No Caterist to hand, but reptile certainties still prevail in the lizard Oz on a Monday ...

 

Cardinal Lawrence: Over the course of many years, in the service of our mother the media, let me tell you, there is one sin which I have come to fear above all others. Certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end. He cried out in his agony at the ninth hour on the cross. Our scribbling is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore no need for faith. Let us pray that She will grant us reptiles who doubt. And let Her grant us reptiles who sin and asks for forgiveness and who carry on.

Okay, no spoilers, Conclave is an enjoyable shaggy dog story, with an array of pork of the finest quality (Ralph Fiennes must offer a prayer of thanks every day for the opportunity to show his considerable chops, but he has some stiff competition from the rest of the cast, aided by the frocks and art departments, not to mention script and direction).

You have to last to the end to get the punchline, which would likely send the Catholic Boys' Daily into a frenzy, but which only adds to the fun.

Those lines about certainty, mangled by the pond, stuck in the mind because it's the daily business of the reptiles to proffer unyielding, unbending certainty. There's never any doubt, there's never any sense that there might be alternatives to their fundamentalist certainties.

Strangely however, the Caterist, a reliable supplier of certainty on a Monday, a man so certain that even floodwaters in quarries bend to his will, went MIA this day. 

That gave the pond a 'stop hitting head with hammer' moment, but there were other hammers to hand, so the pond carried on ... and first up came Lord Downer, agonising about his devotion to genocide ...

ICC now embodies United Nations' contempt for the West,The moral of my ICC journey is that multilateral institutions, particularly the UN, have now been taken over by forces hostile to the West. For as long as that’s the case we should just keep well away from them.

Inevitably it's about Lord Downer himself and his journey.

Everything tends to be about Lord Downer in Lord Downer's universe, and so it was surprising that the reptiles began with a snap of someone else, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during a press conference at the San Carlos Palace in Bogota.

What's the odds that in due course there will be a grand and huge snap of Lord Downer, a visual wandering down memory lane? 

But first Lord Downer must abjure himself, show regrets for his folly. How could he have known there would have been a feeble attempt to hold people accountable for mass starvation, collective punishment and displacement, a genocide so that real estate opportunities might be realised? 

One of the civilised debates held within the Howard government was over whether we should sign on to the International Criminal Court. I was in favour, John Howard was against. The cabinet was almost evenly divided so we let the party room decide. I lobbied hard and won. That’s the last time I’ll ever support Australia signing up to any international court.
The ICC was replete with idealism and good intentions. We all want brutal dictators who commit egregious breaches of human rights brought to justice. More than that, I hoped such people would fear international justice. I thought it made sense to have a permanent court rather than establishing ad hoc tribunals to prosecute evil people.
Opponents of the ICC feared it would be used by our adversaries and indeed by extremists in our own country to charge and prosecute Australians, particularly members of the Australian Defence Force. We needed to be satisfied that couldn’t happen. After all, we have our own highly sophisticated and impartial system of criminal justice, and the last thing we wanted was to leave ourselves vulnerable to vexatious behaviour driven by political expediency.
So, as I saw it, safeguards were built into both the Rome Statute that established the ICC and our own implementing legislation.

Cue a snap of suffering angels, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv.

Then, never mind the ongoing genocide, it was back to Lord Downer's regrets, certainty undone by new certainties:

First, the jurisdiction of the court would extend only to those states that signed and ratified the statute. If a state didn’t accept the jurisdiction of the court, then a case could nevertheless be referred to the court by the UN Security Council. A state that has accepted the statute can refer a case to the court but only a state can.

The second safeguard was the important principle of complimentary. Put simply, that meant the remit of the court would extend only to countries that were unwilling or unable to investigate a complaint of a war crime or was unable to do so. That seemed pretty clear to me.
Australia has a fully functioning legal system and, if ever there was a bona fide complaint against an Australian or an Australian institution such as our defence force, our legal system was fully competent to deal with it.
As for our allies, we assumed if they didn’t sign the statute there would be no risk to them of prosecutions in the ICC.
In Australia we introduced yet another safeguard: that the Australian attorney-general would have to agree to the arrest on a warrant from the ICC of any person in Australian territory.
It was with those safeguards that we went ahead and signed the Rome Statute.
With the benefit of hindsight I was uncharacteristically naive. I knew, of course, the general course in which the UN and its instruments were heading. It was increasingly becoming an anti-Western institution. It was being used relentlessly by countries and non-government organisations hostile to the West and in particular the US and its allies.

What a splendid line:

With the benefit of hindsight I was uncharacteristically naive.

It's surely worth a snap:

The reptiles had their own audio visual distraction:

Former foreign minister Alexander Downer claims Australia should seek to make changes to the International Criminal Court or leave it altogether. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister and former defense minister allowing charges to move forward for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Mr Downer criticised the government’s refusal to condemn the court after they issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Then it was back to Lord Downer's musings:

Even 20 years ago the UN was being used as a battering ram against Israel. The present feckless secretary-general never lets up in his denunciation of the Israelis and their government.
But for this world view to invade the ICC is a tragedy. Just as the anti-Western ranting of the UN is gradually rendering it a meaningless talking shop for left-wing activists and NGOs, so too does the recent charging of the Israeli Prime Minister and former defence minister destroy the credibility of the ICC. And it has shocked me, the minister who signed us up to the ICC.
Here’s why. First, Israel hasn’t signed the ICC statute so the ICC’s remit doesn’t extend to Israel without a Security Council resolution. The ICC says it has responded to a complaint from a state, Palestine. But Palestine is not a recognised state. An attempt to get it recognised by the UN Security Council in April failed.

With the greatest respect, Lord Downer, some 146 of the 193 members of the United Nations recognises the state of Palestine, and it has been a non-member observer state of the General Assembly since November 2012, or so its wiki says ...

Second, Israel has a fully functioning and fiercely independent legal system that has jailed both a former prime minister and a former president. If Israeli leaders have committed war crimes, that’s a matter for Israel’s legal system.

With the greatest respect, Lord Downer, you really should try reading a diversity of views. Try Ido Baum in Haaretz, and his column How Israel's Government Uses a Weakened, Smaller Supreme Court to Its Advantage.

Forgive the pond if it cuts to the punchline:

The result of all of the above is that justices serving on the Supreme Court today will see books on the rise and fall of Israeli democracy written in their lifetimes. Every judicial decision – every single one – will have an influence on the end of the story and their own role in it.

But do go on:

And third, these charges are blatantly political: how is it the whole Israeli war cabinet is not being charged or senior officers in the Israel Defence Forces?

With the greatest respect, Lord Downer, might it not be that the state rots from the head, and those below might piously say they were "just following orders", a dim echo of tragic excuses of the past.

Never mind, do go on and explain how things are going splendidly in Gaza:

And given Israel has sent 57,000 truckloads of food and supplies into Gaza since October last year, how is it the Israelis are trying to starve Gazans? And hasn’t Egypt closed its border to Gaza and, if so, why isn’t the Egyptian government being charged by the ICC?
The ICC has come close to destroying itself. I know how they think. To look balanced they think they have to indict people in Western countries, not just Third World dictators and kleptocrats. So let’s start with the Israelis who are at war.
Well, play that game and the whole institution will collapse.
So what should we do? I don’t think we should immediately leave it. We should tell the judges and prosecutors that the principle of complementarity needs to re-enforced. We should then get together with a group of like-minded countries and propose amendments to the statute to make sure no one in or from a country with an independent and serious criminal legal system would be charged by the ICC.

And so came the moment the pond had predicted and expected, and it was, in its original format, huge, featuring Alexander Downer with John Howard during Question Time, 2007.

2007! Well it surely beats the onion muncher, who now seems to have faded into a dim memory for the reptiles.

And so the real purpose of the piece had arrived, and been served by that snap - the column being about Lord Downer rather than the situation in Gaza - and so we can quickly proceed to the end:

If we can’t get the statute amended, then and only then we should leave the court altogether. In the meantime, expect the incoming Trump administration to sanction all the ICC’s officials, leaving them, among other things, without bank accounts.
Western states need to stand their ground and not enforce ICC arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A recent paper by British think tank Policy Exchange, which I chair, makes clear that enforcing the warrant would breach diplomatic immunity and is not permitted under British law. Australian law, too, does not require enforcement that would breach diplomatic immunity. Like France and other responsible states, Australia should not follow the ICC when it does international law.
The moral of my ICC journey is that multilateral institutions, particularly the UN, have now been taken over by forces hostile to the West. For as long as that’s the case we should just keep well away from them. We have national institutions that are fairer and more compassionate than anything the UN has ever produced.
Alexander Downer was foreign minister from 1996 to 2007 and high commissioner to the UK from 2014 to 2018. He is chairman of British think tank Policy Exchange.

Thank you Lord Downer, always caring and empathetic, and with your support of the ongoing genocide duly noted ...

And now just because the Caterist went MIA doesn't mean that the reptiles lacked for a backup, with a certain Saul Kavonic offering Green lawfare on ALP’s watch amounts to economic sabotage, By funding the EDO, Labor is funding economic terrorism against our own economy, undermining the energy security of Australia and our allies.

Naturally it began with an alarming snap of protestors, Protesters hold a banner at the front of the Federal Court of Australia, which was hearing an appeal by Santos over its Barossa gas project, in November 2022. Picture: Getty Images

Saul was in an apocalyptic mood, not so much about the destruction of the planet so much, as attempts to frustrate the destruction of the planet ruining his economic lunch:

Imagine a foreign organisation was secretly funding a sophisticated campaign to damage Australia’s economy, divert billions of dollars of investment away from our country, destroy tens of thousands of our blue-collar jobs and bring Australia’s leading position in economic exports to an end.
This scenario may sound far-fetched but it’s happening right now. Last week’s Federal Court order against the Environmental Defenders Office has shone a light on this crucial national security issue. The EDO, alongside other extreme green activists, is engaging in a hostile campaign to destroy Australia’s resources sector and kill off one of our nation’s economic engines. No less than our largest export earning sector, a source of regional jobs, is at stake.
The EDO employs lawfare to halt significant economic projects that are already under construction after receiving government approval. Its legal challenges are procedural and will likely delay, rather than stop, projects.
But the goal isn’t just to try to stop projects. The goal of these activists is more sinister: to end a large part of Australia’s resources industry altogether. They seek to create so much uncertainty in the investment and approvals process – with so many risks of delays and costs – that investment will cease. Potential investors won’t try to invest in Australia any more.
One of the EDO’s funders explicitly states the campaign is about opposing the offshore oil and gas sector and “ultimately stopping it altogether”. The org­anisation wants every one of the thousands of workers in the offshore oil and gas industry to lose their jobs, and it is winning in its onslaught against the economy.

Um, climate science, climate change, the need to get off fossil fuels altogether? Not for this little fossil fool bunny ... but then came an audio visual interruption:

The Environmental Defenders Office has been ordered to pay Santos over $9 million in its failed attempt to stop a major project off the Northern Territory coast. Santos is now free to install a pipeline from its Barossa gas project as the Federal Court rejected Indigenous heritage claims stalling the project. On Monday, Justice Natalie Charlesworth rejected the pipeline posed a risk to cultural heritage for the Indigenous people who lived in the area. In a statement, Santos said the court found Indigenous instructions were distorted and manipulated before being presented to the court. Sky News host Chris Kenny says Santos winning millions in a lawsuit on the cultural heritage claims on land is a “win for truth”.

On Saul raged:

Tens of billions of dollars in potential investment in Australia have stalled because of the EDO’s tactics. International lenders are increasing the cost of lending to Australian projects because of the heightened lawfare risks. Some of the nation’s largest companies have felt little choice but to invest elsewhere. Australia has lost its reputation as a safe place to invest. An approval by the government doesn’t mean anything any more and the detrimental impact will be felt beyond the resources sector.
Tactics employed by activists and the EDO have been unscrupulous. The Federal Court has highlighted how they have manufactured evidence, how clients were lied to and sacred Indigenous connections to country distorted for environmental ends.
The costs awarded against the EDO last week are an extraordinary outcome and would have occurred only if the court found egregious conduct by the EDO.
This is the problem when a group sees ending fossil fuels as an absolute, where it believes ideological ends justify any means.

Um, actually, climate science, climate change, global warming, rampant destruction?

Nah, not really ... it's a vast, neigh global, conspiracy ...

The EDO appears to have gone to great lengths to avoid disclosing its funding sources during recent litigation. This raises the question: What is it hiding?
From the limited disclosure available, it appears a large part of the EDO’s funding comes from foreign entities, including in the US and Europe. We don’t know the full extent of the foreign funding because there is little disclosure required by the EDO of its funding sources and who is behind it. May foreign vested commercial interests or hostile actors be funding the EDO’s litigation against Australia’s economy?
When a foreign-funded group orchestrates a sophisticated, well-funded campaign to devastate the most important part of Australia’s economy for ideological ends, it becomes a national security issue in addition to an economic one.
The Greens have been labelled economic terrorists by the former head of the Australian Workers Union. But it’s less accountable environmental groups such as the EDO that are doing more economic damage. (The EDO and Greens are also connected, with the group receiving funding from the Bob Brown Foundation and the EDO having paid an activist who was collaborating with the Greens, according to reporting in The Australian last week.)
Most people would expect our government to take seriously the national security risk that’s presented by foreign-funded groups deliberately harming our economy for their own ideological ends. At a minimum, the government might insist on more transparency concerning the activities and funding sources of these groups. But instead of scrutinising the EDO’s activities and foreign funding sources, the Labor government is funding them, too.

At this point the reptiles interrupted with another AV featuring an environmental and climate change heroine speaking to notorious climate change advocate, the dog bothering dog fucker, bothering away on Sky News (Au) ...

Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians Jacinta Nampijinpa Price slams “fabricated” Indigenous cultural heritage as “deeply insulting”. Her remarks come after court documents revealed collaboration between non-Indigenous activists, advisors and the Environmental Defenders Office to present Indigenous cultural heritage claims to block Santos’s Barossa gas project. “It’s not just deeply concerning, but it’s deeply, deeply insulting,” Ms Price told Sky News host Chris Kenny. “In terms of Aboriginal culture, probably one of the worst ways that you can disrespect Aboriginal people in this way just by completely and utterly fabricating dreaming stories to suit an agenda of environmentalists and Green’s activists.”

Then it was a sprint to the finish:

The biggest victim of the EDO’s unscrupulous tactics have been Indigenous Australians. The EDO hypocritically pretends to represent the interests of Indigenous Australians while abusing Indigenous rights as a pretext for its environmental litigation. The EDO has undermined recognised Indigenous leadership claims and Native Title bodies; its distorted the sacred Indigenous connection to country in pursuit of an ulterior environmental agenda.
There are Indigenous leaders who are appalled by the actions of the EDO. Old wounds from often painful years-long processes of determining native title and leadership claims now may be torn open because of the EDO’s tactics. Many Indigenous communities are suffering from consultation fatigue in the wake of the EDO’s litigation, which has increased the consultation standard to unworkable levels. And Indigenous communities that support local resources projects and the economic benefits that could result from them may be left empty-handed.
If a mining company undermined a local Indigenous community and misrepresented its Indigenous heritage, it rightly would be raked over the coals. Yet when an environmental organisation acts so despicably towards Indigenous Australians, it gets a pass (and taxpayer funds to boot).
By funding the EDO, Labor is funding economic terrorism against our own economy, undermining the energy security of Australia and our allies, and has failed to stand up for Indigenous Australians once again.

There was a tag at the end:

Saul Kavonic is head of energy research at equities research firm MST Marquee.

And for those wondering, here's Saul in his native habitat:

Ah, Woodside, well played Saul ...

And so to the Major, not because the pond wants to, but because the Major is always there ...and like the lizard Oz and other reptiles, the Major is in full campaign mode, when all the pond wanted for Xmas was a little peace and quiet:

Albanese is sinking, and Dutton is cutting through – but not all journos have noticed, Over the past three years, much of the Canberra press gallery has characterised Peter Dutton as divisive and incapable of leadership. True to form, some are only now starting to take him seriously.

The reptiles began the Major's piece with a snap of the target, the cliff-dwelling Albo, Anthony Albanese’s political standing has been damaged by a succession of missteps. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

Thereafter the Major's column was surprisingly bereft of visual aids, whether snaps or detours to Sky News (Au):

The Australian media could learn from the mistakes that have beset mainstream American political journalism in recent years.
Some local reporters have misread the contest between Labor and the Coalition as badly as many did in the US – by over-estimating the chances of the incumbent, for starters. The big American papers and TV networks covered up President Joe Biden’s mental decline for years until the world saw the obvious in the June 27 debate against Donald Trump.
The same US organisations played along with the Democrats’ Russiagate hoax after Trump’s 2016 win, ignored the Hunter Biden laptop story that was censored by big social media companies weeks before the 2020 election, and never questioned the post-2022 lawfare by Democrat state prosecutors, designed to destroy Trump.

The pond is glad the Major started with a triumphal tour of Kash-gate central, because that means the pond could offer its own visual distraction:

Then it was on with all the usual bees in the Major's bonnet, buzzing as they always do ...

In Australia, a lot of journalists in the lead-up to the 2022 election played along with the ABC’s agenda, which was clearly set out in the Four Corners program, ‘Inside the Canberra Bubble, in November 2020. It painted then prime minister Scott Morrison’s government as riddled with sexual scandal. All the program really exposed was a single consensual affair between a staffer and a minister.
Much of the Canberra press gallery has characterised Opposition Leader Peter Dutton as divisive and incapable of leadership.
True to form, some are now starting to take him seriously after recent polling showing the Coalition leading Labor 51-49 and Albanese with a net negative satisfaction rating of minus 15 to Dutton’s minus 11.
In this “race-call” version of political journalism, analysis is driven by polling success rather than policy success.
Most in the gallery put the beginning of Labor’s slide down to the defeat on October 14 last year of the voice referendum.
This column has argued Albanese’s problems were obvious before that. His government – claiming it would emulate Labor’s reform era under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating – was going the wrong way on labour market regulation, booming public sector spending, tax cuts and power relief payments that only increased pressure on inflation.
Labor was captured by rent-seeking investors on energy policy. Reflect on its foolish spruiking of green hydrogen that even West Australian billionaire Twiggy Forrest has started to abandon. Albanese continued to push it on ABC 7.30 on Thursday night.

At this point the reptiles interrupted with a final paltry snap, Much of the Canberra press gallery has characterised Opposition Leader Peter Dutton as divisive and incapable of leadership. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

That hagiographic vision of the Major's hero out of the way, it was on with the hagiography, via a denunciation of traitors, ne'er do wells and those fools who fail to understand the Major's splendid vision:

Smart journalists – this paper’s Dennis Shanahan and The Australian Financial Review’s Phil Coorey – saw the policy contradictions as the RBA lifted interest rates 13 times.
In the face of near universal post-election commentary about the dire state of the Coalition, this column on December 4, 2022, pointed to the Labor win by Kevin Rudd in November 2007. With wall to wall Labor governments across the nation, many back then predicted a dire future for the Coalition.
Yet by 2013 federal Labor had been through Rudd twice, and Julia Gillard. Tony Abbott was prime minister. Labor had lost state elections to conservatives in WA (Colin Barnett, 2008), Victoria (Ted Baillieu, 2010), NSW (Barry O’Farrell, 2011) and Queensland (Campbell Newman, 2013).
Labor has already lost Queensland this year and is struggling in Victoria. It is likely to lose federal seats in WA.
The Coalition certainly was belted in 2022, winning only 58 of the 76 seats needed to form government. Yet Labor polled only 32.6 per cent of the primary vote for a slim majority of 77 seats. The Coalition received more votes, 35.7 per cent, but was smashed by the teals in traditional Liberal seats.
The Coalition was back to 40 per cent in the Newspoll of November 10 as Labor languished at 33 per cent. Now come signs of an analytical shift by the media left.
Laura Tingle on July 14, 2023, in the AFR wrote a scathing analysis of Dutton’s tactics, under the headline “Downward envy and the politics of robo-debt and the Voice”. Tingle was in trouble in October last year for calling out “false balance” in the ABC’s coverage of the voice.
Political editor at ABC 7.30 and the staff-elected member of the public broadcaster’s board, Tingle – answering an audience question at a book launch – said the No case in the referendum was built on disinformation, even though many of the complaints about that side of the debate actually came from material produced by Yes advocates.
Peter Hartcher, who writes for the Nine-owned mastheads The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, was similarly scathing about Dutton’s decision to campaign for No. On April 22 last year, he wrote: “The Liberal Party is dying and Dutton can’t even diagnose the disease.” Dutton’s decision to oppose the voice had hurt the party and his own ratings, Hartcher argued. Yet the voice went down 60-40.

At this point the pond should interrupt to remind the Major it's still waiting for that SMR in the backyard ...

Hartcher has also been savage about Dutton’s support for nuclear power even though international climate change meetings for two years have committed to ramp up zero-emissions nuclear.

On June 22, Hartcher said Dutton’s nuclear plan had a distinctly Russian and Soviet flavour. Never mind the US, Europe and China are increasing their reliance on nuclear power.

“The whole point of Dutton’s policy is to introduce uncertainty, to overthrow the government, to kill its policy and to win power,” Hartcher observed.

Tingle on the ABC website on June 15 wrote: “Peter Dutton talking about nuclear energy means he can’t be accused of being a climate denier. It just means he doesn’t have to do anything much any time soon.”

In that array of Major villains, the pond found this one the most piquant:

David Crowe on June 24 in The Age pointed to polling showing voters, especially the young, being more open to nuclear power. The piece opened: “Peter Dutton has invited Australians into a nuclear maze that has dozens of dead ends, and no clear pathway because his plan is so free of facts.”

Crowe on August 22 extended his criticism to the Opposition Leader’s handling of Gaza: “Dutton is placing all his bets on an issue not crucial to voters.”

Dutton’s criticism of the government’s decision to award visas to Palestinians fleeing Gaza was “new and ugly territory for Australian politics”, Crowe wrote.

This was old ground for Crowe’s readers. On October 12 last year, only five days after the October 7 massacre of 1200 Jews by Hamas in southern Israel, Crowe wrote Dutton was right to suggest anti-Israel protesters who break the law should be prosecuted.

Et tu cawing Crowe? The pond has dim, distant memories of when you were a member of reptile Valhalla, a favoured son in the reptile hive mind. 

But then you disgraced yourself, wandered into the wilderness, and now offering stale crow, not to the Major's liking. 

Carry on Majoring:

On everything else, Dutton was “dead wrong in the way he is spreading alarm and provoking panic” about the Middle East.
Given the level of anti-Semitism in Australia, surely Dutton was correct.
Yet on two issues that have definitely damaged Albanese’s polling – the October 15 revelation he had bought a $4.3m beach house on the NSW Central Coast, and reports on October 27 about his relationship with former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce and private flight upgrades he received for family travel – senior journalists from the left have been quiet.
On November 23, Tingle said an election could be only three months away but the government “finds itself outgunned by a man with simple, angry messages”.
If Tingle is right and Albo does go early, as Sky News Australia’s Peta Credlin has been arguing he will, it will be to avoid delivering a budget that could show a $49.3bn reversal in the national bottom line.
Reflect then on the high-taxing Greens policies that Albanese is going to have to negotiate with Greens leader Adam Bandt if Labor falls short of the 76 seats needed for a majority.
Dutton will make sure people in teal seats understand these “independent” MPs have overwhelmingly voted with Labor and the Greens.

Ah Petulant Peta. Might we yet have another chance to experience the mad monk, aka the onion muncher in a mutton Dutton variant, a feature more than a bug, a genuine 2.0?

The pond can live in hope. Frankly the American situation has made the pond envious. They have so much to be thankful for, and that recent ritual produced splendid sights and wonders ... and an epic troll ...

Well yes ... the pond had thought that the sight of a man dressing in frock and apron would have sent the faithful howling into the wilderness, but anything can be fun if you happen to be in ...

The pond had only one question of cult members. Was the tranny cross-dressing inspired by this?

Or by this?