Day 71 of MUC and day 24 of MOC, and the Oz's war on labour continues ...

So here's how it works when you're conducting a war on labour and on Labor ...

Publish the thoughts of a ning nong nonentity from the north stirring the pot, and then the next day, you can carry on the war, framing any comment on the ning nong - and so the front page - in such a way as you can get a second day of class and business warfare ...

And you get to call it your own EXCLUSIVE, because everyone else knows it's a bit of reptile navel fluff of the class war kind ...

That's just code of course, everyone knows it's the reptiles ramping up its war on labour ...

It's a sweet deal, especially when you've got a cluck-clucking, tut-tutting, finger-waving oscillating fan ready to chip in with one of his more fatuous headlines ...

You see how it works? Suddenly the reptiles campaign, their very own war, has turned into an ugly class war ... and it's all the fault of Bill, rather than the reptiles and the ning nong nonentity from the north ...

And then you get the taxpayer, grant-funded Caterists to come up with their own inimitable interpretation of the war ...

It's been awhile since the pond has seen anything so la-di-dah and dripping with visceral contempt for the "unskilled", the hoi polloi, the low lifers, the riff raff ... those getting paid above their station, unlike the dribbling, taxpayer-funded correspondent for the reptiles of Oz ...

Never mind, it wouldn't be a war without a taxpayer-funded warrior on hand to deplore the bludgers, and so the pond must get down with it ...

Now around this point in a fair and balanced program, there might have been some mention of property developer donations, which end up on both sides of the aisle and have done much to reduce New South Wales politics to the level of New York government (luckily Jeffrey Toobin's piece for The New Yorker, The Showman, is outside the paywall at the moment to provide some excellent entertainment - at least if you don't leave in that corrupt state).

But you won't find the Caterists talking about the obscene amounts of money that developer bandits make off with, because you never know when the Menzies mob might like a little donation ... though they won't turn down a tidy 60k from Google either ... (here).

Take a squiz at the impeccable list of directors of the Menzies Research Centre here ... not least Anthony McLellan, who has been "chief executive of international corporations in the mining and property development industries ..."

And so forth and etc from the big end of town and the Liberal party ...

It's sometimes forgotten that the MRC is just a Liberal party laundry ... for the processing of donations from the needy in search of needful political actions, that prior to his employment at the IPA, John Roskam was it executive director, and that it shamelessly boasts about the way it lives off the taxpayer teat ...

As a non-profit body, the Menzies Research Centre is funded by donations from individuals, the corporate sector, and an annual grant from the Department of Finance. (here).

Yes, taxpayers line up to help the Caterists so that they might continue to rail in print about the wickedness of the "unskilled" ...

But frankly, given the choice between a garbage collector turning up in the back lane once a week, or the Caterists scribbling garbage once a week, the pond knows which unskilled worker it would prefer ...

Of course it would be wrong to suggest there's some sort of analogy between a bundle of cash and a longstanding, opaque, hidden, secretive and historical relationship with business ... that would be pretty low and a very long bow ...

Actually the rest of us pay the grant that keeps the Caterists in the lifestyle to which they're accustomed, and surprisingly without any display of skill beyond that of forelock tugging and servile boot licking to the Liberal party and the big end of town...

Time then for a Pope cartoon ... and more Pope here ...