In which Lord Downer farewells the holyday weekend ...

There were any number of reasons the pond couldn't let Lord Downer's Monday outing pass unnoted ... not least because while His Lordship was relegated to a late arvo slot, it was also a chance to mark the winding down of the holyday weekend and the reptile celebration of invasion day - or day 26, as SBS called it, and as celebrated in Kudelka's calendar ...

Then there was the inventive use of "gloomster" ...

Right from the get go, His Lordship showed he was a TikTok sort of wired guy ... 

Gloomsters, listen up – the people are speaking out on Australia Day, Australians are proud of their country, proud of how it has evolved into one of the world’s most prosperous, fair and free societies. That’s something mighty to celebrate.

Then came a truly grotesque illustration, with much flag waving ...A true national leader would use Australia Day to inspire a sense of proud patriotism throughout our country, Alexander Downer says.

Pitiful, truly pathetic, about as patriotic as being hit in the moosh with a wet and muddy catfish luring in the Peel river ...

On the upside, the pond had been wondering how it might wangle in a mention of the immortal Rowe...

And of course that meant the pond could slip in a mention of Charles Meere's 1940 Australian beach pattern, at the AGNSW ...

What a preamble, what visual feasts, a small compensation for the verbal mush certain to follow ... and can Lord Downer reliably deliver a mush pit, or what ...

A true national leader would use Australia Day to inspire a sense of proud patriotism throughout our country.
Robert Menzies established citizenship conventions on Australia Day where new migrants took out Australian citizenship. He thought combining citizenship ceremonies with the national day would help with the process of integrating migrants into the mainstream of our society. When Bob Hawke was prime minister, there was an explosion of national joy in 1988 for the bicentennial of Arthur Phillip’s arrival in Australia. John Howard always made a rousing speech about the great Australian success story.
It’s a tragedy that in recent years the gloomsters have taken over the national zeitgeist. They’ve been driven by the pseudo-intellectual bourgeois left in US universities who have promoted shame of history, salami-sliced society into racial groups, set gender against gender, and obsessed about people‘s private sexual preferences.
This year, the Australian people like their American counterparts, have just had enough of the gloomsters. The change in the national mood is almost palpable. Australians are proud of their country, proud of how it has evolved into one of the world’s most prosperous, fair and free societies. That’s something mighty to celebrate. Even our Prime Minister until very recently the leading campaigner for the gloomsters, has switched tack and decided to celebrate Australia Day. He should because, after all, he has to face an election in the next few months and the last thing the country wants is another three years of gloom about our past, division between us on the basis of race, and obsessions about LGBTQ+ people.

Oh yes, never mind gloomsters and the national zeitgeist, nor even that risible obsession with all those terribly gay folk ...

Just remember, Y.M.C.A. isn't a gay anthem, it's just terribly gay ...

Sorry, the pond always likes to slip that one in, as comfortable as slipping into high heels. 

The reptiles actually meant this as the visual distraction. Anthony Albanese during the National Citizenship and Flag Raising Ceremony in Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

For some reason the pond was reminded of a cartoon about there being a downside to honesty in political advertising...

Never mind, that snap of Albo worked. He no Bob Hawke, no Bob Hawke he, and certainly no lying rodent or Ming the Merciless, and so it sent His Lordship right off ...

Australia hasn’t achieved so much without hard work. And wise decision-making. Last year, the Nobel prize for economics was awarded to economists Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson. They have produced fascinating work on why some countries have succeeded and others failed. Why has Australia been such a success while countries like Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and India have done less well?
Our friends from the pseudo-intellectual bourgeois left claim the reason some countries are rich is because they were colonial exploiters. That’s not the conclusion of the Nobel prize winners. Nor does that hypothesis measure up against practical observations of the success and failure of countries.
Johnson, Robinson and Acemoglu argue that success is born out of accountable democratic institutions. Countries ruled by autocrats who are less accountable to the mainstream of society inevitably fall short. The leaders run an extractive economy that benefits them and pays only superficial lip service to the wishes of their citizens. After all, they don’t have to worry about their citizens if they don’t have to worry about elections.
There’s more to national success than just holding elections, of course. The Nobel laureates argue there has to be a system of tradeable individual property rights. Those property rights have to be protected by the rule of law, and the rule of law has to be as impartial as humanly possible. It has to be possible for an investor to purchase assets and to generate a return on the capital invested. That positive return is only possible if the investor produces goods or services consumers – that is, the mainstream of society – actually want, at a price they can afford. That explains why Australia is so much more successful than, say, Argentina.
Underlying all this is a cultural assumption that the individual rather than the collective lies at the very heart of a successful country. When I used to make representations to the Chinese leadership about human rights, they would smile wanly and say to me “in your country individuals are very important whereas in our country it is the collective which counts”.
It’s true. Respect for the individual lies at the very heart of our national ethos. Our economy operates when it puts individual consumers ahead of the pleading and special interests of the producers. Our political system bows to the preferences of individuals on election day. We believe passionately in an individual’s right to say what she or he thinks. We allow individuals to work out their lifestyles and fulfil their own individual life ambitions, rather than some autocrat telling them what to do.

At this point, the pond regrets that the reptiles dragged a couple of innocent children into the fray ... Sisters Milly, 10, and Jemima Gall 8, from Crooble, NSW, enjoying Australia Day at Mooloolaba Beach. Picture Lachie Millard

Sorry, sisters, the pond made it as small as it could, but inevitably you're defamed by way of association ...

And so to the final gobbet of the gabbling, gobbling Lord ...

For generations, we’ve taken all this for granted. Where individuals haven’t been sufficiently free or respected we’ve made changes. In particular we have placed great emphasis on eliminating discrimination believing it is a moral principle that all individuals are of equal worth. We have operated on the assumption it is wrong to discriminate against people on the basis of their innate characteristics such as race, gender and, most recently, sexual preference.
Our friends from the bourgeois left have tried to change all that. They have promoted new forms of discrimination. This passion for neo-discrimination has infected our public services and the corporate world. They have embraced DEI policies with gusto. It’s even infected the Australian Securities Exchange, which is demanding companies discriminate against employing white men on their boards or as executives.
Gone are the days when boards and executives were required to maximise returns for shareholders. Now they’re supposed to become social laboratories. The latest proposed ASX governance guidelines say boards should instead focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, unions and environmental groups. The ASX claims companies with “diverse” boards and management perform better than those that select their boards and executives on the basis of merit. Recent studies show the gender and race of corporate management make no difference. And why would it? Discrimination against people on the basis of their innate characteristics only creates resentment. It’s little wonder companies are increasingly deserting the ASX.
The Australia Day weekend is a time to reflect on why it is that Australia has done so well. We have our faults but there isn’t a country or a society without them. Remember, even indigenous societies had their faults. There’s a rising tide of resentment and anger towards those who are trying to change our successful national formula and replace it with a system that has failed the world.
Alexander Downer is a former foreign minister and former high commissioner to the UK

Splendid, almost down there with SSuuhhssaann ... and the pond was faced with an agonising choice as to who should be declared the holyday weekend winner.

Come on SSuuhhssaann, remind us of your astonishing opening gambit ...

The deputy opposition leader Sussan Ley has used an Australia Day speech to compare the arrival of the First Fleet to Elon Musk's SpaceX Mars mission, calling British settlement a "daring experiment", while criticising Invasion Day rallies across the country.
Ley began her speech at an Albury church on Sunday saying the ships did not arrive to "destroy or pillage", but to embark on a "new experiment".
"All those years ago those ships did not arrive, as some would have you believe, as invaders," Ley said, referring to the First Fleet's arrival at Sydney Cove in 1788.
"In what could be compared to Elon Musk's Space X's efforts to build a new colony on Mars, men in boats arrived on the edge of the known world to embark on that new experiment.
"And just like astronauts arriving on Mars those first settlers would be confronted with a different and strange world, full of danger, adventure and potential." (SBS)

Sorry, your lordship, you did try hard, but SSuuhhssaann won in a canter, barely needing to break into a sweat, back now to arguing over the barbie ...