition on nine of 10 policy areas, including economic management and taxation. That is the verdict on Taylor – surrendering the party’s long-held advantage on economic policy.
Taylor blew up the party’s economic and budget credentials at the last election with policies that betrayed the Howard-Costello model. He routinely expresses fidelity to their legacy, yet as shadow treasurer did not support Labor’s modest income tax cuts and planned to have bigger budget deficits if the Coalition returned to government.
Peter Costello, who as treasurer delivered 10 budget surpluses, paid off government debt and reformed the tax system, told me just six weeks ago that the Liberal Party surrendered its reputation on economic management at the last election. Guess who was the shadow treasurer?
“The Liberal Party walked away from that central commitment to economic security and I think it did enormous brand damage,” Costello told me. “At the last election, they got themselves into a position where they were proposing to increase income taxes, run bigger deficits, no real plan to reduce debt.”

The reptiles were so startled they again reverted to ancient times, perhaps to forestall a hive mind panic, Tony Abbott (left) and Malcolm Turnbull at the conclusion of Question Time in the House of Representatives at Parliament House, in Canberra.

Soothed by the sight of the onion muncher and Malware and fond memories of destroying the NBN, the reptiles could allow a final bout of wet ancient Troy flinging mud and standing up for Susssan, to the wilting lettuce's despair ...

Ley is not perfect and has made mistakes, but deserves time. Her challenge is immense. The Liberal Party has lost many seats, its voter support is in decline and its members are walking away. The Coalition with the National Party has been severed. Ley needs to redefine the party, craft a viable electoral strategy, develop a policy agenda and repair the Coalition.
Australia needs an effective opposition to keep the government accountable. We get a better government when we have a better opposition. The opposition is now just the ever-shrinking Liberal Party, while the National Party sulks on the crossbench. The Liberal Party, self-indulgent, devoid of responsibility and utterly divided, is like a clown car at a circus that has seen better days.
Meanwhile, the government dominates the parliament with almost two-thirds of seats in the lower house. The Labor Party remains well ahead in the polls and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is dominant. The centre-right of politics is rupturing with the rise of the far-right One Nation, and neither the Liberal nor National parties have a clue what to do about it.
Albanese, whose prime ministership has been a study in determination, conviction, steadiness, resilience and luck, has his 2028 election slogan ready to go: “If you can’t govern yourselves, you can’t govern the country.”

At this point the pond would usually wrap things up.

Try to do a segue a cartoon for a closer, especially if it might inspire more ditties in the comments section, and that would be that ...

But damn it, having glanced at Our Henry, groaned through the groaning, and took to the Susssan battlements with ancient Troy, the pond needed a treat, and what better way than to see the Murdochians serving it up to Nosferatu himself...

That's not the pond's preferred snap, the pond always prefers the vanity snap ...

Sure the pond could have left it to an archive link,  but there's something fragrant about the panic in the WSJ air, as they took to Nosferatu, armed with garlic and righteous Murdochian holy water ...

Eek, it's all coming together in a nightmare of cross-pollination, at least if you trust the immortal Rowe ... (and the pond always does)