In which Mein Gott, Dame Groan and the bromancer have their hour upon the pond stage ... (so many repeats, so little time)...

 

The tone for today's reading was set the other day by Stewart Lee in the Graudian in The Donald and Elon Show is an unholy mess.

“Abba, selach ’ethon la nakhru mah h’mon pelalin!” Flood the zone with shit. To be fair to Musk, maybe the Nazi salute was just an unfortunate choice of gesture, made by a sleepless ketamine-gobbler. Who can honestly say they have never accidentally sieg-heiled a victory rally, twice, while also having a history of promoting far-right parties in Europe? I know I have. Although as Oscar Wilde, a classic diversity hire, might have said, “To sieg-heil the Magas once, Mr Musk, may be regarded as a misfortune; to do it twice looks like carelessness.“

The pond frequently turns to the seven last words of Christ when confronted with reheated, warmed up, left over Mein Gott ...

Sure the reptiles rate it only a three minute read, but still ...Robert Gottliebsen: ATO, Canberra elites need to wake up to the problems of ordinary Australia,,Australia is joining other parts of the Western world where ordinary people are rising up against unaccountable government bodies.

Straight away, the reptiles threw up an AV distraction:

The Australian Tax Office said in the past five years it has received 250,000 community tip-offs about suspicious tax avoidance and other dishonest behaviour. Assistant Commissioner Tony Goding says the tip-offs include taxpayers not declaring income, demanding cash from customers, paying workers in cash to avoid tax and super, not reporting sales, and where a person's lifestyle doesn't match their income. The ATO suspects there's around $16 billion a year in stolen taxes because of cash jobs.

Perhaps they knew that Mein Gott would immediately reduce the pond to cackling ...

Australia is joining other parts of the Western world where ordinary people are rising up against unaccountable government body elites. For some years, large corporations have had to adapt to greater accountability, but many government bodies have turned reducing accountability into an art form.
In the US, greater accountability will be driven by an examination of the workings of 400 government bodies.

Uncle Leon is the solution, Uncle Leon is the answer? 

On the upside, the world has righted itself, and that holyday bludger, the infallible Pope, has returned to celebrate renewed hope down under ...

Then the pond had to wait awhile for another great cackle ...

In Australia, the decision to undertake mass executions of small enterprises by the Australian Tax Office is intensifying a deep underground hostility towards the way taxation is administered in Australia.
Both major political parties are starting to recognise the change in direction but so far only the Coalition has shown signs of embracing fundamental policy change.
If this sentiment gathers pace — and I believe it will — the taxation reform movement will embrace the means Australia uses to collect tax (totally separate from the tax rate).
This has been an area where I have been writing for a long time, but I will now intensify examination because we are approaching decision-making time.
As so often happens in our nation it is the High Court of Australia which recognises a required change before politicians and the court sets legal rules, often to the annoyance of public servants.
Top Australian public servants are particularly vulnerable because many are based in the affluent areas of Canberra which have become totally isolated from what is happening in the rest of the nation.
Nothing illustrates public servant isolation better then the past behaviour of the Australian Tax Office in setting artificial rules to determine whether a person was an employee or a contractor.
The High Court stepped in to end the public servant-created confusion in the so-called Personnel Contracting case. In the clearest possible terms the High Court determined if there was a detailed contract setting out a contractual relationship then the person is a contractor.
In other words, the existence of a proper contract supersedes all other criteria.
This seven to nil High Court decision created much anger among the ALP government and unions officials. But, it also annoyed those public servants in the ATO who had their own complex ways of determining whether a person is a contractor or an employee. These ATO criteria were very different to the High Court of Australia rules.
Where the High Court makes a decision at odds with politicians and many public servants, watch out for strange actions.

Oh strange days indeed, watch out for strange actions, even if accompanied by the most banal of illustrations, High Court of Australia, Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman

Now for a slow build to an epic punchline, proving that invasion day can echo down through the ages...

And so it was just before Christmas the ATO put out a new set of instructions on contracting/employment. The ATO correctly stated the “totality of relationship” between a worker and employer consists of the legal rights and obligations arising from the contract between the parties.
But then the ATO started playing games to obscure the fact the contract is the dominating criteria.
And so the ATO claimed: “To work out if your worker is an employee or independent contractor, you need to determine whether your worker is serving in your business.”
They added volumes of other situations which also might be useful but what they don’t spell out in clear unambiguous language is all these other criteria have been basically overridden by clear instructions from the High Court.
The High Court’s simple rule makes it so much easier to conduct business in Australia. To be fair to the ATO it also publishes a long practice statement which does spell out the true situation, but an ordinary tradesperson or an accountant will look for the short version of the rules rather than an overriding statement.
Of course the fury of the government politicians with the High Court rules was reflected in the 700-page government industrial relations legislation.
That act claimed to override the High Court decision but the so far-unchallenged legislation was limited to industrial relations affairs and even then was confined to Uber drivers and owner-truck drivers as part of a planned cartel to push up prices and lower productivity.
Matters like taxation rules are not industrial relations issues, so the High Court rules apply.
ATO opinions can be very dangerous, because when the ATO makes an ‘assessment’ it becomes ‘law’. So, if the ATO determines someone is an employee and assesses a debt as a consequence then that assessed debt becomes a debt due and payable by law.
Once banks or creditors get wind of these dubious tax assessments a business can go bankrupt. This method of collecting tax goes against everything we treasure in our democracy.
One of the side impacts of the debate over Australia Day is ordinary Australians are now coming to realise on January 26 we are celebrating our democracy and its fairness.
For the 16th consecutive year I celebrated Australia Day on the banks of the Anglesea river. All the local community groups joined in support and this year the numbers exploded. They sang with gusto the National Anthem and “I am Australian”.
Speakers included a Vietnamese migrant and a person of Aboriginal heritage who understands the meaning of Australia Day. Also in attendance was the local member, a couple of local councillors and a former Premier.
Australia Day now has much greater meaning to ordinary Australians, including recent migrants. They will demand accountability and proper practices by government bodies like the ATO.

Because of Australia Day? 

That day has unfathomable, unimaginable powers, or perhaps powers only imaginable in the Mein Gott alternative universe ... strange days indeed mama ...

And so to check out today's digital offerings ...

Ah, it's all the fault of the ABC, and over on the extreme far right, things were almost back to normal ...

Good to see Col was still keen on the idea of ethnic cleansing, or some other extreme solution,  must go further, and further ...

... but Dame Groan was at the top of the far right mob, top of the world ma, so it was time to set the tone for her ...

“Abba, selach ’ethon la nakhru mah h’mon pelalin!” Flood the zone with shit. If Trump’s abandonment of environmental targets in the face of short-term economic goals didn’t mean our doom, already sealed anyway, was now going to be a lot quicker and nastier, I’d be laughing at the epic idiocy of the whole thing. Trump did it. He actually did it. He actually said he was “saved by God to make America great again”. And he did it on the day America celebrates Martin Luther King, a man whom the same God presumably didn’t feel was worth saving when an assassin took a pot shot at him. Them’s the breaks. God’s unpredictable like that. He can’t be expected to be everywhere at once. He’s not … oh …

Put it in another, deeply Groanian way ...

How our blinkered leaders created a gas import absurdity, How did this bizarre situation come to pass? How is it that a country so blessed with resources, including large reserves of natural gas, can achieve such a ridiculous and costly arrangement?

Dame Groan has never met a fossil fuel she hasn't loved at first sight, and she can also spot a villainess from a mile away ... Victorian Minister for Climate Action, Energy and Resources, Lily D’Ambrosio. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Valeriu Campan

Then the pond had the new reptile word of the day reaffirmed by Dame Groan herself, so it must be true ...

I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks it’s passing strange – more than passing strange – that Australia is about to become an importer of liquefied natural gas as well as an exporter.

Strange ... everything is strange, more than passing strange ... which possibly beats "weird" ...

Everybody's flying and no one leaves the ground

Well, everybody's crying and no one makes a sound
There's a place for us in movies
You just gotta lay around
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed
Most peculiar, mama

Strange days indeed ...

As for the rest, there were no more illustrations, just bog standard groaning, because if we can't coal the planet to death, and nuking is still a down under dreaming, then we can certainly gas it ...

Of course, intra-industry trade between countries is quite common but, in the main, the goods exported and those imported are different categories of the same product. In the case of LNG, the molecules are identical.
How did this bizarre situation come to pass? How is it that a country so blessed with resources, including large reserves of natural gas, can achieve such a ridiculous and costly arrangement?
It’s worth going through some of the background to understand current events. The LNG export industry is based in Queensland and Western Australia. In the case of Queensland, the exploitation of the large reserves of coal seam gas allowed the development of the Gladstone hub, where processing, liquefaction, storage and transport take place. A number of companies are involved. Long-term export contracts have been entered into of 20-30 years’ duration. At the time the initial investments were being made, there was some discussion of whether some of the gas should be reserved for domestic use. But the Labor government declined to make this a condition for the awarding of export permits.
Since then two major developments have occurred that have affected the gas market on the east coast. The first is the completely predictable decline in the available gas reserves in the Gippsland Basin that have been the backbone of gas supply for Victoria and NSW. The second is the effective war waged against new gas developments by the Victorian and NSW governments and, at times, the federal government. This war has also extended to the use of gas by households.
If there is a single individual who can be blamed, it is Lily D’Ambrosio, Victoria’s long-serving Minister for Climate Action, Energy and Resources. Notwithstanding the knowledge that Victoria’s reserves would run out, her hostile approach to the gas industry has led to the current stalemate. Some of her actions include imposing a constitutional ban on fracking, banning the conventional drilling for gas (until recently), banning use of gas appliances in newly constructed dwellings, and banning replacement of gas appliances in existing dwellings. She refused to allow gas to be one element of a capacity mechanism to shore up the electricity grid when electrons from renewable energy are unavailable. According to her misguided thinking, renewable energy can back up renewable energy.

Now it goes without saying that Dame Groan loathes any talk of renewable energy with a passionate intensity, almost as much as she hates talk of climate science, so the pond won't say it, and instead will allow Dame Groan to keep on groaning away ... remember, if we can't coal the planet to death, we must gas it ...

Not that other parties should be let off the hook. NSW has faffed around, erecting road blocks to the gas development around Narrabri. This is notwithstanding the fact that the company has always guaranteed the gas would be reserved for domestic purposes. Note here NSW is almost completely reliant on other states for gas.
Other culprits are the big gas users, the large manufacturing plants that cannot operate on anything other than gas. Think here fertilisers, food processing, brickmaking, packaging. There was a time these users could have committed to long-term contracts at fixed prices but most of them simply dithered. The operators thought the prices on offer were too high – they don’t think that now – and they decided to rely on the spot market instead.
Had the big users decided to form an alliance, they might have persuaded the federal government to act, including by forcing the hand of state governments to facilitate development of new gas fields as well as contribute to funding the required infrastructure.
If we fast-forward to now, the situation is dire. This has been made clear in the most recent update on the east cost gas market from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. According to the ACCC: “In the absence of new supply in the southern states to fill the gap, consumers will depend in the near term on gas transported from Queensland. As southern haul pipeline capacity becomes increasingly constrained, southern states will likely have to depend on imported LNG. Domestic gas prices will therefore become increasingly driven by international oil and gas prices and the cost of transporting gas large distances.”

The concern is not just with the price of gas for direct users but the fact gas is very often the setter of the electricity price as the marginal supplier in the National Electricity Market. Again, as the ACCC notes, “as we increasingly rely on renewables for energy generation, gas will be required to support energy security, reliability and affordability”.
Tragically, the light-bulb realisation of the central role gas must play in the grid came late to federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, and even later to D’Ambrosio, although it’s not clear she is fully on board. Whether this realisation is being translated into action is uncertain.
For example, the proposed gas development off the shore of Sydney’s northern beaches, the PEP-11 project – has recently been rejected by Industry Minister Ed Husic, a decision backed by the NSW government. In the meantime, the price of gas in Australia remains extremely elevated, particularly compared with the low cost of domestic gas in the US. Bear in mind the delivered price of LNG is about twice the price of piped gas, given the cost of liquefaction/degasification and transport, in particular.
The attempt by the federal government to cap the price of domestic gas at $12/gigajoule when war in Ukraine began has been a complete failure. While the intervention served to deter investment in the industry, virtually all gas producers were able to secure conditional ministerial exemptions from the Gas Code’s reasonable price provisions.
The ACCC concludes: “We therefore do not expect the Gas Code to have had a material impact on observed prices.”
The main game now is to lock in a suitable site in the southern states for an LNG receiving terminal, including the need for adequate storage. There are several options being floated including the terminal at Port Kembla developed by Squadron Energy owned by Andrew Forrest, a terminal at Corio Bay and a floating terminal in Port Phillip Bay.
Whatever the final decision, the outcome will be expensive. There will also be a need for foundation customers as well as the potential for the government to underwrite the arrangement, possibly through AEMO. It is a clear example of a pig with lipstick but this is the current situation.
It takes a considerable amount of time before gas is discovered and is ready for market – it’s not like flicking a switch, to use a bad pun. Pipelines also take time to plan and build.
Even if the Queensland producers released more gas for use in NSW and Victoria, the pipeline is already at capacity. It’s just a pity our governments have let us down so badly.

For some reason, the pond was reminded of Wilcox ...

And so to the reptile pièce de résistance for the day, the bromancer in full flight.

Whenever the pond thinks of the bro, the pond thinks of a rampantly Xian world, unchecked and unfiltered, which is why the pond's tonal note for the bromancer is Stephanie McCrummen in The Atlantic, offering The Army of God Comes Out of the Shadows, Tens of millions of American Christians are embracing a charismatic movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation, which seeks to destroy the secular state.

...What was happening in the barn in Lancaster County did not represent some fringe of American Christianity, but rather what much of the faith is becoming. A shift is under way, one that scholars have been tracking for years and that has become startlingly visible with the rise of Trumpism. At this point, tens of millions of believers—about 40 percent of American Christians, including Catholics, according to a recent Denison University survey—are embracing an alluring, charismatic movement that has little use for religious pluralism, individual rights, or constitutional democracy. It is mystical, emotional, and, in its way, wildly utopian. It is transnational, multiracial, and unapologetically political. Early leaders called it the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR, although some of those same leaders are now engaged in a rebranding effort as the antidemocratic character of the movement has come to light. And people who have never heard the name are nonetheless adopting the movement’s central ideas. These include the belief that God speaks through modern-day apostles and prophets. That demonic forces can control not only individuals, but entire territories and institutions. That the Church is not so much a place as an active “army of God,” one with a holy mission to claim the Earth for the Kingdom as humanity barrels ever deeper into the End Times.    

It's a lengthy, but fun read, and it always going to end this way ...

...“You’ll be happy with the changes God brings,” a woman reassured me. “You’ll be happy.”
This went on for a while. I wasn’t sure where it was going until the leader of the group decided that I should leave. She could not have been nicer about it. She spoke of God’s absolute love, and absolute truth, and absolute justice, and then I headed for the door.
A few women followed me into the lobby, apologizing that it had come to this. They were sorry for me, as believers in the movement were sorry for all of the people who were lost and confused by this moment in America—the doubters, the atheists, the gay people, Muslims, Buddhists, Democrats, journalists, and all the godless who had not yet submitted to what they knew to be true. The Kingdom was here, and the only question was whether you were in, or out.

Speaking of end times, the bromancer is always keen on the failure of liberals, as in The big three global fails set to haunt our Prime Minister, The failure of democratic leaders Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau and Jacinda Ardern carries lessons for Anthony Albanese.

The reptiles insisted it was a five minute read, but the pond almost didn't make it past the opening visual hurdle, Anthony Albanese would do well to heed the legacy of Justin Trudeau, Joe Biden and Jacinda Ardern. Artwork: Frank Ling

Oh Frank, Frank, the pond does appreciate your use of storm clouds in a collage of astonishing banality, but the whole idea is guilt by association. 

What's the point of the bromancer comparing Albo to those dropkick losers if he's not included in that Mount Rushmore assembly?

Really Frank, we have to leave it entirely to the verbiage? Three allegedly liberal leaders walked into a bar?

Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Jacinda Ardern. Three of the very worst democratic leaders in the world in the past decade.
Each brought fantastic harm on their respective nations. Each was once hugely successful, the very toast of the town. Yet each has been repudiated and run out of office, all of them resigning, unwillingly, ahead of schedule in order to avoid catastrophic electoral defeat.
Each, I think, was a badly flawed individual. But their collective failure has a bigger lesson.
It’s a punctuation point in modern politics. It represents the exhaustion, and now the clear incoherence, of the contemporary model of centre-left government.
The collapse of Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic-led government in Germany is similar, though the peculiarities of Germany’s electoral system mean the change won’t be anything like as clear as that from Biden to Donald Trump, from Ardern to Christopher Luxon, or the likely transition from Trudeau to conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

Now the pond can hear some smart aleck ask, what about the Poms? The bromancer's got you covered ...

In Britain the cycle was back to front.
The Conservatives’ failure, after Brexit, on immigration and on economic policy, caused in part by their fidelity to ridiculous climate targets, meant their government fell apart. As Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch puts it, the Tories “talked right but governed left”.
What is really fascinating is that Keir Starmer, representing an almost identical approach to Biden/Trudeau/Ardern, fell into political crisis almost as soon as he took office. Some polls put British Labour’s support now at equal to or below both the Conservatives and Nigel Farage’s Reform Party.

The reptiles followed up with a snap, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer fell into political crisis soon after taking office. Picture: Getty Images

But the pond was still stuck on the bromancer's mention of Brexit. 

After all, he'd been strident on the topic, a true devotee, a real enthusiast, and yet suddenly it was a reason for Tory failures? Forgive the pond, “Abba, selach ’ethon la nakhru mah h’mon pelalin!”, as it clung to the fond memories ...

Or again ...

Sorry, consider it more tone setting, a kind of practising of the politics of symbolic scribbling ...

The implications for Anthony Albanese, who practises the same model of government as all these unsuccessful leaders, are pretty dire, though of course nothing is inevitable. What did the Biden, Ardern and Trudeau political models have in common?
All three were essentially postmodern centre-left leaders who practised the politics of symbolism. This had two fundamental problems. It actually made the social issues it was meant to address worse. And it was a massive misdirection for the energies of government away from the core tasks of economic management, economic growth and national security.
That all three leaders were a failure is incontrovertible.
Canadians used to be roughly 80 per cent as rich per head as their cousins in the US. Now they’re 70 per cent as rich. Trudeau championed liberal policing policies and violent crime rose sharply.
He was the Canadian avatar of identity politics and naturally, as a result, race relations got much worse in Canada on his watch.

Of all the things with which to berate and baseball bat Trudeau ... the best the pond could dig up was a tag in The Conversation ... with this the top story, The Canadian government’s refusal to include a description of anti-Palestinian racism sends the message that the struggles of Palestinians don’t matter, yet somehow this was the bro's baseball bat to apply to the head of the hapless Canuck, Race relations worsened on the watch of Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Picture: AFP

Never mind King Donald's monstering, or internal ructions, it was race relations what did it ...

Last year there were race riots. To bring this about in polite, sleepy Canada requires almost a negative political genius.

To make this a feature takes astonishing skill. The best the pond could dig up were memories of ancient riots, in Vancouver and Halifax , and such like...

Damn you CBC, you're almost as bad as the ABC ...

But don't expect background details from the bro, it's the vibe, it's the tone, that counts ... and then it's going to be the turn of the Kiwis ...

Productivity and economic growth plunged under Trudeau. Canadians have suffered negative per capita growth over the past couple of years and recession has been avoided only by huge immigration, at a rate that most Canadians didn’t want.
New Zealand under Ardern didn’t suffer excess immigration. Her government could barely convince any New Zealanders to stay.
Her progressive approach to schooling gave NZ one of the worst education systems in the developed world. Economic growth was extremely anaemic. Crime soared. Trudeau was the prince of identity politics, Ardern its princess. As a result race relations worsened considerably.
Ardern undid economic reform and re-regulated the labour market, gravely handicapping the economy. One big question for the Luxon government now is whether NZ can retain its status as a first world economy and society.

Step forward vile woman, akin to witchcraft and sorcery ... Jacinda Ardern presided over anaemic economic growth in New Zealand. Picture: AAP

Then it was on with more of the vibe and tone thingie ...

Trudeau and Ardern both effectively bugged out of all national security seriousness.
Canada is a rich country and a member of the NATO alliance. NATO members are committed to spending at least 2 per cent of GDP on defence. Canada’s defence budget is a pitiful 1.38 per cent. NZ has no defence force to speak of. Yet for a time the liberal international media lionised both these monumentally unsuccessful leaders.
Biden’s administration exhibited the same failings as Trudeau’s and Ardern’s, but did it, as you’d expect, on triple steroids.
Biden didn’t just fail, he failed on the grand American scale.
All three leaders invested in feel-good symbolism with an almost demented disregard for how the physical world works.
They all put a huge stress on race and identity politics, and as a result made race much more toxic as a factor in politics and culture. (By the way, for some wisdom on this just google the TV interview from 20 years ago where Morgan Freeman is asked how to get rid of racism, and he replies: “Stop talking about it. I will stop calling you a white man and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man”).
All three leaders injected race and gender into every aspect of life and policy.
All three exhibited an almost complete indifference to how wealth was generated, instead embracing a dreamland in which maximum climate change commitments not only had no wealth offset, but magically created wealth out of thin air, literally. The problem is the world just didn’t work that way.
All three were completely unrealistic on national security, apparently thinking that multilateralism was a substitute for hard power. Thus Biden’s approach to Iranian militancy, terror promotion and nuclear development was to try to seduce the mullahs into becoming tea-sipping multilateralists.

Oh indeedy do, whenever the pond thinks of the Kiwis, the pond immediately calls to mind hard power that makes other nations tremble and quake like some event in Christchurch ...

Sorry, valiant hard power sheepherders, the pond meant no harm, and anyway, now it's time to ravage Jolly Joe ...Joe Biden, with former first lady Jill Bden, failed on the grand American scale. Picture: AFP

The point of course is to produce guilt by association, and after Frank's notable failure, eventually the bromancer gets around to it .... by explaining we now have jolly Joe down under ...

Biden signed up to AUKUS but year after year proposed defence budgets that involved real cuts to spending, or such marginal increases they could never build the number of nuclear submarines necessary to make AUKUS work.
Biden was an especially destructive president.
He debauched the legal system by encouraging grossly politicised legal prosecutions of Trump. It’s entirely Biden’s fault the American people have now repudiated the integrity of their own legal system by decisively electing Trump despite his absurd felony convictions. Biden reinforced this by pre-emptively pardoning all his family.

It's entirely Biden's fault? The pond isn't here to defend Biden, but somehow it's entirely Biden's fault?

Yeah, whatever, it's time to wrap things up and do the guilt by association stuff ...

Biden did more than anyone to discredit US intelligence agencies by getting 50 former senior US intelligence figures to declare the Hunter Biden laptop was likely Russian disinformation, when the Bidens knew it was genuine.
If these intelligence figures were acting in good faith, it’s a shocking indictment of their professional judgment. Biden’s grotesque decision to effectively abolish the US’s southern border is legendary.
All three of these failed leaders could rub along for a time provided they could spend profligately and throw their countries deeper into debt.
Ultimately you run out of other people’s money and you produce killer inflation. Their governing paradigm was nothing like the centrist pragmatism of Tony Blair, Bill Clinton or Bob Hawke.
Of the three, politically Albanese most resembles Biden, not a natural identity politics extremist, but willing weakly to go wherever progressive winds were blowing at any moment, most notably for Albanese into the fiasco of the voice.
How much cultural change will follow political change in the US, Canada and NZ?
That’s unclear, but the failure of governments that practise contemporary, progressive-left, symbolism politics, with big spending, vague aspirations, and no serious action on security, is indisputable.
Does Albanese have an alternative governing model to turn to?

Well there's always one model, one enthusiastically embraced by Mein Gott ...

Things have got so bad that the immortal Rowe has returned to his anal phase ... let the bromancer embrace that alternative governing model as he will ...