In which the pond winnowed the reptiles all the way down to Stewie stewing about the mad king and "Ned" stewing about the beefy boofhead mired in contradictions ...

 

Today seemed like a perfect day for the reptiles to opt into abusing the government and the opposition on the sordid matter of the gambling matter sell out, but they decided to opt out, and carry on their usual jihads.

EXCLUSIVE
Rental disorder: nation’s largest property manager backs warning on 30pc rises
Property manager Ray White has warned Jim Chalmers’ budget tax changes could force rents up by almost a third, as the Albanese government publicly rejects the analysis.
By Thomas Henry, Matthew Cranston and Ewin Hannan

The pond guesses that the lizard Oz's devotion to tabloid revenues for the Murdoch empire trumped any concern for hive mind punters ...

EXCLUSIVE
$240 rent hike for Christmas: Jim’s people pay price
Rents in Jim Chalmers’ Rankin electorate climb at three times Treasury’s forecast rate
The Treasurer promised rents would rise just $2 a week – but in his own electorate, landlords are hiking them by up to $240.
By Mackenzie Scott and Jordan Lamont

The indefatigable Geoff was standing by to chamber another tirade ...

COMMENTARY by GEOFF CHAMBERS
Tell ’em they’re dreaming: Treasury’s forecasts were simply pie in the sky, Jim Chalmers
The Treasurer’s frustrated reaction to an NAB client note discussing impacts of the government’s housing tax crackdown reveals a politician under pressure.

It wasn't as if they couldn't have turned to the 'toons to see what was going down in the real world, courtesy of the likes of the infallible Pope ...

As a way of continuing their avoidance tactics, the reptiles also dragged truly moth eaten Petey boy out of the closet to join another jihad ...

EXCLUSIVE
Costello warns Victoria faces multi-term battle to repair ‘sickly’ state
The former treasurer urges the next state government to rein in spending, slash taxes, and dismantle Daniel Andrews’s ‘command-and-control’ public service.
By Anthony Galloway

Sure enough it turned out that trained parrot Anthony was just regurgitating what Petey boy had offered over on the extreme far right.

First steps on the road back from this state of decay
The state that gave the world its longest Covid lockdown now faces a $200bn debt crisis – it will take years to escape.
By Peter Costello
Contributor

Couldn't the reptiles rustle up a relevant Victorian Liberal rather than this ossified antique?

What a joy to be able personally to consign both of them to the intermittent archive.

If the reptiles had wanted to strike a Victorian tone, they could have turned to Golding, celebrating the vultures at the footy ...

The pond also did the same archival service for Dame Slap, what with her deciding to act as chief reptile ghoul this day, performatively showing off her routine of hard bigot...

‘Soft bigotry of low expectations’ claims don
One of the world’s greatest universities, home to Newton and Darwin, seemingly let identity politics trump academic rigour – with devastating consequences.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

It was the pile on of jihadist bigots that claimed the don, and the pond refuses to indulge Dame Slap in her version of the blame game.

There was avoidance wherever the pond looked.

Instead of the gambling matter, the bouffant one summoned up his usual two minute bleat ...

Keogh fiasco takes the gloss off reforms and energises opposition
On the day Australia honoured its Vietnam veterans, their own minister was too busy to meet them – until the Prime Minister personally intervened.
By Dennis Shanahan
National Editor

Come on bouffant one, couldn't you have at least joined the immortal Rowe?

Oh and the pond should note that the reptiles are still continuing their silent movie ticking clock count down at the top of the digital page ...

It better be good, but the pond suspects it will turn out to be a dud, a bit like when Richard Harris turned up to defuse the ticking time bermb in Dick Lester's Juggernaut. Cut the red wire (or was it the blue one?)

With all that winnowing of the hive mind, the pond had to go below the page to discover Cameron in a tither and a dither ... bermb, bermb, bermb Oman ...

The header: Donald Trump’s foreign policy unravels with threats to key international partners; The threat to ‘bomb the s..t’ out of Oman signals a presidency unravelling on the world stage, with Iran, Gaza and the Strait of Hormuz all defying his grip.

The caption for the bone spurs clown carrying on like a member of the military: President Donald Trump arrives at the White House on Sunday. Picture: AP Photo

It's tough times for the reptiles down under, what with their kissing cousins at Faux Noise still actively campaigning for the triumph of the GOP at the mid-terms, so that mad king Donald might continue his reign without let or hindrance.

This might help explain why Stewie could only summon up three minutes and the reptiles larded the piece with a number of AV distractions ...

One day it’s South Korea, the next day it’s Oman. Donald Trump’s threat to “bomb the shit” out of Oman was the latest bad day of geopolitics for an increasingly frustrated President.
These are tough days for Trump on the international stage. Nothing seems to be going right. The war against Iran is at a stalemate, with no hope of a meaningful resolution any time soon. Trump can’t break an increasingly belligerent Iran with military force and can’t even get Tehran to the negotiating table to secure a face-saving peace deal. The collapsed 60-day memorandum of understanding with Iran ended this week with no achievements and no move on either side to try to revive it.

This really should be bromancer turf, but perhaps he was exhausted by yesterday's outing, as the reptiles piled on the AV distractions ... US President Donald Trump is threatening to bomb Oman as it reportedly closes in on a deal with Iran to control the Strait of Hormuz. “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s**t out of them,” President Trump said. The White House has maintained one of its key goals is to fully reopen the waterway for free passage. President Trump also reiterated that the main objective is stopping Iran from having nuclear capabilities. Iran told Reuters it plans to escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz if diplomacy continues to fail and it’s giving the US a few weeks to fully implement the MOU and end its naval blockade.

Stewie was as perplexed as the bromancer. Perhaps both of them need to head over to Faux Noise for retraining on the inhouse e-emetre, so they might become clear ...

In Gaza, Trump’s peace process has come to a halt after Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Trump’s plan under pressure from the far-right faction he needs to court to retain power in the October election. There is now almost zero chance of the Gaza peace process advancing before the Israeli election despite Trump sending his son-in-law Jared Kushner there this week to try to push it forward.
With each passing day, it is increasingly likely that the Iran conflict will remain unresolved by the midterm elections in November. In other words, Americans will go to the polls with the motivation to punish Trump for this unpopular war and for the soaring gas prices and flow-on inflation it has generated. The likely outcome is that Republicans will lose the House of Representatives and most likely the Senate, making Trump a lame duck for his final two years in the White House.
Trump’s frustration with this situation is playing out in the increasingly bizarre comments and empty rhetoric he is employing on Iran.
His bewildering order this week for the Pentagon to scale back military exercises with an ally South Korea – and hand a diplomatic win to the ‘unthreatening and respectful’ Stalinist dictatorship of North Korea – because Seoul did not do more to help the US on Iran, can only be interpreted as a presidential tantrum.

The reptiles threw in another AV distraction ... US President Donald Trump claims North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un has always treated him with “great respect”. “I understand him, he understands me,” he said. “I get along with him very well. What I’m doing is making things safer.” This comes after President Trump ordered the military to scale back joint drills with South Korea hours before they were due to begin.

Stewie was relentlessly gloomy ...

Likewise, Trump’s empty threat to “bomb the shit” out of the unthreatening gulf state of Oman is another ‘lash-out’ moment.
Trump’s beef with Oman is that it is negotiating separately with Iran for a deal to allow shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, with Iran overseeing ships entering the Strait and Oman overseeing those leaving the Strait.
The details of the proposed deal are unclear but Trump is unhappy with the prospect of a deal which could potentially give Iran any form of control over shipping in the Strait.
Trump also lashed out at Oman in May over the possibility that it would join forces with Iran to re-open the Strait with conditions attached.
Oman frames itself as a neutral negotiator between the US and Iran and Iran even though Iran has launched strikes against Oman during this war. But Oman has been too close to Iran in the eyes of some in Washington, with its leader Sultan Haitham, having sent a message of congratulations to Iran’s newly selected supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, earlier this year.

The reptiles turned to a final AV distraction ... President Donald Trump's approval rating fell to the lowest level of his presidency, ‌with an overwhelming majority of Americans concerned the U.S. war with Iran will last a long time, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded on Monday (August 17). Reuters Politics Editor Scott Malone explains.

As a way of wrapping up the Faux Noise follies, Stewie decided the mad King needed a little advice ...

Yet in the end, Oman is not a key player in the conflict and Trump would be better served focusing on more effective ways to break the impasse in the oil-critical Strait of Hormuz. Not that he claims there is an impasse. Trump has claimed falsely that the US already controls the Strait and that it will eventually claim the waterway as US territory. This sort of empty rhetoric only serves to undermine Trump’s reputation and US prestige while giving confidence to the abhorrent regime in Iran.
Trump has enough challenges trying to re-open the Strait of Hormuz and seek an honourable exit from this conflict without tilting at windmills and lashing out at countries like South Korea or Oman rather than Iran.

Buckle up Stewie, it's an astonishingly effective distraction, though it's hard to work out what's distracting from who or what these days ...

The lizard Oz editorialist was equally distracted ...

The pond can reassure the reptiles of Oz that the pond is in daily personal contact with the mad King, and no doubt if palms are greased, something can be worked out ...

Consider the pond and Faux Noise as signed up members of the prestigious group, the Midterms Patriot Roster. How else to ensure the madness continues?

And with all that aforementioned winnowing, the pond had backed itself into a corner and only had "Ned's" natter to hand out as a bonus ...

Some bonus, though it's arguably better than a kick in the teeth:

The header: Are the centre-right ready for a fight on super? One Nation and a Liberal maverick have put compulsory superannuation on the election agenda.

The caption for a man inclined to brag out of turn: Andrew Bragg says super is “probably the biggest failure of public policy in the last 50 years”. Picture: Martin Ollman

"Ned" took a bigly five minutes, and the pond can safely say it had no interest in what he had to say, nor much in the topic itself.

The pond merely offers it as another example of the way the reptiles continue to torment themselves, haunted by Gina's pampered pet Pauline, and the odd pollie inclined to brag too much ...

A combination of One Nation under Pauline Hanson and Liberal maverick Andrew Bragg has put on the table the most potentially incendiary item at the next election – how far the convoluted forces of the centre right venture to undermine compulsory national superannuation.
The immediate retaliation from the Albanese government gives the game away. The two policy edifices sanctified and untouchable in Labor’s pantheon are superannuation and Medicare. Labor sees them as weapons to be mobilised and fortresses to be defended at all costs. And, to a great extent, the Liberals have long been intimidated by these Labor icons.
The centre right is trapped. It resents and disputes the principles that underpin compulsory super but it has always failed to devise any enduring reform that strikes at the Labor model. But with the Liberals needing to be bold, lusting to differentiate themselves from Labor, and a public agonising over cost-of-living pressures, the same issue arises again: will the Coalition strike against the edifice?
Their core proposition is obvious: with real wages declining and living standards stagnant, why should the Australian people tolerate a law that confiscates 12 per cent of their wages to be locked into a retirement fund that they cannot access for the rest of their working life? Who decided on this level of imposed sacrifice? Might its social licence be far less than what Labor and the union movement assume? Will the centre right have the courage and the brains to test the issue?
Many Liberals, if not most, still see compulsory super as the embodiment of government control and union influence, hostile to their core philosophy of individual freedom. The system is a permanent torment for the Liberals – they can’t accept its principles but they can’t devise the means to change it (even when in office).
Two influential Liberals, opposition Treasury spokesman Tim Wilson and housing spokesman Bragg, have long been hostile towards the model. Wilson opposed the increase in the contribution rate to 12 per cent, has previously called for low-income earners to be exempted, and said people should be able to access their super to buy a home.
Last week Bragg called for a New Liberalism and attacked vested interests, with super funds top of the list. He branded the super system a “massive failure, probably the biggest failure of public policy in the last 50 years”. He slammed the 12 per cent compulsory rate, saying it took “from people’s wages to vest them with managers they will never meet”, constituted a loss of liberty and choice, and asked pointedly whether people in their 20s would prefer to put their 12 per cent into super or buying a home.
What happened next defines our politics. Hanson jumped on the train last weekend. She doesn’t have policies but she emotes. Her message on News24: people should be able to access their super. “A lot of Australians are doing it tough now and struggling to pay off their mortgages,” Hanson said. “In some ways I feel that you should give them their money now and let them help them with the cost of living. It is their money. They’ve sacrificed it in lieu of pay.”

Freedumb boy with Gina's pet? 

At least it keeps "Ned" far away from that gambling matter: Pauline Hanson believes people should be able to access their super. Picture: Tony Gough

It was up to "Ned" to lather up fear and loathing as best he could ...

Hanson has emotional pull. But she offered no rule changes, no details, no message on how wide or how high she wanted access changed. Nothing. Jim Chalmers didn’t miss. “One Nation wants to destroy the compulsory superannuation system,” he said. He warned any government of Liberals, Nationals and One Nation would “absolutely decimate the economic security and retirement incomes of millions of Australian workers” because they shared a “divisive anti-worker, anti-super ideology”.
The Treasurer said it was the biggest threat to the superannuation model in four decades. And it is another campaign weapon for Labor. If the Liberal Party plans to offer serious changes to the super system, this is a bad start.
If you have been impressed in the past by a Labor Medicare scare, that will be dwarfed by an election based on super, with Labor, the union movement and the power of industry superannuation funds united in their assault on the centre right. Nothing is more institutionally and policy precious to Labor than compulsory super – it would sacrifice everything to win an election-driven referendum.
On display is how Hanson eats the lunch of the Liberal Party, then spits it out. She issues populist declarations (not viable policies) from immigration to super, pre-empting the Liberals who typically find that their own policies, when realised, can’t match Hanson’s recklessness or just duplicate it, and are then dismissed as ineffective or unsure about their beliefs.
In retrospect, Labor’s creation of compulsory super is one of the most astonishing achievements since Federation. It testifies to Labor’s mentality as an institu­tional party, from its bond with the unions, its creation of Medicare, its IR machinery, to its most recent creation, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, despite its many flaws.
The $4.5 trillion super sector, unique in the world, is based on compulsory contributions from wages to private superannuation funds (as opposed to a nationalised model). It originated as a Labor-ACTU project, the architects being Paul Keating and Bill Kelty, the model developed initially through the ALP-ACTU Accord during the 1980s and then, under Keating’s influence, becoming a mandated super scheme by law with a 9 per cent contribution target.

The pond would dearly love a penny each time the reptiles show that the French clock man keeps living rent-free in their heads ... Paul Keating shakes hands with ACTU secretary Bill Kelty at a rally in Melbourne during the 1996 federal election campaign.

Some pond correspondents might have a view, but "Ned" moaning away about super fun with Pauline isn't the pond's problem.

He's the one forced to shout at clouds that the beefy boofhead's mob are mired in contradictions, and that means the pond just has to sit back and marvel at the show ...

Keating noted that in progressing to 9 per cent, rising productivity meant while employer contributions rose, so did the profits share of the economy. While Keating’s aim was a 15 per cent rate, that was rejected by the Howard government.
The only remarkable thing about the current outbreak on super is that it didn’t occur earlier, given cost-of-living and housing pressures. In the 2022 campaign Scott Morrison unveiled a policy allowing people to access 40 per cent of their super account, capped at $50,000 – yet delayed the release until the end of the campaign, fearing the retaliatory power of industry super funds.
It was, however, the earlier debate about the lift to a 12 per cent contribution that triggered substantial critiques.

How weird did it get? Despite his blather, "Ned" felt the need to help out Gina's pet and the man inclined to brag:

In 2018 an article by Grattan Institute analysts Brendan Coates and John Daly delivered a frontal assault: “The bipartisan plan to increase compulsory super contributions to 12 per cent will reduce wages today, do little to boost the retirement incomes of many low-income workers, and cost the federal budget billions now and well into the future. If politicians really want to help low-income earners, the planned increases should be scrapped …
“As the Henry Tax Review and others have noted, higher compulsory super contribu­tions are ultimately funded by lower wages, which means lower living standards for workers today.”

That meant "Ned" had to wheel out a big billy goat butt, handsomely dressed up as a "despite":

Despite this analysis, compulsory super is embedded in our political mentality, as revealed in the absence of any serious “rollback” proposal – so far – despite falling real wages, stagnant living standards and agitation over the pressures that households have faced for some years.
Presumably, Hanson will keep running her campaign. If she gets traction, watch out; that will intensify pressure on the Coalition. The Liberals, meanwhile, are mired in contradictions. Angus Taylor backs stability in the system and also backs investment flexibility for superannuation. Liberal analysis shows that when the super contribution rose from 10 to 12 per cent, real wages fell by 2 per cent over the same time. OK, but what, if anything, will they do about it?

Okay, but why should the pond give a FF? It's all on the beefy boofhead, and all on the reptiles and the way that Gina's pet has plucked assorted positions straight from the pages of the lizard Oz, whether it be Dame Groan's furriner bashing or Lloydie of the Amazon's climate science denialism.

How about a lengthy meditation on this Wilcox instead? It would still have consigned the gambling matter to an opt out chamber room ...

Meanwhile, just to keep the bermb, bermb, bermb Oman fun flowing ...

In which the bromancer and Dame Groan set the Tuesday pace, with other reptiles sent to the archive ...

 

The reptiles today deployed the hoariest of ancient thriller movie devices ... the ticking clock ...

Are they going to keep that damned thing top of the page for the next two days?

Things must be desperate in the attention-seeking hive mind, with the top of the digital world "news" ma this day just a standard bout of alarmism from the canny Cranson ...

COST OF LIVING
Brace for an extra 30pc on your rent after Labor’s tax changes
Renters facing a housing crisis could be hit with rises of up to 30 per cent after the Albanese government scrapped key investor tax concessions, NAB has warned.
By Matthew Cranston

It's the "could be" that gets the pond. 

Give a shout out when it's a "will be", "are being" or "have been", and the pond will take note of the sky falling in...

As usual, it mainly served as a vehicle for a snap of Albo and Claire looking startled, as if a melon had hovered into view ... (where has melongate gone?)

Luckily the pond didn't have to pay attention beyond that teaser trailer because the bromancer was on the scene, dealing with an imponderable, intractable Faux Noise issue ...

The header: World rides rollercoaster with Donald Trump to midterms; The US midterm elections loom as a defining moment for global politics, shaping international policy in unpredictable ways.

The caption for the mad king: US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One in Morristown, N.J. Picture: AP

The bromancer eventually works his way to "nearly chaotic", a big leap for the hive mind, but it takes him some time to get there, so please be patient, as we wade through the ramble ...

Everything that happens in the world for the next three months will be influenced, if not shaped altogether, by the lead-up to the US midterm elections in November, which at this stage look like being a car crash for Donald Trump and his Republicans.
It will be a tricky period for Australia as the US, and every other nation, will combine, in the most confusing fashion possible, internal and external policy. US enemies will try to influence the outcome. US allies will be worried about even more unpredictability than usual.
The Democrats will win the House of Representatives. In the Senate the race is more finely pitched. The last two years of Trump’s presidency will be characterised by congressional chaos and divided government. The House will devote itself energetically to inquiring into any and all of the strange processes of government that have characterised the administration.
It’s quite likely the House will impeach Trump for a third time. It’s inconceivable Democrats would do well enough to have the 60 members in the Senate necessary to convict Trump.
One lifeline for Republicans is that the Democrats, under the influence of the Democratic Socialists of America, are choosing a number of far-left candidates, such as Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
In some ways it’s shaping as a reverse of the 2022 midterm elections. Trump insisted on backing a number of fairly loopy MAGA candidates for the Senate. They beat more mainstream Republicans in the primaries but lost the Senate races to Democrats.
However, for a dynamic like that to take hold, the Republicans have to be at least in the race. It’s absolutely clear now that the Iranian regime is determined to keep control of the Strait of Hormuz indefinitely, and incidentally hurt Republicans in the midterms.

It wouldn't be a bromancer piece without a gesturing deviant, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian gesturing as he speaks during a press conference in the capital Tehran. Picture: AFP

Under extreme pressure from his Faux Noise cousins - Has Sean Hannity given up on the Iran war? - the bromancer went a "weirdly" ...

Trump has said so many weirdly self-contradictory things about Iran over the past six months that his words are the least reliable guide as to what might happen. Remember just two weeks ago he said if Iran didn’t make a deal he would unleash the greatest military attack since World War II.
Iran didn’t make a deal and of course Trump didn’t launch such an attack. It’s now a reliable rule of thumb that the more Trump talks of an imminent attack, the less likely it is to take place.
Those folks who think Trump never makes a mistake will say this is all savvy negotiating tactics by Trump. But for a statement to be an effective negotiating tactic it’s necessary for the other party to the negotiation to think the statement has some meaning. The Iranians have worked out that Trump is now mainly bluffing about renewed military actions.

The reptiles then reverted to a much loved image ... Children swim as ships are seen anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Bandar Abbas, Iran. Picture: Getty Images

Realising he might have gone a tad too far, the bromancer organised a hasty retreat, because there must always be indecisions and revisions, and not just in an Eliot poem ...

This is not to damn Trump altogether. His administration has done some very good things and some very bad things. The polarised positions on Trump – that he is always the devil versus the idea that Trump is always the only possible saviour – are both wrong. Trump is a mixed grill, like most leaders.
However, I would say Trump is now a victim of his tactics. He is much more tactical than strategic. He saw a tactical opportunity to decapitate Iran and change it forever. The decapitation was tactical, and worked, the permanent change was strategic, and didn’t work.
If Iran had actually been on the brink of acquiring nuclear weapons, almost any American action would have been justified. But Trump had told us he had previously totally obliterated Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff saying that Iran was within a few weeks of producing a weapon completely lacks credibility and has never been backed up by any evidence.
Iran nonetheless remains an intensely evil regime. It has several times tried to assassinate Trump. For the past two decades it has been the world’s chief state sponsor of terrorism. It’s on the record that Tehran has undertaken cyber espionage against civilian infrastructure in the US. As artificial intelligence develops, this kind of capability will become more lethal.
The biggest US enemy, the People’s Republic of China, will also be working to affect the outcome of the US midterm elections. In the past couple of weeks there have been credible reports of Beijing backing pro-Palestine groups in both the UK and the US. This suits Beijing’s interests because it sows hatred and division within Western societies.

All good, but then the bromancer had to deal with the elephant in the room ...

That had sent Tom Nichols in The Atlantic into a state of hysteria, Trump Will Make South Korea Pay For His Iran Humiliation, His rage is driving him to make irrational policy choices. (*intermittent archive link)

...When Trump makes the effort to say something is “unrelated” to his actions (and then adds a coy question mark) it usually means it is completely related—and probably his central motivation.
Scaling back the exercise is, of course, an insane decision, which does nothing but hurt an ally, and tempt an adversary to think—correctly—that American leadership is feckless. You could be forgiven for wondering why South Korea and the rest of the free world must pay for Donald Trump’s failures. Such confusion is understandable, except that in Trump’s world, every loss, every defeat, is a personal insult. When things go wrong, someone must be held responsible—and that someone is never Donald Trump.
America and the rest of the world are now witnessing a public exhibition of narcissistic rage. Trump embarked on a war for personal glory, and what he got instead was ongoing humiliation. He clearly finds it all unbearable.
Trump both fears and respects the autocrats who rule Russia, China, and North Korea, and so he dares not cross them. Instead, he is seeking to assuage the psychic injury of his loss in Iran—including the American public learning of the shameful conditions to which he has subjected U.S. forces—by kicking America’s allies, the nations he can punish without fear that they will kick him back.
The Iran war was not the president’s failure, you see. Others failed the president. Those disloyal South Koreans, who every few years drag him into a needless confrontation with that respectful and peace-loving young man in Pyongyang, refused to help him topple the Iranian regime. And because Trump is unable to subdue Iran, unable to replenish stocks of U.S. weapons he should never have expended in this war, unable to take care of the service personnel he has put in harm’s way, someone is going to pay. The most convenient target he could find, at least for the moment, was South Korea.
At a better moment in American history, an enraged Congress would step in and demand answers about such dangerous idiocy. They would rush to the White House, talk to the press, hold hearings, and in general act like responsible stewards of American power. Those days, at least among legislators of the president’s party, are long past. They will take whatever Trump dishes out. Our allies might for the time being similarly ignore Trump’s tantrums, but they have power and agency of their own, and even now are likely planning for a world in which the Americans are no longer men and women of principle who stand by their word and by their friends.
The Chinese and the Russians and the North Koreas are certain to draw the appropriate lessons from this deranged policy. They have been shown, yet again, that when Trump fails, he hurts those he feels safe hurting. Already, North Korea is dispatching missiles and thousands of soldiers to aid Russia in its war on Ukraine. If a conflict should break out in the Pacific or on the Korean peninsula, or if the war in Europe spreads further West, the world’s dictators might well count on Trump to focus American wrath not on the enemies of the free world, but on the nations that have always pledged to stand side by side with the United States in a mutual defense of freedom.

And the bromancer himself has form in this area. 

When he's not organising a war with China by Xmas, he could reliably be found berating North Korea ...

Mad North Koreans can destroy Australia
We must make ourselves indispensable to US interests.

That didn't age well, and how he has to bite the bullet, verging towards his own kind of incoherence ...

Rather bizarrely, Trump has now issued a fusillade of abuse against US ally South Korea for not joining US military efforts against Iran (neither did anyone else). He has ordered that US joint military exercises with South Korea be curtailed. In his Truth Social post, Trump said such exercises “send a signal to a Country (North Korea) which since Donald J Trump has been president, has been unthreatening and respectful”.
This is one of the most bizarre things Trump has ever said. Pyongyang has sent tens of thousands of troops to aid Russia, rapidly expanded its nuclear missile force, and supplied Moscow with artillery and weapons in exchange for military hi-tech.
Yet Trump also plans to put punitive tariffs on nations that buy Russian oil and gas. That’s totally incoherent. One possible explanation: Could there be Washington/Pyongyang back channel talks under way?
At the same time, Trump has changed the name of the US regional military command from Indo-Pacific Command to Pacific Command, which signals some kind of retreat in ambition, while US Defence under secretary Elbridge Colby explained he no longer calls China out by name because the Trump administration now wants to avoid harsh rhetoric with China because this might lead to war.

Et tu, Elbridge? Elbridge Colby, US under secretary of defence. Picture: Getty Images

It was a sad and sorry bromancer that had to move on from "most bizarre" and finally wheel out that "nearly chaotic" ...

This is all incoherent and nearly chaotic. 

Fear not, there's always a billy goat butt from this kind of billy goat:

Yet the US remains our indispensable ally. 

What do do? is there some sand handy, because the bromancer is feeling very ostrich:

The best policy for Australia, in this turbulence and confusion, is to keep our head down, avoid personal confrontation with Trump, and continue to deepen institutional linkages with the Pentagon and other US institutions that will outlast Trump.
The Albanese government is actually managing the US relationship pretty well. The other thing we should do is build our own formidable defence force. The Albanese government’s not doing that much at all.

Sheesh, is that any way to treat a master detective?

With that done, the pond delicately stepped past the bouffant one ...

ALP’s veterans debacle a self-inflicted wound
A minister who could not find time to meet veterans somehow found it within two hours after they staged a dramatic public gallery walkout at Parliament House.
By Dennis Shanahan
National Editor

The old lizard Oz foot soldier could only manage a "less than two minute read", so the pond personally saved it to the archive ...

Ditto the pond had no interest in this yarn ...

A plea to keep faith in our cultural diversity
Two of Sydney’s most prominent religious leaders have united across faiths to warn that monoculturalism would deepen social divisions.
By Kanishka Raffel and Benjamin Elton

This said all the pond needed to know ...

...Yes, a flawed multiculturalism can be damaging, but the better alternative is not to retreat into a monocultural illusion that neglects history and human nature. We can take inspiration from the variety of the Australian bush or the cityscape of our home in Sydney, with its churches, synagogues, mosques and temples. We should invest our efforts in nurturing a form of collaborative multiculturalism that serves Australia and all its people, creating an Australia that is stronger precisely because it is diverse.
Rabbi Dr Benjamin Elton is Chief Minister of The Great Synagogue in Sydney. The Most Reverend Kanishka Raffel is the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney.

The pond has been spanked too many times with a warm lettuce leaf to care about that kind of word salad ...

And the pond had absolutely no time for this yarn, as it didn't seem to feature a saucy novel with a sexy pulse ...

EXCLUSIVE
ICJ gags former top judge’s verdict on its green overreach
Top Australian judge Ian Callinan blasts world court for wading into climate change policy
The International Court of Justice invited a former High Court judge to write an essay for its 80th anniversary – then tried to suppress his criticisms of the court.
By Paul Garvey

Is it too reflexive to wonder why a "top judge" - the reptiles new way of saying "top loon" - has himself waded into climate change policy, if only to berate the ICJ for allegedly wading into climate change? 

In reality, it's just a way of drawing attention to the IPA, a reminder that most days the lizard Oz is an IPA publicity machine...

On what basis did the not so learned judge decide that the ICJ's opinion on climate change was unpersuasive? 

Is he an expert on climate science as well as a zinger of a racy novelist?

...by all accounts Chief Justice Murray Gleeson had barristers in fits at a dinner at the Brisbane Club to mark the retirement of Ian Callinan. Reading selected quotes from the works of the former Brisbane judge, Gleeson lingered on the more racy sections of the books. Likening these accounts of sex as akin to an old movie in which the act was not fully depicted but represented by a shot of the male fast asleep, Gleeson remarked that Callinan's interpretation of sleeping with a woman "meant exactly that - going to sleep". (AFR)

So that's how the pond should be training to become a top notch climate scientist!

Of course the whiner had many other whinges, but typically the reptiles treasured the climate change angle, because nothing's wrong with the world right now ...

All that clearing of the decks kept the pond wide-eyed awake, and left room for the most treasured Tuesday moment of all for Dame Groan cultists ... a serve of her groaning ...

The header: Tomago more proof Anthony Albanese backs politics over good policy; Faulty energy policy has cost taxpayers $2.5bn to save the very industry it helped cripple, as the Albanese government’s political calculus overrides economic reform.

The caption for the grinning fiend: Anthony Albanese visits Tomago Aluminium Smelter to announce a financial lifeline to the smelter for 10 more years. Picture: Thomas Lisson

This is a classic reptile ploy. Spend weeks, neigh months, neigh years, groaning about the lack of an industrial base in crucial areas relating to defence and security...

Remind us bromancer ...

...A related decline in deterrence comes from Western governments deciding not to spend the money to produce the military capabilities that deterrence requires. All around the Western world defence spending is in a fight to the death with social spending. Defence is losing. Governments and electorates are choosing limitless social expenditure on infinitely expandable personal needs over national security spending.
As a result, the conventional balance of forces, as well as the nuclear balance, is moving against the West.
Further, the West’s defence industry base is plainly inadequate, having been greatly reduced since the end of the Cold War, with much Western manufacturing relocated to China. Western powers are slowly rebuilding this industrial base, but the process is almost criminally slow. (from August 2024, in the archive)

... then send in the groaner to beat them up, as the get 'em coming and get 'em going strategy requires:

Good policy is good politics; it’s the principle Paul Keating followed during his reforming purple patch as treasurer. What is less understood is that constant communication and explanations were also essential ingredients.
Virtually all policies involve winners and losers. Unless the losers can be compensated in some way, including through an understanding of the benefits of a bigger economic pie, economic reform becomes very difficult.

The pond can still remember ancient times when the French clock fan, sometimes observed flying over Australia on his way to Paris, sent the reptiles into a frenzy, but now he's best seen as a golden age club with which to beat the current age of lead ... Treasurer Paul Keating abided by the principle that good policy is good politics.

With that warm up, it was on for young, old and the "we'll all be rooned" biddy ...

This message is totally lost on the Albanese government. Politics trumps every other consideration. Bad policy that leads to lower productivity, higher costs and a shrinking economic pie is tolerated if there are votes involved.
Last week, we learnt of the bailout of the Tomago aluminium smelter in the Hunter Valley. It is the biggest smelter in the country and uses a very large chunk of the electricity generated along the east coast. The estimated cost of the bailout is $2.5bn over a decade, with the contribution of the NSW government capped at $1.225bn. That’s clever on the part of Premier Chris Minns, but not so appealing for Australian taxpayers.
Aluminium is essentially congealed electricity, with between 30 and 40 per cent of Tomago’s costs being energy. The long-term contract the smelter previously secured guaranteed affordable electricity until 2028 when the agreement expires. The figures for a new power contract quoted to the owners – Rio Tinto is just one of the parties – would have necessitated the closure of the plant.
The global aluminium market has shown considerable volatility historically. Russia is a big producer, as is China. There are multiple smelters in China’s western region, with modern coal plants their principal source of energy.
Other countries that are consequential producers of aluminium include Iceland, Norway, Canada and, more recently, Indonesia. Some delays in the commissioning of new plants have led to relatively high aluminium prices in the past few years, with strong demand from a variety of sources, including electric vehicles and renewable energy.
The Prime Minister claims Tomago is an example of “strategic capability” as one reason for the bailout. But given that aluminium is produced by many of our strategic allies, it’s not clear that this rationale stacks up compared with some rare minerals, for example. There is also talk about new renewable energy projects going ahead because of the deal, but Tomago’s investment in these is trivial.
The real motive for the Tomago bailout is that the plant directly employs 1000 workers, with other jobs indirectly hanging off its continuation. (The figure of 5000 in total is a stretch but is quoted to emphasise the importance of the smelter and downplay the cost of the governments’ handout per job. At $2.5m per direct job, this intervention is very expensive.) It is also located in a politically sensitive part of Australia.
But the biggest irony of this announcement, which follows several other bailouts of similar smelters/refineries, is that faulty energy policy is the main reason for the rescue operation. Had Tomago been able to roll over the energy contract at similar prices, there would be no need for such hefty compensation.
But the headlong pursuit of decarbonisation and subsidisation of renewable energy have led to much higher electricity prices and a potential loss of reliability. (Aluminium smelters require 24/7 power, although they can power down to some extent.)
But there was Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen at the announcement of the bailout, seemingly unaware that his actions, in part, have led to taxpayers being tapped on the shoulder to save the plant.

Maestro, please, a snap of the hapless one, gesticulating and requiring Dame Groan's correction, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Dame Groan was quick to send the likes of the bromancer to the corner ...

Let’s be clear here that the bailout of Tomago is all about politics, not economics or geostrategic factors. It’s stretching the meaning of words to describe it as part of the Future Made in Australia project. A private sector company could easily have the regulatory authorities knocking on the door, accusing it of misleading advertising.
Then we come to the GST deal with Western Australia and the PM’s clear assurance that nothing would change, notwithstanding the release of the Productivity Commission’s draft report on the topic. Again, this is all about politics, not good policy. And in this case, the fault is bipartisan, with the special deal having been first introduced by a Coalition government led by Scott Morrison.
For many years, WA had been a recipient state under the arrangement known as horizontal fiscal equalisation. This century HFE has been applied to the revenue generated from the GST.
But the outstanding development of the resources industry in the west, as well as high commodity prices, turned the state from being a recipient state to being a donor one, meaning the relativity of its distribution – 100 is even – began to sink and could have been as low as in the 20s. It’s easy to see how the citizens of WA felt deeply annoyed.
Now there are several ways of dealing with this conundrum; some sort of short-term adjustment may have been in order. The truth is that the way in which HFE works in this country has several flaws, including the disincentive it creates for states to develop their own resources and for governments to operate as efficiently as possible. There are also some arbitrary exclusions from the calculation – for example, gambling revenue.
Other federations around the world run much less extreme versions of HFE, which in our case is designed to allow all states to provide services of similar standard to their citizens. In Canada, for instance, only a portion of the provinces’ mineral royalties are counted towards the calculation of HFE. This is one solution to our WA problem. In the US, the extent of HFE is much lower again. There is a simple acceptance of big differences in the standard of government provision between the states and the role interstate migration can play.
The point here is that rather than create an arbitrary baseline relativity figure for WA and top up all the other states so they are no worse off – that was the Morrison deal and continued thereafter – there are other, superior policy changes that could be implemented.
Bear in mind here that the fiscal cost is now around $60bn over a decade, a large multiple of what was originally expected. This is money the federal budget cannot really afford. Note also the current arrangement produces the bizarre outcome that WA receives 113 per cent of its assessed fiscal needs compared with just under 100 per cent for the other states.
It’s a clear case of politics trumping good policy, something that has become a hallmark of this government. WA is politically important, and Albanese has made it clear there will be no change to its special GST deal. There are better ways of dealing with the issue, but he is not interested.
The Keating principle that good policy is good politics has been totally forgotten.

Um, wasn't it a hallmark of the clap happy's government? 

And now the current government lacks the balls aka the wherewithal to do anything about it?

And as for the French clock devotee, you have to admire the way he's moved from this ...

... to becoming the old biddy's poster boy, bedecked with her good housekeeping seal of approval ...

And now time to close with the immortal Rowe heading off to the races ...

Credit where it's due ... this is what Faux Noise has produced ...

In which the Caterist shows of his style, with Shanners and simpleton Simon also on hand to help out ...

 

Thrashed by Bangladesh!

The pond would love to meet proud warriors of Judaeo-Xian Western Civilisation to discuss the result, or perhaps some triumphalist white Xian nationalists proclaiming the ascendancy of the British empire, colonialism and Ming the Merciless ...

Wait, the reptiles of the lizard Oz are standing by ...

Alas, they've been distracted by the war on renewables, with Geoff leading the way with an EXCLUSIVE ...

EXCLUSIVE
Energy firms promise $40bn to win renewables scheme deals
Cash payments, Indigenous artwork commissions and free energy systems – the extraordinary price renewable companies are pledging for social licence under Chris Bowen’s secretive scheme.
By Noah Yim and Geoff Chambers

Just look at the richly comic portrait of their mortal enemy, a strategy worthy of the Reich in its glory days ...

And so on, there's more at the archive, but don't stop there, there's another reason to head off to the intermittent archive because indefatigable Geoff personally took a view and Chambered another round...

COMMENTARY by GEOFF CHAMBERS
It’s time to expose Labor’s secret renewables fund
Chris Bowen’s Capacity Investment Scheme is the most egregious of the Albanese government’s growing pile of ideologically-driven slush funds, subsidies and bailouts.

And waddya kno, as Geoff exposed away, there was another richly comic portrait of their mortal enemy at the head of the column, a strategy worthy of the Reich in its glory days ...

Wait, with just a few more lines, the pond could save a trip to the archive:

How convenient.

The other glaring problem with the CIS is the government’s omission of gas. As wind farms fail to deliver on the potential Bowen had hoped, and the “tax the gas” noise grows among left-wing MPs and supporters, Labor’s caucus is divided over the inarguable fact that affordable and abundant gas is needed to keep heavy industry and manufacturing jobs alive.

Australians, who were falsely promised by Labor at the 2022 election that their household power bills would be $275 cheaper, want reliable and affordable power generation.

If the Albanese government continues down a renewables-only path that excludes gas and zero-emissions nuclear, expect more Tomago smelter bailouts in the near future and fewer data centres.

Nuke the country to save the planet, if only the planet needed saving, what with climate science either a religious cult or a hoax! 

The pond regrets that Geoff really isn't up to much, and only knows how to regurgitate a few standard reptile talking points. Bring back the Riddster and Lloydie of the Amazon!

And so to other matters, and the pond regrets that it has become incredibly weary at the thought of tackling the Australian Daily Zionist News, so passed on by the top of the digital "news" ma ...

INSIDE STORY
Forensic inquiry or ‘tokenistic’: will Bell toll for antisemites? Will royal commission deliver solutions to antisemitism crisis?
With four months left, the antisemitism royal commission’s strongest proponents are questioning if it has sufficiently used its extraordinary legal powers – or let them go to waste.
By James Dowling

A 12 minute read?! Good luck on that journey, with the pond personally saving the outing to the intermittent archive.

The pond also passed on by Major Mitchell, if only for incessant and inane Zionism of the first water.

Hamas lies swallowed by the woke West
How Hamas outsmarted the UN and Western media in the Gaza propaganda war
Hamas strategically exploited Western media, governments and institutions after October 7 to convert Jewish deaths into Israeli guilt.
By Chris Mitchell
Columnist

How could the pond get past the inanity of the Major, in from the golf course, deploying "woke"?

Put it another way, perhaps substituting "Major" for "American", and "green fees" for the price of gas will do...

Luckily the pond could avoid talk of ethnic cleansing and genocide because the quarry whisperer was out and about, proclaiming his expertise, already firmly established in court actions marvelling at his credentials when it came to observing the movements of flood waters ...

The header: Few Australians see themselves in the people who sit in our parliament; Only a handful of MPs has engineering qualifications, which may explain Canberra’s naivety about energy and infrastructure.

The caption for the snap of a ragtag mob designed to trigger the Caterist: Too few Australians see people like themselves representing them in Canberra. Picture: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images

For those who've forgotten the Caterist's credentials, please allow the pond to quote his wiki:

He graduated from the University of Exeter with an honours degree in sociology in 1980 and drove laundry vans for a year before joining the BBC as a trainee studio manager.

If that doesn't say rigorous scientist, expert in climate change, and yet humble man of the people, perhaps your standards are too high?

Now let the Pom import smote and smite away ...

Australia’s 48th parliament is the most diverse in the nation’s history, at least by conventional measures. The female, Indigenous, ethnic and LGBT+ communities have never had so many MPs and senators advocating their cause. Yet polling consistently shows voters have never felt so disenfranchised.
Measures of trust and satisfaction in elected representatives are at record lows amid rising anti-politician sentiment and record-low support for the major parties.
For a substantial cohort of disenchanted voters, the proclaimed diversity of parliament is bunkum. One Nation’s attacks on the so-called uniparty are gaining traction, despite the stark differences between a dreamily progressive Labor government and an increasingly hard-nosed conservative opposition.
It suggests the most important political divide is not between left and right but between the politicians and the people they claim to represent.
Yet by less fashionable measures of diversity – such as age, education and career paths – parliamentarians increasingly conform to type. More than 80 per cent of MPs and senators are university graduates compared with just 26 per cent of Australians at the 2021 census.
The focus of their studies leans heavily towards the arts, including law and economics. Only a handful of parliamentarians have engineering qualifications, which may help explain Canberra’s recurring naivety about energy and infrastructure.

Too true, the last thing we need is some bloody sociology-trained pundit blathering away with no more than a passing knowledge of applied science, especially if they don't know how to apply the science to the movement of flood waters in quarries ... Rebuilding an energy system from scratch demands more than a passing knowledge of applied science, yet Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s academic background is in economics. Picture: Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP

How disappointing is that snap? 

Sure, every reptile yarn about climate change has to have a snap of terrifying windmills, designed to put fear into the hive mind and into the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way, but what an opportunity was missed to show the baleful Bowen, in a way given unto Geoff.

That's better, that's how it should have been done, unless they could have combined that snap with the shot of those infernal bloody windmills ...

Never mind, back with the sociologist for an extended rant ...

Rebuilding an energy system from scratch demands more than a passing knowledge of applied science, yet Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s academic background is in economics. MPs and senators with trade certificates are few and far between. Which leads us to the frightening conclusion that most of the politicians who legislated targets for the transformation of our energy system couldn’t be trusted to change a light bulb.
Parliament, in other words, has become a hotbed of intellectuals, defined by Thomas Sowell as “a social class of persons whose economic output consists of generalised ideas”, as opposed to those with useful skills that can be used to actually fix things. To the extent that they are problem solvers, their inclination is towards social problems – fairness, equality, diversity and the like – rather than practical problems such as saving for retirement or addressing the cost of living.
Politicians also are concentrated in a relatively narrow stage of life, from their 30s to their mid-50s, when household finances tend to be dominated by earnings and mortgages rather than accumulated assets.
As the giant cohort of Baby Boomers retires, the number in parliament is slipping. In 2013, when Tony Abbott became prime minister, 48 per cent of parliamentarians were born before 1965. In today’s parliament, the proportion of Baby Boomers and older cohorts has fallen to 20 per cent, compared with 30 per cent in the general population.
The sole representative of the Silent Generation, those born before 1946, is the magnificently un-silent Bob Katter.
The ascendancy of the narrow graduate class has encouraged a political focus that is preoccupied with intentions and abstractions – climate targets and gender identity – while paying less attention to practical consequences: cost, feasibility and the disruption imposed on ordinary lives.
On the rare occasions when the preoccupations of the political class are put directly to a popular vote, as with the Indigenous voice referendum, the gulf between Canberra and the country becomes impossible to ignore.
Yet the political class has become adept at getting its way by stealth, covering its tracks with feel-good words. The cumulative frustration over changes that most voters abhor being made without consultation – let alone a vote – is fuelling the rise of populism.
The Australian Election Survey conducted after the 2025 election revealed that the conditions were ripe for political revolt. Barely one in three Australians trusts the people in government, compared with more than half in 2007.
The proportion of the population that agreed that “People in government look after themselves” has risen from about 40 per cent late last century to about 75 per cent.
None of this would surprise American political theorist Hanna Pitkin, whose 1957 distinction between descriptive representation (who representatives are) and substantive representation (what representatives do) serves as a useful correction for identity politics.
In The Concept of Representation (1967), she argued that representation was fundamentally about acting in the interests of the represented, not merely resembling them.
In a descriptive sense, women were woefully under-represented in the blokey parliament elected in 1996, in which four out of five MPs and senators were male and only one parliamentarian was openly gay – the newly elected Greens senator Bob Brown.
Yet around twice as many voters trusted this predominantly straight white male parliament to do the right thing, suggesting the quality of political representation should be judged by the content of one’s character, not the colour of one’s skin or one’s inherited chromosomes.

Did the Caterist just attempt to show Our Henry he wasn't the only one with a reference book, while explaining the urgent need to bash womyn for ruining everything? ... The lesson for the Liberal Party is that it should reject the persistent demand for sex-based quotas and focus on recruiting members from a broader constituency of working Australians. Picture: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images

Eek, a bloody woman, and isn't there another one on the far right, making life extremely hard for the beefy boofhead?

As for Our Henry, let him try to buck at the Caterist citing Burke ...

The lesson for the Liberal Party is that it should reject the persistent demand for sex-based quotas and focus on recruiting members from a broader constituency of working Australians. Neither should it become obsessed with ethnic cohorts. We hardly need opinion polling or focus groups to tell us that the No.1 issue for most Australians, whether born here or migrants, is the cost of living.
If the party wants a targeted recruitment drive, it should target people who genuinely support Liberal values and have succeeded at something other than politics – not those whose career trajectory runs from a politics or communications degree to a staffer’s desk and thence up the party ladder.
It would eschew identity politics in all its forms, recognising that it has become a gateway drug to narcissism, encouraging politicians to lean into their personal narrative rather than quotidian concerns of the anonymous Australians who sent them to Canberra.
The more parliament sees itself as an assembly of identities, the less capable it becomes of speaking and governing in the national interest. The exhibitionist displays we sometimes see in the Senate, in which the chamber becomes a bear pit for competing grievances, serve as a warning for where this leads.
It calls for a return to humility – a dying virtue in contemporary politics – that underpins an equally unfashionable notion of public service.
Parliament will never regain public trust if it acts as what Edmund Burke describes as “a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests”. Instead, it must pursue a higher goal: “a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole”.

Eschew identity politics! Embrace the humility espoused by the Caterist, a veritable monk of reticence and modesty!

Of course, how else could enthusiastic members of the white nationalist Judaeo-Xian proponents of Western Democracy stay in charge (no minorities or womyn allowed).

And what a way to stop the immortal Rowe, busy hatching eggs ...

Is there an upside to all this? Well it seems that the reptile melongate fever has finally passed, unless you mistake those eggs for melons ...

For a bonus, the pond turned to the bouffant one. Luckily he usually only lasts for a couple of minutes, as do many Australian men, so it was a quick read ...

The header: How the Nationals leader is using food security to plot a comeback; After defections, splits and Barnaby Joyce joining One Nation, Matt Canavan has pulled the Nationals back from the brink – and new polling data could hand him an unexpected lifeline.

The caption for the AV distraction featuring Rita, meter maid, offered at the start in case nobody felt up the task of reading the morally uplifting yarn: ​Nationals Leader Matt Canavan says the media made a “total beat-up” of shadow Housing Minister Andrew Bragg’s National Press Club address. ​“He said it could be done; he didn’t say we’re going to,” Mr Canavan told News24 host Rita Panahi. ​“At least Andrew Bragg didn’t have to cancel a Press Club speech.”

Get ready for some adoring adulation:

Matt Canavan has brought the Nationals a long way in six months.

How could he bring them such a long way? Remember, he's got a ute ...

It was inevitable a reptile had to join the Canavan caravan, if only for appearances sake, and who better than Shanners?

From two recent splits with their Liberal Coalition partners, an unsuccessful leadership challenge against his predecessor David Littleproud and a slew of defections and resignations that included Nationals MPs becoming independents, joining the Liberals and, in the most spectacular action involving former leader and deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, defecting to One Nation.
At the same time, Pauline Hanson’s popularity had pushed One Nation to unprecedented levels of support in the polls, not to mention successes at the South Australian election.
But this weekend Canavan managed a unifying – at times robust – Nationals’ conference that was not afraid to back conservative causes, such as criticising Labor’s gun laws, and left MPs feeling satisfied they were heading back on track.

"At times robust"!: Senator Matt Canavan managed to push his own agenda to revive the Nationals’ standing. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman.

"Back on track"! A patriot! Staking out new territory!

And a reference to the pond's favourite poem, as the rustic from the north declared that we'd all be rooned, unless we voted for him, and if we didn't he'd be rooned ...

Canavan managed to push his own agenda to revive the Nationals’ standing, stake out a conservative territory, declaring he was not afraid to say he was a patriot, and, perhaps most importantly, raised a new and vital debate about food security, water policy and the prospect of Australia becoming a net importer of supermarket vitals such as chicken, pork and dairy.
Munching on an apple in his opening speech, Canavan demonstrated no fear of the theatrical and flair, declaring apples would be on the import list as well.
“By the year 2040, Australia may not produce enough cheese, eggs, butter, chicken, pork and apples to feed ourselves,” he warned his colleagues and the public.
“The reasons for this are all the same. Production levels staying still but population rapidly growing,” even as farm production should hit $100bn a year for the first time this year.
Canavan was doing more than whingeing and declaring “we’ll all be roon’d” because he was linking what is a decline in food and fibre production in Australia’s food bowl to the crucial political issue of population growth and immigration.
Just as Angus Taylor has linked the housing crisis to immigration levels, Canavan has linked food security to population growth.

Quick, another snap, so punters in the hive mind might have the foggiest about the mortal enemy rustics should fear: As he campaigns without talking about Pauline Hanson, Matt Canavan may have another boost to his otherwise dismal outlook – the absolute Labor and Greens rejection of One Nation. Picture: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images

Let them reject Gina's pampered pet! Let the Canavan caravan hit the road with Pauline!

And so to a final flourish of triumphalism, hitting the hive mind with Shanners' best shot:

As he campaigns without talking about Hanson, Canavan may have another boost to his otherwise dismal outlook and one that has not been recognised – the absolute Labor and Greens rejection of One Nation.
New qualitative polling from Australian Institute for Progress has found that when asked about preferences after casting their first preference, 99 per cent of Labor and Greens’ supporters will refuse to put One Nation ahead of the Coalition.
This opens the scenario of compulsory preferential voting federally actually giving Coalition candidates victory even if they finish below One Nation on preferences.
This is a long shot for Canavan but, at the moment, he is taking all the shots he can.

Splendid stuff, but the pond decided it hadn't reached peak thrills, and decided there should be a bonus to the bonus, while managing to give property prices a rest ...

Instead of having an anxiety attack about falling house prices helping out vulgar youffs - shed tears for property investors - the pond turned to simpleton Simon acting as advisor and coach to the beefy boofhead, in his hour of Pauline peril.

The header: Labor has used the Greens to stabilise the power of the Left; The Liberals’ failure has been spectacular. It is as if it hopes its hero Robert Menzies will one day provide an answer from the grave.

The caption and credit for another splendid outing by Emilia: Anthony Albanese, Angus Taylor and Pauline Hanson are trying to come to terms with their popularity with voters. Art: Emilia Tortorella

Simplistic Simon took a bigly four minutes to help the struggling boofhead from down Goulburn way, and for those who doubted the pond's invocation of the 1950s and Ming the Merciless, Simon was on hand to wash away their saucy fears ...

One would have to cast one’s mind back to what seems a distant time to recall when either of the major political parties had a four in front of their primary vote while in government.
For the Coalition, it was June 2021. For Labor it was more than 16 years ago.
There have been sporadic episodes since when both have managed to achieve this benchmark in opposition, but these have been oddities; fleeting in their longevity and rare in occasion.
Today the Coalition struggles to get a two in front of its primary vote and Labor can barely muster a three. It is questionable that either side will ever get to the 40s again.
The ALP worked out long ago that to contrive a path to government meant an accommodation on the left and inner-city voters lured by its radical affiliate.
As much as the Greens have proven problematic for Labor, so too have they become its useful idiots. This is now a well-tested mathematical proposition considering for the past two elections only a third of voters have got the government they claimed as their first choice.
The Liberal Party’s greatest failure has been its inability to foresee that it too would one day face an analogous schism. And its failure has been spectacular as it persists in a beleaguered belief that Robert Menzies will provide an answer from the grave.

Take that, Bangladesh cricketers, there will be a second coming, have no doubt of it, The Liberals are hoping that Sir Robert Menzies will guide them from the grave.

But was Ming the saviour, the redeemer speaking from the grave, telephoning down from a heavenly Cinque ports?

How simpleton Simon brooded ...

The circumstances or events that have led to the recent collapse in support for the Coalition are still contested. But the foundational decay that allowed it to happen in the first place has come with plenty of warnings. How this has come as a shock to the Liberal Party reveals the depths to its delusion.
It would be absurd to assert that Pauline Hanson could suddenly become popular by a singular event such as Bondi and in a time frame that defies logic. By her own admission, Hanson says her views are unchanged over 30 years.
So is it Australians who have changed, a response to the circumstances in which most people find themselves – poorer and ignored?
Last week’s Newspoll showed support for Labor dipping below 30 per cent for the first time since the Gillard era, proving Labor is facing a new challenge as well. Having established a franchise model of electoral power on the left, it must make adjustments to stop leakage to populism.
The key to electoral success now depends on which side has the greater comprehension of, and the ability to manipulate, a simple fact: Australians live in a preferential political world. This is why Labor’s primary vote of 29 per cent would indeed appear abysmal if not assessed by normative standards.
The latest Newspoll heralds a new yardstick for Anthony Albanese. Under his leadership, primary support has fallen to levels that characterised the level of contempt voters held Labor in following the deposition of Kevin Rudd. It should be noted that under Julia Gillard the primary vote for Labor at one point was higher than it has ever been under Albanese.

Sheesh, not Juliar, did the reptiles run out of chaff bags? The primary vote for Julia Gillard was higher than it has ever been under Mr Albanese.

And where would the hive mind be without a simplistic history lesson, filled with alarm and trepidation?

The more important measure is what Labor’s primary vote was compared with the other side. When Labor’s primary vote was last at 29 per cent, the Coalition’s primary vote was at 48 per cent. The Liberal-Nationals combina­tion could be assured victory even before preferences were counted.
Today, against a primary vote of 29 per cent for Labor, the Coalition is at 18 per cent. The picture has fundamentally altered. And it demonstrates that while Labor’s primary vote appears dangerously low in isolation, context is everything. It looks bad, but when compared with its traditional opponent it is far less so.
Labor’s primary vote was as low as 26 per cent in 2012. In April that year, the Coalition went as high as a 51 per cent primary vote against a Labor primary vote of 27 per cent.
The absence of One Nation was not a significant factor considering before that its primary vote was less than 5 per cent.
By 2017, with One Nation’s re-entry, the minor right-wing party was polling as high as 11 per cent, which was higher than the Greens. Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister and Labor’s primary vote was higher than the Coalition, in the mid to high 30s, getting as high as 41 per cent in the immediate aftermath of Morrison-Turnbull leadership spill.
By the 2019 election, the Coalition had settled under Scott Morrison and One Nation’s primary vote dropped back to about 3 per cent. It is a different story today, obviously, but there were signs some time ago of the potential for a dramatic change in direction for the broader body politic because of an emerging instability in the electorate.

Want a reminder of the glory, or should that be gory, days? How about a snap of a clap happy? the (sic) Coalition had settled under Scott Morrison by the 2019 election. Picture: Getty Images

What a chance to drag an infallible Pope out of the archives ...

Then came a final gobbet, and dare the pond say it, the notion that the reptiles' hero might be rooned, at least for the moment ...with the pond's appetite for a bout of relativism on a Monday finally sated ...

These signs, ignored at the time as the Coalition began to obsess about the teals, were evident in the post 2022 election review by the Liberal Party. It wasn’t the size of the One Nation vote that was concerning, although it had increased 60 per cent on the 2019 result; rather, it was where the votes were coming from and how they were being returned in preferences.
The review found 36 per cent of One Nation preferences flowed back to Labor. This tilted more in favour of the Coalition in 2025 but not by a significant margin.
The point is that the pool of conservative voters being harvested by One Nation was already starting to grow years ago but more than a third of them ultim­ately helped Labor. This is not the case for the centre-left, where Greens preference flows have been steadily rising across the past three decades and peaked last year at 88 per cent to Labor.
In other words, the preferential system offers electoral reward for strategic voting behaviour, which is evident among Greens voters who know they end up with a Labor government anyway.
This is the fundamental difference that denies the Coalition from replicating on the centre-right what Labor has achieved on the left. The One Nation voting motivation is self-evident; they dislike both major parties and preference only because they have to. There is ample evidence of that when preferential voting is optional – as it is in NSW, where it will be tested in March next year – and where most Greens voters are still disciplined enough to preference Labor but One Nationvoters are much less obedient.
The problem for the Coalition is potentially aggravated also by Liberal voters refusing to preference One Nation and potentially even putting Labor ahead of it.
Unless the Coalition can reverse the tables as they stand today and get ahead of One Nation on primary vote, it will be its prefer­ences that get distributed rather than the other way around. While Labor would appear to be in trouble with a primary vote so low, the fact is that this is structurally mitigated by conservative voters refusing to play by the rules.

Structurally mitigated!

What a simple lesson from simple Simon. Do a deal with Gina's pampered pet, swing to the mad far right, or perish ...

And so to end with a remarkable tribute to a remarkable Xian ...

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Matthew 19:18

He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 1 John 2:4

And how goes Vlad the sociopathic invader's world? (Steve can never resist a tinkle)