In which the pond realises liberal doesn't mean a kind of doughnut, it means Stasi land, and aren't the rides as good as Tomorrrowland ...

(Above: clever as usual and more Popery here).

This isn't the time or the place to brood on Malcolm Fraser's transformation over the years.

There are those who say he never changed, but it's clear enough that he did - he ended up well to the left of the current Labor party, let alone the Liberals - and you'd need a Freudian handy to explain why.

The pond always thought it was due to guilt, not just Gough but his Memphis trousers, as well as to understanding just causes, and thinks it might well be that Abbott will head to a similar monastery once the full enormity of his guilt hits him in retirement.

Meanwhile, what's astonishing has been the breath-taking display, to the point of nausea, of full bore hypocrisy and sanctimonious piety, as if Malcolm Fraser hadn't left the Liberal party and displayed loathing on most days of the week, including the weekend, for everything it had become.

This sort of gibberish in the lizard Oz:

A true liberal? What's that make the current bunch?

Faux liberals, fake fur liberals, in a leopard skin pattern where changing the spots is all the go? These days they routinely lose their trousers and don't know it, or if they do, cultivate an air of shamelessness ...

Only a few days ago, Leyonhjelm had fun with that one:

Senator Leyonhjelm said he was optimistic that Liberal MPs would support a free vote if given the opportunity and called on Mr Abbott not to "stand in the way" of the Liberal Party's decision. 
"The time has come for the Prime Minister to reveal whether the word 'liberal' actually means anything to him or it's just a brand name like Datsun or Krispy Kreme," Senator Leyonhjelm said. (here)

They still make Datsuns? Well they still know how to do Stasi land and fraudband...

It's only fair then that Alan Ramsey should come out of retirement to berate the current bunch of clowns, in ... the Liberal party turned its back on former prime minister (with forced video), and Lenore Taylor should add to the chorus by contrasting Fraser's dull, ponderous head prefect governing style (she calls it 'steady') to Abbott's chaotic manoeuvres in The Graudian here.

Meanwhile, Fraser should already be twittering from where ever he ended up because the government seized the day to drop a report into the ether on the Friday, in the hope that no one would notice.

Including Scott Morrison, revealed as a shameless liar. So that's what happens when Christians speak in tongues ... they end up expert at speaking with forked tongue ...

Now you won't find any space devoted to the report by the reptiles of Oz.

Some attention has been paid to the cynicism of the manoeuvre, as in Mark Kenny's Taking out the trash but too clever by half, which starts out this way:

Is there no limit to the cynical manipulation of public information to minimise political pain? 
Sadly, the late Friday release of the Abbott government's Moss Review into sexual and other abuse issues in Australia's outsourced immigration detention centre on Nauru suggests such conniving may have been pushed to a new low.

It provides a link to the report, here in pdf form, and a link to a piece by Michael Gordon here:

The report is also vindication for Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who went public with allegations of sexual abuse by security guards at the Nauru centre in September, after raising them with then minister Scott Morrison and receiving no reply. 
A few days later, the minister responded by way of a "drop" to Sydney's Daily Telegraph. Under the splash headline "Claims of abuse on island go overboard", the paper reported that a leaked "intelligence report" had found that staff employed by the service provider, Save The Children, had fabricated the stories of sexual abuse. 
Now, the Moss report finds no conclusive evidence that the 10 Save The Children employees who were sacked and removed from Nauru in any way actively encouraged protest activity or the fabrication of stories. Someone owes someone an apology.

Sorry, liars with forked tongues don't do apologies, let's not muddy the waters with apologetic remorseful Christian attitudes, nor does the Murdoch press when it's acting as the propaganda arm of the government in a way Vlad Putin would envy.

Will there be any fall-out or consequences? Not likely. Oh sure New Matilda chips in here, and the Graudian here, but no one wants to know. It's Australia's secret shame, its very own version of trousers in Memphis, though in this case it involves abuse of people and children, and besides the head prefect is dead ...

Which brings the pond to the daily task of reptile watch.

First you need a sick bucket handy. Remember that bit about the Daily Terror's role as lick spittle lap dog (wording pre-approved by the federal government)? In a matter which deeply agitated the departed Fraser? What about this then for hypocrisy rampant ...?

Towering? Why then the Daily Terror is a gnat, and so is the forked speaker in tongues Morrison ...

And so on to less onerous duties, which is to track Chris Kenny getting agitated in the Oz this day.

Oh sure, Kenny tries to hide his nervousness, but he can sense that a trouser drop is about to happen, and he's worried.

Now you'd need a Freudian to work out the deeper recesses of the dog consorter's mind - and it wouldn't be a pretty picture - but the pond can spot an anxiety attack from ten paces and it too is rarely pretty.

Look at how he wrings his hands and moans and keens and splashes about the ashes while dressed in worrying sackcloth:

Eek, who let chicken little into the room? 

The sky is falling, or at least likely to fall. But do go on with the clucking. Does it have something to do with jolly Joe dropping a new budget and perhaps news of an $80 billion or so carelessly misplaced, helped along by a welter of backflips?

Oh the cruel fiendish wretches. And there was Tony Abbott in opposition, always collegial and consensual, always giving an inch, Mr Obliging, always ready to do a deal and help out, never a thought of nattering negativity.

Why he set a wonderful example. But let's get back to jolly Joe:

Uh huh. So now it's all jolly Joe's fault.

And there's that threat from the base yet again. C- or maybe D+. Must continue to improve, or else ...

By golly, this next budget is going to be an interesting one. Let's hope everyone has a cigar handy, and it's not the sort you could find in Popular Mechanics in 1917:

Which brings the pond to a final reassurance for this weekend.

Everything is going to be fine in big Mal's stasi land. You see, big Mal approves of people using VPNs and encryption services (here), as if no-one's noticed that governments around the world, from Vlad's Russia to the Tsars of Hollywood talk about the need to ban VPNs.

Sure, you might use your VPN for problematic purposes, but all that means is that the government can do the same.

But don't you worry about a thing. You can trust the police, sure you can. Look at this exemplary story in The West Australian here:

Thank the long absent lord no one will be getting up to any sort of mischief in the Stasi surveillance state. Thank Her for making sure cell phones aren't tracking devices ...

Enough already. Let's end with a cheerful cartoon, well cheerful enough if you don't mind continuing chaos in the middle west, and there's more Tom Toles here.