Gerard Henderson, and the myth destroyer produces an alarming unnerving consensus ...

(Above: is there a developing commentariat consensus developing that the way to produce change is to bore Australia into consensus?)

It's just not fair. It's almost unforgiveable ... and in any case it's unsustainable and improbable and once upon a time considered nigh impossible.

Each week without fail the pond has been able to look forward to chortling along each Tuesday with our prattling Polonius, Gerard Henderson, and gosh darn it, here he is turning up with late copy on a Wednesday, and we agree with much of what he's scribbled.

If he keeps going on this way, singlehandedly Henderson will put the pond out of business. There's nothing more boring - as any squawking commentariat commentator knows - nodding along, politely forming a consensus, and agreeing things are so and thus.

Why the next thing you know everyone on the pond will be having siestas or cat naps (and here for a cultural explanation of the siesta habit).

Henderson delivers his shock to the pond system in How to make a new paradigm: take old one, add frills.

The only major disagreement and consternation is the way Henderson keeps on watching the ABC. Somehow he managed to watch Q&A all the way through, and so can tell us that Tony Jones mentioned 'new paradigm' four times.

Here at the pond we find watching the show roughly equivalent to a trip to the dentist, or sitting amongst squawking loons shouting at each other, hoping and praying that the sun will set and the loons will settle. But you have to hand it to Henderson, as a free market devotee theoretically in favour of commercial television and the shriek of advertising, he can recite his ABC catechism, alphabet and two times table backwards ...

Could Henderson be swayed too much by the cardigan wearing propaganda he usually gets upset about?

For whatever reason, he spends an unnerving amount of time in his latest scribble demolishing a number of wonderful conservative canards.

First to bite the myth dust is the faceless men routine, with Henderson citing precedents for former Chairman Rudd's demise, and pointing out that "most of those who decided that Rudd had to go were elected politicians", visible and with names, as were the trade union officials involved, who could be named and faced.

Next myth to go is the notion of an illegitimate government, with an appeal to Bob Menzies' government in 1940, which Henderson dubs 'legitimate', though Ming the merciless relied on two independents.

By this time we were reeling in shock and dismay. And still the myth destroyer raged and scythed, like a cane cutter amongst the tender sugar, like some come again doll doing its summery seventeenth thing.

Next to go was the notion that Gillard doesn't have a mandate.

By the time we got to myth 4, we were hoping and praying for some sign of weakness, but it's true that Abbott ran an effective campaign. He's excellent at negative politics, and will keep gnawing away at the bone. What he might do with the bone should he ever get full ownership - apart from rushing out to the backyard and burying it in a deep hole - is another matter.

Sure there's Graham Richardson brought forward once again by Henderson as some kind of oracle, as opposed to holder of Swiss bank accounts, and a snipe at Laura Tingle, and Henderson isn't entirely on the mark about ALP complacency, but he makes a fair point. It's okay to talk about Labor complacency, even if then it seems foolish to overlook the countervailing evidence of Labor panic, and the sacking of former chairman Rudd, with Henderson preferring just to promote Abbott as a fearsome campaigner. So in the end it wasn't so much complacency as getting the fear of the attack dog?

With myth five, Henderson lays in to the notion that News Corp played a crucial role. He makes the point that The Australian doesn't have a big circulation during the week, and come to think of it, its circulation on the weekend is inclined to the half way tragic. It is in its own way both prejudiced and delusional, most notably about the powers of its prejudices, with many not caring a whit or jot about what it thinks or says or reports.

Sad to say, we have to agree with Henderson that The Australian is full of irrelevant biased prejudiced tossers who talk a big walk in the way of short people anxious about their height ...

Oh okay, he didn't phrase it that way, but we're just rocking along in freewheeling consensus mode ...

We did almost fall out of our seat at the notion that Kerry O'Brien was one of the key journalists in the campaign - does making viewers nod off and go to bed early count as a key campaign contribution? We like to get our news at that time from Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.

But surely the Laurie Oakes leaks (amplified by Peter Hartcher) did play a significant role, unlike those Murdoch hacks and tossers ... Which is not to say that the Murdoch tossers didn't try to terminate with extreme prejudice, it's just that they didn't score the juiciest leaks and were left with their standard shrieking prejudiced headlines ...

By the time we got to myth 6 you can imagine the unmitigated pleasure of seeing Henderson at last getting agitated about the independents, disposing of Oakeshott and Windsor, and slurring Bandt and Rhiannon. But his point about them not representing a brand new kind of politics is fair, especially as he shows how they can be incorporated into the standard chatter of commentariat columnists with a casual wit (how many politicians might be dismissed by having Henderson's line about Oakeshott applied to them? You know, being garrulous, indecisive and incapable of remembering inconvenient facts. Come on down jolly Joe Hockey, you're needed).

It was only at myth 7 that consensus began to falter. Noting that there are only nine Greens amongst the total of 64 senators from July next year, Henderson argues that they won't control the senate, because the opposition, if it chooses, can help the Gillard government pass any legislation. While this might be true of uranium exports, the reality is that Abbott will play hardball negative politics, do his best to use the Greens to make the government look feeble and ineffective, and disrupt the Senate proceedings as much as possible, and the Greens, in their infinite wisdom, are likely to assist in the process.

Phew, one myth buster counter myth destroyed.

But then Henderson brings on myth 8, and points out that the independents - at least Oakeshott, Windsor, Bandt and Wilkie - have good reasons to keep the Gillard government running, and that therefore the notion that the Gillard government might be short lived might have to sit on the shelf for a long time like a packet of long life milk.

The most likely scenario for the next three years is that not a lot happens.

What? Australia won't be ruined, and driven into the ground by a totally incompetent government, and we won't all flock to Tony Abbott to seek our redemption?

Such a status quo outcome would be a long way from the widely anticipated new paradigm.

Indeed. Because it is, and by definition, just a new wrinkle on politics, and Australia's been there before, on a state level many times, and on a federal level some time ago, when the pressures - a world war - were a little larger than we're experiencing at the moment.

But you can see where this is heading. Either Gerard Henderson's been watching the ABC too much, or I've been reading our prattling Polonius for too long.

And here's the most unnerving, startling and shocking fact. Not one mention by Henderson of John Howard in his column! Not one! Sure Ming the merciless gets three, but then he ran a illegitimate minority government ...

I keed, I keed. If it keeps on going this way, you might well notice a solitary figure swimming between the heads and heading out across the Tasman sea to New Zealand ... Loon pond on the move.

This kind of convivial consensus undermines the natural order, portends major disasters and catastrophes in the wings ...

We now have to hope that 'something much' happens so that our prattling Polonius's prediction that 'not a lot will happen' in the next three years doesn't come to pass.

Yes, we've turned into commentariat columnists. We demand doom and destruction and nightmare scenarios and faceless men (where are the faceless women, bring on some faceless women) and illegitimacy and a lack of a mandate and Australia ruined and run into the ground.

Thank the lord for The Australian. It might be a half assed impotent strutting peacock of a rag that thinks it punches above its weight, but at least it delivers the goods and Janet Albrechtsen prattling on endlessly about faceless men, instead of this kind of measured moderate conservative thinking ...

Let the illegitimate faceless unmandated Gillard government do what's right and proper. Bring on the complete and utter ruination of Australia, and so bring the end of the world one step closer.

Fortunately in the nick of time I remembered Shakespeare and his prattling Polonius. Much of what Polonius says is sensible, even good advice, but still you can have fun with the man because he's such a ponce and so boring and solemn in the way he delivers his advice ...

Phew. For a moment there, Henderson had the pond going, on the hop and totally confused ...