In which the pond returns, but with "Ned" out and about, perhaps it would have been wise to stay in the bush ...

 

The pond is back, and while it would have liked a better day to return, it does have a locker of snaps and an exciting competition ...

There are some correspondents who fancy themselves as aficionados of Tamworth and district. Name the hamlet where this splendid artwork can be seen, and you could win first prize of a one month free subscription to the pond, second prize of a genuinely free six month subscription, and third prize of an eternity reading lizard Oz reptiles...

Step aside Van Gogh ...

The pond confesses to taking a sickie yesterday because it was all Frank this and Frank that ...

The bromancer led the way with a tremendous display of hypocrisy, what with the way that the reptiles at the lizard Oz over the years have denigrated Frank on a regular basis, in the manner evoked by Wilcox ...

And the reptiles missed the main angle - as everybody now knows, JD killed the Pope. One meeting with that shrivelled demon from hell, and Frank was gone ...

As for today's outing, the reptiles were back to full election mode, and selling super, which should have stuck in Dame Slap's craw, given the way she's always ready to kick the super can down the reptile road ...

What grim stuff was on offer within the super shroud, and the pond only notes a few as conversation starters ...

Revealed: Dutton’s $21bn march to a war footing
Peter Dutton will unveil his Defence plan today, pledging to pump at least $21bn more than Labor over five years, lifting military spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030 and vowing to meet the Trump administration’s 3pc target within a decade.
By Ben Packham and Greg Sheridan

Oh dear, still seeking the favour of King Donald, still on a war footing for that war with China by Xmas ...

There also came a standard slur in support of a genocidal regime currently offering pathetic excuses for war crimes ...

EXCLUSIVE
PM preferences Israel-hating radical in his own seat
Anthony Albanese and almost all of the Labor frontbench have given their second preferences to the anti-Israel Greens despite multiple accusations of anti-Semitism against them.
By Richard Ferguson, Zoe de Koning and Noah Yim

And this effort elicited a gigantic yawn from the pond ...

Analysis
Who won the leaders debate: our experts deliver their verdicts
Benson, Sheridan, Kenny, Trinca and Bramston analyse the performances of Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton in the third leaders debate of the election campaign.
By Staff writers

Why bother reading a bunch of one-eyed one-trick ponies rabbiting on about a debate the pond deliberately missed? 

If the reptiles wanted to introduce some vigour into their bias, they should adopt the style of ads on display in The Hunter River Times ...

Well played Turning Point Australia, with a splendid address in the Hunter Valley adjacent Brighton-Le-Sands...

Over on the extreme far right of the lizard Oz there was very little of interest ... unless you count the sight of simpleton "here no conflict of interest" Simon waving a white flag ...

The pond wasn't enticed by Dame Slap offering standard MAGA talking points in ...

Affirmative action the new engine of oppression in modern Australia
When a university exploits affirmative action exemptions to appoint a political activist to advance overtly political goals, it’s clear that affirmative action laws have lost their way.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

There was only so much of this guff the pond could take on its return ... and this sample will explain why ...

Organisations such as the University of Melbourne that use “special measures” to justify offering jobs for one race should be required to demonstrate publicly how they have satisfied the High Court’s indicia of acceptable special measures and the AHRC’s guidelines. How else will we know that special measures are not being exploited for political reasons? And why is the AHRC silent about its own guidelines being routinely ignored?

At that point the reptiles flung in an AV distraction featuring unlovely Rita meter maid ...

The United States Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action has caused “shockwaves" among Democrats as well as the media and academia, says Sky News host Rita Panahi. “The Supreme Court has decided that race can no longer be a factor in college admissions, it’s kind of unconstitutional they said,” Ms Panahi said.

There are more shock waves afoot in the US at the moment than affirmative action culture wars ... but Dame Slap hadn't heard the news ...

The sly permanency of racial preferences is evidence of critical rights theory being cemented into Australia by stealth. Critical rights theories, and their Australian law school derivatives devoted to “settler colonisation”, hold that race is the core lens through which “settler societies” such as Australia must be viewed. Racial inequality is no mere temporary problem that can be addressed by temporary special measures. It is, so this theory goes, a fundamental part of Australian society that can be rectified only by permanent and radical change.
This amounts to a unilateral and undemocratic rewriting of positive discrimination laws.
The same has happened with positive discrimination in favour of women under section 7D of the Sex Discrimination Act. This provision has become an open-slather justification for quotas, discriminatory hiring and other forms of discrimination, with nary an attempt to justify them in the way the AHRC guidelines require. When prominent recruiters freely admit to preparing “women only” candidate lists for clients, it’s clear law reform is needed to stop the normalisation of positive discrimination.
Its permanent entrenchment depends on a common ruse to provide a perpetual leg up for the favoured groups. This new ruse is the “ever receding shoreline” for attainment of substantial equality. Just when you thought we had achieved equality of opportunity – for example, when more women than men go to university – another indicator of inequality is discovered in the form of the bogus “gender pay gap”.
If we can’t get serious law reform, some sunlight will do. The goals of positive discrimination and the metrics to measure achievement of those goals should be defined and made public. See the dilemma? If we know these things it would be a disaster for the grievance industry. It would put a bunch of activists out of work and beneficiaries of special measures would have to secure a job on merit.

If only the tiresome old nagging harridan was put out of work ...because having bees in your bonnet isn't particularly meritorious.

That left only nattering "Ned", on a war footing, and slogging up his usual Everest for what the reptiles reckoned was an interminable five minutes ...

For those who can't be bothered clicking to read the small print:

The header: Nation faces brutal reckoning over defence decisions, One can speculate how this election may be seen in another decade or two: perhaps as an example of a profound national failure, when the challenge was manifest but neither the leaders nor the public was ready for the task.

The caption to the truly dire and dismal graphic suggesting the war with China will be on us by Xmas at the latest: “The nation's vulnerability demands a serious reassessment of its defense priorities.”

It takes some considerable reptile skill to offer "defence" and "defense" and then came that mysterious invocation, This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there.

Then it was on with "Ned" in war monger mode ...

Donald Trump has grabbed the election spotlight. The media is besotted by how the Trump effect is assisting Anthony Albanese’s vote. Yet there is complete uninterest in how President Trump is transforming the world and the profound shock this will deliver to Australian security and life.
To call this a dumb election doesn’t even begin to get the point. This is an election with global power being transformed, with wars in Europe and the Middle East, a Trump-led America ditching its past global leadership role, with China and Russia on the strategic offensive and the assumptions guiding Australia’s defence policy for the past 70 years demanding urgent reassessment.
Yet defence policy is the poor relation in this campaign. It is hardly mentioned by the politicians. It is rarely the subject of a question by the media. It is almost as though a secret agreement exists among all campaign stakeholders to suppress the defence agenda.
Perhaps defence is too dangerous a topic. It would only agitate an electorate that doesn’t want another agitation. This election is focus-group driven, and neither the focus groups nor the wider public see defence and our future security as a priority.
The juxtaposition between our shoddy complacency and our strategic challenge was highlighted last weekend when historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote in this paper: “Australia was better prepared for the outbreak of World War I in 1914 than it is now prepared for almost any kind of international war.”

Dear sweet long absent lord, good old departed Blainers lingers like a spiritual ghost, suggesting that world wars are somehow a thing, or in lieu, perhaps another Boer war or a 'Nam venture or time in Iraq or Afghanistan, with astonishing outcomes.

At this point the reptiles slipped in a snap of the mutton Dutton, just to remind everyone that this was really only part of the lizard Oz's fear campaign, Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton speaks to the media during a press conference.

It worked ... the pond was truly fearful, and if nuking the country to save the planet is getting back on track, excuse the pond while it returns to the black stump track out Coolah way ...

Okay, okay, the pond has got a few travel snaps and will be dropping them now and then... and no need to be severe on Coolah. 

Every country village has got to have an angle, even if the best they could come up with was a mythical black stump ...

Be fair, is a slide night worse than the tedium of wading through "Ned" in hand wringing mode?

But the Australian culture doesn’t want to know. The trio of negative per capita income growth, the Covid legacy and an electorate focused on government benefits, spending and cost-of-living handouts is locked into a mindset of “what the government will do for me” and “who is ripping me off” – not how the structure that has underwritten our sovereignty and prosperity in the 125 years since nationhood is being dismantled.
History defies prediction. One can speculate, however, how this election may be seen in another decade or two: perhaps as an example of a profound national failure, when the challenge was manifest but neither the leaders nor the public was ready for the task.
The Albanese government wanted an election on domestic issues. That was apparent in the March budget when it made no changes, overall, to the quantum of defence spending, a revealing call given recent events: a Chinese flotilla circumnavigating Australia; Russia chasing strategic gains on our doorstep; Trump signalling his determination to be a less reliable global ally and a more demanding senior partner; and former ALP leader Kim Beazley calling for the defence budget to increase to 3 per cent of GDP.
Labor offers no defence or strategic initiative at the election. That judgment may yet brand this government irrevocably before history. Incredibly, with voting starting on Tuesday the Coalition had yet to unveil its defence budget policy.
In his interview with this paper last week, Peter Dutton attacked as “totally inadequate” Labor’s target of 2.3 per cent of GDP in 10 years. That suggested an ambition in the Coalition policy.
That prospect has been validated to an extent. The Coalition policy released on Tuesday night promises to lift defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP within five years – that’s significantly above Labor at that time. It also pledges to reach 3 per cent of GDP within a decade. That’s distinct progress. It reveals a sharp policy break and dispute between the parties. That’s good. Can we at least discuss defence during the next 10 days and redeem a disreputable campaign?
There are two problems. The question remains: why the delay? Why didn’t the Coalition release this promise weeks or months ago? Let’s be frank: the related problem is obvious. It isn’t enough, the 3 per cent needs to be reached much faster.

The reptiles then flung in a reminder of that ancient relic haunting "Ned's" mind, Geoffrey Blainey

Time for policy wonks to blather about how World War III, or taking on China by Xmas, could be a jolly good stoush if we just had the kit ...

This goes to the dilemma of guns and butter, the perennial curse for democracies. But there is another issue. Will Trump notice? Might Trump intervene in the campaign in the final days by having something to say? That would presumably be bad news for the Coalition.
At the campaign’s inception Malcolm Turnbull convened a worthwhile one-day seminar on our strategic challenges with a range of experts putting different views. But there were three broad agreements – that Australia faced near unprecedented strategic challenges; that major increases and restructuring were essential for the defence budget ASAP; and that, to quote analyst Heather Smith, “the biggest challenge to overcome is the inability of our political class to position Australia for this new world”.
Smith’s remark penetrates to the most critical question in our political culture today: are our politicians operating as leaders or followers? Are they articulating the national interest or are they regurgitating the focus groups? The focus groups can deliver election victory but they never deliver the mettle of statesmanship.
There is a near universal agreement among participants in the defence debate – both right and left – that Australia must become more self-reliant in defence. That means both a bigger defence budget and a far better economic growth performance. Improved economic growth is not just a cost-of-living issue but an imperative in our strategic reinvention.

Time then for an AV distraction, featuring someone or other carrying on about something or other, while on Sky Noise down under ...

Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume says Australia’s defence spending has been “inadequate” in order to uphold and maintain national security. The Coalition has been telling voters Australia is living in an increasingly dangerous geopolitical time, but the party has yet to reveal its defence policy. “We want to make sure that our defence capability is substantiated, that it’s bolstered,” Ms Hume told Sky News Australia. “We are a weaker nation because of decisions that the Albanese government has made; that’s something that a Coalition government will restore.”

The trouble? Sssh, don't mention AUKUS or those subs drifting away into the sunset.

Another trouble? All the reptiles spend too much time inside the hive mind, reading and referencing each other, and yet always unaware of the excellent work done by their US kissing cousins, in Faux Noise and Murdochian publications, to help bring about the current khaotic karnival of klowns ...

Cue an obligatory reference to the bromancer, and good old Shoe and Marcus and Jennings of the fifth form ...

Brutal decisions will lie ahead. This was spelt out in the recent report, highlighted by my colleague, Greg Sheridan on Tuesday, coming from Strategic Analysis Australia with authors Marcus Hellyer, Michael Shoebridge and Peter Jennings. It begins with the reality: “America is no longer signed up to defending the global rules-based order and has little interest in helping its partners and allies to maintain a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’.”
American power isn’t “reliably available” to Taiwan, The Philippines, South Korea or Japan. But Trump’s America is far more demanding. The report says Australia “has no credible argument for continuing to devote such a low share of its national wealth to meeting our security needs”.
It says of Labor’s defence budget that Trump’s return didn’t prompt any rethink, that the current budget is still only $770m above the 2016 white paper funding line, that current stagnation “refutes any suggestion that governments have transformed defence spending”. It calls for governments to put defence spending on a rapid trajectory to 3 per cent of GDP “before being coerced into doing so” but says this demands “substantial moral courage” from governments.
The report warns the current pursuit of “interchangeability” between American and Australian military systems now “looks out of step with reality”. It says the demands of AUKUS are such that it constitutes a “fourth service” in the defence force and that its renegotiation is a “credible possibility”.

It says a lot about "Ned" that the role that News Corp and Faux Noise played in the return of the mango Mussolini didn't prompt any rethink or even a hint of regrets ... and instead all we got was a snap of the antediluvian Kim "Bomber" Beazley...

"Ned" wrapped up by deploring a disengaged Oz, without any sense that reading "Ned" would disengage anyone ...

It is a poor reflection on our political campaign in all its dimensions that, to this point, the defence issue was not on the table in a campaign often littered with trivia and shallow point-scoring. The polls at present show not just a Labor victory but a deeply disengaged public.

Strange how the reptiles have gone silent on deeply unserious trivia and shallow policy-making and other domestic matters ...

Time to put an end to this torture ...

The polls suggest the minor parties – teals, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, the Clive Palmer party and independents – may perform strongly, not because they have any answers but as testimony to disillusionment with the Coalition and Labor. Have you heard any of the crossbench candidates talk defence or the profound challenge of Australian self-reliance?
The recent Lowy Institute poll reveals a dramatic slump in our confidence about America under Trump with 64 per cent of people saying they have no trust or not very much trust in the US to “act responsibly in the world”. Eight in 10 Australians reject Trump’s tariff policy.
But Albanese has pulled off a clever tactic – he declares his trust in Trump and ability to deal with him but then undermines and discredits Dutton for being too close to Trump. Nice if you can get away with it. But this just delays and obscures the big decisions ahead.

"Ned" has of course pulled off a clever tactic ... rabbiting on about the dangers posed by King Donald I, without any regard for the way that the Murdochians have been way too close to the tyrannical dictator monarch ...and yet here we are, and in the end, all "Ned's" galumphing on offers is the chance to close with a few immortal Rowe 'toons, missed while the pond was out and about ...