The trouble with being inundated, completely saturated by the lizards of Oz, as the pond was yesterday, is that the pond is unable to draw attention to positive, upbeat, uplifting news ...
Wow, all the fun of the climate science denialist fair. Talk about bringing joy to reptile hearts.
Instead there was the usual bingeing on catastrophism, as with this reheated serve of gloom from Dame Groan ...
There was the usual awesome and utterly meaningless graph gesturing downwards, and the pond only offers an intermittent archive link because it's aware there are dedicated Groaners always searching for a fix.
Real estate prices are falling, investors are fleeing and many first-home buyers remain locked out. It’s a correction more damaging than Labor wants to admit.
The old biddy offered what she seemed to think was a rousing finale ...
For those tenants affected by crippling rents, the dream of home ownership may be further in the distance. Government meddling in the market has this habit of harming those who should benefit.
Rising house prices may create some political problems but falling house prices are potentially toxic. If there are significant negative effects on the wider economy and unemployment rises, the Albanese government’s salad days will be truly over.
Why did the old biddy revert to an "If"?
Why isn't she bold and bloody? Why does she only hint? Why not "there will be significant negative effects", and "the salad days are truly over", and we'll all be rooned by Xmas, and there will be blood.
And speaking of that movie, will the pond ever see Dame Groan embark on a lyrical triumphalism?
Offer her version of salad days? Celebrate what the beefy boofhead down Goulburn way might offer the masses ...
...Now something else, uh... and please don't be insulted if I speak about this - bread. Let's talk about bread. Now to my mind, uh, it's an abomination to consider that any man, woman or child in this magnificent country of ours should have to look upon a loaf of bread as a luxury. We're gonna dig water wells here and, uh, water wells means irrigation. Irrigation means cultivation. We're gonna raise crops here where before it just simply wasn't impossible. You're going to have more grain than you know what to do with. Bread will be coming right out of your ears, ma'am. New roads, agriculture, employment, education - these are just a few of the things we can offer you, and I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that if we do find oil here - and I think there's a very good chance that we will - this community of yours will not only survive, it will flourish.
All done without a furriner in sight. (So they say).
Nah, have a 'toon to celebrate the information future, with the Emeritus Chairman holding his own:
Moving right along, and right in to the middle of a bog standard pond dilemma.
The pond has already passed on sundry weekend reptile offerings, and that left very little left in the larder, and for reasons which will become obvious down below, the pond felt compelled to demote Polonius to last cab on the rank.
And that's how the pond ended up with the dog botherer talking of Gina's pampered pet, as the pair went to and fro.
The header: Democracy under siege as ugly protests force candidates into a security bubble; I wonder if our politicians and activists have learned much at all since the initial rise of ‘Hansonism’ in the late 1990s.
The caption for the stirring image: Little has changed since demonstrators vented their spleen at Pauline Hanson in Adelaide in June 1997.
The dog botherer thankfully was only rated a five minute read, but the pond was also keen to provide evidence for a theory the pond has been thinking of turning into a thesis.
The pond has long contended that the lizard Oz reptiles are deeply sympathetic to Pauline, and if she hadn't come along, they likely would have had to invent here.
Not so deep down - right there on the surface really - the dog botherer is keen on Pauline and hot to trot a ways down the garden path with her.
Please allow the pond to provide the evidence:
“Make sure you don’t bump into any black or brown people, racist,” yelled one woman.
It gave me pause for thought, much pause, as it turned out, as I didn’t flinch or turn but pondered as I kept walking.
Across the 30 years since Hanson first burst on to the scene, through some tumultuous times and challenges, I had at least learned a few useful lessons. One was not to respond to feral public abuse. I remembered how as a television reporter in Adelaide in 1996 I was standing on the roof of a TV broadcast truck doing live crosses from outside a Hanson event where the protesters seemed to outnumber the attendees.
At that time, I was pretty appalled by Hanson’s rhetoric, but I too was a hate figure for the political left because my reporting had exposed the fabrication of the so-called secret women’s business of Hindmarsh Island.
When a couple of thugs from the crowd below yelled abuse at me, I snapped back, and the technician running the TV equipment counselled me with some wise advice about how things would get ugly if I didn’t learn to let such barbs go.
He was right (thanks, Wayne), so 30 years later that approach has become second nature.
You see? Once upon a time he was appalled by Hanson's rhetoric, but then he realised he was just like her.
It's straight out of cornball movie lines... "We're Not So Different, You And I"
Put it another way:
If you prick me and Paline, do we not bleed? Possibly a greenish acid in the veins, but if was good enough for predators and aliens. If you tickle us in a woke way, do we not scowl? If you poison us with talk of multiculturalism, do we not die? Or at least blather endlessly about monocultures. And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? Ah, yes, revenge, always the revenge.
And once that notion's established, it's easy to share the humanity ... oh the humanity ...The lessons learnt from the early days of Pauline Hanson in the mid-1990s remain to this day. Picture: Brenton Edwards
This is the way a reptile bonds with Gina's pet ...
Hatred and division are back in what is left of the public square and it seems more worrisome than ever. I wonder if our politicians and activists have learned much at all since the initial rise of “Hansonism” in the late 1990s.
Earlier on Monday Hanson held a media conference to launch One Nation’s first batch of Victorian state election candidates at a hotel near Spencer Street station.
Melbourne’s CBD has been hollowed out, to be sure, but still it was surprising to see police officers outnumbering pedestrians on the block surrounding the venue and there were another dozen or more police officers inside.
Across 40 years or more I have been caught up in protests, emergencies and security scares as a journalist, political operative and citizen, and the level of security at Hanson’s Melbourne events was noteworthy. It suggests police intelligence considered there was the risk not only of protesters but also of violence.
For the evening event in Hawthorn, two streets and a major intersection were blocked to traffic so no vehicles could drive on either side of the venue. The main group of protesters was kept 30m from the hotel entrance behind temporary barricades.
After all, if the reptiles stir fear and loathing, it's just the same as Pauline's suffering, which roughly approximates to the treatment doled out to Jeanne d'Arc...Police monitor the anger surrounding Ms Hanson's Adelaide launch of One Nation in June 1997.
From such dire treatment a phoenix rose from the ashes, and conquered reptile hearts, and moved the dog botherer to a weird empathy.
It's because Pauline espouses the approved lizard Oz policies on all sorts of matters, and she offers the chance to once again deny any ethnic cleansing is taking place in Gaza...
Hanson told me Melbourne was the only place in Australia where she did not feel safe walking the streets. She feels comfortable in regional Victoria.
Could it be a reptile piece without a "whatever", because it's not about the policies, it's a chance to feel the vibe and celebrate Gina's pet as a political force ...
When I joined Hanson and her SA leader Cory Bernardi for an impromptu street walk in Adelaide’s CBD just days out from that state’s election in March this year, the reaction from the public was positive and there were no security issues.
But when we stopped for a coffee afterwards a group of socialist protesters turned up to chant abuse at Hanson, and Bernardi and I had to shepherd her safely into a car.
Just how One Nation candidates can press the flesh in the Victorian election campaign will be anybody’s guess, and the way NSW and Victorian authorities have failed to curtail hateful pro-Palestinian protests during the past three years does not inspire confidence. This chilling of democratic campaigning and debate is bound to hinder the Coalition and Labor too, although probably to a lesser degree.
The vitriol directed at Hanson and her team will not harm her politically; the more she is subjected to unreasonable attacks, the more some voters see her as their champion challenging the establishment.
Indeed, and the more she's subjected to devotional texts from devoted reptiles who never question her policies - "whatever" - and who willingly pander to her and parade about with her in the streets, sharing her perils, the more she'll be seen as an approved member of the reptile establishment ...A wall of police hold back protesters outside Newcastle's Civic Theatre during Ms Hanson's rally for One Nation supporters in May 1997.
It is, of course, all the fault of the ABC. Some ruffians insist that she should engage with all the media, but that's not the reptile way ...provided they have access, who cares about the cardigan wearers and the Graudian.
That's not the real story, the real story is that she's a reptile-approved winner, and all she's doing is conducting dinkum vigorous debate (and any furriner who disagrees can just get the hell out of here):
In Melbourne this week most of the media focus was on Hanson banning the ABC from her events. The real story was that the party shaking up the looming election contest was doing so within a security cocoon normally required only for a visiting (and controversial) head of state.
It must be said that the ABC’s demonisation of Hanson and its habitual normalisation of violent imagery against right-of-centre figures (Gina Rinehart being the latest example) does nothing to defuse a toxic situation. Its commentators have suggested that One Nation is immoral and illegitimate, which only fuels the nutters, just as its demonisation of Israel throws fuel on the fire of antisemitism.
The secret of democracy is that it has enabled vigorous debate and respectful disagreement to replace physical combat. Conducted properly, democracy allows ideas and advocacy to replace swords and guns.
I guess it follows then that when debate is curtailed and political correctness conspires to shut out some voices and demonise others, hot tempers can replace hot takes.
Indeed, indeed, who wouldn't want to replace swords and guns with democratic ways ...
The reptiles ran an AV distraction featuring the suffering of Gina's pet, almost as bad as the arrows that pierced St Sebastian: Pauline Hanson has been met with protesters as she arrived at the Tower Hotel in Hawthorn
In an increasingly polarised political and media environment, I fear we are losing the benefits of a robust public square as the pressure valve that a free society needs.
On my television program I love discussing issues with people I disagree with, even if sometimes my audience objects. But it has become almost impossible to get Labor, Greens or teal politicians on to the program unless it is to discuss a point of mutual agreement.
They know I will not shout at them or harangue them, but it seems they would just rather not have their views challenged. I guess there is no need.
When I first had the chance to enlist Hanson as a regular guest I baulked at it because I disagree with some of her ideas and believe her rhetoric has been too harsh and intolerant on some issues. Besides, One Nation had become largely a fringe player.
But now I am glad to have been convinced because while we have agreed and disagreed on air, the discussions have been worthwhile.
And if 20 to 30 per cent of the population agrees with her, then a democratic society should hear and test her views.
Those who demonise and physically intimidate Hanson and One Nation have failed to learn the lessons over the years and are delivering two detrimental outcomes. First, their tactics only boost her momentum, which is the opposite of their intent; and second, they are undercutting our democracy by making political engagement more risky and remote.
The pond has a fair idea of who's undercutting democracy, and it isn't those who've wandered into Pauline's camp and discovered that her ideas have been poached from the lizard Oz.
Golding summed up pretty much where the dog botherer's line about fair and reasonable arguments took him, and while the pond has run it once, there's no harm running it again:
And so to Polonius, and it will be clear from the get go why the pond shunted him down to the bottom of the page:
The header: How 40 years of Labor has damaged the Garden State; When I left Melbourne in 1984, Victoria was known as the Garden State. Now the appropriate number plate slogan might be the pothole state.
The caption for the snap that explained everything: Then Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews with his deputy Jacinta Allan after being re-elected in November 2022. Picture: Ian Currie
Polonius had succumbed to comrade Dan syndrome, a very common reptile ailment, and even worse it had happened on a weekend when most of the reptiles were in recovery from the condition, but that often happens with Polonius, because he's routinely late to the scene:
When I left Melbourne for Sydney in early 1984, Victoria was known as the Garden State. It appeared on vehicle number plates from 1977 when the Liberal Party was in office.
In 1985, under John Cain’s Labor government, the slogan was temporarily changed to Nuclear Free State. This move said much about the political direction of Victorian Labor governments. For the change was delusional, since anyone driving around Melbourne would pass a hospital that practised nuclear medicine.
There were various changes through the years. When Labor’s Daniel Andrews became premier in November 2014, Victoria became the Education State.
Following the legacy left by the Andrews and Jacinta Allan governments, the appropriate number plate slogan might be the pothole state. It is no exaggeration to say that those who live in or travel to Victoria constantly complain of dangerous potholes, even on main roads.
Labor prime minister Bob Hawke used to say, with respect to the Coalition, that “if you can’t govern yourselves, you can’t govern the country”.
Today the opposition impressively led by Jess Wilson might say to new Premier Ben Carroll: “If you can’t fill in potholes you can’t govern the state.”
That's a laugh. When the pond regularly visited south Gippsland, the cockies kept on voting in useless National party dingbats, who did nothing about the parlous state of the potholed roads. It took them years and years to come up with a proposal to do something about it, and in the meantime, they kept on arguing with the likes of Moira Deeming about the meaning of headlocks.
With that sort of opposition, the cockies got the government they deserved ...Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson has much to ask Labor about. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui
At this point Polonius embarked on one of his notoriously one eyed histories ...
At the state level, however, the political conservatives were divided while Labor was unsuccessful.
The first majority Labor government came to office under the leadership of John Cain Sr in December 1952. But it fell apart in mid-1955 following the split in the Labor Party. In the mid-1950s the breakaway Democratic Labor Party gave its preferences to the Coalition and Labor did not return to office until 1982 under John Cain Jr.
Between mid-1955 and early 1982, Victoria was governed well under Liberal Party premiers Henry Bolte and Rupert Hamer. But, over time, the party ran out of steam, particularly in the final year under Lindsay Thompson.
Then it was Labor’s turn. After a while the Cain Labor government lost touch. Cain stepped down for Joan Kirner, who lost the October 1992 election to a Coalition government led by Jeff Kennett.
The problem with the Cain-Kirner Labor government was that it spent and borrowed too much. The result was a financial disaster. Victoria was saved by the intervention of the Hawke Labor government with Paul Keating as treasurer. But the State Bank of Victoria was sold to the Commonwealth Bank in 1990 (before it was privatised). In other words, Keating’s intervention saved the Victorian economy but not its leadership.
Cue a snap embedded in the past ... much like Polonius, Victorian Premier John Cain with Bob Hawke in June 1985. The problem with the Cain-Kirner Labor government was that it spent and borrowed too much.
The pond let it pass, but then Jeff came into the picture ...
Victoria continued to perform relatively well under the Labor governments led by Steve Bracks and John Brumby that followed.
The Coalition won office in November 2010 under the incipient leadership of Ted Baillieu. He was replaced before his first term ended by the non-charismatic Denis Napthine.
And then along came Daniel Andrews of Labor’s Socialist Left faction who led his party to big victories in 2014, 2018 and 2022 before he stepped down for Allan in September 2023. Alas, it was a throwback to the Cain-Kirner years, with the Andrews and Allan governments spending, taxing and borrowing to finance big projects and expand the public service.
Just as the failure of the Cain-Kirner governments in Victoria contributed significantly to Australia’s recession of 1991-92, so has the failure of the Andrews-Allan government contributed to the weakness in the national economy.
Moreover, Andrews’ obsession with his Big Build plan – the spending of large amounts of money on sometimes dubious projects while allowing the militant CFMEU trade union to control project sites – has had deleterious effects.
The reptiles reminded the pond of a premier best forgotten ... Jeff Kennett with his wife Felicity in October 1992. His government restored Victoria as a strong economic performer.
Now it's true whenever the pond visits Melbourne that it's reminded of Jeff:
So why do we hate it? Well, for one thing, many Melburnians have long forgotten what it represents or didn’t know/care to begin with. Another reason is that when soundproof walls were installed on either side of the road they removed the view of the moment when the zipper opens. Melburnians now loathe it so much that less friendly nicknames have been given to it such as eyesore, boom-gate and ribcage (which mostly refers to the sound tunnel adjoining the artwork). Our state Premier at the time when the road and artwork were built was Jeff Kennett, which has led to even less polite nicknames such as Jeff’s Erection (the yellow pole) and Jeff’s Condom (the sound tunnel). (here)
And there were reasons that Jeff was sent packing, as explained by Dr Paul Strangio: Jeff revisited: it was the best of times, the worst of times
Yet Kennett's overbearing leadership was unreconstructed. He failed to appreciate that his modus operandi was growing out of tune with the return of benign times - or more likely he was incapable of changing his leadership spots.
Unbound leadership has a habit of ending in fatal overreach, and so it was at the 1999 election campaign. Kennett banned ministers from speaking on policy, inspiring a devastating Herald Sun front-page image of government members with mouths gagged, and he refused to answer questions during a testy appearance on Jon Faine's ABC morning radio program.
The Liberal Party campaign celebrated the ''cult of Jeff'': it launched a jeff.com website and commissioned a radio advertisement that featured a youthful male supporter exuberantly declaring, ''Jeff, yeah, he's a legend … Jeff f---ing rules!'' Little wonder the electorate - particularly neglected rural and regional voters - decided to cut the premier down to size.
Viewed against the long-run history of Victorian state politics, the Kennett era is an outlier. Its neo-liberal adventurism was alien to a state that had been the nursery ground for a tradition of (social) liberalism that supported a substantial role for government in economic and social life. Similarly, in a polity that at least since Henry Bolte's era has favoured moderate, consensual leadership, the swashbuckling Kennett stands out as an exotic.
He was a bully and a preening braggart, an upstart peacock who eventually had his feathers plucked, and he was the prime reason that the state went to Labor for such a long time - anything to avoid a repeat of the horrors - with only the unfortunate, hapless Ted Baillieu and the even more unfortunately comatose Napthine breaking the run.
Polonius then moved into a litany which luckily left the conservative free ABC off the hook:
The continuation of a strong left-wing government and, until recently, a soft opposition, has led to hostility to mining as a means of raising revenue through excise and company taxes. Sure, Victoria has raised money through international students but its minerals, manufacturing and rural industries are relatively small. A state cannot live by education alone.
Then there are the all-pervasive regulations and high state taxes and charges along with an obsession to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 irrespective of the cost.
The Covid-19 pandemic restrictions hit especially hard in Victoria because of an obsessive desire of the Andrews government to lock up healthy adults and children. This was particularly harmful to lower socio-economic Victorians who lived in smaller homes with fewer amenities. The Andrews government even denied public play areas to children.
Four decades ago, the level of violent crime in Victoria would have been roughly the same as in other states, taking into account the different population in numbers. Not any more.
Really? Why do they keep grinding away on that old saw because the stats for 2024 shriek that the toads are worst of all ...
And more recent data shows that crime stats are whatever you want to make of them ...
Theft rises in both states, even as Victoria’s crime rate decreases 1.9% on the year before
The crime rate, which factors in population growth, also decreased by 1.9% compared with the previous 12 months. It marked the first drop in the crime rate since 2022...
...Meanwhile, data released on Thursday by the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research in NSW showed crime has mostly remained stable in the state over the past two years, with the exception of shoplifting and stealing offences.
The data showed shoplifting increased by 9.1% in the two years to March 2026 and other stealing offences increased by 3.1%.
The rise in shoplifting was driven by a 17% increase in the theft of clothing and footwear and a 13% increase in the theft of alcohol, while the rise in stealing was driven by a 27% increase in the theft of ebikes, which accounted for more than a third of the 2,080 incidents.
Meanwhile, the number of adults facing court in NSW increased by 10% in the two years to March 2026,
with a third of the growth related to domestic violence.
The data found the overall increase in charges resulted from greater police enforcement rather than a growth in offending.
This includes domestic violence, with the data showing charges for domestic violence assault increased by 13% over the two years despite the number of recorded incident remaining stable.
In recent months, the state’s prison system has broken numerous records, despite crime remaining relatively stable.
NSW’s total prison population is a record high, at more than 14,000 people in March. The most recent data from Bocsar also shows a record number of Indigenous adults in custody, and a record number of DV offenders, which now make up almost a third of the prison population. Last year, there was a record number of Indigenous deaths in custody
Any crime is crime too much, but superficial comparisons between states regarding crime never helps, not when it's just cheap point scoring.
There's damned lies and then there's Polonius's damned use of statistics.
All that was left was a Pellist bleat, and the notion that Victoria's justice system was now a swamp of Socialist Left thinking...
In 1984 Victoria had a strong economy, a stable political system and a respected legal system. Moreover, Victorians could travel to Melbourne on weekends without having to confront militant intolerant protesters.
The harsh message is that Victoria has been damaged by the Socialist Left, which has been in office for a long time. New Premier Carroll was a key player in the Andrews and Allan incompetent governments. But at least he is not from the Socialist Left faction.
If comrade Dan was a leftist in government, then the pond doesn't have a clue what "leftist" means...
Just because someone makes a nod towards "socialism" doesn't mean they are that way inclined.
Take it from real lefties ...Andrews saved lives, but was no socialist
There is nothing in the least radical, let alone communist, about the ALP Socialist Left or Dan Andrews. The ideological differences between the Labor factions are virtually non-existent. Labor’s so-called left and right these days are simply rival machines fighting to carve up the spoils of office.
The supposed leftist Andrews worked very closely with billionaire property developers and with toll operator Transurban, awarding them lucrative contract after lucrative contract. Labor has also long been in bed with Crown Casino and the gambling industry.
Andrews is best mates with right-wing trucking magnate Lindsay Fox, one of only ten Australians who have appeared in every Financial Review Rich List, or its predecessor, the BRW Rich 200, since it was first published in 1984.
After former Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett ravaged vital public services, Andrews privatised virtually everything left standing, including public housing, the Port of Melbourne, VicRoads, disability services and the Public Records Office.
The Andrews government presided over the running down of the healthcare system and enforced a harsh wage cap that savaged the real wages of nurses, teachers and other public sector workers.
Andrews spent big on rail and road projects but also on prisons and police numbers. His law-and-order agenda of increased police powers and tougher bail laws led to a surge in prison numbers largely for very minor offences. For all the talk of Labor’s progressive approach to Aboriginal rights, it was disproportionally young Aboriginal people that were being locked up.
Well yes, but the point about this age-old socialist slur, as recycled by Polonius?
With a bit of mangling of words the pond can get there:
The ideological differences between the Liberal and Labor state factions are virtually non-existent. Sure they talk up the differences, but they end up sounding the same once their extreme elements settle down to enjoy the perks of the job. These days the reptiles deploy the notion of catastrophic differences so they can get behind the right kind of Liberal machine, fighting to carve up the spoils of office.
The pond has never seen a property developer or a gambling industry both the Liberal and the Labor parties can't love.
C.f. Wilcox:
And with that time to celebrate the many ways it could be worse ...
