In which the bromancer tackles the issues of the day with an eye to appeasing his mango Mussolini god ...

 

The reptiles were, naturally, wildly excited, veering between hysteria and hope at the start of the weekend ...

Oh dear, that twirling globe thingie, more of that anon, but first to check out those in residence at the extreme far right of the rag, top of the Murdochian world ma ...

Bouffant Dennis can be safely ignored, as he features the sort of boosterism that will be a reptile feature until election day, as will the ongoing effort by the reptiles to whip up anti-Semitism as a potent weapon for the mutton Dutton.

Quoting the mutton Dutton on the cliff top man as the worst PM since Gough is manifestly unfair, and the pond felt indignant. Really? How quickly they forget.

What about the onion muncher, what about the liar from the Shire? No thought for that turning, twisting, gyrating man always full of bull? 

Didn't Juliar and former Chairman Rudd have fair claim on the title? So many reptiles argued so long into the night to promote their cause ...

Such a glib dismissal of so many contenders, some much favoured by the reptiles in the past, but bouffant Dennis did remind the pond of a recent infallible Pope cartoon ... even if in the process he defamed foxes ...

Of course the pond was going to go with the bromancer and his twirling globe thingie illustration, even though the reptiles threatened that it was a ten minute read. 

Whenever the pond wants to know what is exactly the opposite case, the pond turns to the bro ...Trump isn’t waiting for the world — he’s already taken power, The returning president created the Hamas-Israel ceasefire and will transform the globe for better ... or for worse.

The read began with a diabolically bad gif featuring the tangerine tyrant twirling a globe, accompanied by text ...

“If those hostages aren’t back, I don’t want to hurt your negotiation, if they’re not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East. It will not be good for Hamas, it will not be good for anyone. They should’ve given them back a long time ago. They should never have taken them. If the deal isn’t done before I take office, which is now going to be two weeks, all hell will break out in the Middle East.” – President-elect Donald Trump, January 7

The pond frequently comments on the lack of quality in what was once the lizard Oz graphics department, but this was a new low, completely abysmal, most uniquely and totally awful and seemingly without any awareness that it's been done before, and in the context of another monster ...

It did remind the pond you could find that sequence on YouTube...

If the pond had wanted a visual joke as a starter, it came with Colbert's riff on the gruesome official photo ...

Enough already with the distractions, it's time to get it on with the bro ...

When Donald Trump was president the first time, he produced more peace agreements between Israel and its Arab and North African neighbours than any previous US president. He hasn’t yet taken office this time but Trump already produced a ceasefire deal.
The ceasefire deal seems to have survived a series of late scares. But Trump’s election has transformed the dynamics of the Middle East.
The world is waiting for Trump to take office. Trump isn’t waiting for the world. He already has taken power. There’s lots more to come.
Two factors have transformed the Middle East, one created by Benjamin Netanyahu, one by Trump.
US President Joe Biden first proposed almost an identical ceasefire agreement back in May. The Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu, had his problems with it.

Just to remind the punters in the hive mind, there came a couple of early snaps ... Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Picture: AFP, US President Joe Biden. Picture: AFP

On the upside, they avoided being turned into pathetic gifs ...now scribble turkey, bro...

Now here's the pond's methodology. The pond isn't going to argue or debate, the pond is simply going to allow the bromancer to rant, only interrupting occasionally with a cartoon ...
However, as US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, said: “In the last five or six months, it was Hamas that wasn’t willing to negotiate. Hamas was undoubtedly the main obstacle.”
Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said in a farewell interview that every time Hamas saw Israel under pressure, diplomatically isolated, with distance between Jerusalem and Washington, it pulled back from a deal. It wanted to prolong Israel’s discomfort, hoping international pressure would defeat Israel in a way that Hamas itself couldn’t.
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar instructed his negotiators to hold out for an agreement that involved permanent Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and provisions for Sinwar’s own safety.
Netanyahu had other ideas. The Israel Defence Forces finally killed Sinwar last October. That shook Hamas. Worse was to come. Israel dismantled or destroyed much of the so-called Axis of Resistance, the Iranian-sponsored Middle East terror network of which Hamas was part.
It started with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. In a series of assassinations, plus technical, bombing and missile attacks, Israel devastated Hezbollah’s military capabilities, killing its leaders and destroying its missiles.
Meanwhile Turkey supported a group of Syrian Islamists who deposed Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. Israel had so weakened Hezbollah it couldn’t come to Assad’s rescue.
Iran last year twice launched missile attacks against Israel, something it had never done before. In retaliation, Israel destroyed most of Iran’s air defences. Tehran’s nuclear facilities are thus more vulnerable to being bombed than they have been for many years.
This regional revolution hurt Hamas. It struck Israel hoping to isolate the Jewish state and start a region-wide war against it involving Iran and all its proxies. The only Iranian proxy still firing at Israel are the Yemeni Houthis.
Trump was the other revolutionary change.
Showing that sometimes populist reaction embodies more wisdom than elite diplomacy and pollie waffle, Trump understood that in a conflict between a savage, Islamist terrorist cult and Israel, the region’s only democracy, he should choose Israel.

Indeed, indeed, there's nothing like having an erratic man in the grip of dementia in debt to a billionaire oligarchy to make a difference ... if nothing else, it's a nice job being a hood ornament mascot ...

It's going to be a glorious time for cartoonists ... while the bromancer provides his own inimitable comedy schtick ...

Biden made essentially the same choice, backing Israel from day one. But Biden was bedevilled by anti-Israel sentiment in the left of his own party and its activist base and youth wings. The left labelled Biden “Genocide Joe” for supplying Israel with weapons.
Biden’s diplomatic style is antique and no longer effective. He’s multilateralist, feeble, wishy-washy. He doesn’t scare anybody. The idea of the liberal international rules-based order has broken down because huge players such as China, Russia, Iran and others don’t abide by its rules and norms.
Further, many Western governments have become so woke they’re no longer trying to enforce basic human rights but to universalise California gender ideology. No one in Asia, not many people in eastern Europe, pretty well no-one in Africa, signs up to the San Francisco social model.
Defenders of the rules-based order are also now ineffectual in their methods. Biden wasted an entire term trying to entice Iran into a multilateral nuclear deal. Disastrously, this empowered Iran by freeing up money that, under Trump, was frozen under the sanctions regime.
Biden’s instinct in every conflict is to de-escalate. But some conflicts must be won.
The same feebleness is evident in the Albanese government, which condemned Israel even for the exploding telephone pagers with which it attacked Hezbollah commanders when Hezbollah, a proscribed terrorist organisation under Australian law, was relentlessly firing missiles at Israel.
Trump’s style, purpose and demeanour are the polar opposite to Biden. In his first term Trump was often crude, he needlessly trash-talked alliances and he did some counter-productive things. But overall his foreign policy was much more successful than Biden’s, especially in the Middle East.

At this point, the reptiles interrupted with a snap, and a tag, Donald Trump’s style, purpose and demeanour are the polar opposite to Joe Biden. Picture: AFP

Who could argue with that? Talk about polar opposites and oligarchs ...

The upside is not having direct experience of the current and impending follies. 

The pond was reminded of this in a story by Alec MacGillis for ProPublica, On a Mission From God: Inside the Movement to Redirect Billions of Taxpayer Dollars to Private Religious Schools

The New Yorker liked the story so well that it re-badged it as How Religious Schools Became a Billion-Dollar Drain on Public Education, A nationwide movement has funnelled taxpayer money to private institutions, eroding the separation between church and state.

Of course, it's possible to do a more succinct summary - education in the United States has been stuffed, and will be even more stuffed, and the Catholic church (not to mention evangelicals) have helped to stuff it, with an unhealthy quest for mammon, aka taxpayer dollars...

Apologies for the distraction, back to the bro, in fine uxorious form ...

The rules-based order had life only when overwhelming American power mandated it. Now, everywhere except Europe, nations are generally more comfortable dealing with Trump’s straightforward interests-based approach.
One of America’s national interests is its allies. But in Trumpworld, allies must show that they add value, that they pull their weight in defence, for example (something Australia conspicuously doesn’t do).
Trump scares Iran which, as veteran Israeli strategic analyst Ehud Yaari explains in an important piece in The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune, is painfully rethinking the cost-benefit equation of investing so much in all these proxy forces, most of which have recently suffered setbacks and want a lot more Iranian money.
Trump also scares Hamas. His whole administration is going to be much more supportive of Israel. This undercuts the Hamas idea of isolating Israel diplomatically. You cannot be isolated if the US is your strong ally. It undercuts any idea that Israel might be denied some weapons. And it further undercuts the idea that Israel will be subjected to US pressure not to react if Hamas or Hezbollah breaks a ceasefire.
Trump’s commitment to Israel gives him a lot of influence in Jerusalem, as evident in Trump’s Middle East envoy, Florida property magnate Steve Witkoff, convincing Netanyahu to go for the ceasefire.

At this point, the reptiles interrupted with another snap, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets US President elect Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in Jerusalem on January 11.

The pond would have preferred a visual foreshadowing of what was to follow ...

Back to the bro, wildly excited at assorted nominees ...

The people Trump has chosen for his cabinet, agency heads and the like, are a mixture of four broad categories: mainstream conservative Republicans; Make America Great Again, America-first nationalists; super-wealthy friends of Trump; and of course a quota of gargoyles and nut jobs.
Trump’s first pick for attorney-general, Matt Gaetz, was the stellar gargoyle. He was so spectacularly unsuitable even the Republican Senate would have rejected him. He withdrew his nomination and sensibly resigned from congress.
These different tribes often have conflicting policy agendas. Elon Musk favours skilled immigration, Steve Bannon opposes almost all immigration. Trump intentionally picks conflicting advisers to create policy tension. He gets to adjudicate every dispute. Messy, but potentially effective.
Yet in each of the main policy areas, there are a few core Trump positions everyone holds. Everyone on Trump’s economics team supports lower taxes. Everyone concerned with immigration wants to seal the southern border and stop illegal immigrants.

Indeed, indeed, and the pond doesn't mean to distract from the bro, but there was a great read by Helen Lewis in The Atlantic on the matter of Peter Thiel MAGA’s Demon-Haunted World, Peter Thiel is the latest pro-Trump luminary to take a conspiracist turn.

Once folks realise that the oligarchy means lower taxes for billionaires, tariffs won't reduce the price of eggs, and illegals do a lot of the hard yards in agriculture and other tough jobs, and anyway that the border was sealed in the mango Mussolini's first term, and Mexico paid for it, there's going to be a lot more of this ...just a sample, maestro ...

...Until recently, I had assumed that the anti-establishment sentiments promoted by Thiel and others were merely opportunistic, a way for elites to stoke a form of anti-elitism that somehow excluded themselves as targets of popular rage. Thiel has always made a point of entertaining provocative heterodox opinions, but he has also demonstrated himself to be eloquent, analytical, and capable of going whole paragraphs without saying something unhinged. But reading his Financial Times column, I thought: My God, he actually believes this stuff. The entire tone is reminiscent of a stranger sitting down next to you on public transit and whispering that the FBI is following him.

The correct response to uncertainty is humility, not conspiracy. But conspiracy is exactly what many of those who are influential in Trump’s orbit have succumbed to—everything must be a product of the DISC, or the deep state, or the World Economic Forum, or other sinister and hidden controlling hands. The cynical Tucker Carlson of the Dominion era has given way to a more crankish version since his firing from Fox. When Carlson first went independent, he seemed to be hosting kooks for clicks. On his live tour, for example, he looked faintly embarrassed as Roseanne Barr told him that Democrats “love the taste of human flesh and they drink human blood.” And maybe he didn’t really believe the former crack user who claimed to have had a gay affair with Barack Obama, or the historian who asserts that Winston Churchill—not Adolf Hitler—was the “chief villain” in the Second World War. But at a certain point, I started to take Carlson at his word. Recently, he claimed that he’d woken up with scars and claw marks after being attacked by a demon in his bedroom. A few days before this, he said that America needed a “vigorous spanking” from Daddy Trump, and a few days after, Carlson revealed that he thought demons had invented the atom bomb. He’s clearly working through some stuff.

What can we learn from this kind of credulity? First, that maintaining an appropriate level of skepticism is the intellectual discipline needed to navigate the rest of the 2020s. Yes, the legacy media will get things wrong. But that doesn’t mean you should believe every seductive narrative floating around online, particularly when it’s peddled by those who are trying to sell you something.

The second lesson is that, no matter how smart a person might be in their business dealings, humans are all prone to the same lizard-brain preference for narratives over facts. That makes choosing your information sources carefully even more important. If you spend all day listening to people who think that every inexplicable event has a malevolent hand behind it, you will start to believe that too. The fact that this paranoia has eaten up America’s most influential men is an apokálypsis of its own.

Speaking of lizard brains, back to the bro ...

In foreign policy, everyone is an ardent Israel supporter. Former Florida senator Marco Rubio, set to become secretary of state, a completely orthodox conservative Republican, said in his Senate confirmation testimony: “How can any nation-state on the planet coexist side-by-side with a group of savages like Hamas?”
Trump’s pick for defence secretary, the much married former Fox News weekend host Pete Hegseth, who also had some time in the military but has no political or administrative experience and represents a completely different corner of Trumpworld from Rubio, told his Senate confirmation hearing: “I support Israel destroying and killing every last member of Hamas.”
Trump will never come under pressure from within his administration or party to undermine, isolate or abandon Israel. Trump’s disposition, plus the geo-strategic transformation that Israel’s military campaigns have brought about, give Netanyahu greater political room to manoeuvre and mean he can contemplate taking the risks the hostage deal entails.
In the first phase of the proposed hostage deal, across six weeks, Israel gets only 33 of its hostages back, and some of these may be dead. It gets mainly the elderly, the sick and women. In return, it has to release 1000 Palestinian prisoners, including many serving life sentences. Those who have engaged in terrorism will not be released back into the West Bank or Gaza but offered exile in whatever nearby Arab or Muslim nation will take them.
Israel has done these prisoner deals before. Sinwar, who put together the whole October 7 atrocity, was released from an Israeli jail in just such a prisoner-hostage swap.

Uh huh, that worked out well, Yahya Sinwar, who put together the whole October 7 atrocity, was released from an Israeli jail in a prisoner-hostage swap. Picture: AFP

Still, they all have an excellent role model ...

At this point, the bromancer made a valiant attempt to sort out the middle east (or the far west if you prefer) ...

During this first phase of the ceasefire the IDF will withdraw to the edge of Gaza and get out of most of the heavily populated areas. Israel will get its 33 hostages only a few people at a time. There will be much more aid flowing into Gaza for as long as the ceasefire holds.
In phase two of the ceasefire agreement, Israel is meant to withdraw more fully from Gaza. At that stage Hamas still may have another 60 or 65 Israeli hostages. It’s meant to gradually release these people, or at least those of them who are still alive. Probably more than 30 are already dead.
This is the only way Israel can get some of its people back. Whenever Israeli forces get near to hostages, Hamas kills them. So Netanyahu presumably feels that with Trump’s backing he can get this deal done and at least recover some dozens of living Israelis.
Analytically, it’s very difficult to see phase two, much less phase three, which is meant to produce permanent peace and complete Israeli withdrawal, ever coming about.
In phase two, Israel is supposed to hand over complete control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between southern Gaza and Egypt. It’s across this border that the lion’s share of smuggling into Gaza, especially of weapons, historically has taken place. If Israel doesn’t control that corridor, it’s overwhelmingly likely Hamas will eventually be able to resupply itself with weapons, missiles and explosives.
The Israelis have been insistent that the IDF retain freedom of movement across Gaza so if any terrorist threat reconstitutes itself the Israelis can take swift action.
Fatah, the Palestinian faction that through the Palestinian Authority runs the West Bank, recently denounced Hamas for the absolutely needless suffering it brought on Gaza Palestinians by attacking Israel. In Fatah’s view, this was purely in the service of Iran’s strategic interests. Fatah was determined not to let Hamas establish itself on the West Bank and bring similar carnage to West Bank Palestinians.
But here are the contradictions that the peace ceasefire doesn’t address. Who governs Gaza once the Israelis have withdrawn?

Hmm, tricky, what to do? Why blame Albo of course ...

Anthony Albanese says Hamas can have no role in the future governance of Gaza. A wise remark. But at every point the Prime Minister has opposed any actual action by Israel to prevent Hamas from exercising power. Talk about the comfort of irresponsibility.
Even today, Hamas is still in a position to steal aid, especially food, intimidate the Palestinian population and recruit new fighters to partly replace the old. The Gazan public is desperately keen for a ceasefire, desperately keen for some shred of normality to return to life. But for this to happen Hamas has to commit to not attacking Israelis again, or Israel has to stay in some kind of occupation.
There’s airy talk about getting peacekeeping troops in from neighbouring Arab countries. This seems extremely unrealistic.
There are no circumstances in which such troops would shoot on Hamas members or other Palestinian terrorists to prevent them attacking Israelis. And if such attacks are carried out the Israeli military will respond with great vigour. The Arab troops then would simply have to get out of the way or leave altogether. It’s hard to imagine any neighbouring Arab nation signing up for that.
But Trump had great success in the Middle East last time and might have similar success this time, notwithstanding the tragedy and mess of Gaza. Trump is a bully and a narcissist (like a lot of leaders). But as others point out, he’s also a deal-maker, a ruthless seeker of outcomes, and he likes the adulation of international statesmen and of history. And he tends to follow the money, in diplomacy as well as business. These instincts can lead him astray but they often work very well.

Then came a final snap, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with US President-elect Donald Trump and thanked him for his assistance in advancing the release of the hostages. Picture: X

The pond was more inspired by that bro talk of following the money ...what a cacophony already ...

Okay, okay, it's the bromancer's duty and obligation to put his best gloss on things ... and he struggles valiantly in his task ...

Trump created a clear, coherent structure in the Middle East last time he was president. He fully backed Israel and therefore had great influence with Israel, and he fully backed the Gulf Arab states that were against Iran, especially Saudi Arabia, creating a de facto US-Israel-Arab alliance against Iran. Trump nearly achieved a Saudi-Israel peace treaty. He will certainly seek that again this time.
Netanyahu told me once his strategy for the Palestinian issue was to solve it “outside in”. That is, if Israel can normalise its relations with most of its neighbours, over time this can lead to a normalised situation with Palestinians.
The rest of the world hopes such normalisation could lead eventually to a two-state solution, which Netanyahu has supported in the past.
Labor’s claim, frequently echoed in bizarre editorials on the ABC, that it is only backing traditional two state-policy and Peter Dutton has abandoned the two-state solution is completely dishonest and untrue.
Dutton’s position is exactly the same, as was John Howard’s and in fact all pre-Albanese prime ministers.
He supports a two-state solution that is negotiated fully by Israel and the Palestinians and includes the absolute disavowal of terrorism and the end of all claims on Israel by Palestinians. Albanese and his Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, in contrast, support forcing a two-state solution on Israel even if Palestinian leaders don’t commit to the things necessary for peace. That could be disastrous.

Really? Still peddling a meaningless two state solution? But we've already seen this tribe in action ...

If they can do that for LA, imagine what they can do for the world.

The bro did attempt one last note of hope ...

Trump won’t be obsessed by the two-state solution or anything else. The biggest question for Trump in the Middle East is whether he will back Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities or whether these could be addressed by truly hard-headed negotiations. Trump very much likes the idea that wars don’t happen when he’s president. Iran could be a special case.
In any event, the Trump presidency will transform the Middle East, as it will transform the world.

Cunning, admirable really in its own dissembling way. There are all sorts of transformations waiting in the future ...

And so to a chaser, more of the same, but three minutes lite, provided by John Lee in Sorry, PM, but Dutton is more a Trump kind of guy, There is a huge gulf between the Labor government and the incoming Trump administration on personality, policy and values.

Lee seems to think that being a Trump kind of guy is a selling point, Donald Trump is more likely to find common ground with Peter Dutton than Anthony Albanese on many issues, from attitudes to renewables, fossil fuels and nuclear to the approach taken to the Middle East and China.

A snap went with the pitch, and thank the long absent lord, it wasn't a gif, just a feeble collage ...

Perhaps Lee is right, perhaps it is a selling point, perhaps mindless graffiti and idle abuse is the way forward...

Well there's no point arguing with Lee, much as there was no point debating the bro, so the pond will keep on with a cartoon-led response...

Anthony Albanese claims he is better placed than Peter Dutton to work constructively with Donald Trump as he has established good relationships with Asian leaders. Canada’s Justin Trudeau had good relationships with Western European leaders but that didn’t stop Trump trolling him mercilessly and threatening Canada with tariffs.
Dutton countered that it was “comical” for Albanese to run this line. He is correct. One wonders why Albanese went there in the first place.
Unlike with the Coalition, there is a huge gulf between the Labor government and the incoming Trump administration on personality, policy and values.
Who is better placed and how best to deal with Trump is an important question. The world can’t stop talking about him because he will be disruptive and transformative in his second term. Whether it is for better or worse depends on one’s perspective. This gets to the point of why Albanese and not Dutton begins at a disadvantage.
It is clear from my interactions with some Trump nominees across several years – two of whom are nominees in his national security cabinet, one for a senior defence role, and another a personal adviser to him in the White House – that Australia does get outsized attention at the highest levels. It is a problem for Albanese.
I was in Washington when reports of Kevin Rudd’s derogatory comments about Trump surfaced. The current conversation is whether Rudd will hold on to his ambassadorial role. What Trump thinks about Rudd is less important than what he thinks about our Prime Minister and his government. Shortly after the Rudd comments emerged, I was shown a sheet of paper by a loyal Trump adviser with degrading comments made in the past by not only Rudd but also Albanese and some of his ministers. I was subsequently informed those comments were shown to Trump.
Trump’s capacity to hold grudges and exact personal vengeance is well known. Put that aside as he has more burning personal targets than the Australian Prime Minister. The problem is how Labor’s denigration of Trump was interpreted.

Indeed, indeed ...

Now for a bit of climate science denialism ...

According to some of Trump’s closest advisers, the Labor denigration is no different to the snobbishness and nastiness of elites in the Democratic Party seeking to brand Trumpian perspectives as stupid, illegitimate, and even evil. Hillary Clinton notoriously referred to Trump supporters as belonging to a “basket of deplorables” and the Labor comments are seen in the same light.
As Albanese is arguing in claiming he can best manage Trump, strong positive connections at the highest levels of power have enormous implications. In this sense, Albanese begins from an awkward place. What about policy and values? On many issues of substance separating Labor and the Coalition, Trump is likelier to side with Dutton rather than Albanese.
Several of the individuals about to play a key part in the Trump administration have cast doubt or heaped scorn on Albanese’s outsized reliance on renewables and rejection of fossil fuels and nuclear as critical sources of power. Allowing unions such an influential role in shaping Labor’s industrial relations policies has been critically noted. Albanese’s approach to Israel and the Middle East has come in for scathing condemnation. The Prime Minister’s formula of “co-operating where we can, disagree where we must, and always engage in our national interest” when dealing with China is seen by key Trump nominees as cover for a timid approach that merely avoids rather than manages difficulties in that relationship.

Indeed, indeed, such scorn, such a good way forward ...

The pond understands it's all about sanewashing, and providing some sort of hope, and somehow Lee manages to imagine that a plucky mutton Dutton will wrangle the tangerine tyrant and all will be well...

Moreover, Trump and his inner circle are filled with individuals who loathe identity politics and related diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Albanese’s advocacy for the voice for Indigenous Australians was seen as an extreme consequence of this mindset. It simply did not make sense to Trump’s Republicans – and to many Democrats for that matter. The point is that on most policies and values that divide Labor and the Coalition, Dutton is much better positioned to find common ground with Trump.
There are elements that will be difficult for Albanese or Dutton to deal with. Trump’s inclination to disrupt extends to breaking or weakening institutions and conventions that he believes are not in his interest. Sometimes it will be to further narrow US interest and other times necessary for the greater long-term good, including ours. For example, his criticisms of global economic rules and China’s exploitation of them are valid.
Trump wants to change the structure of global production. Our problem is that as a commodities exporter we benefit disproportionately from China’s state-directed political economy based on unhealthy levels of fixed investment and over-production.
Or consider Trump’s demands that allies pay and do more. This is necessary for the future of a healthy alliance system but means pain and sacrifice for whoever is in the Lodge.
In any event, Trump might not make political life easier for Dutton. But it does seriously complicate things for Albanese.
John Lee is a non-resident senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC. From 2016 to 2018 he was senior adviser to the Australian foreign minister.

Oh yes, just answer the questions the right way, and life will be a whole lot easier ...