The doomsayers were out in force this day.
It was gloom, gloom, gloom all the way ...
If you're deluded enough to think that spring starts on a given calendar day, you might be plunged into a deep depression by the fear mongering at the lizard Oz.
Sydney heading for 18pc annual home price crash
House prices in the nation’s biggest market are falling at a rate on track to deliver the largest annual decline in 40 years, with data centres to drag on the economy.
By Matthew Cranston and Mackenzie Scott
Vulgar youffs rejoicing at a better chance to get into the property market should think again, or better still, just STFU.
There were graphs and arrows plunging precipitously and gloomy, grimacing faces, and so why not vote for One Nation?
There was an interactive too, which plunged the pond into gloom because the key activity - studying real estate prices as if you were reading the Nine rags - couldn't make it into the archive...
National property prices: how has your suburb fared?
FULL LIST | Just nine of the 1057 suburbs across Sydney and Melbourne experienced price growth over the winter period as sellers face the start of the spring selling season on the back foot.
By Mackenzie Scott
Dammit, the pond's old suburb, Camperdown, had suffered a massive, incalculable loss of -2.7%!
Gloom, gloom, gloom.
More gloom followed in the third of the triptych of sorrows ...
Chalmers’ AI hopes dashed by Treasury advice
Treasury warns AI will not fix Australia’s record-low productivity slump
The AI boom fuelled hopes of transforming Australia’s economy and fixing a long-term decline in productivity. New advice to the Treasurer has dampened the hype.
By Perry Williams
Over on the extreme far right, the Australian Daily Zionist News welcomed a new contributor ...
The Foreign Minister should reflect on the adage about people in glass houses throwing stones.
By Glenn Kolomeitz
The reptiles never tire of stout-hearted defenders of ethnic cleansing and an apartheid system. Don't anyone dare say an unkind word about the ADF in Gaza and the West Bank.
And Max was in full triumphalist Trumpian mode ...
Washington has spent years chasing Iranian shell companies while the banks keeping them alive walked free – until now.
By Max Meizlish
It wasn't good enough to take on the wretched Canucks, it was time for a war with China!
Treasury’s latest action suggests the US may finally be moving beyond chasing Iranian shell companies toward threatening the foreign financial infrastructure that keeps them alive. That would be a meaningful break with the approach of past administrations. But for it to be a success, the campaign needs to be sustained – and it needs to reach China.
Max Meizlish is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies. He has worked in the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. This article was first published in The Wall Street Journal.
Strange that the bromancer should leave the war with China to the WSJ, but whatever.
Has there ever been a bigger or better defender of democracies than mad King Donald? Have a sip with Max ...
The pond was reminded of John Hanscombe yesterday in The Echnida...
It hadn't seen such arrogance since Benito Mussolini declared his ambition to turn the Mediterranean into an Italian lake in the 1930s.
Fast forward to last week and Trump's executive order renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America" was met with a global shrug. Even his musing that he might similarly rename the Pacific or Atlantic garnered a collective 'Whatever'.
Not only has the US president squandered American prestige with his disastrous war with Iran, he's used up his shock value. Flooding the zone with outrageous distractions - Lake America timed to draw attention from the six-month milestone of the Iran war - has worn thin.
Even investors have grown weary of jumping at every bombastic broadside Trump posts on Truth Social. Last month, Business Insider said markets had become numb to the president's social media posts. Wall Street, it said, had come to think of his aggressive missives as background noise.
The wild swings in crude oil prices on the back of Trump's social media posts we saw a couple of months ago have calmed down. Trading houses which signed up for advance notice of Trump posts at great cost must now feel a little scammed.
US voters aren't paying much attention either, with record numbers disapproving of the way Trump had handled the war and the domestic economy. He can rant and rave and rename until he's blue in the face but if no one's paying attention he might as well be the old man shouting at clouds.
London-based financial intelligence website TACT explained why the world has tuned out to Trump: "What began as fearful but intent listening, then morphed into stunned incredulity, has now become dismissal. Statements made one day are brazenly, seemingly without irony, and unapologetically reversed the next. Threats are issued and then diluted. Red lines appear and disappear almost at random. At this point, many governments, markets and foreign observers no longer treat pronouncements from Washington as reliable indicators of policy at all."
There are signs this reality - that few still take him seriously - is slowly dawning on Trump himself. Weeks out from the mid-terms, with support for the Republicans circling the drain, the president is already playing the blame game. If they lose the House of Representatives, he tells anyone still listening, it won't be his fault, it will be theirs.
All reality shows have a shelf-life and Trump's second term is no different. What was once novel has grown stale. The roasts and insults no longer shock. The boasting, bragging and name-calling which once appalled reasonable people now fall on deaf ears. We once shouted at the TV; we now check our phones or hit the mute button. We've heard it all before.
The Trump show has become boring.
Meanwhile, Geoff was chambering a round explaining how it was time to turn to Gina's pet ...
Treating the 2026 model of One Nation like previous versions is a recipe for disaster for Labor and the Coalition.
By Geoff Chambers
See how the reptiles help out with the Pauline agenda by way of a teaser trailer:
Sure, it was couched as a warning, but what Geoff meant was that the major parties should get on board with the reptiles' agenda, as envisioned by Pauline, or else ...
One Nation, which has made hay of Labor’s struggles to fix the migration system and cost-of-living and housing crises, is preparing for all scenarios, including Albanese calling an early election from August next year. While Albanese’s first choice is to run full-term to May 2028, One Nation campaign boss James Ashby doesn’t want to be caught on the hop.
That talk of the migration scene paved the way for a classic Dame Groan, and if you think today is the first day of spring, you might have been surprised that the old biddy stayed in classic one trick pony mode ...
The header: ALP migration cut is more slogan than substance; Don’t let Brit holiday makers off the hook on regional employment requirements. That’s one of several ways the Albanese government could tackle the immigration system mess.
The caption for the cynical, smirking prat: Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is having trouble restoring order and control to the migration program. Picture: Bianca De Marchi/AAP
The grumpy old chook was primed to rail at those bloody furriners ruining everything ...
The truth is the Home Affairs Minister is having a great deal of trouble ensuring that the target for the NOM of 245,000 this financial year is reached and 225,000 in subsequent years. Recall here that the NOM is the difference between long-term arrivals and long-term departures, where long-term is defined as at least 12 months in a 16-month period.
Changes to visa requirements can alter the number of arrivals, although they need to be quite radical to change the number to any significant degree. Hiking up visa fees, something the government has done, also can have a marginal effect on arrival numbers.
For those already in the country on temporary visas, however, the challenge is even greater as the scope for temporary visa holders, with the help of lightly regulated migration agents, to game the system to stay is considerable. The government needs to focus on both sides of the equation.
So let me help here and outline a series of sensible changes that will bring down the NOM while making sure immigration is beneficial for all of us and not just for sectional interests. It is important that the addition to the population flowing from immigration is reduced, and quickly. Not only is the pressure on housing and other resources unacceptable, the stress on social cohesion is also palpable.
The old biddy is here to help, what with the pristine virginal sands of our beaches littered with Brit-sourced cockroaches ... Backpackers lap up the delights of destinations such as Bondi Beach There are no requirements for British passport holders to undertake regional employment. Picture: Monique Harmer
You filthy vile polluters of exquisite locations, you bloody useless Brits, with your ancient delusions of empire and your devotion to pies served with dead horses!
While the number of international student visas has levelled off in recent years, the total number is still excessive. Earlier this year, there were more than 600,000 student visa holders plus another 267,000 on graduate visas. This latter figure has more than doubled from the pre-Covid figure, with the number of secondary applicants rising more rapidly again.
There are several changes that can be made to the rules governing student visas that would cut the number of applicants as well as reduce the amount of gaming that goes on. Changes to enrolment – from a university course to a vocational course, for instance – would not be permitted, leading to cancellation of the visa. Any further visa application would need to be made offshore.
As for universities, the pond knows for a fact that you can stray onto a campus, and suddenly be confronted by the most terrifying sights ... furrin students, looking un-Australian, deviant and with terrorist intent ... Nearly 74,000 family members were attached to temporary graduate visas in Australia at the end of June. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper
The pond doesn't know why the old biddy is so obsessed with the different and the other, it would probably require a degree in psychology or a bout of post-grad Freudianism or an extended college induction into nativism, but then the malignant chook would gloat that nativists had been pushed out of any chance of a degree by the invading horde ...
There may be a case for abolishing graduate visas altogether. It is not unreasonable to expect international students to return to their home countries once they have finished their studies.
To be sure, there are some courses that require a subsequent year of internship or equivalent to qualify, so there may need to be some exceptions.
Bear in mind here that about one-third of international students undertake courses in commerce/business/management, double the proportion of local students. These courses generally do not require formal internships after graduation.
The number of skilled employment temporary residents also has exploded, with the most recent numbers recorded at 260,000. Employers can sponsor workers with skills on the skilled occupation list, with visa holders able to stay for at least four years.
The distinct impression is one of an unwillingness on the part of employers to train local workers, resorting instead to the easier option of importing already trained workers. The content of the list is difficult to understand, with more occupations simply being added over time. But it is telling that there is no accelerated pathway for imported construction workers given the clear shortage of tradies across the country. Increasing the minimum salary that migrant skilled workers must be paid also should be considered as a policy option.
Reducing the humanitarian intake to its long-term level of 13,750 a year is a sensible change. This would cut the intake from the current figure of 20,000 plus community-sponsored refugees. While this change was floated and then ruled out by the Albanese government, the sheer size of the fiscal drain associated with the refugee intake makes this a compelling adjustment. According to Treasury figures, those on humanitarian visas impose a lifetime fiscal cost of $367,000 each.
Restricting the number of new entrants is one thing; getting those on temporary visas to leave is another thing. Deducting New Zealanders who have a right to be here, there are about 2.3 million temporary visa holders living the country. Setting a target of the ratio of temporary visas to the population – 5 per cent, say – would be a good policy guide.
As always, this sort of rant allows the reptiles to drag in a relevant News24 rant ... Sky News host James Macpherson says the number of people on temporary visas has gone from 1.9 million to 2.9 million under Anthony Albanese.
Sheesh, did the pond say News24?
Dammit, it will always be Sky Noise down under to the lizards of Oz and to the pond, because how else can you keep living in the past, preferably the 1950s, when Ming was king, as Dame Groan produced a final gobbet of groan ...
There are several changes that would accelerate departures, including insisting on offshore application for visas, including for family and parents. Bridging visas would not be available to those waiting on a visa decision.
Making sure the administrative tribunal follows government policy prescriptions is also important but may require legislative change. Allowing a convicted failed asylum-seeker to stay in the country because of “visa stress” should simply not be permitted.
For all its talk, the Albanese government has done very little to fix the mess that the immigration system has become. The reluctance to offend the left of the party or take on the vested interests, including universities, parts of the business community, the states and some ethnic groups, has led to an increasingly shambolic system.
It’s a long way back to an orderly and controlled migration program that serves the national interest. Implementing the changes outlined above would be a good start.
Could the reptiles top a standard groaning?
Of course they could. The bromancer was in full recantation mode, and the reptiles gave him a bloody big splash ...
Making full use of AI, the pond turned Forgive me Father Lying Rodent, for I have sinned, into the terminology appropriate to the Catholic confessional, Ignosce mihi pater, mus mendax, nam peccavi.
The pond proposed a dozen Hail Mary's and ten Our Fathers as an expression of full repentance and contrition
The header: Why I was wrong about the Tampa affair; Howard was right and ahead of the game. All countries now want to control their borders. The nation is in his debt.
The caption for the lying rodent in full flight: John Howard announces to the parliament that Australian SAS troops had taken control of the Tampa, August 2001. Picture: Newscorp
Brothers and sisters, before beginning the reading of the bromancer, can the pond begin - with proper respect for his devout Catholicism - with a reading from the bible, thanks to this site.
Admittedly it's not the pond's preferred KJV, but tykes think that's a heresy, so no matter ...
Deeply moved, the pond plunged into an example of Xianity in action ...
But it was an incredibly messy, confusing process with lots of missteps, which is typical in democratic politics.
Tampa evolved thus: a boatload of 438 mainly Afghan asylum-seekers left Indonesia bound for Australia. The boat got into trouble and was rescued by a Norwegian flagged vessel, the Tampa. Under normal practice they should have been returned to safe harbour in Indonesia. But the people on board threatened to harm themselves or the crew if not taken to Christmas Island. That would mean getting to Australia and settling here.
Almost immediately there came an AV distraction featuring an exquisitely framed bromancer ... Greg Sheridan on the 2001 Tampa affair.
As the remorseful prophet spoke, lashing himself for his thought crimes, the pond turned again to the bible...
Yea, verily, that imported Pom, the onion muncher, was full of piety and a fear of furriners...because back in the day we never took action to stop those invading Brits ...
The Howard government was determined nobody would get to stay in Australia permanently through arriving illegally by boat. A tiny number of the Tampa people eventually came to Australia but Howard killed the people-smuggling business to Australia.
The policies were unravelled under the governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, and the boat flows started again in earnest. Remarkably, Tony Abbott repeated Howard’s success, ending the people-smuggling trade a second time. Labor learnt its lesson and has subsequently embraced the Howard-Abbott policies.
So Tampa was a turning point in modern Australian history, a turning point for the Howard government, and prefigured the kinds of policies virtually every advanced Western nation would eventually attempt to run in relation to illegal arrivals.
But have they, did they?
Aren't we under a terrifying seige?
Surely, it's time to turn to Pauline, or perhaps to what virtually every advanced Western nation would want for those pesky, difficult, uppity furriners ... another bible reading ...
Just look at the hordes, fear them! Asylum seekers on board the MV Tampa in 2001.
Why if the laws of the sea hadn't been ignored, right now they'd be littering our virgin beaches...
At this point, the bromancer allowed himself a teeny weeny billy goat butt ...
These issues were then, and remain now, vexed and complex. Although I think Howard, for whom this column has the greatest admiration, got the policy basically right, there were two or three very bad elements to Australian government behaviour at the time. They were bad then and they remain bad in retrospect.
Hush now, regrets there might be a few, but no need to go into any of that tasteless, unsavoury business.
Stay strong, stay true to your deeply felt and held Xian principles, and do a reverse pike billy goat butt in the form of a "However" ...
Partly, my mistake, like a lot of commentators, was to fail to recognise the change in the nature of the refugee phenomenon.
I was a child of the Cold War and refugees were mainly folks escaping communist tyrannies. The first issue I ever wrote about as a journalist, the first issue I became passionately involved in myself, was trying to help our South Vietnamese allies and friends after their nation was invaded in 1975 by the North Vietnamese Army, with Chinese and Russian backing, while we and the Americans had deserted our brothers in arms.
Buddhists, Catholics and anyone associated with the former South Vietnamese government were persecuted by the communists. This was put into the shade by the communist genocide next door in Cambodia, but the situation in Vietnam was severe enough. Our worst prime minister, Gough Whitlam, refused to take more than a tiny handful of South Vietnamese, even among those whose lives would be compromised or forfeit because of their association with Australia.
Whitlam demonised the Vietnamese refugees and famously declared: “I’m not having those (expletive) Vietnamese Balts coming into this country with their religious and political prejudices against us.”
And yet it turned out that in the long run Gough was right, at least in the eyes of the bromancer, the lizard Oz hive mind, Pauline and the lying rodent ...
No need for any of those wretches to infiltrate the country ... Armed SAS troops leave Christmas Island and head out on a local barge to the Norwegian ship Tampa. Picture: Megan Lewis / The Australian
At this point the pond might recount the tale of a child who left a Cambodian camp to cross the seas on a rickety boat, obtaining both a medical and a law degree, and offering much to the country in the process, as do all those workers who keep public health care and the hospital system afloat, but no time for any of that ...
However, applying that paradigm to people movements in the 21st century was out of date, wrong on the facts, unworkable and morally confused. This century has seen massive movements of predominantly Muslim populations from North Africa and the Middle East. Some have certainly experienced persecution. Others are driven by economic considerations. Some exhibit desperation. This can be born out of persecution or poverty at home. But there can also be “positive desperation”, the unbelievable reward of living in an affluent welfare society as opposed to a poor society.
At this point, the much sinning bromancer was tormented again, and his mind filled with gnawing doubt ...
First, it needlessly demonised the individuals on the Tampa, who were distressed human beings. Second, it was either unbelievably slack or some of its members, not Howard, were actively knowing in publishing an untrue story that another boat carrying asylum-seekers threw their children overboard to force the navy to rescue them. The children overboard story was not important in Howard winning the subsequent election but it wasn’t true. Governments should be sedulous in telling the truth.
But judge ye not what we have done, not when we can blame others ...
Here are some other facts worth noting. The Norwegian government harshly criticised Australia at the time. Yet Norway welcomes 500 UN-assessed refugees a year, compared with Australia’s 20,000.
But do we? Will we? Didn't the pond read in Dame Groan that the current government, hounded by Pauline and the reptiles of Oz, are heading towards Norway?
Reducing the humanitarian intake to its long-term level of 13,750 a year is a sensible change.
Otherwise we'll be flooded ...Armed SAS troops departing Christmas Island for the Norwegian ship Tampa. Picture: Megan Lewis / The Australian
And here the bromancer showed his truly Xian humanitarian heart ...
Also, the Indonesians couldn’t say this publicly but they were actually happy, first with the Howard operations, even more so with Abbott’s. This was evident in their quiet co-operation with elements of both sets of policies. I had the great pleasure of interviewing Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono several times when he was president of Indonesia. At the end of his tenure, a person in his administration, as close to the president as any human being could be, told me off the record how happy the president was with Abbott’s policies because they solved the problem, for Australia and for Indonesia.
In all Western nations courts have undemocratically hindered democratic governments from taking reasonable policy actions, a huge part of the problem.
Finally, while the overwhelming majority of Australia’s Muslims are good citizens, unregulated Middle Eastern immigration to Western countries has not been an unqualified success. The long traditions of Islamist antisemitism and extremism have posed real problems.
All countries now want to control their borders. Howard was ahead of the game. The nation is in his debt.
Greg Sheridan is The Australian’s foreign editor.
For those wondering, a friend forwarded this news of Wilcox ...
