In which the pond finally settles on a nattering "Ned" sermon about the dangers of Gina's pampered pet (squillionth version) ...

 

The reptiles relentlessly pursued assorted jihads early this morning.

(1) The Victorian government ... or should that be, ghosts of Victorian governments past ...

EXCLUSIVE
Former Victorian premier Jacinta Allan’s water bombshell: Secret Labor privatisation plan
Confidential cabinet documents have revealed the Victorian Labor government secretly explored privatising Melbourne Water for five years to rescue the state’s deteriorating finances.
By Anthony Galloway

Top of the digital reptile world ma ...

Jacinta's gone, but just like comrade Dan, she'll live on forever in the reptile mind ... just check out the artwork by Debbie at the top of the yarn, as well as in that splash...

Age might weary comrade Dan, but he'll always make an appearance in the Oz.

The pond deemed the lead worth only a Golding ...

(2)  For the umpteenth time, renewables and solar provided a peril ...

Renewables
Solar panel peril? Bowen hits roof to prop up target
Businesses offered 20 per cent solar discount to help fix faltering renewables target
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen will unveil a 20 per cent solar discount for businesses, farms, schools and hospitals as Labor’s 82 per cent renewables target faces mounting pressure.
By Geoff Chambers

The pond was shattered when it clicked on Geoff, chambering his usual round, to discover that thumb portrait of a demonic orange yellow monster had been abandoned at the head of the story ...

Still waiting for a story featuring the ongoing destruction of Europe by the impact of climate change? Keep waiting ...

(3) The Australian Daily Zionist News went about its business...

EXCLUSIVE
‘Should be answering questions, not asking’: Matilda’s dad slams ‘hijackers’
The father of the 10-year-old Bondi victim has condemned pro-Palestine groups for attempting to hijack the antisemitism royal commission.
By Bimini Plesser

ANALYSIS
Leadership comes from witness box as Jewish leader pushes back
David Ossip leads from witness box to prevent royal commission veering off course
On an intensely sensitive day, the inquiry come perilously close to being hijacked by questions on Israel’s military actions.
By Lachlan Leeming
NSW Political Correspondent

Wondering if you'll ever read a story about the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Gaza in the lizard Oz? Keep wondering ...

(4) The important business of keeping the pesky, difficult blacks arguing about points of order took another step forward ...

Pearson’s ‘blue dot’ proposal far from Langton-Calma plan (updated archive link. Hot tip: turn off your VPN when using the archive)
Marcia Langton and Tom Calma seem to miss an altogether bigger issue. Their report is not the same as Pearson’s calls.
By Eddie Synot

Sorry Eddie your opening line put the pond right off ...

Noel Pearson’s speech at Garma is a welcome intervention in the sorry situation that has followed the 2023 voice referendum.

That's Voice, Eddie, not voice ...and if you can't stand up to the reptiles, what use are you?

(5) Dame Slap was on hand to berate Alan, a reliable target over the years, not just for being a wanker, but for being a gay wanker ...

Sorry, Alan Joyce. We want CEOs talking growth, not social crusades (updated archive link)
We’d be infinitely happier with CEOs who just look after the store.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

Sorry, Dame Slap, the pond isn't interested in journalists conducting social crusades against alleged social crusaders ...

Joyce was just there as a straw dog, a convenient prop for the usual reptile devotion to the ways of mad King Donald and his minions, which happens to include SCOTUS ...

...The corporates-as-social-engineers jig is on the nose. In the US the Supreme Court has essentially killed the business case for DEI, while in Australia the virulent bullying by corporate Australia in favour of the voice proved counter-productive. If that disaster hasn’t taught corporate Australia a lesson about its role, then it is on a hiding to nothing.
When it comes to campaigning, corporate CEOs should be lobbying for economic reform with the same verve as the union movement lobbies for productivity-killing privileges. And to be fair to Joyce, he did his fair share of that, where others cowered in corners.
Ten years ago, outgoing CEO of the Business Council of Australia Catherine Livingstone said: “The BCA doesn’t want to campaign, it should not have to campaign because the integrity of its policy positions should speak for themselves.” No doubt Livingstone meant well but the failure of corporate Australia to get interested in issues where they really did have a business case (for example, on tax and industrial relations issues) is damning.
They now bitterly regret their indolence and preference for what they thought were soft and easy pickings of a social justice nature during the first two decades of this century. It meant when a genuinely left-wing government came to power in 2022, business had no credibility and no track record in defending policies that truly did have a business case.
They had wasted all their ammunition on social fripperies for 20 years and had been MIA on the hard issues they should have been working on. So no, Alan, the last thing we want is more CEOs crusading for social justice. We’d be infinitely happier with CEOs who just look after the store.

Just the usual far right drivel, and that was as much of it as the pond could take ...

Meanwhile, with that Oz listicle done, the real fun was taking place elsewhere ...with the fun disappeared to the cornfield by the reptiles of Oz, but dammit there has to be some joy in the world...

Analysis Operation Rosny
Leaks, lies and Liberals: The closing minutes of Damien Tudehope’s ICAC evidence were a disaster
Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane surely won’t want one of the Liberal Party’s faceless men showing his face any time soon.
By Bevan Shields

That ongoing saga, disappeared by the reptiles, inspired John Hanscombe to pen a few words for The Echnida, The Canberra Times' newsletter (which also boasts of supplying cartoons each morning, including the infallible Pope, and so is worth a subscription):

The hatred was visceral. A loathing so deep, so mutual, there was no way the two would ever be reconciled. On occasions it manifested itself in public outbursts so shrill, witnesses were left speechless. They were bitter political rivals out to destroy each other. But they weren't from different parties. Instead, they belonged to warring factions within the one party.
I'm reminded of their poisonous antics daily, as the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption's Operation Rosny lays bare the scheming and chicanery behind another bruising factional war within the NSW Liberal Party.
The public hearings are delving into the way money from prohibited donors financed the efforts of a conservative Christian group called The Reformers to stack local branches and influence preselections.
Newly minted federal president of the Liberal Party Tony Abbott, himself a seasoned right-wing factional warrior whose best days are behind him, tried to dismiss the ICAC probe into an internal party squabble as a factional hit job.
Abbott's dismissal papers over the role allegedly played by fugitive developer and banned donor Jean Nassif in financing The Reformers, which ICAC is also investigating. Phone taps revealed Nassif, now hiding out in Lebanon, gloating about the influence he believed he had over the NSW government.
The branch-stacking, the backstabbing, the blind ambition of young milk-fed Liberals are all depressingly familiar. A few years ago I watched it play out on my own turf as Gareth Ward, now in jail for sexual assault, went to war with John Howard's Class of 96 veteran federal MP for Gilmore Joanna Gash.
Ward enlisted the support of a coterie of well-groomed, similarly milk-fed Young Liberals to erode support for Gash. Gash, in turn, relied on the backing of the local Liberal gerontocracy. It was a bitter contest that endured long after Gash resigned from federal parliament. Her successor and close friend, Ann Sudmalis, also resigned after the local branches elected a hostile executive after a concerted campaign of leaks and white anting.
It should have ended there but in 2019, then prime minister Scott Morrison staged his own intervention, parachuting Warren Mundine as a candidate into the seat of Gilmore over the locally preselected Liberal Grant Schultz, son of Alby who held the seat of Hume now occupied by Angus Taylor.
The Liberals lost their once blue ribbon seat to Labor, which has held it ever since.
As the 1969 Motown hit asked, "War, what is it good for?" Not much, when it comes to what Abbott calls internal party squabbles. The Liberals lost their seat, the protagonists their careers, and the electorate their faith that the people they elect are there to represent their interests, not those of their factions.
More broadly, the factional warring within the Liberal Party has only hastened its decline and headlong slide into irrelevance. The ICAC hearings expose just how destructive it's been.

Milk fed.

So true, so apt, and you won't be reading that sort of stuff in the lizard Oz. (Not that the pond has got anything against milk).

And the accompanying infallible Pope?

The pond lives in daily fear for the cockies, maggies and kookaburras of the mighty 'Gong, but not so much for Gina's pampered pet.

And after all that winnowing, ducking and weaving, the pond was left with just one early morning reptile.

Come on down nattering "Ned" ...

The header: An alliance with Hanson? Don’t forget Gillard’s fate; Any Liberal-National Coalition that included Hanson would have a short shelf life. The chaos and crisis on the centre right would be far worse than now.

The caption for the overly familiar snap: Angus Taylor and Pauline Hanson.

Right at the get go the pond had a problem. 

That risible opening snap, featuring a downcast beefy boofhead, and an ascendent Gina's pet, seemed familiar, and so it was ... it was there for when Geoff had chambered another of his rounds, proposing the exact opposite to "Ned"...

Time for Angus Taylor to invite Pauline Hanson for tea and unite against Anthony Albanese
Angus Taylor faces mounting pressure from colleagues to engage with Pauline Hanson as the Coalition’s primary vote languishes at 19 per cent.

And that's how the reptiles do business. 

First one proposes something, and then another comes along to stir the pot, though when "Ned" gets to stirring, it's a dull old affair, his usual wandering back in time, so admonishments can be made in his usual ponderous way, and lessons can be learned...

On September 1, 2010, prime minister Julia Gillard signed a formal written agreement creating a governing alliance between the minority Labor government and the Greens political party – a vital step in ensuring Labor would remain in office after the general election 10 days earlier.
The agreement was followed by two subsequent written agreements Gillard reached with independent MPs that turned Gillard’s floor minority into a 76 to 74 majority over the Tony Abbott-led Coalition – an apparent triumph of coalition building by Labor.
But the reality was far different. These agreements doomed Gillard as prime minister. The deal with the Greens, in particular, was ill-advised with irreparable consequences for the Labor brand.
Gillard’s flawed tactics constitute a case study in how not to run a minority government and are relevant today given the confused claims about whether the Liberals should form an alliance or a coalition with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation after the next election.
Gillard’s story provides a definitive answer. She made three mistakes. First, she assumed she needed a formal alliance with the Greens when the Greens had no option since they were never going to make Abbott the PM over Gillard. Second, once committed to a formal deal Gillard had to make concessions and the concession she made – consent to a carbon price (known as the carbon tax and not part of her election agenda) exposed her to claims of “betrayal of the Australian people” in Abbott’s words, an accusation from which she never recovered. Third, by entering into formal alliances Gillard compromised the Labor brand for the rest of her government.

It's almost as tiresome and as tedious as the reptile obsession with comrade Dan, this desire to live in the ancient past. 

Speaking of Alan Jones - much in the fondling news of late, if not in the lizard Oz - does anyone have a chaff bag to hand? Former PM Julia Gillard speaks during a press conference. Picture: Alan Porritt / AAP Image

They say that history arches towards irony and in the case of the parrot the pond is prepared to believe it. Remember the good old days?

Back to "Ned" as he reaches the "lessons to be learned" phase ...

One of Gillard’s most competent ministers, Greg Combet said later: “The problem is the community felt we were running agendas that were not our own. They were seen as somebody else’s.” The core lesson Chris Bowen drew from the Gillard experience was that Labor must govern “alone or not at all”.
This is Anthony Albanese’s assessment, having lived through these events. He has previously made clear if Labor was forced into minority government he would not seek a governing coalition with the Greens. That is obvious. Albanese, moreover, wouldn’t need to since the Greens would never support a Coalition government. Yet the current debate seems not to grasp the power realities in these minority government situations.
Of course, the Liberal-National Coalition is unlikely to be in a position to form a minority government after the 2028 poll – that would require a huge loss of seats by Labor and, in addition, the Taylor-led Coalition could call the shots only if it had more seats than One Nation.
Yet this contingency seems to be consuming both centre-right politics and the related media coverage, with senior Liberals from Angus Taylor down repeatedly being asked whether they would variously strike a deal or agreement or coalition with the Hanson party to create a minority government.
What is pivotal in this debate is the distinct difference between a formal governing alliance or coalition with One Nation that gives Hanson’s party official entry into executive government decision-making as distinct from merely having One Nation agree to give a Liberal-National government support on supply and confidence. That latter does not make One Nation a party to executive power. The difference is fundamental.

The reptiles flung in a snap of a man almost as arcane as the parrot and Flinty in that cartoon ... Greg Combet

Stout-hearted "Ned" stayed loyal to the cause, no matter what the fiends might fling at the beefy boofhead, or what he might do to himself ...

Unsurprisingly, Labor runs a political scare campaign with Albanese saying: “In every way that matters the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation are already a coalition. It’s not just that they need each other to form government. They agree with each other about what they want to do in government.”
The implication is that the only way the Liberals can govern from a minority position is with a coalition or formal alliance with One Nation. This is obviously wrong. If the Liberals post-election have the potential to form a minority government then Hanson’s party must give confidence to Liberals or Labor – and having Hanson king-make Albanese into a third term is nonsense.
Indeed, the disastrous branding consequences for Taylor, as head of a Liberal-National government that would be triggered by opening the executive door to One Nation, would be far more lethal than the grim fate that befell Gillard.
Recall that Gillard was deposed by a desperate ALP caucus in June 2013 with internal research showing its coming defeat would be worse than those of Gough Whitlam in 1975 and 1977. Gillard’s tenacity was vital in her surviving as long as she did against Kevin Rudd’s political assault when the polls had long shown she was doomed.
Her political adviser, John McTernan, said: “All the flak of minority government was sucked into her prime ministership because she was so central to the deals and maintaining the deals.” The further lesson is that any minority government arrangement must be drama free, based on genuine concord.

And here "Ned" explained the single reason for voting for the beefy boofhead. Think of the entertainment value!

That makes any coalition with Hanson impossible. Can you imagine the perpetual disruption and dramas having Hanson involved in any alliance or coalition, given that personal grandstanding and fanning grievance is her modus operandi?
Any Liberal-National Coalition that included Hanson would have a short shelf life. The chaos and crisis on the centre right would be far worse than now given it would be governing. If Taylor tried this, he would be lucky to last three months as PM, let alone Gillard’s three years. The damaging legacy would be hung around the neck of the Liberal Party for years.

There came another grim reminder, featuring the onion muncher and that woman ... Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott in Question Time in the House of Representatives, Parliament House in Canberra.

The pond couldn't think of a single reason to feature a Golding, but did it anyway ...

Kill joy "Ned" brought his sermon to a close ... (if we can't see a coalition government in abject crisis, what's the meaning of life?)

Taylor and his deputy, Jane Hume, have no viable political option but to dismiss any notion of a coalition with One Nation. Apart from being unnecessary, it could never work. It’s not just that Taylor and Hanson don’t trust each other to contemplate such a deal but their policies, starting with the economy, are too far apart anyway, a point Taylor has put on the public record.
The day after Gillard announced her five-page 2010 written deal and concessions to the Greens, I wrote on page one of this paper: “This deal puts Gillard’s leadership on the line” since it was an act of “strategic folly”. It got Gillard into minority government but doomed her leadership.
With Hanson, this is a debate about an issue that won’t happen. But Labor’s rhetorical campaign and repeatedly false signals sent by Liberal and Coalition MPs probably mean the media will keep its focus on an issue that won’t happen – much to Labor’s benefit.
The real challenge for the Liberals is not what happens post-election but what happens pre-election. The imperative for the Coalition is to have a higher primary vote than Hanson, thereby reclaiming its status as the superior party on the centre right. It seems the Victorian election is heading in this direction, with Newspoll showing the Jess Wilson-led Coalition on 31 per cent compared with Hanson’s party on 19 per cent.
As Gerard Henderson has written, the persistent claims that the choice at the next federal election might be between a Labor and a Coalition-One Nation government is a fantasy. That won’t be the choice. The inexplicable irony is that many figures on the centre right are promoting this idea. They should reflect upon Gillard’s fate.

Waddya kno, "Ned" in that last line linking to prattling Polonius, dogs chasing their tails, tortured by the notion that the beefy boofhead might form some kind of alliance to gain power, and knowing deep in their pounding hearts, that he'd do anything to get into the Lodge ...

The more they protest, the more the pond suspects it to be true ...

The pond has already been there and done that, and rather than end on the unsavoury sights and sounds of Dan "the man" Tehan, here's an immortal Rowe ...

The pond is aware of the inspiration ...

... but how much better that Hockney would have been if there'd been some tats ...

Another moment missed in the reptile coverage ... more talk about an ongoing comedy related to a scheming clown who flew too close to the King Donald sun ...

 

And talk about the many forms the American nightmare takes, with the pond realising there's yet another reason to catch a train ...

 

In which the pond gives in to distractions, but still finds room for a bromancer bleat and a jolly good denialist Groaning...

 

The pond woke to more news that Europe was in a bad way, and not just from wildfires. 

Big rivers like the Rhine and the Danube were way down, and landlocked Hungary's nukes were struggling.

The pond knew that none of this would mentioned in the lizard Oz, but could at least note Rhine falls to record low levels as drought strains Europe's rivers.

Bear it in mind, those dismal record levels will come in handy when we get to groaning ...

The pond also knew it wouldn't be reading this kind of report, the sort that appeared in another place yesterday, starring the onion muncher and his friends, and noted by correspondents...

‘No corruption’: Abbott says ICAC a factional hit job as Taylor faces questions (*intermittent archive link)

Tony Abbott, the Liberal Party president and close ally of Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, has accused the Independent Commission Against Corruption of overstepping its remit by becoming involved in an “internal party squabble”.
Abbott, whom Taylor picked as federal president in May, described the religious-right Reformers group as a group of enthusiastic young Christians with a strong sense of mission, and argued there was no suggestion of self-enriching corruption.
Taylor’s long-time friend and supporter, Catholic schools boss Dallas McInerney, is among those being investigated by the ICAC for funnelling Catholic Schools NSW funds to the hard-right Reformers through lobbying companies as illicit donations.
Abbott acknowledged the Reformers, whose key members provided evidence in the first week of Operation Rosny’s hearings, “might have let their enthusiasm get the better of their judgment.”
“There seems to be a level [of] incredulity directed against people’s Christianity, but my main problem is the factional weaponisation of what’s supposed to be an instrument of justice,” he said.
“I’m surprised that ICAC has allowed itself to be caught up in an internal party squabble that involves no conceivable ‘corruption’ in the sense of people gaining an unfair advantage for themselves, especially this close to a state election.”
The probe into his allies has already been a distraction for Taylor, who remains behind One Nation in the polls. ICAC’s hearings are due to continue for another seven weeks.
The inquiry last week produced a message from McInerney to Reformers members saying he planned to “shake down Angus for 10k”, while another witness said McInerney boasted of securing a pledge for $15,000 from Taylor. Taylor has repeatedly insisted no payment was made.
A key Reformers operative told the commission last week that Abbott, a former prime minister, featured in the group’s first event, in February 2018.
Abbott’s statement represents the firmest defence of the bid to install up to 5000 right-wing members to fight the rival centre-right faction, led by MP Alex Hawke, and generate a more conservative stance on social and cultural issues.
His remarks go further than the limited responses from Taylor to questions last week about the claim that he donated money.
While Taylor has not been called by ICAC and is not accused of wrongdoing, some of his federal colleagues have held informal talks about the process for changing leaders if he was implicated more directly.
The MPs and factional opponents of Taylor, who asked for anonymity to discuss the live inquiry, are not necessarily expecting more damaging revelations about the opposition leader. But they are questioning why he has not distanced himself more forcefully, and are on guard in case there are further claims.

And there's more this day from Kate McClymont ...

Betrayals, backstabbers and rats: Inside the ICAC’s Game of Thrones
The ICAC has lit the fuse on an explosive inquiry that will examine the behaviour of (from left) Jean-Claude Perrottet, Dallas McInerney, Jean Nassif and Charles Perrottet, among others.
Day six of the ICAC’s blockbuster inquiry was reminiscent of the fantasy TV series, including allegations of backstabbing at former premier Dominic Perrottet’s wedding. (*intermittent archive link)

Barking mad Xian fundie rats everywhere, but the reptiles of Oz know how to disappear that sort of gossip in a trice and so it was today, as they led with this at the top of the digital edition ma ...

EXCLUSIVE
Going, going gone: ALP’s $230bn hit to property values
ALP’s policies of ‘fear’: $230bn hit to property values
Australia’s property market has shed $230bn in four months, with a developer warning Albanese government policies have created a ‘sentiment of fear’ threatening to deepen the housing crisis.
By Mackenzie Scott and Noah Yim

Get 'em coming, get 'em going. 

Bleat about young potential home owners being locked out of the market, bleat about inflation, then bleat about struggling property investors ... but why the square quotes on "fear", what with fear being the daily serve the reptiles offer the hive mind?

Well played team.

Over on the far right, Geoff chambered another of his rounds, weeping at the fragility ...oh the fragility.

Labor plays roulette with fragile house markets
An assistant minister charged with defending Labor’s housing policy has offered a definition of negative equity that economists say is simply wrong.
By Geoff Chambers

Political editor

Here, have a 'toon to celebrate ...

Back across the way and moving a little further down, having set up Noel for a fall yesterday, the reptiles delivered today ...

EXCLUSIVE
Marcia Langton and Tom Calma call out Noel Pearson on remote Indigenous takeover: good idea … but you rejected it
Indigenous leaders Marcia Langton and Tom Calma have declared Noel Pearson’s remote communities proposal is identical to the reform he rejected five years ago.
By Paige Taylor

(Intermittent archive link updated)

Paige was just regurgitating the source, in the usual reptile way in a bald faced 3 minute summary in the usual reptile way ...

The intermittent archive eventually got around to saving the source (link updated)..

Commentary by Marcia Langton and Tom Calma
Pearson has found his way back to the voice he refused
Where do we go from here, Noel? Back to the blueprint. It has been waiting for five years.

Whatever, both are only noted to show how the reptiles love to feature fussing, feuding black people, especially when it's about the voice, not the Voice (when it comes to caps, the lizard Oz can sometimes be almost Graudian). 

How the reptiles would love to return to the glorious days of their Voice jihad.

Over on the far right there was a splendid array of offerings, rare for a Tuesday.

The pond had to exercise some discretion, so walked on by this offering...

How Islamists have weaponised migration to overwhelm Europe
Since the Arab Spring, Morocco’s Islamists have struggled to offer a credible governing agenda. Instead, they’ve spent years convincing young Moroccans their country has no future.
By Zineb Riboua
Contributor

The alarmist, terrified header is more than enough to set the tone, and her credit sealed the deal ...

Zineb Riboua is a research fellow at Hudson Institute’s Centre for Peace and Security in the Middle East. This piece was first published on her Substack, Beyond the Ideological.

It was, of course, profoundly ideological, but it did at least give the pond a chance to reference Anne Applebaum's latest work for The Atlantic ...

The Far Right Is Distorting Ceuta
We’ve seen this before. (here's hoping that guest link works)

Inter alia ...

...This would not be the first time that a migrant wave has been boosted on social media in order to create a political crisis. In 2021, the Belarusian government imported planeloads of people from the Middle East, brought them to the Polish border, and told them to cross, provoking a political crisis in Poland. The Moroccans themselves are accused of having done this too, in 2021, when they allegedly relaxed border controls to express their annoyance with Spain.
But the most important precedent was in 2015, when the Russian destruction of Syria produced a massive wave of migration that also was filmed and photographed, especially after Germany declared that it would accept hundreds of thousands of war victims as refugees. Social-media posts showing migrants walking toward Europe, some amplified by the Russians who destroyed Syria, then played a major role in the Brexit campaign in the U.K., as well as the rise of the far right in Germany. The scars left by this memory are so deep that several European leaders, including the social-democratic prime minister of Denmark and the nationalist prime minister of Italy, this week accused Sánchez of endangering the Schengen Area even though, once again, the integrity of the zone was never threatened.
Readers can be forgiven for feeling a strong sense of déjà vu. For more than a decade now, European and indeed American politicians have known that real, fake, enhanced, or context-free pictures of migrants jumping fences will immediately create a wave reaction. Military rhetoric will be used—attack or invasion—and, to quote Vance, “radical left-wing globalist policies” will be blamed. Hardly anyone will ask why it is that so many people are so desperate to move that they will risk their lives. Few will mourn the dead.
Instead, far-right and MAGA politicians, influencers, and podcasters will immediately use the most divisive language possible in order to make voters as angry as possible, as fast as possible, regardless of what actually happened. Almost everyone else will be intimidated by their fury. As it turns out, it’s harder to stop the wave of anger than it is to stop the migrants themselves.

Well yes, it's the far right lizard Oz way, and after all that, the pond had to pay attention to its long time favourites.

First the bromancer, desperate to distract from mad King Donald ... and while updating links, the pond couldn't fail to notice how the reptiles had dressed up his hit piece with some splendid artwork and a pride of place position... (the pond couldn't be bothered checking the text to see if it had also been fiddled with).

The pond was bursting with pride that the bromancer was so honoured, knowing he'd explain that there was nothing wrong with AUKUS, except perhaps the UK and the US ...

Such incredible art, and yet so uncredited. So subtle and nuanced ...

AI, you've done it again.

Compare and contrast the original dullard illustration as the bromancer set out on his journey, where all the reptiles could come up with was a shouty shouty snap ...

The header: Defence for dummies? Marles and Conroy certainly fit the bill; One day Albanese government defence policy will be studied in universities around the world as the Platonic ideal of disastrous policymaking.

The caption for that angry man shouting at clouds: Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy talks about the AUSKUS submarines at the Osborne Naval Shipyard. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

Where would the country be without its very own Reichsmarschall des GroßAustralisch Reiches, always standing by to deliver his advice in language most genteel...

What an absolute fuster-cluck, to use the precise technical term, the Albanese government’s defence policy is at every level. It’s the perfect mannequin dummy, with neither brains nor balls. It’s so incoherent it’s almost impossible to follow. Amateur hour on steroids.
John Howard shrewdly observed that the immigration discussion is blighted by a pointless debate about abstract nouns – monoculturalism and multiculturalism – which could mean almost anything. He might have made the same point regarding the debate about AUKUS, another abstract noun with a wildly elastic range of meanings. Certainly, the statements of Defence Minister Richard Marles and Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy range from implausible to contradictory to ridiculous a good deal of the time.
The latest almost comically implausible mess seems to have been all Conroy’s work. Under AUKUS, from next year, American and possibly British submarines will rotate through Perth in an arrangement called Submarine Rotation Force West. They won’t be permanently based in Perth, but will visit sometimes for months.
The Albanese government has consistently sold this as contributing directly to Australia’s security, contributing to allied deterrence, giving the US a useful regional access point, and allowing deep maintenance of both US, and eventually Australian, nuclear submarines. This would relieve some of the congestion in the US maintenance program and thus free up more sailing days for US nuclear subs. So would reducing the time for US subs transiting from Hawaii to the Indian Ocean side of the Indo-Pacific.

Still with AUKUS and the subs? Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles, left, Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, Chief of the Nuclear Powered Submarine Task Force and South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

Still with the notion that mad King Donald and his minions were of any interest at all?

Did that 'toon mention Gaza? 

The ethnic cleansing continues apace, and What We Can Learn From Trump’s Short-Lived “Historic Breakthrough” in Gaza, This is what happens when you bring in amateurs to negotiate peace in the Middle East

But you can't expect the bromancer to go there ...

All this was predicated on the idea that Canberra thinks it benefits us, and the world, for more US nuclear submarines to be at sea more often. But then former Defence Department deputy secretary Mike Pezzullo noted that from 2032 on, US policy planned to have some Virginia-class nuclear-powered subs armed with short-range nuclear weapons.
This sent a frisson of worry through the Albanese government, as it has never succeeded, largely because it’s never tried, in selling AUKUS in principle to its activist base. An infinitely superior generation of Labor leaders, Bob Hawke and Kim Beazley, convinced the Labor Party to support the welcome of US naval ships to Australian ports even though the US had a “neither confirm nor deny” policy regarding whether any particular ship carried nuclear weapons.
But the Albanese government is not only incompetent, it’s cowardly. It’s frequently caught in an unmanageable vortex of conflicting imperatives from conflicting impulses of cowardice.
In any event, on July 29, in an interview on the ABC’s 7.30, Conroy said: “Submarine Rotation Force West is due to come to an end in the early 2030s.” He repeated this point several times, specifying the year 2032. The context is important. Sarah Ferguson was asking him if, after Virginias began potentially to carry nuclear weapons, their presence in Perth would cause a problem. Conroy chose to answer this by saying the arrangement would come to an end in 2032. In that interview, he at no point suggested any ongoing arrangement to replace it.
Ferguson herself, in her promo for the interview, was under no doubt in interpreting Conroy’s statement. She said: “(Conroy) said for the first time that the American Navy submarine rotation would end in 2032.”
This would have been astounding news to Washington. It’s hard to know, too, why so many naval personnel berths are being built in Perth if we’re only going to have the minuscule Australian crew there after 2032. Gone too, apparently, are all those arrangements about long-term maintenance.
For a couple of days no one could get any reaction from the Pentagon. Then on July 31, Marles gave an interview in which he repeatedly said: “Submarine Rotational Force West is intended to be an enduring feature of that American force posture in Australia and it’s a really important part of the AUKUS framework.”

At this point the reptiles introduced an AV distraction ...Former Labor MP Michael Danby says the AUKUS submarines have the opportunity to “deter” the aggressive Chinese fleet. Mr Danby told Sky News host Jaimee Rogers that drones are the “future” of modern warfare. “These drones are unbelievable. “We should just be importing vast quantities of this stuff; it’s incredibly cheap.”

The pond wasn't just distracted by having a host called "Jaimee".

What's this talk of Faux Noise down under? 

Hasn't there been a rebrand? 

Will the reptiles ever become aware of it?

And will the bromancer continue to burble about the joys of being in bed with mad King Donald? You betcha ...

The Pentagon itself then issued a statement noting the “enduring” nature of the arrangements. Then Conroy himself issued a social media statement, bizarrely on X, without defence portfolio or even personal ministerial letterhead, which said: “Submarine Rotational Force West is intended to be an enduring element of US Force Posture in Australia.”
That, and Conroy’s initial 7.30 statement, cannot both be true. What seems to have happened is that the Pentagon slapped Marles into line, and Marles slapped Conroy into line. Conroy could attempt some kind of verbal sleight-of-hand defence that the name under which US submarines rotate through Perth might change. But that’s not what he said on 7.30. He just declared the arrangement would end.
It seemed for a minute a government minister had announced a major shift in policy but people were right to assume that because these ministers so incessantly talk such implausible rubbish that it was just another gaffe. My interpretation of this baffling but typical Albanese government defence mess is that it was Conroy attempting to make some response to the Pezzullo intervention, to help the government among Labor branches and activists.
One interpretation is that the government was exercising leverage against the Americans. If you don’t sell us a Virginia on schedule in 2032, we might kick you out of Perth. That is either implausible or it shows the government in an even more foolish light than we have yet imagined. If we don’t get a Virginia in 2032, and as a result we kick the Americans out of Perth, we would then end up with neither our own subs nor the presence of allied subs, a result so wholly ridiculous and against our national interests it must be beyond even the compass of Albanese defence policy. Then again …
The AUKUS debate is mostly a clash of conflicting fantasies. Of course it will be great for Australia to have nuclear-powered subs. The real problem with AUKUS is that it’s going to take so long and the government is doing almost nothing else in defence in the meantime. It’s as though you were building a new rugby league team to enter the competition in 2032 and you recruited Bulldogs captain Stephen Crichton, the best player in the league, as your star player for the new club, but then forgot to add the other 12 members needed to make up a team.
One day Albanese government defence policy will be studied in universities around the world as the Platonic ideal of disastrous policymaking.

And that done and dusted, and speaking of ongoing disasters, will the bromancer ever get around to scribbling about the disastrous policymaking conducted by mad King Donald and his minions?

Some within the tent, such as the WSJ editorial board, are able to manage it...with a recent offering beginning with the piquant joke “A friend quipped the other day that President Trump truly deserves the Nobel Peace Prize because he has already ended the Iran war eight times.”

Sheesh, another distraction, but what the hell Archy ...

Trump’s Latest Iran ‘DEAL’ (sorry, the intermittent archive isn't currently in save mode, but what follows is the text)
He again calls off the military escalation he threatened, with little detail disclosed.
By 
The Editorial Board

Why is it that the bromancer never goes, though it seems clear enough who's the real fuster-cluck (so clever, so witty):

Indeed, indeed...

And here's a few other things not mentioned by the lizard Oz...

 

Actual gambling reform? Gina's pet banning the media?

Nah, none of that, and so to the regular Tuesday treat, wherein old biddy Dame Groan explains why we're all rooned ...

Did the pond mention the way that climate change is currently stuffing Europe?

What we need is even more stuffing, perhaps by way of a bigly gassing, a sure fire way to conduct a holocaust ...

The header: Will El Presidente have time to fix our shoddy gas policy? As the air goes out of the net-zero tyre, it would’ve been preferable for Chris Bowen to focus on the energy issues we face at home.

The caption for the snap of that eternal villain: Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen.

Did you like that jibe about El Presidente?

That's a sign Dame Groan is in top form, and so the old biddy spent a bigly four minutes dissing renewables and wind and batteries (she hates wind as much as mad King Donald) and so on, because what climate science?

Our Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, surely has his hands full, what with his additional job of president of COP negotiations leading up to and including the climate conference to be held in Antalya later in the year. A pre-meeting is scheduled for Fiji, although it’s proving difficult to get heads of government interested in attending.
It’s not entirely clear what Australia stands to gain from the minister’s overcommitment. There are numerous problems emerging in relation to the difficult – probably impossible – transition of the electricity grid away from fossil fuels that need urgent attention.
Large-scale wind projects have become almost unbankable, and we have the bizarre possibility that an expensive new transmission system will be built in the New England region without any new renewable energy projects.
The early bidders into the federal government’s Capacity Investment Scheme are having second thoughts and are seeking to renegotiate terms to push up the degree of subsidisation. These bidders, largely overseas companies, are also seeking assistance under state schemes, although in these instances the costs are directly borne by energy users via higher prices rather than taxpayers.
Talking about fleecing taxpayers, the federal government’s Cheaper Home Batteries program really takes the cake. It was originally expected to cost $2.3bn over four years. But a design glitch meant “the actual average battery support was 75 per cent higher because households chose to install higher average battery sizes”. At one stage, the cost of the scheme had blown out to $14bn but has now been wound back to $8.5bn.

There came another snap of the two main villains, posed together, Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen hold a press conference in Sydney. Picture: NewsWire/ Nathan Smith

Dame Groan ploughed on in her inimitable way, in the style that has made her much cherished by pond correspondents ...

But here’s the thing: our very busy Climate Change and Energy Minister thinks this scheme is a great success because it is reducing demand for dispatchable large-scale electricity – mainly coal – at the end of the day, in particular.
But a recent event in South Australia clearly demonstrates why expensive household batteries are not really the answer to our prayers. A wind drought – it was described as the worst wind lull in SA since 2019 – meant that virtually no power was being generated from wind sources for a period.
While batteries, both household and larger-scale, were useful for a while, they soon ran low. The maximum wholesale price of $20,300 per megawatt hour was reached on two occasions and gas-fired power was required to meet demand.
What this episode clearly demonstrates is the fragility of the system and the need to cover all events, not just events on average. The required redundancy in the system is one of the reasons for our extremely high electricity prices.
In turn, this feature feeds into the appalling loss of productivity in the utilities sector, as noted by the Productivity Commission.
“Productivity growth in the utilities industry, of which the electricity sector is a part, has been poor. In fact, from 2000-01 to 2023-24, the utilities industry was the worst-performing industry in Australia (falling nearly 40 per cent). The electricity sector itself did not fare much better.”
In the meantime, Bowen has been spending some of his scarce time devising a gas reservation scheme, having vigorously opposed such an arrangement during the last election campaign. Recall that the Coalition promised to introduce a gas reservation scheme to reduce east coast prices. The expectation was that an additional 50-100 petajoules would be made available to the domestic market, with east coast demand totalling around 500 petajoules.
Bowen labelled the proposal a “scam-phlet”, referring to the document outlining the Coalition’s proposal. But that was then, and now he is all aboard a national reservation scheme even though there are effectively three gas domestic markets in Australia: the east coast, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Bear in mind, WA has had a gas reservation scheme for many years. While there are some issues about the way it works, it’s hard to make the case for disturbing that arrangement.

Who better than the Ughmann, devoted former seminarian and renowned climate scientist, to add to the debate, in discussion with petulant Peta ...

News24 political contributor Chris Uhlmann says the world is moving towards prioritising energy security, warning Australia’s current policies risk making the nation poorer. “There is undoubtedly a shift which Chris Bowen refuses to acknowledge,” Mr Uhlmann told News24 host Peta Credlin. “Right around the world, the world understands now that energy security trumps everything else. “What Chris Bowen says and does is somewhat a sideshow. “We continue to pursue policies which will in the long run make us a poorer nation.”

Say what? There has been a rebrand/

Sky Noise down under now goes by another name?

 But nobody bothered to tell Arthur or Martha or the lizard Oz until now?

And speaking of Martha, Dame Groan offered a final gobbet, grandly climaxing in a triumphant dissing of net zero, because there's never been a better time to gas the planet ...

Economists have no problem with resource reservation rules if they are agreed prior to investment in projects. They should preferably apply for the duration of a project rather than each year.
What is now being proposed by the federal government doesn’t fit into this mould. A very large tranche of gas is to be reserved – around 250 petajoules, or 20 per cent of the total exports of LNG – and this must be sold to users each year, not just offered. This is absurd and would basically force most small domestic gas producers to the wall.
There is very little domestic demand in the Northern Territory and yet the proposal is that the reserved gas must be sold before any residual can be exported. This is completely unworkable. Given the prospects of the very large Beetaloo project coming to fruition, the last thing the country needs is this sort of impediment to stand in its way.
The basic idea is that downward pressure should be placed on the domestic price of gas and this would help industrial users of gas as well as gas-using households. The trouble is that a much lower domestic price will kill the incentives for exploration and new developments because the anticipated risk-adjusted returns will be simply too low.
There is also the possibility that the LNG export contracts entered into by the three producers operating out of Gladstone will not be fully honoured. Not only would there be important implications for our trading relationships, but there could also be a threat to the security of our liquid fuels sourced from Asian refineries.
The consultation process for the proposed gas reservation scheme – at least there has been one – has drawn stringent criticisms from a wide range of participants. Apart from some gas users, who are still wary about long-run price and supply sustainability, the scheme is essentially friendless. It partly reflects the complete gutting of the bureaucracy in terms of expertise and experience in the field.
There really is no choice but to return to the drawing board. A much smaller quantity of gas should be nominated; it will need only to be offered to users, not sold; Western Australia and the Northern Territory should be excluded; and specific commitments must be made to the facilitation of the opening up of new gas fields, including support for the required infrastructure such as additional pipelines.
As the air goes out of the net-zero tyre globally, it would have been preferable for Bowen to focus on the various pressing energy issues we face at home. These COP conferences come and go, but they won’t solve our domestic energy problems.

Let's hope this summer isn't as good down under as Europe's has been up there, because if it turns out that way, Dame Groan blather about climate science coming and going will be the least of our problems.

And so to the immortal Rowe, wrapping up all that's going down ...

Beware of dark alleys full of unsavoury types.

Finally, the kid does well in this tribute to Alex Jones, down there with mad King Donald ranting about Jeanine Pirro.

The humour might be heavy handed, but was Alex ever subtle?

In which the reptiles disinter the lying rodent from the cornfield, and Gina's pampered pet creates turmoil in the lizard Oz and the Major...

 

What gets the pond on a daily basis is the way that Faux Noise is responsible to a remarkable degree for the folly of installing mad King Donald, producing many, many absurdities along the way, from that former Faux Noise employee, the drunk Pirro, and the reflecting pool debacle, to that former Faux Noise employee Pete Kegsbreath and the major inflationary debacle of the Iran war...

A more fitting name for the lizard Oz would be "An American family presents", but none of the reptiles holding down sinecures would ever contemplate acknowledging reality.

That's how you get the likes of the fatuous Major Mitchell scribbling ...

Journalists look to the left as nation’s economy tanks
Media’s epic fail: why economic pain, not immigration, is the true driver of One Nation’s support
The inability of most political journalists to prioritise economic reform over social policy has given politicians a leave pass to fritter away our national prosperity, and social cohesion with it.
By Chris Mitchell
Columnist

More on the Major anon, but that will mean reducing Ben packing it - in an EXCLUSIVE - must be reduced to a teaser trailer...

EXCLUSIVE
Trump battleships put AUKUS subs at back of the line
Trump-class battleship ‘threatens AUKUS timeline’ amid reactor bottleneck
Donald Trump’s plan for a new class of gigantic namesake battleships has emerged as the latest risk confronting the $368bn AUKUS pact.
By Ben Packham

How could the pond resist showing the sketch at the top of Ben's panic, as remote as an AUKUS sub, as crude as those digital games that haunt the pond's logarithms?

Golly gee Ben, you don't mean that Faux Noise's favourite Prez might stiff more than a former Olympian, while in pursuit of another gilt-gold laden folly?

Meanwhile, the Major's feeble attempt to blame the media and "political journalists" for the rise of Gina's pet surfaced in other ways this day in the lizard Oz.

It was a measure of the size of the threat that the reptiles decided to wheel out the fossilised remains of the lying rodent with an EXCLUSIVE and a wild-eyed commentary by the bouffant one ...

EXCLUSIVE
Howard maps migration middle path for Coalition
Pauline Hanson’s monoculture push is ‘pointless’, John Howard declares in key intervention
Taking Pauline Hanson’s monoculture campaign head on, John Howard advocates for a con­servative path for ‘Australian multiculturalism’.
By Dennis Shanahan

Again with the teaser trailer for the intermittent archive listing ...

The bouffant one could only manage a two minute regurgitation, like a mama bird shoving masticated food down the hive mind throat?

Commentary by Dennis Shanahan
Former PM provides solution to ‘pointless’ monoculture
John Howard has a commonsense solution to ‘pointless’ Hanson monoculture debate

John Howard is a career-long opponent to One Nation and a leader subjected to allegations of racism by the Left. Now he has a simple formula for multiculturalism.

Indeed he could ...

It's a living, albeit a pathetic one, but why bother with the bouffant one repackaging and regurgitating the lying rodent, when little Johnny himself was to hand over on the extreme far right of the rag's digital edition?

How could it be any worse than the onion muncher routinely stealing the limelight, in his narcissistic way, from the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way?

The header: Frankly, I do not know what ‘monoculture’ means in Australia; Most Australians will regard the ‘multiculture’ versus ‘monoculture’ identity debate as quite pointless.

The credit for the astonishingly awful image that opened play, which on the upside avoids yet another snap of the lying rodent: “By any measure, post-World War II migration has been a resounding success,” writes John Howard. Artwork: Frank Ling

What with the lying rodent having paved the way for Gina's pet's parade of bigotry, fear and loathing about uppity, difficult furriners - a theme taken up with gusto by the lizard Oz hive mind - the little desiccated coconut could manage only a three minute attempt to defuse his very own time bomb ...

Preparations for the bicentenary of British settlement in Australia began when Malcolm Fraser was prime minister. He conceived a description for the celebration that was ideal in every way. That description was The Australian Achievement.
Regrettably, the Hawke government abandoned this description in favour of the limp, banal moniker of Living Together.
Fraser was right. In every way Australia had been an achievement. Oddly, though, one feature of that achievement had been an inability on occasions to recognise national successes.
Migration was a case in point. By any measure, post-World War II migration has been a resounding success. This is despite it having taken a long time to get rid of the White Australia policy – for which a Liberal, Harold Holt, deserves most credit.
Despite this, much political discussion of immigration today is beset by a pointless debate about whether we should call it monocultural or multicultural.
Most Australians regard this as quite pointless, simply because they have long favoured a steady immigration stream subject to it not imposing too great a strain on our infrastructure, especially housing. The other important constraint has been that existing citizens did not want new arrivals bringing their homegrown hatreds and enmities to this country.
I was powerfully reminded of how strongly most Australians felt on this issue by the reaction to remarks I made in my 2001 policy speech to the effect that “we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come”.

The pond was powerfully reminded of how a cynical politician used a captain merely trying to honour the laws of the sea to feather his own nest, and set off decades of bigotry.

As much to the point, how much is this a sign of a desperate attempt by the reptiles to keep living in the past? 

How much is this a sign that the reptiles have absolutely no confidence in the beefy boofhead, and so must resort to the little Bush to produce some decorative Bonsai?

As if to prove the point, the reptiles wheeled out a snap of a man who in later times and in his guilt-stricken dotage made the average Oz leftie look like a raving capitalist...Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser in his Melbourne office in April 2013.

At some point, it was inevitable that little Johnny would wheel out "Judaeo-Xian" ...

Despite differing political views, most Australians thought this encapsulated their feelings.
I, frankly, do not know what monoculture means in the context of immigration. To some it apparently means a mixture of people of different ancestries bound together by a common Australian citizenship. To others it can mean an uncompromising refusal to accept any deviation from a pre-established Australian identity.
For decades the friendly expression New Australian was extended to newly arrived immigrants, whether from the United Kingdom, Italy, Greece, the Baltic countries, Vietnam or elsewhere. It was meant as a welcome and most new arrivals saw it as such. Yet it fell into disuse and even attracted some criticism when the more politically correct expression multicultural began to be used.
As is well known, I have always felt uncomfortable with the expression multicultural. In my eyes it connoted a nation of tribes, which was the very antithesis of what most saw migration as having created in Australia. It suggested conflict and differences rather than overwhelming success and co-operation.
I have little doubt that the genesis of the expression multicultural lay in a desire for political advantage. The argument advanced by the proponents of multiculturalism (of which Al Grassby and Gough Whitlam were prime movers) was that the then protocol of assimilation obliterated traces of national origin and culture. This was never the case.
My experience had been that most new Australians happily combined absorption into the Australian mainstream with affection for the country of their birth or background. They had chosen Australia because of who we were, not because of what they might have wanted us to become.
Culturally, the Australia of 1985 was different from Australia of 1955. What had remained constant were the underpinnings of our society: the fundamental equality of men and women, the Judaeo-Christian ethic, free speech, the rule of law, scorn for distinctions based on class or any concept of aristocracy, and parliamentary democracy.

 Say what?

the Judaeo-Christian ethic, scorn for distinctions based on class or any concept of aristocracy

Is anyone going to tell King Chuck, the GG, and assorted bunyip aristocrats? Or the onion muncher when in a knighthood mood, down there with Billy Wentworth ...

At this point, the lying rodent reverted to the usual way of dealing with implicit notions of condescension ... by wheeling in a token furriner ...

Our habits and customs had been influenced and shaped by the multitude of migrants who had come to Australia in that 30-year period. I have never met a multicultural person. Yet I have met many bicultural people. One of them was my revered chief of staff when I was prime minister.
Born in Newcastle (Australia), Arthur Sinodinos is as Australian as the gum tree. Simultaneously he is proud of his Greek heritage and retains many connections with the Greek community in Australia. He has had an outstanding career in public life having served in the Senate, was a cabinet minister and Australia’s ambassador to the United States.

Sounds like multiculturalism to the pond, it being possible to embrace several cultures in the manner of chewing gum, and rubbing tum ...Arthur Sinodinos is as Australian as the gum tree despite his proud Greek heritage.

And so to wrap up with a mixed message typical of his braying when in power ...

Although I personally little used the expression multicultural when I was prime minister, my government did not abandon its use completely.
It did, however, redefine it as being Australian multiculturalism. This involved an emphasis on the unifying elements of Australian citizenship, irrespective of ethnic origin.
In my time as prime minister I often invoked the expression “the things that unite us as Australians are infinitely stronger and more enduring than those that divide us”. Better than any other expression, that encapsulated the successful assimilation or integration of millions of new arrivals into our national life.
It was a reminder that a special character of our achievement as a nation had been immigration from many parts of the world.
John Howard was prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007.

What an offensive man he was, and continues to be ...

Here, take a break with the infallible weekend Pope, evoking how the pond felt after that read, badly in need of an injection of peptides like some vulgar youff in search of eternal life ...

Meanwhile, the reptiles were in an ongoing state of panic at another betrayal ....

EXCLUSIVE
James Ashby to be One Nation party boss as former Scott Morrison aide becomes Hanson’s chief of staff
One Nation has tapped a former top adviser to Scott Morrison to run Pauline Hanson’s office as James Ashby moves into a new role.

Great. Gina's pampered benefit will benefit from the same exceptional skill as shown when SloMo was in charge of proceedings.

Meanwhile, the reptiles decided that they'd have two indigenous folk argue with each other ...

Torment of powerlessness in remote communities must end
Pearson reveals how to end ‘torment of powerlessness’ in remote communities
Cape York leader Noel Pearson urges the Albanese government to cut ties with vice industries. Read the full speech here.
By Noel Pearson
Columnist

The hapless Pearson, always a sucker for a lizard Oz platform, ended with a question:

After the rejection of the Voice, the conversation about structural reform of the federal arrangements governing Indigenous affairs, must resume. If not a Voice, then let us ask the question Dr King asked in two years after Civil Rights and one year before his assassination: where do we go from here?

Nowhere Noel, you're in the lizard Oz, deep in the hive mind, where it's usually the voice, with the capital V and the concept driven into the wilderness, and an annotation always at hand ...

Structural reform is the only way back: A response to Pearson’s Garma address
The reality is that while the referendum did not succeed, the status quo has continued and the same problems plague Indigenous communities.
By Megan Davis
Contributor

What an honour they paid Pearson, because the Voice again became the voice ...

Pearson says after the rejection of the voice, the conversation about structural reform of the federal arrangements governing Indigenous affairs must resume.
The Productivity Commission’s bleak report card and Pearson’s address is a good place to start.
Megan Davis is scientia professor and Balnaves chair in Constitutional Law, UNSW Sydney.

So we can have an endless argument over whether it was the Voice or the voice?

Enough already, time to head back to the Major, also obsessed with Gina's pampered pet and who to blame, provided it's not the lizard Oz setting out a policy platform for her - climate science denialism (praise be to Lloydie of the Amazon and the Bjørn-again one), hatred of furriners ruining everything (where are you Dame Groan?) and bloody Islamics disrupting the social fabric (how many reptiles can you name, the Zionist Major being just for starters?)...

The header: Media’s epic fail: why economic pain, not immigration, is the true driver of One Nation’s support; The inability of most political journalists to prioritise economic reform over social policy has given politicians a leave pass to fritter away our national prosperity, and social cohesion with it.

The caption for the image of Gina's pet, the lizard Oz's policies creation now haunting the reptiles and the Major: Pauline Hanson is viewed by her support base as anti-establishment.

The Major spent a bigly five minutes having at ... the ABC, which along with furriners and Islamics, is responsible for all the thought crimes that have rooned the country.

On the upside, it wasn't his usual Zionist-inflected rant, so the pond realised it could probably cope ...

The failure of three Coalition prime ministers from 2013 to 2022 and Labor’s Anthony Albanese since to lift Australia’s economic performance has created the fertile electoral ground One Nation’s Pauline Hanson is now tilling.
The corresponding inability of most political journalists to prioritise economic reform over social policy has given politicians a leave pass to fritter away our national prosperity, and social cohesion with it.
ABC Afternoon Briefing host Patricia Karvelas seemed puzzled when Liberal deputy leader Jane Hume criticised Labor’s planned new Fair Work Court on July 23. Hume referred to the court several times as a “brand new bureaucracy”.
Karvelas ignores how much damage Labor’s pro-union economic reforms since Tony Burke was minister for industrial relations have done to national productivity.
This newspaper on July 27 said the court would add “another layer of complexity and regulation to the nation’s convoluted IR system”.

Cue an image of someone the reptiles fear even more than Gina's pampered pet, ABC Afternoon Briefing host Patricia Karvelas. Picture: X

What is it with the reptiles? It's not just Polonius who spends far too much time watching and listening to the cardigan wearers, and talking back to the TV screen like some superannuated pensioner, it's the Major as well ...

On Tuesday, ABC Radio National breakfast host Sally Sara interviewed retiring ACTU president Michele O’Neil the morning after O’Neil and ACTU secretary Sally McManus revealed plans to retire.
The Australian’s workplace editor, Ewin Hannan, quoted Albanese about O’Neil and McManus: “Working families are in a stronger financial position today than they otherwise would be because of the tireless advocacy and strong leadership of Sally McManus and Michele O’Neil.”
It is untrue. What amounts to an unwinding of the IR reforms of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments has made the union movement stronger at the expense of workers.
RN was having none of that. In nine minutes and 19 seconds, Sara asked nothing about whether the re-regulation of the labour market was destroying national productivity and creating per capita GDP stagnation. She allowed O’Neil to judge her time at the ACTU by a 12 per cent increase in union membership that still sits at only 13 per cent nationally across the public and private sectors.

The Major turned to a current revanchist to help him with his revisionism ...

It should have been easy for Karvelas and Sara given former reforming ACTU secretary Bill Kelty the previous week delivered a paper to the Senate outlining what needed to be done to kickstart productivity and growth.
Kelty, in a written submission to a parliamentary inquiry on July 21, said there was something really wrong with economic management nationally when living standards were falling at a time of high commodity prices in a nation that is a major commodities exporter.
He criticised governments that “pay for quarantine centres that are never used, Commonwealth Games that are not held in the country, infrastructure costs that are the highest in the world”.
Our productivity performance was the third lowest in the OECD, investment too low, and growth per capita “non-existent”, he said.
“But our taxes are increasing, government expenditure is rising faster than prices. It does say something is wrong with this place.”
Australia was second only to Italy in having the biggest reduction in real wages since 2021, the Australian Financial Review’s Phil Coorey reported Kelty as saying.
While journalists like to portray growing support for One Nation as a moral failure based on voter racism, as Nine newspapers’ political editor Peter Hartcher has argued several times this year, Kelty’s paper points to a better explanation for the “pox on both your houses” attitude shown by One Nation’s soaring support.

They even flung in a snap of Bill ...Former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty delivered a paper to the Senate outlining how to kickstart productivity and growth. Picture: Aaron Francis

The Major was keen to establish that Pauline's success had nothing to do with racism or bigotry or furriners, even though there'd been so much bigotry on parade that it had earned its own wiki listing... Pauline Hanson burqa incidents

You know, just a standard visualisation of a typical lizard Oz column bemoaning furriners and/or Islamics...

After all, she's just reflecting the lizard Oz's anti-Islamic jihad that has been a feature of the rag for many years, with the Major a major proponent, but don't expect the Major to look in that mirror.

Little wonder he wanted to look elsewhere...

Polling published by the AFR on Tuesday suggests while many One Nation supporters share Hanson’s position on cutting immigration, that is not their main driver.
Tony Barry, a director of RedBridge Polling, said: “Pauline Hanson’s biggest political asset is that her base sees her as their anti-establishment outsider and their wrecking ball against a political model that they feel no longer works for them.”
While most One Nation support comes from the Coalition, the forgotten history of the party – discussed in this column on February 8 and April 6 – suggests Labor governments can manipulate debate about preference exchanges with Hanson to turn elections into referendums about racism.
Journalists on the left are only too happy to reflect such spin from Labor governments, as Sara did last Wednesday morning when pressing Victorian federal Liberal MP Dan Tehan on the possibility of a Coalition-One Nation preference exchange at the upcoming state election on November 28.
Tehan said Sara was simply repeating the lines of new Victorian Premier Ben Carroll, who had said the previous day that Labor was facing the Coalition and One Nation.
This is exactly the strategy former Labor premier Peter Beattie used to topple the Coalition in the June 1998 Queensland election. Expect ABC, Guardian and Nine papers journalists to run hard on the idea that the Coalition faces a moral imperative on One Nation preferences.

Will the lizard Oz also face a moral imperative?

Not likely, because they simply can't let go of their bashing of multiculturalism, with the Major proposing it was time to let the notion go, though he did the standard cunning reptile ploy of palming that trick off onto another player...

History offers other One Nation lessons.

Hanson’s apparent prevarication on domestic violence last month was nothing new. Right back to her 1996 election in the Queensland federal seat of Oxley, the state’s Men’s Rights Agency was one of her strongest backers.
Nor was Hanson called out by journalists or Coalition politicians for her claim in a podcast with UK far right figure Tommy Robinson that multiculturalism and the end of the White Australia policy were the work of Labor’s Gough Whitlam.
Both had more to do with the Coalition in the late 1960s, and especially former minister for immigration and later prime minister Harold Holt.
Journalists have also conveniently forgotten that it was during Hanson’s first incarnation that Polish Australian intellectual Jerzy Zubrzycki, the father of Australian multiculturalism, said the term may well have passed its use-by date. He believed the policy was being misrepresented as antithetical to social integration.

So it was the father of the concept that said the concept was dead? Reptile case closed. How to back that up? Drag in another loon retrieved from the dustbin of far right history ...

Former NSW Upper House MP David Oldfield discussed One Nation’s core beliefs in a piece published in The Australian on July 23.
He suggested that without a clearer policy positioning beyond immigration and patriotism, Hanson would not win the number of federal seats suggested by the published polling.
Oldfield thought One Nation would win up to seven Senate seats and some Lower House seats federally, “but not enough to make a difference”.
Labor has other ideas and will do its best to pump up the One Nation threat, as Albanese did last week in Adelaide at the party’s national conference. It will use Victoria as a testing ground.

Yes, the excesses of the far right, daily on parade in the Murdochian press, are all the fault of leftists, and it will all be the fault of Albo for pumping up the threat ...Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during day 3 of the ALP National Conference at the Adelaide Convention Centre. Picture Matt Turner

And for a concluding irony, the Major, offered a retirement sinecure so that he could come in from the golf course to indulge in a weekly Zionist rant, offered this as his closing gobbet ...

Journalists of the left will try to create a media storm portraying opposition to high immigration as a racist moral failing rather than the entirely foreseeable result of economic pain that the media really should be doing more to expose.
It’s easier for highly paid journalists in secure jobs at the national broadcaster to posture about their own values than to empathise with working class people who simply feel that Australia’s social contract with them is broken.
As The Australian’s Paul Kelly wrote last Wednesday, “Hanson is a political gift to Labor with the government now enshrining One Nation at the heart of its re-election pitch.”

That's how weird it's got, how incestuous, with the Major ending by referencing "Ned", as a way of proving he was clueless as to how to handle Gina's pet, as if it was impossible to see that bigotry and economic hardship might run together ... (and might even explain how the uneducated might be manipulated into a MAGA frenzy).

Cue a teaser trailer for "Ned" peddling the same line...

One Nation is a thing of beauty for the Labor Party
One Nation will give Labor the electoral exemption it needs to dodge proper accountability for its flawed agenda

Been there, done that, and all it did was remind the pond what a thing of beauty mad King Donald still was to Faux Noise and Murdoch HQ... no matter that it was on again, off again, on again, off again, on again, off again ...

And so to this, because the pond had made a promise to run this the next time blather about Judaeo-Xian nonsense reared its ugly head ...