In which the pond begged for some sort of spirit to help make it through the bromancer and "Ned" ...

 

Dear sweet long absent lord, if only there was a holy spirit for atheists ... some kind of heady brew that would help the pond and correspondents make it through this day ...

Alas there's none ... and yet the pond had to take up the reptile challenge, with "Ned" as journalist/reporter/interviewer at top of page, and "Ned" as commentator down below, with a big animated splash on the digital edition early in the morning ...

The mango Mussolini's minions arresting a US judge barely made it into the sample, while over on the extreme far right, the news got even more difficult for long suffering pondites, with the bromancer front and centre ...

Why the bromancer, when Dame Slap was doing her usual blonde bit about difficult, uppity blacks, the dog botherer was doing his thing with the pastie Hastie, and snappy Tom was blathering about the new world disorder, apparently unaware that News Corp and Faux Noise had been the heart and soul of the dissembling disorder?

Well, the pond has always heeded the bromancer, through thuck and thun, and even when scribbling furiously about Frank and the bromancer's church and his cannibalistic devotion to the blood drinking, flesh devouring faith...

It ran for a challenging ten minutes, or so the reptiles timed the torture trail ...

The header: Way of the church after the Great Disrupter, Though undoubtedly a genuine man of God with an inspiring love of the marginalised, Francis was a Great Disrupter. His legacy is a divided Church.

The mystical injunction, as deeply weird as transubstantiation: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

The bromancer began by defaming Frank, by the simple trick of comparing him to the cantaloupe Caligula ...

So where does the holy Catholic and Apostolic church, with its 1.4 billion adherents and vast institutional attachments, go from here now that Pope Francis has died?
His legacy will be hotly debated, though for a time respectable Catholics, certainly those handful of men who may succeed him, will wear Franciscan “clothes”.
Though undoubtedly a genuine man of God with an inspiring love of the marginalised, Francis was the Great Disrupter, in many ways the Catholic Church’s version of Donald Trump. Both men would hate the comparison, and Francis was certainly an infinitely more decent human being than Trump.
But both represent a distinctive style of leadership that emerges from the new soil of the digital age, the dynamics of celebrity and the collapsing authority of institutions. Like Trump, Francis was a populist.

Things got even worse when the Pellists were featured at the start of the many snaps and AV distractions, Pope Francis during a private audience with Cardinal George Pell in 2020. Picture: Vatican Media / AFP

The bromancer tried to rein in his wretched conservatism, but it was a struggle, especially as King Donald kept popping in ...

Every pope is shaped by where they grew up. Their personality affects their papacy. Francis inherited the populism that afflicted Argentina for decades. Trump became a populist through reality TV. Both were impatient with the institutions they were elected to head, both dismissive of established process, both elected because of a sense that things weren’t working, needed shaking up.
Francis, like Trump, became a master of social media. Both used social media to communicate directly to followers, without mediating institutions. This led to undisciplined, sometimes incoherent, messages. Trump wanted to “drain the swamp” of government, Francis railed against the Vatican curia. Both loved spontaneous encounters and unrehearsed verbal riffs. Neither seemed to realise just how weighty the words were of their respective offices, President and Pope.

The reptiles compounded the problem with another snap, Both Francis and Donald Trump represent a distinctive style of leadership that emerges from the new soil of the digital age. Picture: AFP

On and on the bromancer went, constantly defaming Frank by comparing him to Donald ...

Francis and Trump both had a genius for identifying a moment in public sentiment. They were instinctive, continuous campaigners. Each was much less good at completing projects. Having disrupted things, it wasn’t clear they could establish a new stability. Both personalised the institutional.
We can’t take this comparison too far. Morally and ethically they were polar opposites. Francis as a young man took a vow of poverty and lived it authentically and ethically all his life. Francis lived for others, and for the love of God.
Francis’s constant advocacy for the poor and marginalised was genuinely inspiring. Each pope, each man, is a compendium of diverse, sometimes contradictory, elements. In his genuine love of the poor, dispossessed, unfashionable and wretched, Francis provided inspiration and leadership.
In other areas, the record is mixed, the legacy troubling.

Thank the long absent lord that the bromancer decided to move on, and to celebrate the reptiles slipped in an AV distraction featuring the bromancer, The Australian foreign Editor Greg Sheridan says Pope Francis set the tone for his papacy early on by being the “Pope of many firsts”.

The bromancer then proceeded to be deeply troubled ...

Ed Condon, founder of Catholic website The Pillar, argues that Francis leaves the church more divided than when he took office. Condon believes Francis brought back for relitigation a vast number of theological and moral teaching issues that had been thoroughly settled under his predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Francis frequently moved to change Catholic moral teaching but generally baulked at the last minute. Is the Catholic Church to remain faithful in its moral teachings to the actual words of Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament or, as author Ross Douthat asks, has Western modernity discovered a higher and better morality? If that’s true, Douthat ruefully observes, that says something strange about Jesus and God. How come they weren’t aware of this higher morality 2000 years ago?
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, formerly of Philadelphia, wrote of Francis’s papacy in First Things, the premier Catholic journal in the English-speaking world. He acknowledged Francis’s personal generosity and dedication to service. Chaput doesn’t mention this but the heroic way Francis left hospital and, with his last ounce of strength, returned to work to give his last Easter message was in its way magnificent.
But having acknowledged the strengths of Francis, Chaput argued it was important to evaluate frankly the Francis pontificate to work out where church leadership should go now. He offered a short, devastating critique of the Francis papacy: “His personality tended toward the temperamental and autocratic. He resisted even loyal criticism. He had a pattern of ambiguity and loose words that sowed confusion and conflict.

A snap of the populist in action, a veritable King Donald, followed, Pope Francis waves to the faithful in Dublin in 2018. Picture: AFP

Back to the endless troubling ...

“In the face of deep cultural fractures on matters of sexual behaviour and identity, he condemned gender ideology but seemed to downplay a compelling Christian theology of the body (which had been associated with John Paul II).
“He was impatient with canon law and proper procedure. His signature project, synodality (this means lengthy consultation through the calling of formal synods or large meetings lasting days or weeks), was heavy on process and deficient in clarity.
“Despite inspiring outreach to society’s margins, his papacy lacked a confident, dynamic evangelical zeal. The intellectual excellence to sustain a salvific (and not merely ethical) Christian witness in a sceptical modern world was likewise absent.”
Very few church leaders, or any Catholics, will speak as sharply as these words of Chaput. But they represent the thinking of vast numbers of engaged Catholics and underpin a desire for the next pope to keep the best of Francis, the outreach to the margins, but to return to clarity in teaching, good order in the Vatican itself, the unfinished business of Vatican reform and a greater emphasis on God rather than politics.
The exact opposite view to Chaput’s was evident in The New York Times. There, writers rightly lavished praise on Francis’s outreach to the poor and the many positive words Francis spoke about LGBTQI people. But they, too, expressed a disappointment, but an opposite disappointment from Chaput’s.
Francis often seemed to offer hints of profound changes in teaching – the acceptance of gay unions, the ordination of women priests, new permissive rules on divorce, married priests, inserting some of the political engagement on environment, open borders and economic redistribution, directly into dogma.
But he didn’t deliver on any of them. Consequently, conservatives were chronically anxious but eventually relieved, progressives chronically hopeful but eventually disappointed.

Why are the pond's comments so brief? 

The pond happens to be an atheist and shucked the nonsense of tykedom out of the system long ago, and couldn't give two hoots for everything the bromancer scribbles, but it's as deeply revealing of the man as it is of Frank, offering hints of insight, but never delivering on any of them, if the pond might borrow from the next caption, Francis often seemed to offer hints of profound changes in teaching – but he didn’t deliver on any of them. Picture: AP

And that's why the pond persevered. There's much for herpetologists to learn about the bromancer ... especially his take on compassion ...

In his 13 years in office, Francis, despite many hints, failed to change any Catholic teaching or doctrine at all. Philip Shenton, writing in The New York Times, asked plaintively, what happened to the Francis revolution?
While acknowledging the positives, Shenton argued that “his papacy will be remembered as a disappointment” and that Francis was “far more cautious and conservative” than his supporters had hoped.
Some NYT writers were optimistic, nonetheless. Francis has appointed nearly 80 per cent of the 135 cardinals under the age of 80 who will elect a new pope. One NYT writer speculated the Francis revolution could be completed by his successor.
I think that’s unlikely.
Every contemporary Christian church embodies contradictions and internal conflict along several lines. First, is Christianity literally true or just a wonderful metaphor; in other words, did Jesus rise in his body from the dead or is that metaphorical narrative poetry?
Second, how much accommodation should be made with contemporary Western liberal norms? Ready divorce? Approved abortion? Euthanasia? Same-sex marriage? Church rules of any kind?
Third, what political engagement is dictated for the church by its Christian beliefs?
Francis was a complete traditionalist in terms of literal belief. No one in contemporary life talked more often of angels and devils and other supernatural realities. In terms of accommodation with modern liberalism Francis utterly rejected abortion and described it in terms that would get any Australian politician drummed out of public life (“white-gloved assassins” and so on).
His defenders say he approached other difficult issues with a pastor’s heart. He never real­ly planned to overthrow doctrine, they argue, but looked for compassion within existing doctrine. That means he never intended a revolution. Everyone agrees on compassion, but it’s a fair question to ask whether hinting that doctrine might change when there’s no chance at all of doctrine changing is really compassionate at all.

At this point the reptiles broke off with a digital edition which readers of the tree killer edition clicked on so they could be taken there (don't ask the pond how it works, the pond hasn't seen a tree killer edition in years) ...

The pond provides only the first page as a token of what's on offer ...

The pond passed on the rest ... there was much more bromancer!

Such muddle demoralises those living heroically according to church teaching, creates expectations bound to be bitterly disappointed when doctrine doesn’t change and mightily confuses everybody about what the church actually believes.
On politics, Francis was almost entirely a man of the left, in economics, environmentalism, geo-strategic issues and much else. Mostly, when he wrote about such subjects, he acknowledged that he had no particular authority on them. Catholics are not bound to follow a pope’s political opinions. Cardinal Peter Erdo of Hungary, for example, declined to set up church refuges for illegal migrants because he thought this would encourage people-smuggling.
Because Francis was so strongly of the left, media outlets such as The New York Times loved him and ignored everything he said about God. However, Francis did a strange deal with China in which Beijing’s communist government effectively chooses Catholic bishops. To sustain the deal he never criticised the Beijing government.
Similarly, to remain a possible mediator, he never clearly took Ukraine’s side in its defensive war against Russia. Vladimir Putin warmly praised Francis on his death. That’s an odious recommendation.
On the other hand, perhaps reflecting his Argentinian background, Francis constantly criticised the US. This ethically implausible selectivity badly compromised his moral credibility.
Two other big problems. Francis did not remotely complete reform of Vatican governance. Cardinal George Pell was the critical engine of this reform but was brought down by false accusations of child abuse levelled against him when the job was about half done.
Francis also made a number of frankly weird appointments to senior positions, which a new pope will have to fix. No scandal ever touched Francis personally and no accusation of consequence has ever been made against him. But some of his friends were guilty of serious abuse. Networks around them remain powerful.
Any new pope, however, will surely try to maintain Francis’s populist style, genius for media gestures and genuine concern for the poor and for those marginalised socially for any reason. Even a pope intending to be radically different from Francis will in public emphasise his continuity with Francis.
There are five possible outcomes of the conclave that will elect Francis’s successor. Conclaves are inherently unpredictable. The unspeakably silly, though visually lavish, film Conclave (the beauty is the only bit of the Vatican Hollywood consistently gets right) was mostly a cartoon conflict of two-dimensional heroes and villains.
One African conservative cardinal is ruled out when it’s exposed he fathered a child with a nun. The other conservative cardinal candidate calls for a holy war against Islam. No excess is too silly for this agitprop film.
The saintly liberals, who say the chief enemy is certainty, as though certainty in Jesus and his resurrection is a sin for Catholics, fool around until a surprise Third World candidate wins.
It emerges the new pope is intersex and declined to have a hysterectomy. The comparison with the infinitely more subtle and realistic The Shoes of the Fisherman, filmed in 1968 from a fine novel by Australian Morris West, shows the steep decline in the quality of our popular culture.

Say what? It's only just come to pass? What about Pope Joan?

Sorry, too much for the bromancer to bear, that decline in popular culture that began way back in the ninth century (or so the wiki says), and instead the reptiles featured a snap of Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Lawrence in Conclave

The pond regrets that there was no mention of spoilers, but spoiler alert, there's still some four snaps to go, featuring hot bromancer tips, what with him forming his own Conclave of one ...

West depicted the emergence of a pope from the eastern bloc, in his novel a Ukrainian. This foretold the election of John Paul II, the Polish pope, in 1978. Both films rightly depict the unpredictability of conclaves.
Francis appointed two types of cardinal. From the West he appointed exclusively liberals, no conservatives. But he appointed many cardinals from the global south – Africa, Tonga, East Timor, even Mongolia, which has fewer Catholics than could fit inside St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney.
These men are mostly conservative theologically. They possibly won’t vote liberal at all. They don’t know each other very well. Francis didn’t like disagreement. At one meeting in 2014 a number of cardinals disagreed with his direction, so he didn’t hold a major meeting of cardinals again. So this conclave is intensely unpredictable.
The cardinals will choose the man they think best for the job. It would be a wonderful sign of universality if the right man came from Africa or Asia.
Five outcomes are possible: an ultra-liberal who tries to complete Francis’s revolution; a Francis Mark II who continues the ambiguity and muddle but also the progressive politics and gestures; a middle-of-the-road compromise who offends as few church people as possible; a moderate conservative to bring clarity and order while honouring Francis’s outreach; and a conservative cum reactionary firebrand, who might try a revolution from the right.

For its sins, the pond once read West's outing, and thought it a tedious tale told by a second rate writer, but it's time for a few names ... Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Cardinal Luis Tagle

The bromancer got deep into his Conclave weeds, and again he's as revealing about himself as he is about the machinations of the church ...

Neither extreme outcome is likely. A revolutionary on the left would lose the conservative Africans, where the church is on fire. An arch reactionary would lose the ultra-liberal Germans, who were on the point of formal schism even under Francis. No pope wants to be the man who blew up the church.
The most liberal parts of Catholicism are European. Perhaps one of the Italians could emerge as a revolutionary liberal. There are numerous candidates for moderate liberal. One is Filipino Cardinal Luis Tagle. He was a Francis favourite but didn’t do particularly well running a Vatican department. Nonetheless, he’s a contender, though at 67 he could be pope for 25 years and cardinals are these days cautious about long reigns.
A centrist who would just keep the show running would be the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, 70. He’s the ultimate insider, the ultimate bureaucratic master. However, he’s associated with the unpopular deal with Beijing, with shocking property speculations in London, and was an obstacle to Pell’s reforms. Nonetheless, he would be orderly and predictable.
Another centrist might be Cardinal Peter Turkson, 76, from Ghana. He’s the most liberal of the potential Africans but more conservative than Francis. He’d have the African frisson and it would be hard for even the Germans to defy a black pope. He is media savvy and charismatic.
The moderate conservative from central casting is Cardinal Erdo, 72. He was said to be Pell’s choice. Pell was a huge critic of the way Francis ran the papacy. Pell had a regard for Francis personally but thought the muddle and disorder he brought to leadership too high a price to pay.

Then came the final two snaps ... Cardinal Peter Turkson, Cardinal Robert Sarah

What a relief ... finally the end of it all ...

Erdo almost never disagreed with Francis publicly, but in all church bodies he argued for clarity of doctrine, faithfulness to divine revelation, combined with warm pastoral care. He’s a sophisticated, smooth conservative who could probably keep all but the most extreme liberals on board.
For years I tried unsuccessfully to get an interview with him. His reluctance to do any media while Francis was pope probably enhanced his chances.
The most conservative possibility of all would be Cardinal Robert Sarah from Guinea. At 79, he just squeaks into eligibility. He’s dynamic, profound and deeply, deeply conservative.
Catholics once thought the Holy Spirit chose the pope. Not so, Benedict taught. It’s just the cardinals, but they sure could do with the Spirit’s help.

Instead of a helping spirit, perhaps a relieving 'toon?

Nah, with the greatest respect to Luckovich, it'll take more than a 'toon to sell a full 11 minutes - according to reptile timing - of "Ned's" Everest natter, featuring that wretched gif that moved through each stage with a laboriousness only the hopeless reptile graphics department could devise ...

The header: Warrior turned pragmatist: Anthony Albanese’s ‘hinge of history’ moment,Determined not to repeat the mistakes of the US Democrats, Anthony Albanese wants to govern for all of middle Australia.

That mysterious injunction: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

No point lolling about in a sleeping bad at first base, time to start the "Ned" Everest climb...

Anthony Albanese never had a sense of a future destiny as prime minister. He has always been underestimated by opponents and Labor colleagues. Now he approaches a hinge of history moment – the chance to become a substantial and long-serving Labor prime minister. Few would have believed it. Many still don’t.
On the campaign trail Albanese looks relaxed, fresh and confident. He is a natural campaigner, mixes easily, knows his lines, doesn’t fall into the embarrassing blunders of his first campaign as leader in 2022 and projects an authority as Prime Minister.
This election has three potential outcomes for Albanese: termination in defeat; diminished but surviving in minority government; or the result long seen as improbable – re-election as a majority PM, becoming only the third ALP prime minister to win consecutive elections after Gough Whitlam in 1974 and Bob Hawke in 1984.
But Albanese never thought this result improbable. He told the author in late 2024 that he believed he would win majority again. That was his message in his exclusive interview this week with Dennis Shanahan and me on his plane en route to the west.

It almost reads as if "Ned" was writing off the Duttonator, and so the reptiles slipped in a couple of visual reference points, Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke.

Again the pond has nothing to say, nothing to add, no astonishing insights and some might ask why, and the pond can only answer that it's Saturday, it's "Ned", and the Everest climb is a weekend challenge best done early ... so the rest of the weekend can be spent recovering ...

Albanese is no policy maestro but he is an instinctive, experienced, political tactician. He has never been a star, an orator or a Rhodes scholar. Australia’s professional and academic classes, left or right, patronise him – reflecting their class snobbery. They denigrate him for matching neither their success nor intellectual distinctions. Indeed, compared with Whitlam, Hawke, even Kevin Rudd, he falls in the shadows. Don’t look for charisma, it’s not there. Most Labor people never saw him as a future leader and some still struggle to accept him.
But that’s OK by Albanese. He has made being underestimated into an art form that is now a political asset. He keeps proving the sceptics wrong. He became leader in 2019, won in 2022 and has performed a polling turnaround in the past month pointing to victory.
He tells Inquirer: “My government is the most stable first-term government that there has been in at least 50 years, more stable than the first terms of Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Howard, Rudd, Abbott etc, no scandals, no ministerial resignations. Order – we’ve done what we said we would do.”

The reptiles followed with a snap where the caption mistakenly used a capital "V" for Voice, that being a form of reptile heresy, Albanese with prominent lawyer and Indigenous leader Noel Pearson at Uluru National Park before the 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

See the correct "v" usage in "Ned's" next line ...

Albanese was widely written off, post voice, with high energy prices, the inflation bogy and uninspiring government. But he backed his judgment against his opponents, calculating the public wouldn’t cancel him. Perhaps Albanese knew more about politics than his critics did.
We ask: will he serve a full term if he wins the election? You bet he will. Albanese is emphatic – in that situation he will do a full three-year term. Don’t fall for the easy response that he’ll be deposed as PM next term. That may not be easy at all. Much will depend on the election result. If he wins in a majority – still an uphill call – that will turn the orthodoxy upside down and vest Albanese with an authority he has never possessed before.
Such a result would leave the Coalition demoralised and raise the potential for a three-term ALP government.
A minority Albanese government where he suffered the loss of only a few seats would not necessarily doom his leadership given Albanese’s proven success as leader of the house in keeping alive the Gillard minority government.
Albanese tells Inquirer his aim is to reverse the trend and improve the Labor primary vote from its dismal 32.58 per cent at the 2022 election. That’s a low bar but it means there’s scope for improvement. In this quest he needs to make inroads against both the Coalition and the Greens. He believes he will.
His story is that of a warrior turned pragmatist. Albanese doesn’t deal in philosophical discourse, but he has a powerful sense of a political strategy – it’s about government intervention and state power to help the working class and blue-collars, and it’s about the universality of social benefits to help the aspiring middle class.
It’s old-fashioned policy where everything is reconciled by the politics.

Then came two huge snaps in a row, a visual feast after "Ned's" turgid, old fashioned scribbling, Anthony Albanese attends the Australian War Memorial in Canberra for the Anzac Day dawn service with partner Jodie Haydon. Picture: Jason Edwards / NewsWire, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and wife Kirilly Dutton at Samford RSL Sub Branch memorial in Mr Dutton’s electorate of Dickson. Picture: Richard Dobson / Newswire

"Ned" then got on to the cantaloupe Caligula issue, though naturally there'd be no mention of Faux Noise and their wild-eyed support for the emperor ...

He is deeply influenced by the failure of the Democratic Party across many years to repair the plight of Middle America, thereby opening the door to Donald Trump. His message: this won’t happen in Australia. In a short time he has recast the Trump factor to his advantage at the election, helped immeasurably by Trump.
Initially assailed for not visiting Washington to meet the President and for his alleged inability to deal with Trump, Albanese stands as a national interest leader repudiating Trump’s tariffs but willing to work with our main ally.
In the interview he has a message for Trump – don’t try to dictate to Australia. Asked about any US pressure for allies to spend 3 per cent of GDP on defence, Albanese says the nation’s “sovereign interest” would govern his response. He says: “We have been good allies, loyal allies and good partners, and I expect us to be treated with respect, including by the Trump administration.” He has another message for the US – don’t think you can dictate Australia’s trade policy.

Another snap, At a Brisbane rally where Albanese hit out at Donald Trump, Peter Dutton, and DOGE-style labour cuts. Picture: Jason Edwards / NewsWire

"Ned" is at his most typical regurgitating the thoughts of others, and so there was much regurgitation ...

Asked about signals that the Trump administration may want its friends to support its trade war on China by also taking restrictive actions against Beijing, Albanese says: “China is the largest destination for our exports. Almost a quarter of our exports are going to one destination.
“When there were trade impediments from China on Australian exports in an area like beef, the US didn’t hesitate to fill that gap by sending more beef to China. Australia must represent our own national interest at a time when the US is, without any provocation or cause, imposing tariffs unjustly on Australia.
“It would be extraordinary if the Australian response was to say: ‘Thank you, and we will help to further hurt our economy.’ ”

Realising only hard core herpetologists would hand in there, the reptiles began flinging in AV distractions, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he has invited US President Donald Trump to Australia despite tense trade negotiations between Canberra and Washington DC. The Opposition has questioned the Prime Minister's relationship with the US President over an inability to secure exemptions on steel and aluminium tariffs. Anthony Albanese responded to criticism that he has not visited Washington DC since Donald Trump was elected. The Prime Minister has flagged that Australia will likely host the Quad meeting next year, which America's Commander-in-Chief usually attends.

Who knows if King Donald will grace us with his presence? Carry on "Nedding" ...

Albanese was ready when the US imposed its standard 10 per cent tariff on Australia, saying it was “not the act of a friend”. In the interview he says Rudd got “very close” to winning an exemption for Australia. In their earlier discussion, Albanese said Trump had been “constructive” and he would be pursuing the trade issue if re-elected.
Will a meeting with Trump be a priority? “I’ll go soon, but we’re not getting ahead of ourselves,” he replies.
On defence, Albanese is flexible. His pragmatism kicks in when asked about Peter Dutton’s path-breaking step – 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence by five years and 3 per cent by 10 years.
“If we need assets, we will invest in it,” he says. Pressed on whether he will act on any need to increase the defence budget, Albanese says: “Yes.” But if Labor invests more it won’t be based on a “magic number” but on “the assets that we need”.

It was about time for the Duttonator, and what better way than a celebration of his splendid defence policies, delivered early and with impeccable detail, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has elaborated on the Coalition's defence policy and announced a spending boost as he faced several questions on the matter while campaigning in Perth. Mr Dutton spoke to reporters after announcing his commitment to increase defence spending by $21 billion over the next five years.

Please, the pond needs a little irony to make it to the end ...

He is forced on to the defensive here, rightly so. Labor’s defence spending – to reach 2.3 per cent of GDP in a decade – is dangerously inadequate. Why didn’t Dutton release his policy months earlier to get traction on defence as a Coalition issue?
“Australia is clearly going to have to step up in the region,” Albanese says, referring to Trump’s disruptions. He will reach out to Japan, South Korea, Association of Southeast Asian Nations partners and Pacific nations. Albanese says there are regional concerns about Trump’s policies on tariffs, climate and cutting the aid budget. Everyone knows the consequences. “Any gaps which are in the region, China will seek to fill,” he says.
Albanese doesn’t want to introduce new factors into an election campaign he thinks he is winning. Yet it is a low-grade campaign, marked by lies and negative assaults. Once an ideological activist, as Prime Minister he is a hip-pocket gradualist, using the budget to pacify myriad interest groups and voting constituencies.
“We’ve dealt with the pressures,” he says. “We have a good record. We’ve got more to do going forward and the people to do it as well.” Many people will scoff at these claims. But Albanese knew support for his government was always a function of the lack of support for the Coalition.
He travels the country relentlessly, saying he has made 32 trips to Western Australia since the last election – the pivotal state that delivered him office in 2022 – and has visited every seat in the West. He is confident the West will hold for Labor next weekend.

For some obscure reason, both Albo and Frank made it into the next snaps, Albanese prioritises stability, no shocks, no dramas. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman, Pope Francis’s support for social justice impressed the PM, who is no wordsmith but he relates to people and is re-practising the Catholic faith. Picture: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

"Ned" proceeded on in his usual way, devoid of glamour and excitement ...

His career is devoid of glamour and excitement. For much of the Rudd-Gillard period, he was infrastructure and transport minister, with local government thrown in. When you talk to Albanese it’s a seat-by-seat account, he knows the country, knows the candidates and knows the local campaign is more vital than ever.
The public sees his policy weakness and lack of inspiration but misses his political skill and cunning. He’s no wordsmith but he relates to people. If he wins this election, then “Albo” becomes part of the furniture, the political uncle people don’t much like but aren’t prepared to throw out of the house.
Albanese prioritises stability, no shocks, no dramas. Apart from his support of the voice, Albanese is a conventional, almost an old-fashioned Labor PM, elected to parliament at the 1996 election and re-elected nine times, the party and the parliament are in his blood.
Through the years he has changed and modified some of his old ideological mantras. He champions nuclear-powered submarines; he believes in free trade; he is re-practising the Catholic faith. Indeed, affected by the death of Pope Francis, Albanese says: “I read many of his speeches. I think he is one of the most consequential figures of the century.” He was attracted by the Pope’s support for social justice.

Then came an AV distraction, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has condemned the hecklers who disrupted the Welcome to Country while it was being performed in Melbourne and Perth during Anzac Day dawn services. “The disruption of Anzac Day is beyond contempt,” Mr Albanese said during an address on Friday.

By this time the pond was shrieking "enough already" and thinking it might become one of those bodies lying in the snow who never made it to the end in their Everest climb, but somehow found the strength to suck oxygen into lungs and press on ...

Albanese will always be a marginal proposition, but the days of great leaders are behind us. Unlike his predecessor, Bill Shorten, for most of his time in parliament Albanese was not seen as a future leader. It was the 2013 election defeat that changed his life. Albanese entered the leadership contest with Shorten, lost, but staked his claim. After Shorten was defeated at the 2019 election, Albanese became leader unopposed.
He inherited a party that was devastated and angry at defeat – and far from convinced Albanese was the answer. By the middle of the last term, there was unrest about Albanese as leader, lots sceptical that he would prevail. In many ways the future of the Labor Party depended on winning in 2022, thereby avoiding a fourth successive loss. Albanese got there – just. He fell over the line. He made Scott Morrison the issue and led Labor into a small-target strategy. It worked. Ever since, the media has puzzled: what does Albanese PM stand for?
He doesn’t talk socialism any more, or protectionism, or Hawke-Keating reformism, or say much about the Rudd-Gillard era, let alone his early years as a left activist and rabble rouser. But Albanese has fashioned a different pragmatic strategy for Labor circa 2025. It is captured in his mantra “no one held back, no one left behind”. This is the Australia Albanese seeks; it is his operating guide book. He sees it as a fusion of compassion and aspiration.
Albanese says: “A modern Labor constituency is working people who are in unions, sole traders and people working for themselves.”
He must deliver this more broadbased political approach to lift Labor’s base vote. But can he pull off such a daunting task? It’s doubtful, perhaps only with a weak Liberal Party.

Can the pond pull off the daunting task of getting to the end? The task wasn't helped by the constant interrupting snaps, Former US president Joe Biden meets with Albanese at his home in Delaware on September 20, 2024., Donald Trump returned in triumph to the presidency at the age of 78. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

More regurgitation followed:

He is deeply fixated on where Joe Biden and the Democrats went wrong. The Trumpian electoral success is embedded in Albanese’s brain as the essential contemporary lesson for Australia. “We cannot go down that polarisation road that you are seeing in the US,” he says. “The alienation of the blue-collar working-class voter from the Democratic Party is something that is a warning for centre-left and social democratic parties.”
He wants government intervention and industrial relations laws to buttress working-class jobs and wages, while he is using the budget to deliver social benefits on the principle of universality to reach a wider middle-class constituency.
For Albanese, all policy contradictions are resolved by political necessity. He champions both the industrial sector and the clean energy economy.
Invoking the blue-collar class, he says: “That’s what the Future Made in Australia agenda is about. That’s why the visit to Whyalla with the steelworks, to Tomago for aluminium.” Ensuring the workers are not left behind is his justification for the industrial relations changes. For Albanese, “same job, same pay” laws are about guaranteeing that Australia “cannot go down that polarisation road that you are seeking in the US”.

At last the penultimate AV distraction, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the Labor government will “not compromise” on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. “My government will not negotiate or compromise on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme,” Mr Albanese said during a media conference on Thursday. “This is a part of Australian values just like Medicare and that’s why we’ve made it very clear that this isn’t up for grabs … because it is a part of who we are. “It’s a proud Labor creation … it’s one of the things that make us the best country on the planet.”

At last the penultimate gobbet ...

He widens the lens, pointing out that energy bill relief goes to everyone; seeks to strengthen the universality of Medicare; justifies childcare support for people earning up to $530,000 because “universality as a principle is important in garnering broad support for the reforms that are needed”. Sure, but it’s really about unpinning voting support for Labor further up the income scale and locking in the backing of tertiary-educated women.
Asked whether he wanted to represent a miner earning $200,000 Albanese said: “Absolutely, because they deserve to be represented, and they work hard and they have a family that they need to look after.” This answer contrasts with Bill Shorten during the 2019 campaign when confronted by a miner on $200,000 plus who asked what Shorten would do for him – with Shorten having to duck the question.
In essence, Albanese is far removed from the Hawke-Keating age. Labor could almost be another party. There’s no will to tighten the budget, reform much of the non-market government sector, promote genuine tax reform as opposed to relying on personal income tax “bracket creep” to finance bigger government. He has undermined the Keating enterprise bargaining model; he talks about the need for productivity while his policies have little hope of delivering such productivity.

And so to the final AV distraction ... As the 2025 Australian Federal Election inches closer, take a look back at some of the wildest, viral moments that have transpired on the campaign trail, everything from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton going head to head for the top job while falling foul of human mistakes, while enjoying the chaos of other parties such as the Greens, Teals and Trumpet of Patriots voicing their opinions loudly and sometimes in theatrical fashion.

The wildest viral moments? An unhinged Aussie election trail? 

Sorry the pond must have been deeply asleep for the duration. The pond had done its best to ignore the reptiles in election mode, at least until this fatal "Ned" Everest climb, but at last the climb is nearly done ...

This penetrates to the ultimate fate of the Albanese government: its entire legitimacy hinges on restoration of living standards, real wages, non-inflationary economic growth, higher productivity and a vibrant market economy – but if the policy structure doesn’t deliver these outcomes, then Labor will be judged a failure.
Albanese’s re-election pitch is astonishing – it’s more of the same. Any second Albanese government will resemble and build on the first. Most of the senior ministers will keep the same portfolios. Given the polls for 18 months have shown voters hostile or disillusioned towards Albanese and his government, that strategy is a calculated risk. Yet it seems to be working.
Albanese doesn’t say this but his strategy seems to be working because the Dutton-led Coalition misjudged the nation.
He is no tough-love Prime Minister. He sees himself as a fair man – but if you cross him, then you will pay. He gives his ministers a wide discretion but is always ready to intervene when needed – just ask Tanya Plibersek.
He says “what keeps me completely grounded” is thinking “what would my mum think” from her life as a Labor loyalist imbued with working-class concerns. That’s true. He never forgets his mum and he carries his past with him. But Albanese has travelled a long way from his origins and is proud of constantly proving his detractors wrong, yet again.
The question remains: how long can he keep doing it?

The pond has only one question. How long can "Ned" keep doing it, boring the hive mind shitless? There is no answer, only a relieving 'toon ...

Congratulations to the few valiant herpetologists who made it to the bitter end, and so to a few snaps of Tamworth, the reason for the pond's Ēostre pilgrimage. 

Luckily after the bromancer and "Ned", few will see them ...

There was the post office, where the pond's family once worked ... with the clock still gonging out the half hour and the hour ...

There was an arts trail, taking visitors deeply into the country cult...

And there were figures in the main drag, which at least distracted the pond from the P platers on grunt patrol in ancient petrol head vehicles ...

There were plaques for those who didn't have a clue about the cult ...