In which the pond makes it through Polonius's prattle, but can only stomach so much of the Australian Daily Zionist News, and so settles for the lizard Oz editorialist ...

 

Dear sweet long absent lord, does the pond have to?

Polonius yet again for the Sunday meditation? And even worse, blathering about the teals?

Isn't there something more interesting to hand?

Well yes ...the pond is of an age, and yet has to confess that it hadn't heard this form of heresy until it read Erin Maglaque in the NYRB ... (the pond has had to * certain words for fear the google bot might swoop):

Their Own Private Genesis
What if Augustine’s idea of original sin was wrong? Testimony from the Inquisition reveals freethinkers using their sexual experience to dispute the reign of shame and otherwise critique Church doctrine. (*intermittent archive link)

They were debating the nature of original sin in an apotheca in Naples. “We discussed a lot of things,” Giovanni Casaburo told the inquisitors in 1598 when they asked him what exactly was said in the apothecary’s shop. “Among them that if Adam hadn’t sinned, eating the forbidden fruit, we wouldn’t have sinned as well.” So far, so orthodox. But then the apothecary Marcello Impicciato joined in. “What apple?” he asked. “Adam and Eve f*cked in the ass, and that’s why they were rejected from Paradise.”
What apple? In 1588 Violante Scaglione testified: “Adam’s apple was Eve’s butt, not the pit of the fruit that got stuck in his throat when he was called by God.” They debated it in a tobacconist’s shop in Tuscany in 1702. Did Adam eat an apple, or was it a fig, or a pear? Giuseppe Cinatti said it was no fruit at all—Adam’s sin was “sticking it [his p*nis] into her *ss” instead of “putting it into her c*nt,” as God had commanded. One French philosopher phrased it more delicately: “The apple which tempted our first father was the symbol of the rear parts of woman, which very well represents an apple split in half.” An anonymous seventeenth-century student’s notebook records his lecturer’s conclusions: “There were two trees in paradise. Eve ate from one, i.e., was f*cked by it, i.e., by Adam’s d*ck, which was the forbidden fruit.” Italian peasants, apothecaries, friars; French libertines, Dutch philosophers—all believed that Adam sodomized Eve in the Garden of Eden.
This was the true act of original sin—anal sex not as a generic taboo but as an act so intensely pleasurable as to be literally divine. God jealously guarded sodomy, and Adam presumed that highest pleasure for his own. The friar Giovan Battista d’Antrodoco was put on trial in 1662 and declared anal sex so exquisite that God “wanted to keep [it] for himself.” When the inquisitors collected witness testimonies about the unorthodox beliefs of Marcello Impicciato, one remembered the apothecary recounting his own theology of original sin: “Christ was a b*gger, and he wanted to b*gger, and this was the reason why he put Adam in the terrestrial paradise, and that the fruit was the *ss, and Christ wanted to b*gger Adam.” According to some heretics, God created Adam in order to sodomize him.
It was Augustine, in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, who had first introduced sexuality into the story of original sin. As an adolescent, he had felt intense shame at his own arousal. “In the sixteenth year of the age of my flesh,” he recalled in his Confessions, “the madness of raging lust exercised its supreme dominion over me.” He was a slave to desire. “A very hard bondage had me enthralled.” Until Augustine, most early Christians held that Adam’s sin was disobeying God’s command not to eat the apple. There was nothing particularly sexual about it; the Genesis story, in the biblical scholar Elaine Pagels’s words, was for early Christians a parable “of moral freedom and moral responsibility.” But Augustine’s shame changed all of that. Adam and Eve had been disobedient, but in Augustine’s view, the punishment for disobedience was further disobedience—of the body: arousal, an erection, lust. The body defied the soul. The rest of us inherited this damaged nature from Adam (quite literally, Augustine thought: it was transmitted in sperm, which is why Christ, immaculately conceived, wasn’t stained by desire). This was concupiscentia, carnal desire, and it was the fate of all humans after the Fall to be enchained by it...

And so on, and dearie me, bless the pond five ways to sundown, is that why the pond has been enchained to the reptiles in the lizard Oz? A form of deeply weird and perverse concupiscentia?

Alternately, for distilled essence of entertainment, you could indulge in Marina marinating Nige ...

One thought on the Clacton contenders: the ‘establishment’ looks a bit different these days, doesn’t it? (The Graudian was doing its "email or register or else, with menaces" routine again, so that's an intermittent archive link)

...Wow. Girls, I hope it’s not getting you too hot when I tell you that the future of British politics is a load of public-school guys pointing at each other and going: “No, YOU’RE the establishment!” Personally, I’m breathless. After all, I spent a significant part of my teenage years in field observations of this tendency. I want you to think of me as the Jane Goodall of guys with Betty Blue posters and some ethnic drape that their housemaster’s going to get them to take down because it’s a fire risk. If anyone can solve the deep structural problems the UK faces, it’s definitely someone who thinks a picture of the pope smoking a spliff is funny and that the Led Zep Houses of the Holy album cover is cool. (Having said that, I do believe that there should be a special tribunal at The Hague solely dedicated to bringing to justice anyone who owned a Sting Englishman in New York poster. Those individuals simply cannot be allowed to have melted back into civilian life.)
But back to Farage. Hilarious that he seems to regard going to war with Rupert Murdoch as a strategic masterstroke, devoting whole sections of his mad diva address to attacking the Times and the Sunday Times and their editors and journalists. Definitely mug Rupert off a bit more, Nigel – no doubt it’s a genius move.

Okay, enough already,  enough Tootling around, the pond knows its duty ...

The header: Teals discover path to power – it’s in the Senate; Despite choosing a forgettable party name, Community Strong Australia, Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall understand democratic politics.
The caption for a collage not credited to human hands, but to a corporation of dubious honour and hideous parentage: Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall are ‘out in front’. Picture montage: News Corp

Polonius started out lamely, and to his credit, he stayed determinedly lame throughout ...

There have been many small political parties in Australia over the years, a few of them of considerable significance. Despite this, the two-party system remains in place for the time being at least. But no party has had a name so hard to remember as the Community Strong Australia party.
Interviewed by Melissa Clarke on ABC Radio National Breakfast on June 29, the teal independent for Kooyong in Melbourne, Monique Ryan, was asked: “What do you think of the name Community Strong Australia?” She replied: “I thought Competent Australian Sheilas, which is what the Betoota Advocate suggested, was a great alternative.” Quite so – at least it can easily be remembered.

Quite indeed (said with prim, pursed lips).

It is a little known fact that "quite" is used some 79 times in The Diary of a Nobody ... available at Project Gutenberg... and brimming with good jokes ...

May 26.—Left the shirts to be repaired at Trillip’s. I said to him: “I’m ’fraid they are frayed.” He said, without a smile: “They’re bound to do that, sir.” Some people seem to be quite destitute of a sense of humour.
June 1.—The last week has been like old times, Carrie being back, and Gowing and Cummings calling every evening nearly. Twice we sat out in the garden quite late. This evening we were like a pack of children, and played “consequences.” It is a good game.
June 2.—“Consequences” again this evening. Not quite so successful as last night; Gowing having several times overstepped the limits of good taste.

Quite so, such a lovely word, as quite a line up of shameless hussies parading to shock the lizard Oz hive mind appeared in quite a row, From left, teals MPs Allegra Spender, Kate Chaney, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps, Nicolette Boele and Zali Steggall at the Midwinter Ball at Parliament House.

Polonius was quite beside himself at the notion that the Senate held the key ...

It was a clever point by Ryan, but no more than that. In terms of political awareness, Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall are out in front. For they have finally realised that independents have scant political clout or even influence unless they are in a balance-of-power position in the House of Representatives, where the prime minister sits. This rarely happens.
The likes of Spender and Steggall in Wentworth and Warringah, respectively – along with Kate Chaney (Curtin), Ryan and Sophie Scamps (Mackellar) – continue to receive favourable coverage on the ABC and in Nine Entertainment newspapers (The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age).
But their high profiles have not resulted in policy outcomes, for the obvious reason that Labor, under Anthony Albanese’s leadership, has had comfortable majorities in the House of Representatives since being elected in May 2022.
The latest teal independent to win a seat – Nicolette Boele in Bradfield – has yet to make an impact. Zoe Daniel, who was defeated by the Liberal Party’s Tim Wilson at the May 2025 election, had a high profile but achieved little in terms of policy outcomes during her three years in parliament.
For the truth is that it is only when minor parties and independents have representatives in the Senate that they matter. In recent times this has been true of the Democratic Labor Party and the Australian Democrats – both now extinct. And now the Greens.
Currently the Labor Party has 30 out of 76 senators. It needs votes to get legislation through the upper house. Meaning it requires 39 votes from a combination of the Coalition (27), the Greens (10), One Nation (four) and others (five). Right now, all the non-government senators have influence on legislation to a greater or lesser extent. Not so the teals in the House of Representatives.

Then there came quite the AV interruption and distraction... Flinders University Associate Lecturer Josh Sunman says the formation of Community Strong Australia “comes with risk” for teal independents Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender.​“It is really interesting, we have often seen the Teal independents described as having party-like structures, in that they are Independents, but at the same time they are affiliated,” Mr Sunman told Sky News Australia.​“Part of their brand is that they're seen as staunchly independent advocates for their community, and by becoming a bit more party-like, I think it could potentially hurt their independent brand.”

Still no rebrand for Sky Noise down under? And worse still no understanding from this Josh that appearing on Sky Noise down under might hurt his academic brand?

Never mind, Polonius was to hand to refute his thinking, and show the Senate way forward ...

By forming the Community Strong Australia party, Spender and Steggall have recognised that the CSA will attain real importance if it achieves Senate representation. In a normal Senate election this will require a vote after preferences of 14.3 per cent
Chaney and Ryan seem determined to remain independent and to refrain from joining CSA. However, Chaney understood her problem shortly after she entered the House of Representatives. Interviewed on ABC Four Corners on August 15, 2022, the member for Curtin had this to say: “I certainly am copping it from people in my electorate who said: ‘And now you’re powerless … you didn’t hold the balance of power so therefore you can’t do anything.’ ”
Chaney added: “You can only nudge things in the right direction and it takes a lot of nudges to actually make any change.” That’s correct. And that’s why the excessive coverage of the teals on the ABC and Nine has been unwarranted.
One example illustrates the point. Chaney was interviewed by Clarke on RN Breakfast on July 2.

Groan. Not the ABC again. Why does Polonius keep watching and listening to them and referencing them? It's as if the cardigan wearers provided a different and informative take on the world.

Doesn't Polonius realise that there hasn't been a conservative voice on the ABC ever since they kicked him off The Insiders?

When asked about whether the eSafety Commissioner is “the right body” to oversee a digital duty of care, Chaney replied: “Look I think it can be.” That was the voice of a politician with limited influence.
It’s a long way to the next election. But it seems likely that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party will have strong representation in the upper house, irrespective of the outcome of the House of Representatives election. Three of One Nation’s sitting senators are not due for re-election until 2031 and only Hanson goes to the polls in two years.

The reptiles made Polonius pause for a snap of Pauline, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Then it was on to slagging off Malware - the current national sport at the lizard Oz - and that bloody Senate thingie again ...

It is said by many, myself included, that the Liberal Party’s current problems began after Malcolm Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott in a partyroom ballot in September 2015.
Turnbull decided to call a double-dissolution election for July 2, 2016. The campaign was disastrously long – almost eight weeks – and Turnbull campaigned poorly. In the event, the Liberal Party lost 14 seats to Labor and scraped back into government with a one-seat majority. But there was more. The double dissolution meant the quota to win a Senate seat dropped from 14.3 per cent (after preferences) to 7.7 per cent in a double dissolution (after preferences).
Hanson took full advantage of Turnbull’s lack of political skills. In 2013 she had run for a Senate seat in NSW, obtaining a mere 1.2 per cent of the vote. However, One Nation revived itself as the Turnbull-led Liberal Party lost support.
In July 2016, One Nation obtained 9.2 per cent of the primary vote in Queensland, winning Hanson a six-year term and getting another One Nation senator across the line. Hanson’s party also won a Senate seat in NSW and Western Australia. One Nation became a significant minor party after its newly elected senators took their seats in July 2016.
The evidence suggests that Hanson’s revival – after many years in the political wilderness – took off after Turnbull’s poor performance in mid-2016. He was replaced, in a partyroom ballot in August 2018, by Scott Morrison, who led the Coalition to an unexpected election victory over the Bill Shorten-led Labor Party in May 2019.
Currently One Nation is leading Labor and the Coalition on the primary vote in some polls. This by no means suggests One Nation can attain government. But it is near certain that it will become more influential in the Senate after the next election and probably win seats in the House of Representatives. This is an example of a political party making an initial impact in the Senate.
The Community Strong Australia may have an unrelatable name but Spender and Steggall understand democratic politics.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

Splendidly tedious stuff, and it seems that the teals must ignore the other reptiles and follow Polonius's Senate advice.

Now here's a question for Polonius to ponder ...

Those bloody cartoonists always contrive to sound like filthy Commie swine...but the pond hadn't quite nodded off, and felt the need to look a little bit further for Sunday entertainment, only to discover that the Australian Daily Zionist News was at it again...

There was the dog botherer, given quite a big splash ...

How ABC spin captured the ‘narrative’ for Hamas
Anti-Israel propaganda is widespread, but with a little effort people can discover the facts, and with some critical thinking expose the lies.
By Chris Kenny
Associate Editor (National Affairs)

The pond is well and truly over lizard Oz Zionism, and palmed him off to the intermittent archive, because it was just the dog botherer in Zionist mode, mixed in with a standard lizard Oz jihad attacking the cardigan wearers...

A teaser trailer would surely suffice ...

Bile comes from a good place? Is that some kind of justification for your own patented brand of bilious abuse?

The pond will only note this bold claim:

...How do we push back against the false zeitgeist?
I tell you what, you can hand them this article and make them an offer. If they can correct any assertions or demonstrate errors of fact, I will update the record in a future column.

Here's a suggestion. 

You truly have to be a dickhead of the first water to think that Palestinian children will get a future of freedom and prosperity, or their own state if the current government of Israel and its fundamentalist Greater Israel theocrats have anything to do with it.

And the notion that it's all the fault of the Palestinians is just regurgitating an old slur and lie.

And then there was this ...

Someone told me the other day, accusingly, that I was “taking sides”. If you do not take a side between the Islamist extremist terrorists who deliberately killed and defiled innocent men, women and children to trigger a war, and the targets of their aggression who fought back against this threat, then you must be incapable of rational or ethical thought.
This is not a mere matter of competing perspectives. This is civilisation versus barbaric intolerance.

You want some barbarism? An example of barbaric intolerance?

IDF accused of ‘field execution’ of Palestinian driver bringing aid into Gaza

Sadly it's just one example amongst many ... there'll be a promise of an investigation, another cover-up, and even if anything is confirmed, a slap on the wrist with a moist lettuce leaf.

And how's this for a lie?

How can Israel be involved in a genocide when the growth of the Palestinian population has outstripped Israel’s? Given the military might of Israel and the urban density of Gaza, how could the population in Gaza have fallen by only 100,000 people – equivalent to the number of people who have been able to flee the territory – during two years of intense warfare?

So many things to unpack, not least this variation on the Great Replacement Theory, whereby they all breed like rabbits and they're swamping the world.

And as for that blather about grow outstripping Israel's population, let's check the total on the tape.

Israel has an estimated population of c. 10 million, including two million Arab/Palestinian citizens. The Palestinian population in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem is c. 5.5 million. So at the moment they're some 2.5 million shy, meaning there's a lot more breeding to be done, or a lot more killing.

And by way of this contrived form of maths, it seems there's been no deaths at all in Gaza?

Perhaps you might check the maths, unless you want to sound like a stooge for theocratic fundamentalists of a different stripe...

Gaza population falls 6 percent since start of war, statistics agency says
Population has declined by about 160,000 since Israel’s assault on Gaza began, official Palestinian statistics agency says.

And that was at the start of 2025. 

There's been more than a few deaths on the killing fields since then (see above), and in other places too, because you should remember, it was Benji who helped mad King Donald into that war on Iran, and what good did it do anybody, except the mad Mullahs that it empowered? (It certainly didn't help a bunch of butchered schoolgirls).

There was no relief for the pond, because the Australian Daily Zionist News also offered this ...

Labor dumps its support for Mid-East security
How Labor’s draft platform abandons key checks on Palestinian statehood
By dropping demands for Hamas and Palestinian, Labor’s national conference threatens to gut Australia’s regional foreign policy credibility.
By Colin Rubenstein
Contributor

Anybody who read the venerable Meade's most recent and most excellent Weekly Beast would realise they play it really hard ...

Australian Jewish News removes article criticising treatment of Jewish Council’s Sarah Schwartz (The Graudian was still doing its "email or register or else with menaces" routine again, so that's an intermittent archive link)

Why should the pond indulge players in that game? 

Working it all out is very Monty Python, what with Col being executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, which is different to the Jewish Council of Australia, though if you can tell the difference between the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea, you should feel right at home.

Again the pond couldn't be bothered going all the way with Col and instead sent him to the intermittent archive, pausing only to do a spoiler by running the final gobbet ...

...How can there be a credible pathway to peace while Hamas remains armed and committed to Israel’s destruction and without major reforms to the PA, which is corrupt, still continues to fund pay-for-slay terror salaries, incites violence and remains incapable of asserting control even on the streets in some West Bank cities?
The draft platform also supports the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court. This is clearly a reference to the farcical South African ICJ case accusing Israel of genocide and the ICC’s equally farcical warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes. The genocide charge is ludicrous. Genocide is the intention to exterminate a people in whole or in part. Countries committing genocide don’t continually warn and evacuate the civilian population for their own safety or bring in millions of tonnes of food and other aid, as Israel did.
South Africa received an 18-month extension to respond to Israel’s detailed defence, meaning the case will be heard in 2029 or 2030 at the earliest. Surely the ICJ would be acting with more urgency if genocide was occurring?
If the ALP national conference adopts these paragraphs, and especially if it removes the essential preconditions for Palestinian statehood, which the government previously has affirmed repeatedly, it will not only undermine Australia’s longstanding bipartisan policy on the Middle East but also badly damage Australia’s national interests in seeking regional stability and security.
Colin Rubenstein is executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council. Previously he taught Middle East politics at Monash University for many years.

Here's the thing Col, and the pond isn't talking about the way that Benji bolstered Hamas and keeps Hamas in play even now so he has boogeymen under the bed to help with his Greater Israel project. 

Nor is the pond troubled by the convenient way that "genocide" can be used as a convenient talking point, what with definitional issues and the Holocaust producing a fine old filibuster.

It's the shameless ethnic cleansing, the tent cities and the dismal treatment of those living in Gaza and the West Bank that turns heads.

Think of all those displaced people as the land grab goes down ...

There's a lot more here Col, the physical destruction and the cost of fixing up the mess, not to mention the damage to the economy, nor to mention the current desire of fundamentalists to export Palestinians to Egypt, or to anywhere else they can be dumped.

The thing is Col, even the supine Democrats have had to do a bit of rethinking, as with Rahm Emanuel, doing a tour to Israel ...

He appeared in Haaretz in "remorseful ... just a little bit" mode...

Rahm Emanuel Wants to Save Israel. But Are Israelis Listening? (*intermittent archive link)
Rahm Emanuel, a potential Democratic presidential candidate and longtime defender of Israel speaks in Tel Aviv University on Wednesday.
Rahm Emanuel, making a strong play for being the kishkes U.S. presidential Democratic candidate, came to Israel with some home truths about the disaster that Netanyahu has led the country into. But his mission is for America's sake as much as Israel's
By Esther Solomon.

Inter alia ...

He really is trying to help in his own peculiar Democrat way, but you're not listening Col, you're not helping, and nor is the government of Israel ... but rest assured, they get the message, Gun-Toting Israeli Forces Detain Ro Khanna in Dramatic Video.

As for the "two state solution", not in the pond's lifetime, and not if it doesn't sustain the current apartheid system, and not because the Palestinians are dead against it.

That's called projection Col, or perhaps it's from too much imbibing during a hydration break ...

Or a loon wanting to spend a Weekend At Mitch's (Bernie went missing)...

In the end the pond gave up on the Zionist News, and decided it would instead feature the lizard Oz editorialist, and waddya kno, there was more relentless flogging of "Ned's" tome.

It only appeared incidentally in that one, what with the lizard Oz being a full time life coach for the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way, but in this outing it was full ABF (Always Be Flogging, a close cousin to Always Be Closing) ...

They want to turn this county into full exceptionalist, just like the United States. Go suck on a raw prawn, and then shove the shell up the *rse of News Corp, in the manner of ancient Xian heretics.

It was a relief to turn to the final outing, and see that the reptiles were once again blathering on about the urgent need to nuke the country to save the planet, except of course the planet doesn't need saving, at least if you've caught up with the lizard Oz in climate science denialist mode ...

Much will depend? And climate science is an ideology? And the economics better not consider, compare and contrast the cost of doing nothing as climate change ravages a heated-up planet?

Here, have a few 'toons, always a better guide to the insanity than the reptiles and the best way to wrap up a Sunday meditation ...

And doesn't this all seem so very long ago, but leaving so many memories to treasure?

Speaking of last week's fun ...

In which the pond does an epic "Ned" Everest climb, and yet still finds room for the Angelic one!

 

The pond reacted with fear, alarm, despair.

The pond knew what this top of the page splash meant in a heartbeat, in a cosmic flash of fatigue ... 

...and yet the pond couldn't look away. It was like stumbling on a car accident or an ancient mariner.

It might be the ruination of the pond for all time, as correspondents reeled away, a mingle of nausea and tedium jumbling in their agitated bowels, but it had to be done...

The header: Crisis of conviction: how the Liberal Party destroyed itself from within; three PMs in nine years had policy wins facing new challenges but Australia did not deliver its potential under a badly divided Liberal Party.

The caption for Sean's brave use of his digital finger: Liberal leaders, from left, Scott Morriosn (sic, so and thus, don't try to pin that one on the pond), Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, with John Howard in the background. Digital illustration: Sean Callinan

A full 13 minutes of "Ned" ferreting through ancient remains, allegedly to provide insight, but really acting as a glorified extended book promo? So be it, if it had to be done, it must be done.

It wasn't as if there weren't alternatives. Diligent reptiles faithfully kept up familiar reptile jihads.

Relax, the pond just threw in that yarn about the horrific eggs, but won't bother linking. 

Instead those who can't handle "Ned" can head off to the intermittent archive ...

EXCLUSIVE
Chalmers’ capital gains tax fix is a non-starter: start-ups
Jim Chalmers has been warned that Labor’s proposed capital gains tax exemption for start-ups has onerous hurdles that will make it too hard for most innovative companies to qualify.
By Greg Brown, James Kirby and Thomas Henry

It was way back on 12th May 2026 that the budget came down, and yet here the jihadist reptiles still are, jihadist egg beaters at the ready ...

BUDGET FALLOUT
‘Chasing their tail’: Renters caught in budget trap
Renters hit by soaring costs as federal budget housing reforms backfire
Weekly rents are outpacing savings, and house prices refuse to fall fast enough, economists warn.
By Mackenzie Scott and Marcus de Blonk Smith

Valiant snappy Tom stood in for the bromancer, and raged at the guvermint ...

Signs clear: we’re not match fit for perilous world
Labor’s approach to urgent challenges is bitsy; no wonder the simpletons are on the march
Our defence bill could hit $1 trillion, wages are shrinking and growth is stalling – yet the government’s answer is a tax tweak here and there.
By Tom Dusevic
Columnist

They were tempting in their own way, but the pond felt like King Lear ...

You do me wrong to take me out o' th' grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.

It was past time to scald some ancient lead with "Ned" ...

The Australian project faltered in the early decades of the 21st century. This was not a singular Australian experience but part of the wider crisis of social and economic life conspicuous in Western democracies. A new phase of history was under way, shaped by stupendous global changes in economics, technology, energy and society.
The Liberal-National Coalition was in office over 2013-22 but its hold on power for much of that period was unconvincing. The grip the Liberal Party had long exercised on Australian psychology – exemplified by the success of Sir Robert Menzies, Malcolm Fraser and John Howard – began to fall apart during the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison era. The party of the established order lost its hold on the nation.
The great reform age that began with the 1983 Hawke-Keating election and continued under the Howard government had passed into history. This was the age of Australian Exceptionalism, when the nation was reshaped by bold governments and astute leaders.
The reform project spanning 20 years finally succumbed to generational change and mounting sclerosis in the political system. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era retreated from Hawke-Keating reformism, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison era failed to capture the Liberal reformism of the Howard-Costello period, and the Albanese Labor government struggled to implement a convincing agenda in its first term.
Death knell for Exceptionalism
Australian Exceptionalism had entered the twilight zone.
By the early and mid-2020s the conclusion was obvious: Australia was no longer a global exemplar of reform, no longer leading the pack of industrialised nations in its performances.
Interviewed in late 2024, former treasurer Peter Costello argued that Australian Exceptionalism had terminated: “Australian Exceptionalism became a phrase used in the IMF (International Monetary Fund). We were considered a model by other Western nations. This process began with Hawke and Keating but the fiscal high point – 10 budget surpluses and the retirement of all commonwealth debt – was considered to be Australian Exceptionalism.
“What we have lost is the idea that Australia can be exceptional. The idea that Australia can lead the world has disappeared. I feel it is the end of an era, when Australia was exceptional but does not see itself as exceptional any more.”

Part of the process was to examine every little bit that the cat and "Ned" had dragged in ... In 2011, former Prime Minister Paul Keating implored Labor to ‘recognise what it has created’. Picture: News Corp

Sheesh, "Ned" and his cycles and his conundrums ...

Years earlier former treasurer and PM Paul Keating had told the author the meaning of the reform age had been the creation of a new idea of Australia. Looking back on the era, he said it was a time when the government and the public “strived to make Australia a first-rate country – a place with a powerful economic engine and a soul to match. What this added up to was the construction in Australia over these years of a socio-economic model which was unique in the world.”
History moves in cycles. In 2011 Keating implored Labor to “recognise what it has created”, saying Labor “has created a new society and it has to be the party of the new society” yet he was met with denial and incomprehension. The Hawke-Keating age was not reproduced; it was finished and consigned to history.
The conundrum of the 21st century was that the more successful nations became, the more problems they generated – expanding budgets, high debts, more carbon emissions, greater environmental damage, rising social divides, the loss of social mobility, the resentment of the disadvantaged, the greed of the elites, the decline in education standards and the relentless debasement of cultural life.

How soon before the reptiles did a bigly book cover plug? Pretty soon ... The Twilight of Exceptionalism by Paul Kelly.

The pond isn't exactly sure if this is the point the official extract began, not having read the original, nor ever likely to ... but in any case, the pond's feeble justification, yet again, is that it might have some interest for those refusing to part with their shekels, and those who realise the tome might take a while to hit a street book library ...

BOOK EXTRACT: THE LIBERAL CRISIS OF CONVICTION

‘The pervasive defect facing the Liberal Party in the 21st century was the demise of conviction – the party conducted three experiments under three different prime ministers, unable to agree among themselves about what they represented.
Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison had strong policy beliefs, but a party that cannot agree on its leader is a party that cannot summon conviction. Once the lack of conviction infects the party, recovery is slow and painful, at best.
The Liberal Party suffered a loss of conviction over much of its governing 2013-22 era. This culminated in opposition in 2025 when the Liberals endured the worst election defeat in their history – a defeat where the demise of Liberal conviction was the pivotal factor in the public’s rejection.
The warning pathway was brightly lit. The public detected a loss of party nerve after the 2014 Abbott-Hockey budget. Turnbull’s 2016 election campaign was devoid of persuasive Liberal values and beliefs. In 2022 the Morrison government was defeated because people were unsure of its beliefs – they saw a party conducting politics but confused about conviction.
The Liberal and Labor reviews of the 2022 election agreed on one point: Scott Morrison’s unpopularity drove the government’s debacle. But this missed the greater truth – the Liberals were years deep into an identity crisis.
Blaming Morrison was yesterday’s news. If Morrison had been the sole problem the solution would have been simple.
Over the nine years there were three decisive events with consequences for the conviction deficit.
The first was the September 2015 removal of Abbott, an elected PM in his first term, by a relatively narrow partyroom vote. The upshot was a permanently fractured partyroom with Turnbull, from the start, doomed in his effort to keep the Liberals fit for purpose.
The second event was Turnbull’s narrow re-election in 2016 after just the first term of office with a loss of 14 seats – the ruin of Turnbull’s claims as a vote winner or an exponent of Liberal faiths – setting a perilous second-term trajectory pointing to the government most likely facing termination in 2019.

Oh dear, not SloMo again ... Scott Morrison’s unpopularity missed a greater truth – the Liberals were years deep into an identity crisis. Picture: Getty Images

Apparently if you read "Ned", SloMo had "intellectual fuel", but ran out, a bit like the way the Russians are currently running short of petrol...

The third event was Morrison’s surprise 2019 election victory against virtually all predictions – a success only Morrison could have pulled off – that gave the government a belated chance to restructure and recover. The opportunity was there, but it proved beyond the capacity of the prime minister, with the 2022 defeat being a verdict not just on Morrison but on an unconvincing Coalition era.
After the loss of office, senior figures reflected on the malaise eroding the Liberal Party. John Howard said while longevity was a factor, the deeper issue in the 2022 defeat was “we had no plan for the future”. Elections are about the national direction. Yet, said Howard, “We had no manifesto. No statement of where we were going to take the country.”
After nine years of Liberal government the Morrison engine ran out of intellectual fuel.
But Howard saw a broader difficulty. Referring to the entire 2013-22 era, Howard said: “People lost sight of our enduring philosophy. This was obviously one of the reasons why we had changes of leader. Part of this was a lack of conviction over policy and identity.”

The lying rodent thought he had an enduring philosophy? There's no end to the capacity for delusion, and even worse, the reptiles decided to slip in a bunch of cracker barrel thoughts ...

Not the onion muncher again, as the downhill slide continued...

Howard believed the recent Coalition era had walked away from one of his strongest identity commitments as Liberal leader and PM: “Within the living memory of most people following politics, the Liberal Party had been identified with economic reform, in government and in opposition. Starting from the early 1980s, we turned ourselves into a party of economic reform. But that support for economic reform was missing in this most recent period.”
Former federal director of the Liberal Party and former minister Andrew Robb described the collapse of faith: “At the 2022 election defeat many of our people didn’t turn out. They had lost all confidence in the prime minister combined with the absence of any sense of future direction, rooted in policies people needed and expected from the Liberal Party.
“Since John Howard left, the party has been characterised by too much endless disruption, endless changes in its authority figures and the lack of consistency. The recent era has been characterised by the lack of consistency, unity and conviction.”
After the 2022 defeat, Abbott confronted the issue of conviction: “Our job is not to be a slightly less politically correct, slightly less fiscally irresponsible, and slightly less overbearing version of the Labor Party.”

Sheesh ... Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Picture: Getty Images

Why bother with this parade of dropkicks and losers contemplating their navels, while "Ned" busily gathered fluff?

Because it's there, and because that's what pro herpetologists do, no matter the pain ...

Abbott said that “we’re no longer sure quite what it is that Liberals believe and how that might translate into policy”. He said that “at the heart of our disquiet is the current difficulty distinguishing a Liberal government from a Labor one”. Referring to the party’s conservative/Liberal identity as a broad church, Abbott lamented that “too often, conservatives aren’t conservative and liberals aren’t liberal”.
The conviction malaise, in effect, was conceded in the official rev­iew of the 2022 Liberal election campaign conducted by Brian Loughnane and Jane Hume. It said: “The Coalition’s agenda for a fourth term appeared to be limited and unclear to the electorate. The sense the government had ‘run its race’ was allowed to develop as a result.”
Interviewed in 2023, opposition leader Peter Dutton tied the lack of conviction to the leadership eruptions: “It’s important to be honest with ourselves. From the time that Tony Abbott was deposed by Malcolm Turnbull the Liberal Party hasn’t stood for any substantive policy formulation. The Morrison government was defined by the response to Covid and by AUKUS and it did a sterling job in both areas. But there was no major policy offering at the 2022 election.”
The irony in these remarks is that Dutton was describing the central mistake he would make as Liberal leader before and during the 2025 election – this was a case of knowing the problem but being unable to avoid repeating it.
Asked about Howard’s critique that the party had no 2022 election manifesto to highlight Liberal–Labor differences, deputy leader and treasurer at the time Josh Frydenberg partly conceded the case: “There were points of difference. But it wasn’t enough just to say we had managed the pandemic as well as any other country in the world. We needed a couple of key battlelines with the opposition to highlight the differences between us and them. And that wasn’t present.”
From Frydenberg, it is a telling concession.

Then came three more from the cracker barrel ...

As Sartre notoriously said in his play Huit Clos (No Exit) ...

“So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is ... either other people, or worse still, "Ned" blathering endlessly on about the Liberal party!”

Unsurprisingly, the most savage attack on the Liberal crisis of conviction came from Turnbull on the day of – and in the years after – his removal, his chief focus being climate change: “In terms of energy policy and climate policy, I think the truth is that the Coalition finds it very hard to get agreement on anything to do with emissions … (these) bitterly entrenched views are actually more ideological views than based in engineering and economics. It’s a bit like same-sex marriage used to be. Almost an insoluble problem.”
Turnbull approached the conviction issue from a different vantage point – as a progressive. The point is the Liberals were plagued not just by a lack of conviction but by differences over what constituted conviction. It was a double dilemma.
Turnbull said: “You get this madness that the party is being told by its media backers to move further and further to the right, focus on values issues, whether transgender kids or denying climate change, all of this craziness that had been infecting the party for years … it’s electoral catastrophe.”
Turnbull claimed that unless the Liberals found conviction on the climate issue, “it is difficult to see how the Liberal Party can ever win a majority in the House of Representatives”. This is a doom-laden statement about the party’s future. There was heavy irony surrounding these remarks given Turnbull’s leadership as PM was notable for its conviction malaise – witness the 2016 election. Indeed, the conservative wing typically assailed Turnbull as PM for the defect against which he was lecturing – a lack of conviction.

Not the mutton Dutton, anything but that ... Opposition Leader Peter Dutton concedes defeat during a Liberal Party election night event at W Hotel on May 3, 2025. Picture: Getty Images

By this time, some punters might be feeling a little Golding ...

There's a price to pay for that 'toon, a bigly gobbet of "Ned" ...

Dutton said: “Malcolm came in as a cult figure. He was rich, a quintessential liberal in the sense that he’d been financially successful, was a greater raconteur and one of the smartest people you’d ever meet. But the Liberal Party was just a party of convenience for his ambition.”
Abbott and Turnbull had conflicting beliefs on climate policy and fought over the issue for a decade. In this sense the conviction failure became an identity failure. The question became: conviction for what?
Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison – then Dutton as opposition leader – had different views on what the party should be convinced about. By the time of the 2025 election under Dutton the dilemma seemed to be solved – the party apparently settled on the absence of conviction.
In truth, Morrison’s defeat at the 2022 election transcended his personal deficiencies. The Loughnane-Hume review offered devastating conclusions, saying the result “is not comparable to any previous one in Australian political history”.
Losing control of the brand
The Liberal Party had been reduced to four out of 44 inner-metropolitan seats. The debacle had been years in the making. The party lost seats to the left and to the right – to Labor, the teal independents and to the Greens.
The review report said: “By the time of the election the Coalition had lost control of its brand.” The lack of policy projection meant the Liberals were “unable to frame the electoral contest” and the government was defined by its opponents.
A party that cannot define itself has no future. The problem was not just tactics and presentation but core belief.
The 2014 budget was a work of conviction. Abbott and Joe Hockey saw it as a statement of belief. But that budget became a turning point in the Coalition era, conceivably the turning point – by bringing down punitive savings for which a shocked public was unprepared.
Robb, a minister at the time, said of the first budget: “It killed Abbott, it killed Hockey, and it threw the government into disarray.”
Abbott and Hockey were believers. But their conviction in winding back the budget deficit triggered a collapse in government support and, unsurprisingly, a sustained retreat from conviction. Hockey said: “Turnbull weaponised the internal dissent and got away with it because of the lack of conviction in our ranks about the economic strategy.”
The lesson is that convictions can be dangerous. The wrong conviction can destroy a leader – witness Abbott with his first budget. Conviction can make a government but also ruin a government – recall Abbott again with his knighthood for Prince Philip.
Turnbull arrived with his new manifesto of cosmetic progressivism that would never be acceptable to the wider reaches of the party. He was exposed at the 2016 election when he ran a mediocre campaign.
The party’s internal review of that election, scathing and largely kept secret, criticised the government’s failure, saying there was no “clear plan with a clear narrative”. Decoded, there was no conviction. Turnbull demonstrated there was no necessary nexus between intelligence and conviction. He lost 14 seats and came to the brink of minority government. Turnbull survived but was permanently diminished.
Former federal president of the Liberal Party Richard Alston said, after Turnbull had left politics, that he should resign from the Liberal Party: “He should acknowledge the reality that he has no interest in party politics and no interest in the Liberal Party.”

On the upside, Malware was the last snap in the parade of dropkicks and losers... Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. The party’s internal review of the 2013 election, scathing and largely kept secret, said there was no “clear plan with a clear narrative”. Picture: AFP

That seemed to inspire "Ned" to get even more prolix, in his ponderous, portentous, pedantic way ... as if mere words could turn SloMo into some weird down-to-earth pragmatic, rather than the clap happy clown he was ...

When Turnbull fell, Morrison arrived with his down-to-earth pragmatism. He was also a believer – witness his determination in fighting Covid-19, his resolution in resisting China’s coercion and his drive to launch the nuclear submarine program.
In 2019 Morrison won a narrow victory, a tribute to his tenacity, yet much of the victory reflected a negative campaign on Labor’s tax agenda while retaining just enough confidence in the Coalition to get across the line. Morrison’s win secured three parliamentary terms for this Coalition era, but defeat – when it came in 2022 – was devastating.
During the Coalition era the Liberals won three elections but lost the battle of ideas with the Labor-led progressive alliance on a range of economic, social and cultural issues.
Howard said competence is vital in politics. But he added that competence “does not really inspire people” – they “bank it and say ‘OK, that’s good, what’s next?’ and this was Morrison’s failure.” Howard said: “After a long time in government people wanted more and Morrison didn’t have that.”
Howard was astonished at the absence of resolve – that Morrison did not take a stand against identity politics, did not back economic reform, prosecute the religious discrimination bill far earlier or push the anti-corruption commission bill to a parliamentary vote. You can agree or disagree with Howard’s comments – the point is he was searching for signs of Liberal Party conviction.
Killing ground of conviction
Internal division is the killing ground of conviction. The list of Liberal and Coalition policy divisions over nine years was a litany: climate change, same-sex marriage, fiscal policy, tax policy, free speech, religious freedom and LGBTIQ rights.
In truth, Howard’s record as PM only highlighted the subsequent Liberal loss of conviction. He was far more defined by what he did than what he denied – sponsoring gun law reform, waterfront reform, the GST-led tax reform, budget surpluses, industrial relations deregulation, Work Choices, income tax cuts, private school funding, border protection, offshore processing, support for East Timor’s independence, deepening the US alliance, anti-terrorism laws, war commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and backing the constitutional monarchy.
Some of these stands succeeded and some failed – Work Choices set the Liberals back many years. The point is Howard, even more than Menzies, saw the Liberals as a party of political attack. By presenting the Liberal Party as a “broad church” embodying conservatism and liberalism, Howard widened his scope for political initiatives and attack based on conviction

principles. (sic, reptile layout, reproduced with uxorious pond fidelity)

The reptiles repeated yet again an AV distraction, yet somehow this time it ended up on YouTube as a freebie, as the reptiles tried to repair the damage of decades of intractable iron curtain paywall...

No apology: Howard fires up over Brittany Higgins in new Paul Kelly book
The Front
presented by Claire Harvey
Nation Loses 

Its Magic

Damned if the pond would link to something the reptiles were trying to give away for free, because by this point, the pond had begun to feel even more Learish ...

Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?
I am mightily abused. I should ev'n die with pity
To see another thus. I know not what to say.
I will not swear these are my hands. Let’s see.
I feel this pinprick. Would I were assured
Of my condition.

At last the final gobbet arrived, the last extract a reminder sundry dental extractions...

Howard said: “We are a party that must care for both of those traditions.” Yet as the 2020s advanced, Liberal factions, disguised in these traditions, were largely at war with each other.
Former Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam said: “The broad church has fractured. Conservatives have become more assertive and more defensive of their positions. At the same time progressives or moderates have formed a different view of society and are appealing to an entirely different demographic. The Liberal Party is lacking confidence. It hasn’t renewed ideologically or philosophically, and it doesn’t know how to achieve this.”
The Liberal Party over the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison era became an institution prone to identity experimentation. It embraced and discarded leaders but, in the process, undermined the concept of a party in control of its brand or political values. This defect evolved into a full-scale conviction and existence crisis in the following four years.
Howard had departed politics in 2007 – yet he remained ever-present. Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison sought his advice and invoked his name while seeking to promote their own vision for the party. They aspired to reinterpret Howard to fit the second decade of the 21st century. Each tried and each failed in his separate, distinctive way.
In the process, the sense of Liberal abiding conviction all but disappeared.’

Yes, yes, it's profoundly amusing to see the IPA blathering about the fracturing of the broad church, but the pond was more startled to be reminded that this was yet another step in the destruction of the reputation of the University of Melbourne ...

– This is an edited extract from Paul Kelly’s The Twilight of Exceptionalism: The Liberal and Conservative Era, published by Melbourne University Press, out on July 14.

Only three days to go before the book hits the stands, but will that put an end to this nonsense?

The pond couldn't help but wonder if the lizard Oz might keep on promoting the book for an eternity of suffering ...

Be comforted, good madam. The great rage,
You see, is killed in him. And yet it is danger
To make him even o'er the time he has lost.
Desire him to go in. Trouble him no more
Till further settling.

Speaking of time lost, and lost times...

The pond just had enough strength left to deal with a most heartbreaking tale from the Angelic one...

The header:  Tax changes mean it’s closing time for the bank of mum and dad; We had nothing from our own parents except good advice, which basically counselled frugality, to buy whatever you can and work your way up.

The caption for the incredibly moving snap: Sisters Isabella and Olivia Maxwell received a monetary gift from their family to help them get a joint property under the 5 per cent deposit scheme in September. Picture: Aaron Francis

The pond has saved a few reptiles for its Sunday meditation, but felt compelled to add this harrowing account by the Angelic one to "Ned's" Everest climb.

See if you are so insensible, so insensitive as to not suffer along with her ...

There has been a lot of talk about the government’s tax changes and how it affects investors. However, the most common type of investment and the most useful for ordinary families is the “bank of mum and dad”.
My husband and I are founding members of that bank.
We have been married for 50 years and have nine adult children. We had nothing from our own parents except good advice, which basically counselled frugality, to buy whatever you can and work your way up. We did. We bought and sold, and eventually in the fifth year of our marriage we bought a good three-bedroom house in a non-gentrified inner suburb of Sydney. Then over time we have been able to acquire some older investment properties and so have progressed to become the bank.
But it was difficult. We didn’t set out to be owners of more than one house. We had to move several times, which was when we discovered negative gearing. However, we almost lost our one family house in the 1980s when our interest rates went up to 18 per cent. My husband changed jobs and we moved to a regional town, I worked part-time and we lived on the family allowance while hanging on grimly to our Sydney house.

Oh the gruesome lot of being a landlord, the endless boot strap suffering, worthy of a stock footage snap... Unintentionally becoming the bank of mum and dad was far from easy. Picture: iStock

That banal image just about said it all ... yet for some reason, the pond was reminded of Mr Krook in Bleak House, notorious illiterate rag-and-bottle merchant and landlord, given to spontaneous combustion ... just the sort of chap who'd love to pick up a few more shabby old flats...

After things eased we moved to Canberra, where we rented cheaply, but did not sell our Sydney house. In Canberra, where property was cheaper, an opportunity arose to buy a couple of shabby old flats. We did using the equity in the house in Sydney, where prices had soared, so we weren’t afraid of debt. We stayed in Canberra and eventually bought a holiday shack with two advan­tages: proximity to the beach and an inside toilet.
We had our ninth child by this time and needed more accommodation, especially for the two eldest who were 18 and 19. It was cheaper and a better investment to buy two old flats than to put on an extension. The two eldest were at university and had part-time jobs, so instead of renting a flat to them we put one in their names. Ten years later, when our daughter married, they sold the flat and had a good return that enabled them to buy their own family houses.
I don’t understand the resentment towards people who can do this. After all, why do people think we struggle, save and buy other property? Just so we can sit around and tell ourselves how successful we are? No, we do it for our children and our possible future grandchildren. As for the young who buy and sell for a profit, so what? Like us, several of our children for whom we have been guarantor have bought, sold and renovated their way into very good houses.
What is more, they have housed going on nine grandchildren between them. So, our older children have all profited by our ability to go guarantor for them.

To help out those who wanted to join the landlord class, the reptiles provided these numbered points to summarise landlord despair.

Damn you Jimbo, damn you to reptile hell...

The Angelic one carried on, and the real point became even clearer ...

This wasn't just a tale of personal suffering and despair, this was a jihad ...

To acquire property, you need to be unafraid of debt. However, the tax changes mean younger children who have yet to buy may end up having the property ladder pulled away from under them.
Today’s young people are very mobile. Many who would have used negative gearing to buy and build equity in an old cheaper place they didn’t live in as a way to offset their mortgage repayments, increase their equity and use that investment as a means to buy a better, larger place to live, perhaps something in a better area where they could eventually have a family, now are almost denied that opportunity. Worse, with prices falling, many young people who bought to live in their place with a 5 per cent deposit, like the two sisters featured in The Australian (“Bank of Mum and Dad cuts funding”, 8/7) who were able to buy with a guarantee from their mum and dad, will end up stuck in negative equity.
Another aspect of all this is that since the advent of compulsory superannuation, older people have been encouraged to invest and prepare for their own retirement. Some may invest purely for their own retirement. However, every parent has an idea of what they can do to help their children while they are alive, or what they can leave their children after their death, as my parents eventually did. Hence the importance of the family home, which is also the basis of the bank of mum and dad.

The Angelic one was simply joining in the obligatory reptile jihad about the budget ... Anthony Albanese claims to be promoting generational equity. Picture: Getty Images

Oh the suffering, the endless reptile suffering, oh the horror, the lizard Oz jihadist horror ...

However, the Albanese government, using its often-repeated claim of promoting generational equity to squeeze the older owners of the family home and change rules for the younger family members, has all but made the striving to create some investment for one’s children too difficult for ordinary Australians. By abolishing negative gearing and changing capital gains tax for new young investors, the government has made investment in property not really a viable option any more for intergenerational help for ordinary families such as ours.
So, despite Labor’s mantra, by almost destroying mum and dad investment, it has torn out the heart of generational equity.
Anthony Albanese is the child of a single mother who lived in a housing commission home. As a good mother she had her son’s future welfare on her mind when, as the Prime Minister once told us in parliament, she gave him a salient piece of advice: “As soon as you can, buy a house.” He did. Doubtless he was able to benefit from negative gearing as property values soared in Marrickville. But it is a pity he didn’t think about the rest of us who were using those same legal mechanisms to help their own children, many now stuck with negative equity in a property with a mortgage they can’t afford.

Cry the pond a river.

The pond gave up an early morning Saturday for "Ned" and the Angelic one? 

Now that's almost like mad King Donald's speech on a stormy night being up there with doing a landing on a Normandy beach under Nazi fire ...

But at least mentioning mad King Donald allows the pond to close by doing a segue to the immortal Rowe ...

What a splendid tea party.

By golly, did he take the original and make something even richer out of it, or Tommy wot, and that sentiment comes from someone who lives their Tenniel and their Alice ...(and has just finished another toilet reading thereof, this time the centenary Penguin edition). See how the look on mad King Donald matches the look of the mad rabbit ...

And finally the pond knows all about the suffering of the rich, or at least the tempered olive class, and wants to share that knowledge ...