In which the pond climbs yet another "Ned" Everest, but occasionally wanders away from base camp, with Dame Slap as an equally tedious bonus...

 

Toujours gai, Archy, toujors gai, the pond is always gay, though the pond was surprised that Petey boy had dropped his drink and turned full pussified snowflake, afraid to celebrate a dinkum nuking...

Never mind, what's on the lizard Oz's mind this day ...

On and off again with Ukraine, on and off and on with tariffs, and "Bomber" Beazely landing with a thud in a brazen attempt to steal Malware's thunder, suggesting we fold to the orange overlord's demands, thereby confirming he remains the prize maroon he's always been....

Would that he'd first taken advice from the immortal Rowe ...

... never forget, never forgive Malware's NBN ...

Luckily, it's not all about "Bomber", as could be seen by the lack of interest shown over in the extreme far right section of the rag ...

Sheesh, what a tedious bunch ... a bit of climate science denying Pearl-clutching, and simpleton Simon still off with the pixies in relentless campaign mode... but if he wants to talk about declining living standards, can't he wait just a little longer for King Donald and Uncle Leon to finish their work? 

The stock market, discreetly ignored up the front by the lizard Oz this day, is only the start ...

Luckily there were plenty of other sources for anyone interested in wandering out of the hive mind ...

All the same, the pond was chastened, the pond had spent far too long fixated on the Orange Orangutang, and had paid far too little attention to the home fires...

It was past time to be bored senseless by a climb up a nattering "Ned" Everest column. 

The pond knew what to expect, endless hand wringing, sighing at clouds, Chicken Little scurrying about as the clouds began to fall ... no delicious US carry-ons, but duty is duty ...

Peter Dutton must deliver alternate vision as Australia sleepwalks towards minority government, There is no evidence the Liberals have persuaded the public on the need for spending restraint, tax reform, workplace reform or a productivity revival.

It was only a five minute read, so the reptiles said, so where was the harm, even as an ogre was thrust into the pond's vision, Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton holds a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman

Instantly the pond was restless ... and instantly the climb got off on the wrong foot ...

Australia is sleepwalking into a minority government. Every omen points to a dimin­ished country, a weaker executive and parliament, and an electorate bent on denial for as long as possible of the realities transforming global economics and geostrategy.
The next Australian parliament will confront structural decisions unseen for decades – arising from chronic deficits, misguided spending priorities, an inefficient tax system, weak productivity, the imperative to increase defence spending, untenably high energy prices, an over-regulated workplace and ongoing inflation problems.
The polls are currently translating into minority government. The last such experiment saw the destruction of the Gillard prime ministership, the conclusion being that the ability of minority government to meet the challenges of the times is improbable in the extreme.
The likeliest result is a minority Albanese government based on confidence being delivered by a group of Greens and teals, the upshot being a policy shift to the left. The prospect of a second-term Albanese government still pledged to big spending, tax increases via bracket creep, renewable energy, environmental protection, trade union concessions and an inadequate defence budget – a variation of its first term – means rising public dissatisfaction and substandard economic outcomes.

Oh FFS, and then the reptiles compounded the matter with a snap ... Independent MPs (L-R) Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter.

Yes, yes, Tony Windsor ruined the country, how much better Tamworth has been thanks to the sight of a drunk in a footpath flower arrangement.

The pond began to wonder if it could just step outside the "Ned" tent for a few distractions. Where would be the harm? Would a little mindless pleasure count against the pond as a sign of a lack of attention? (Would "Ned" pick up a ruler, and - nun-style - rap the pond on knuckles?)

What about Paddy Manning's piece in Crikey, What a modest political donation by Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law tells us about the family divide, Alasdair MacLeod’s donation to the Regional Voices Fund underscores the deep ideological divide within the Murdoch family. (sorry, paywall)

...Macleod, who is married to Murdoch’s eldest daughter Prudence, rarely speaks to the media, but confirmed the donation to Crikey, saying: “We are a non-political organisation, that does business (and philanthropic work) in regional Australia, so Regional Voices seemed a worthy cause to support.” 
MacLeod would not reveal details of the donation, including when or how much money was given. Macdoch owns or manages grazing properties in NSW, including the historic Cavan station near Yass, held by the Murdoch family, and has invested heavily in carbon farming — storing carbon in soil to improve soil health and allow sale of carbon credits to offset emissions elsewhere.
Macdoch’s Wilmot Cattle Co stages an annual field day and at the end of last month Macleod told an audience of hundreds at Hernani, west of Dorrigo, that carbon farming was coming under attack:
“We continue to put plenty of CO2 into the atmosphere and we will continue to do so for some time, so what’s wrong with finding ways of putting some of that CO2 back into the landscape, in soils or vegetation, and rewarding farmers for doing so?” he asked.
“There is a belief that, one day, technology will solve this ‘carbon removal’ challenge, and it may well do so in the future, but in the meantime, why not harness this technology that’s been around for millennia, called photosynthesis, that nature provides for free?”
“Time is not on our side here,” Macleod said. “We’ve already breached the 1.5C increase in global temperature that was the limit agreed at the Paris COP in 2015, so we can’t afford to wait too long for new technologies to provide the necessary solutions.”
“Here in Australia, we have some of the most robust methodologies for carbon projects anywhere in the world and with the safeguard mechanism legislation driving demand for carbon offsets, I hope that Australia can show how to do this the right way.”
The Macdoch donation underscores the deep ideological divide within the Murdoch family, whose members are presently litigating a messy court dispute in Nevada over an attempt by Rupert to amend the terms of the irrevocable family trust to give his chosen successor, eldest son Lachlan, permanent control of the media empire including the Fox and News Corporations... 

But wait, there was more, almost teal-like, designed to drive "Ned" into a teal apocalypse...

...Former NSW Rural Woman of the Year Dr Lorraine Gordon, the chair of the Regional Voices Fund, confirmed Macdoch’s donation although she did not reveal the amount. The fund is aiming to raise $2 million and has so far raised almost half of that from some 80 donors, with the election yet to be called but expected in May. It has donated to 13 regional campaigns, and Gordon hopes that four will be elected. Most media attention has been on Alex Dyson in Wannon and Caz Heise in Cowper. 
Gordon said she had not met with MacLeod for some time, but knew him from regenerative farming. “Alasdair is a very popular guy in regenerative spaces and has done a lot for regenerative agriculture,” she said. “I’m speaking as a farmer now. He’s put his money where his mouth is, I guess, in supporting the fund. Good on him!”
“It’s mostly mums and dads [donating], to be honest. We’re not backed by the big end of town.”
The Regional Voices Fund is not formally connected to Climate 200 — some candidates have been supported by both — but Gordon has previously said the two vehicles were “on the same page”.
“We’re not necessarily about specific policies — we do politics a bit differently than that — but there is an underlying understanding that we do want to see climate mitigation policy in our candidates.
“Any candidate that doesn’t have a climate mitigation policy for their constituents, is not really looking after their constituents. 
“I mean let us have a look at today,” she said, speaking last week as ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred was about to make landfall. “Let’s just look at where we are right now. We’ve got floods, cyclones pouring down on north-eastern NSW and into Queensland, we’ve got South Australia with water problems — not enough water in some places — and I’ve got farmers out the back of Bourke that are in drought situations. So in this country right now we are absolutely experiencing, yet again, the effects of climate change and depending on what part of Australia you’re in, you’re going to be copping something different.” 

Dear Prudence, that's way beyond the valley of the teals ... so the pond scuttled back to the anxiety-laden "Ned" ...

But consider the alternative: a Dutton minority government, an idea that is rarely canvassed. Yet if Peter Dutton becomes prime minister, it is far likelier to be in a minority capacity. As a minority PM, Dutton would be in a far weaker position than was Tony Abbott when he won in 2013. Denied a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, Dutton would battle to legislate even a fraction of his agenda.
His IR agenda, restoring the Australian Building and Construction Commission, modifying Labor’s workplace laws, energy policy changes, spending constraints, tax changes, security laws and productivity innovations would all be at risk of defeat or major surgery. His nuclear policy would be dead from the start given his inability to remove the nuclear ban. As a minority PM, Dutton would be under political siege from day one – from Labor, the Greens and most teals, enraged that Dutton had been able to form a government.
Outside the parliament the spectrum of anti-Coalition interest groups would coalesce against Dutton – from the trade unions, the environmental, education, welfare, professional and managerial classes, the culture sector, identity politics minorities and progressive media. The cultural weakness of the Coalition would be exposed again, as it was under Scott Morrison.
Recall that the best thing that ever happened to Abbott – though he didn’t accept this at the time – was losing out to Julia Gillard in the post-2010 election bid to form a minority government. As a minority PM, Gillard was able to legislate a big agenda but she lost the politics completely, with Abbott having to wait three years but winning in 2013 with a comfortable majority in his own right.

The reptiles decided the time was right to interrupt "Ned" with an AV distraction, featuring a notable rat in the ranks, Former Labor minister Joel Fitzgibbon warns a hung parliament could have a “chilling effect” on the Australian economy. Mr Fitzgibbon wants Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton to agree on a pact ahead of the election to get behind whoever wins government to guarantee supply, therefore sidelining the minor parties. “This is an idea to save the Australian economy from what could be a disastrous hung parliament,” Mr Fitzgibbon told Sky News Australia. “I was chief government whip in the last hung parliament – I saw it very close up, and it’s very, very ugly and it has the potential to put a chilling effect on the Australian economy.”

Is the pond allowed to simply say "fuck off Joel", and wonder why all these tired Labor hacks are still taking up space in the hive mind? 

Are they in some kind of competition with Malware? Haven't we already been there before?

"Ned" decided the time was right to remind the hive mind that he was a published author ...

My 2014 book Triumph and Demise on the Rudd-Gillard era included an analysis of Gillard’s doomed venture. Her political adviser, John McTernan said: “All of the flack of minority government was sucked into her prime ministership. In my view minority government became highly damaging for her.”
Former minister Greg Combet said: “The community felt we were running agendas that were not our own. They were seen as somebody else’s. We passed a lot of legislation but we didn’t get credit for the things we did.”
Chris Bowen said the lesson for Labor was “we must govern alone or not at all” – his point being don’t make a formal alliance, a conclusion Albanese accepts with a passion born of experience.
The idea of a minority Albanese government tied into dependency on the Greens – based on the numbers as distinct from any formal alliance – would be a recipe of political poison for Labor. When Labor and the Greens are locked into even loose governing arrangements then Labor is contaminated by a party its own senior figures concede is politically extreme and morally flawed.
The existence of an Albanese minority government would give Dutton a rich political target and the chance, like Abbott, to win a strong majority at the subsequent poll. This invites the speculative conclusion: whatever party, Labor or Coalition, that forms a minority government after the 2025 election will be destined to lose the subsequent election.

So much winning by losing ... the pond never gets tired of the winning ...

... speaking of which, the reptiles decided that the time was right to show a couple of hacks together, Bill Shorten talks to Joel Fitzgibbon.

FFS, the illustrations are even duller and more tedious than "Ned" ... as if  quoting the tiresome Joel provided an excuse for rats in the ranks to get out and about in the hive mind ...

In his article on this page on Tuesday, former Labor minister Joel Fitzgibbon said John Howard, Bob Hawke or Paul Keating would struggle to implement their reforms today, the point being that support for the main parties is weaker and power-sharing minority government is anathema to our political culture and partisan conflict. The story of the present is the absence of an ascendant leader. Neither Albanese nor Dutton can establish a political ascendancy. Yet it is the ascendant leader who drives politics and is the source of all national progress.
Without the ascendant leader, the country stagnates, unable to meet its challenges.
Albanese’s 2022 win was narrow and he has not built upon the beachhead he secured.
Dutton, defying the trends, has united the Liberals and made the Coalition competitive, an immense achieve­ment.
But Dutton, in one term, cannot establish an ascendancy over Albanese, the upshot being a divided polity but with incumbency remaining an advantage. Many voters disillusioned with Albanese will still vote for him – and while many voters will leave Labor they won’t shift to the Coalition but will spray across the minor parties and independents.
A vote against Labor won’t be enough to deliver a Dutton victory. The Liberals are not strong enough. Their party is not match fit – their state divisions in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia are depleted. Dutton’s popularity is weak in the teal seats. While leadership conviction has enhanced Dutton’s profile, he has yet to be established as a leader with strong economic credentials.
Too much of the opposition’s policy agenda remains to be tabled, creating the suspicion, energy aside, it will be a “small target” strategy. Liberals deny this and we shall see. But a small-target strategy won’t deliver an election win in May. Indeed, there is a far bigger test for Liberals in the third year since their 2022 defeat – it is whether they have the policy and intellectual framework to offer a persuasive case to the public on their own merit.

At that point the reptiles tried to bolster "Ned" with a couple of huge, worldly snaps ... Mark Carney, Germany’s Friedrich Merz

Elbows up Canada!

Perhaps before a final word from "Ned" the pond could sneak outside the tent again? 

The pond had wanted to draw attention to Robert Kagan in The Atlantic, Trump Is Offering Putin Another Munich, Hitler didn’t want a peace deal, and neither does Putin (archive link)

Hitler regretted the deal he made with Neville Chamberlain at Munich in 1938. What he actually wanted was war—his goal was to conquer all of Czechoslovakia by force as a first step toward the conquest of all of Europe.
He didn’t imagine that the British and French governments would be so craven as to give him everything he publicly asked for, including the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and the occupation of the Sudetenland by the German army. When they did, Hitler found himself trapped into accepting, but he was unhappy. Within five months he ordered the military occupation of all Czechoslovakia, in violation of the Munich Agreement, and six months after that, he invaded Poland.
Today the Trump administration is offering Vladimir Putin a Munich-like settlement for Ukraine. Trump’s negotiators have offered Putin almost everything he has publicly asked for without demanding anything in return. They may assume that if they give him everything up front, he will agree to a cease-fire and some kind of deal that will save face for President Donald Trump, allowing him to claim the mantle of peacemaker, just as Chamberlain did, albeit for only a few months.
Will Putin accept? At the moment, thanks to Trump’s anti-Ukraine maneuvers, he has the luxury of watching Washington and Kyiv wrangle over terms while he pummels Ukraine’s population and energy grid and brings the country closer to collapse. But so far, Putin has been clear about the terms he is willing to accept to achieve peace. Like Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II, his offer is this: nothing.
No security guarantee; no independent, sovereign Ukraine; perhaps not even a cease-fire. Putin’s goal, as it has been from the beginning, is the incorporation of Ukraine into Russia and the complete erasure of the Ukrainian nation, language, and culture. He will gladly accept Ukraine’s surrender whenever Kyiv is ready to concede, but short of that he is going to keep the war going until he takes everything

Well yes ...

Once you head down the Adolf path, it can turn in to quite a romp. 

You can end up reading Timothy W. Ryback's The Oligarchs Who Came to Regret Supporting Hitler, They helped him in pursuit of profit. Many ended up in concentration camps. (archive link).

He was among the richest men in the world. He made his first fortune in heavy industry. He made his second as a media mogul. And in January 1933, in exchange for a political favor, Alfred Hugenberg provided the electoral capital that made possible Adolf Hitler’s appointment as chancellor. Before Hugenberg sealed his pact with Hitler, a close associate had warned Hugenberg that this was a deal he would come to regret: “One night you will find yourself running through the ministry gardens in your underwear trying to escape arrest.”

And so on ... anything to avoid "Ned's" final words. 

The pond kept hopping, knowing that the links offered a path to complete distraction outside the hive mind.

Why there was Franklin Foer's cri de couer, Putin Won, The Russian dictator has bent the world, including the United States, to his vision.(archive link)]

The Russian leader’s rise wasn’t uninterrupted, but the ledger is filled with his victories, beginning with Brexit, an event he deeply desired and worked to make happen. That was a mere omen. His populist allies in France and Germany now constitute the most powerful opposition blocs in those countries. Within the European Union, he can count on Viktor Orbán to stymie Brussels when it is poised to act against Russian interests. Meanwhile, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief claims that the “free world needs a new leader,” and former heads of NATO worry for the organization's very survival.

And so on, and then there was that old chess master Garry Kasparov, with another cry from the heart, The Putinization of America, Trump’s deference to the Russian dictator has become full-blown imitation.

...Cutting bureaucracy isn’t usually associated with despotism and power grabs. We tend to think of wannabe dictators packing the courts and increasing the size and power of the state. But that isn’t what you do when you want to make the government impotent against private power—your private power. The Putin model was to weaken any state institution that might defy him and to build state power back up only when he had total control.

What an excellent segue to Dame Slap, the pond's bonus offering, but perhaps all that was too sombre and severe and serious...

How about this post-modern juxtaposition, spotted by the pond in Namwali Serpell's piece for The New Yorker The New Literalism Plaguing Today’s Biggest Movies, Buzzy films from “Anora” to “The Substance” are undone by a relentless signposting of meaning and intent. (archive link)

Ah, that's so sweet, a lighter moment, a joke about fashion, larded up with actual fashion offerings designed put Doc Martens in the shade...

And now, before getting to Dame Slap, it's time to endure a concluding hand-wringing from the reptiles' resident Chicken Little...

There is still little sign of it. Forget Labor; what are the Liberals offering? There is no evidence they have persuaded the public on the need for spending restraint, tax reform, workplace reform or a productivity revival.
Newspoll this week showed the public voting 83-12 per cent backing greater government spending to help people with cost-of-living pressures. This is what Labor intends in the budget and it will be popular.
What do the Liberals intend?
The flaw in the Coalition case is that while people have plenty of reasons to vote against Labor, they have far fewer reasons to vote for the Coalition. While opposition Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor has made a series of forensic economic speeches correctly prioritising the need for supply-side reform, it is far from apparent how this translates into an appealing economic agenda for the election. Yet the economy is the central issue.
Consider the conundrum. Newspoll in mid-February had only 34 per cent saying Albanese Labor deserved to be re-elected – dismal stuff. Yet this week News­poll had people saying 55-45 per cent they were “not confident” Dutton was ready to govern and among women it was an alarming 61-39 per cent expressing this lack of confidence in Dutton.
The world is sending this country a message – it is time for a strong leader and a bold government. That is the demand of the times and is happening from Canada to Germany. Yet Australia’s public culture and political system seem mired in rhetorical noise, policy fiddling and timid incrementalism. We are engaged only in fooling ourselves and the cost may be severe.

Bold leadership? A strong leader? Like the mango Mussolini? 

Bold government?

Forgive the pond if it passes on that like a balloon floating off out of sight ...

As for the Dame Slap bonus, the pond decided to strip her of distracting snaps and audio visual offerings as a punishment, because her piece was singularly dull and failed to answer an important question.

She was, of course, just following Kasparov's suggestion and doing her patented Uncle Leon imitation, albeit only armed with a verbal chainsaw, though that was good enough for her attack on cardigan wearers ... 

Public service ‘work from home’ numbers on the rise, but is that good for taxpayers?, Some want to turn working-from-home into a culture war. That’s a familiar tactic among people who are uncomfortable with robust debates about important matters.

The question that lingered in the pond's mind was this... did she once mention her own circumstances and her own way of working?

Now it's true that the pond has some skin in the game, what with a public servant currently in the house and ready to arise from slumber and WFH, but what about Dame Slap's skin? 

What does she do when she wakes?

The cost-of-living crisis should be shedding our luxury beliefs. Falling productivity is making its way from obscure pages of the financial press and economic journals to mainstream media. We are starting to wake up to the fact that if we want a better life, we may have to work a bit harder for it, maybe bid goodbye to some perks we’d love to keep but can’t afford. But this reality check isn’t arriving equally across the country.
The private sector is rapidly concluding that we can’t afford the kind of universal work-from-home policies spawned by the Covid pandemic. JP Morgan chief executive Jamie Dimon now regrets his legendary obscenity-laden rant about WFH and offers a more moderate view, but there is no doubting that JP Morgan is not a firm for those who want to Zoom in from the dining table. Dimon’s key point now is that his company, not the worker, will decide what works best for his company and his clients.
Almost two years ago, NAB’s then chief executive, Ross McEwan, called time on WFH for his senior executives, and many other big companies, in Australia and globally, have been tightening the leash too. It’s a safe bet that private employers are better at gauging productivity gains than their workers.
As Dimon said in February, “don’t give me this shit that ‘work from home Friday’ works. I call a lot of people on Friday. There’s not a goddamn person you can get a hold of”.

Nope, nothing so far, nada, zip, nihil on Dame Slap's own work habits ...and yet the pond was still bedevilled by the question ... did Dame Slap rush into the office and spend all day there, chained to a desk, writing her column, or did she WFH and file the copy digitally?

It would seem only fair for this vital insight to be revealed, so the pond pressed on ...

Liberal senator Jane Hume was simply reflecting these private sector trends when she said last week that a Coalition government would review public service WFH arrangements. That’s all it took to unleash the dogs of war.
Hume forces us to ask several critical questions. Should WFH be a right? Does WFH reduce or enhance productivity? Are there nonetheless other benefits that might offset the productivity loss? If the public sector keeps WFH benefits not generally available in the private sector, what equity and efficiency issues does that raise? Will Canberra, already a coddled bubble of privileged public servants, become even more out of touch with Australia at large, and increasingly less able to understand the people for whom it regulates and to whom it provides services?
Thanks to a union award, Australian public servants work very differently from most Australians employed in the private sector. Work-from-home arrangements have, effectively, become an individual right. Under the Australian Public Service’s All Roles Flexible policy, flexibility applies to all roles in the APS and those rights are in addition to entitlements in the Fair Work Act 2009.
Here’s what we know after Hume asked, during Senate estimates, for WFH figures from various bureaucracies. At the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, and the Arts, 59.7 per cent of staff have WFH arrangements in the ACT. At the Department of Finance more than 26 per cent of public servants work three days in the office, two days from home, and 2 per cent never work in the office. At the Australian Electoral Commission, 46.6 per cent work at home two days a week, and 8.6 per cent work solely from home. At the Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, 28 per cent never go to the office. At the Digital Transformation Agency 28 per cent work from home two or three days, while 3 per cent never work at the office.

Nope, still nothing. A lot of blather about the circumstances of others, but nothing about Dame Slap or her fellow lizard Oz columnists. 

Do some of them luxuriate in their home while pounding away on their keyboards or do they all present to Holt street, or similar locations and are chained to a desk for the duration, or perhaps, Uncle Leon style, bring in a bed and sleep in the office while wrecking the country and the planet?

The pond suspected it wasn't going to get an answer, but decided to stay the course, just to make sure ...

Even Finance Minister Katy Gallagher thinks there’s an issue; some months back she asked the Australian Public Service Commission to gather WFH numbers from government departments and agencies.
Interestingly, data currently collected by that same Commission for its annual State of the Service Report shows that 21 per cent of its staff never work at the office, and 45 per cent of its staff work from home “some of the time on a regular basis”.
These State of the Service Reports are light on detail. The 2023-2024 Report shows that across all APS departments and agencies – except Foreign Affairs and Trade and Services Australia – most public servants work from home “some of the time on a regular basis”.
A breakdown of actual days at home and in the office would be more helpful to better understand why and by how much the public sector is out of kilter with the private sector.
Some want to turn this into a culture war. That’s a familiar tactic among people who are uncomfortable with robust debates about important matters. Remember the History Wars? And the Reading Wars? Some are doubling up, claiming a focus on WFH is a gender war too. There are no wars here – of any kind. If you’re already whipping up fear and hysteria, you’re probably afraid of the merits of debate.

Of course, she wants to turn it into a culture war; perhaps that's why she's afraid of revealing her own circumstances and approach to work. 

It would be simple enough to reveal if she filed her copy over the full to overflowing intertubes, or if she headed gamely off to the office each day, settling into the hive mind to get the correct vibe ...

While it’s true that women, especially those with children and other caring roles, likely benefit from generous public service WFH arrangements, there is still an important public policy issue about workplace productivity.
Some WFH stalwarts are picky with their information. Jacqueline Maley in The Sun Herald deferred to Productivity Commissioner Danielle Wood, who said we can’t ignore the benefits of the past two years where the increase in women working full-time is bigger than in the previous 40 years.
Maley didn’t mention that Wood pointed to research showing that working remotely five days a week hurts productivity. Wood said there is likely a “sweet spot” of working three days in the office, two days at home. “It looks like the productivity impacts of that are pretty negligible, or slightly positive.”
Gallagher said the Coalition’s policy to better realign WFH arrangements in the public service with private sector trends was an attack on women. She needs to spend more time wearing her Minister for Finance hat. Her other sectional portfolios – Minister for Women, Minister for Government Services, Minister for Public Services – are obstructing a clear focus on the national interest.
The private sector is moving away from the Covid-driven working-from-home arrangements, while public service WFH numbers are on the rise – 22 per cent in 2019, 55 per cent during Covid, and now 61 per cent. This trend in the public service is a legitimate issue for anyone concerned about the country’s tanking productivity.

But what of Dame Slap and the tanking productivity of the reptiles at the lizard Oz? 

The pond has been waiting patiently since 26th February to hear from the bromancer about assorted matters, including his proposed war on China by Xmas, and the destruction of the United States by King Donald and his minions. What of AUKUS?

Can the pond rely on the word of a dubious cartoonist that AUKUS is fine?

And what of the bromancer's thoughts on the tariff wars?

Not a peep, not a bleat, nary a sighting. Abandoned by the bromancer, the orphaned pond left alone in a hostile world to make of it what it could, like a waif on a raft in a Griffiths flick.

Surely if not the bromancer, then someone could have been chained to a desk to pound out an indignant rebuttal of the ICC and their latest outrageous stunt, trying to hold a killer leader to account, as recorded in Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte arrested over ICC warrant for crimes against humanity.

The world is going to hell in a handbasket - how can the world be made safe for electricity switching off, water denying, ethnic cleansing Benji? - while the bromancer goes MIA. 

It's not a good look for the reptiles, and it suggests that tanking productivity isn't confined to the public service.

Does Dame Slap address any of this? Of course not ...

No doubt, WFH arrangements suit many workers. But do they suit the employer? Increasing numbers of private sector employers say it doesn’t. But no public sector head could possibly tell the truth – even if they wanted to.
With growth in public sector jobs disproportionately outstripping private sector job growth over the course of 2024, we do need to better understand the consequences of WFH.
Research shows when employees work from home, they receive less coaching and mentoring, and have fewer one-on-one meetings with supervisors. Increased communication and co-ordination costs associated with WFH also lead to productivity declines. Research has also shown that workers with children at home worked more hours than those without children, and suffered a bigger decline in productivity than those without children.
Let’s talk about culture too – without adding the “war” suffix. There is an issue about public service disconnect. When growing numbers of public servants work very differently to the rest of Australia’s workforce, how does that impact their ability to serve the public? Will policymakers execute the most sensible policies if their working conditions are much cushier than the rest of the country? What about service providers? Aligning public and private workforces will surely lead to better-aligned outcomes for the public.

The pond would love to talk about the culture, but given Dame Slap's singular silence on her own work practices, can't advise on how to align public and private workforces. 

It might well be that it would lead to better-aligned outcomes for the reptiles at the lizard Oz, chained to their desks 24/7, but who can say in a definitive way? 

The pond knows she must be suffering ... Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen downsizes to $5 million Bronte semi.

That was back in 2011, when Dame Slap was just one step away from life on the street.

What's happened since? Can she even afford a home office?

Modesty apparently affects Dame Slap's POV...she simply fails to come clean.

Labor can’t come clean on this given its obvious conflicts when negotiating public service wages and conditions. Labor is effectively negotiating with the unions that fund it. How can we know that a Labor government is looking after taxpayer interests first?
That’s why Jane Hume had to step up. And we deserve better than reflexive, half-baked class and gender war slogans aimed at exciting emotions to blot out reasoned debate.

Reasoned debate? 

The pond typed this up on a home computer, posted it and went off to have a cup of tea, well content with having wasted a half hour indulging a prize loon. 

What did Dame Slap use to file her copy? Where and how did she write it? How did she submit it?

Alas, only the sounds of crickets could be heard...

Speaking of work from home warriors, the pond has run this immortal Rowe before, but it seemed to fit Dame Slap's text, what with it being full WFH ...

The pond had neglected drawing attention to an important detail, but it's always in the detail that past shocking memories are buried, lurking, always ready to erupt like the undertoad ...