In which the pond turns domestic for a meditative Sunday with prattling Polonius, the Ughmann and much dog bothering ...

 

Observed in Richmond ... 

Angels on the wing, a sign of the need for a change of pace ...

Or perhaps it was the centrepiece cap, no sign of red or MAGA, just d'art ...

It's been a rough week, and it left Bill Kristol last week sighing in The Pause That Failed to Refresh ...

More than a week after Trump’s tariffs announcement and just a couple of days after his partial retreat, we’re in bad shape.
The tariffs that remain are still high, and will prove both inflationary and recessionary here at home. And the 90-day pause in the original tariffs isn’t going to help much, if at all. As French president Emmanuel Macron pointed out, “this pause of 90 days is 90 days of uncertainty for our enterprises on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.”
I’m not used to a president of France having a better understanding of the preconditions for sound business investment and sustained economic growth than a president of the United States. But in the age of Trump, here we are.
I’m also not used to the president of the People’s Republic of China being able with a straight face to lecture the United States on the importance of an international rules-based order. But that’s what President Xi Jinping was doing today in Beijing. He told the visiting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez that China and the European Union should “jointly oppose unilateral acts of bullying,” and uphold “the global rules-based order.”
It’s a sign of the wreckage created by Trump’s overall foreign policy that Xi can claim to be upholding the rules-based order against the United States—and that our own allies don’t simply react with laughter and scorn. The Europeans had, in recent years, become far more skeptical of China. Trump’s policies are reversing that welcome development...

And so on, but the angels had given their sign, and so the pond dug deep into the reptile treasures to find Polonius reviving the old school funding debate with his prattle ...

There must be a reason parents send kids to private schools, The new boss NSW’s education department has publicly wondered whether private schools should exist at all. There are tens of thousands of parents who could enlighten him on this subject.

Perhaps it was the sight of Albo that set Polonius off,  Anthony Albanese visits his old school, St Mary's Cathedral College in Sydney. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

The pond appreciates that others might prefer the Papish religion JD style, per WaPo (archive link).

....Vice President JD Vance, a Republican, has launched his current career as the nation’s most prominent elected Catholic in a very different way. In less than three months, Vance has made a string of unusual forays into the fraught borderland between religion and politics, castigating the hierarchy of his own church and defending President Donald Trump’s “America First” nationalism through appeals to ancient Christian texts.
Vance’s pronouncements have divided his co-religionists and inflamed long-smoldering divisions within the church. In February, Pope Francis issued a remarkable letter to U.S. bishops that included a rebuke of Vance’s public theologizing. But the vice president has equally staunch defenders among conservative American Catholics who have repeatedly criticized the current papacy.

And so on, but here we are, and as his piece allows Polonius to rant at the ABC, state Labor, vile secularists and so on, it was a perfect Polonial storm, and perfect for a Sunday meditation ...

It was ABC TV Australian Story’s big story of the year – though it did not make it to air.
Independent or non-government schools have been in operation in Australia since the late 19th century. Initially they were primarily Catholic institutions with a few schools run by other Christian denominations.
In recent years independent schools have consisted of high-fee institutions along with relatively low-fees schools including the Catholic systemic system. The various religious institutions involve essentially the Christian, Islamic and Jewish faiths.
In view of how embedded faith-based schools are in the Australian education system, it came as some surprise when, on Monday morning this week, the ABC News website previewed the appearance on Australian Story of Murat Dizdar, the recently appointed secretary of the NSW Department of Education.
Following the victory of Chris Minns’s NSW Labor government in March 2023, Dizdar replaced public servant Georgina Harrisson in this position. Previously Dizdar had been deputy to Harrisson. It is understood that Dizdar’s promotion was strongly supported by the NSW Teachers Federation, one of Australia’s most powerful trade unions.
On Monday morning, ABC News online reported that Dizdar publicly wondered whether private schools should exist at all. He was quoted as saying: “I’m not sure that when you look at the facts around the globe, you need that provision. We’ve had countries across the world that have been successful on their educational path with one provision, and that’s been a public provision. It needs to be debated and discussed.”
Little wonder that these remarks were quickly noted. Dizdar, a former schoolteacher who rose to become one of the most influential bureaucrats in Australia, was challenging the existence of the non-government segment.
There was an immediate push back from Catholic Schools NSW, the Association of Independent Schools of NSW and the National Catholic Education Commission. Dizdar soon divorced himself from his own statement, declaring: “I recognise and value the important role the Catholic and independent schools play in our education system in NSW, now and into the future … My comments on Australian Story regarding public provisions were not intended to disrespect the good work of my colleagues in other sectors.”
As it turned out, Dizdar’s comments on private schools did not make it to air. It was as if the comment had never been made. Odd, indeed, since on Monday morning the ABC had plugged Dizdar’s view to advertise the program.
Australian Story, presented by Leigh Sales, is invariably a soft occasion. There are some exceptions; for example, when Coalition senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was profiled on February 10. But it was back to normal on Monday as Dizdar’s highly successful career was covered from a humble beginning as a child of non-English-speaking migrants to his current position.

The reptiles slipped in a snap of Polonius's chief villain,  or is it hero, Murat Dizdar, a former schoolteacher who rose to become Secretary of the NSW Department of Education, was educated in public schools and has now questioned the value of them. Picture: Simon Bullard.

Of course there are huge benefits to an Xian education ... not least the chance to be trained in the ways of being an Xian snitch ... per Politico (archive link)

Back to Polonius getting agitated about the benefits of a Catholic education (disclaimer: though rapped on the knuckles and slapped in the moosh by Dominican nuns, the pond isn't bitter):

Much was made of Dizdar’s education in the government system. However, early in the program he conceded that government schools were in trouble, stating: “There’s an enormous challenge before us; unfortunately, we’ve dropped about 25,000 enrolments across the last three years and I’m determined to win every one of them back.”
Fair enough. Dizdar is an example of one of the NSW government school system’s successes. He told Australian Story he was passionate about public education and added: “We have a track record that stretches 176 years of taking the working class and producing outstanding people across all walks of society, and I think that’s pretty special and Australia should protect that.”
Well, it’s impressive to be sure. But not that special.
This is precisely what the Catholic systemic school system did from the late 19th century on. Due to primarily heroic religious sisters and brothers who devoted their lives to educating mainly children of working-class and lower-income-earning Catholics.
Like Anthony Albanese, Dizdar was brought up in public housing. He was educated at Summer Hill Public School and at the selective Fort Street High School.

At this point the reptiles decided to drag in the Duttonator with an AV distraction, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says the Coalition supports increased funding for public and private schools. “Parents have a choice to make, and whether that is for the public system or for the private system, we have supported both, and we support increased funding,” Mr Dutton said. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton faced off in the first debate of the federal election campaign in the Sky News/Daily Telegraph People’s Forum.

What an unfortunate reminder of the ways that the reptiles had to whine about the way that the reptiles had stacked the audience, but Polonius pressed on, confident that Tykes R Us was a brand that would never die ... 

The Prime Minister, on the other hand, was educated at St Mary’s Cathedral School, which was run by the Christian Brothers religious order. Two working-class boys who made it due to their education at government and independent schools, respectively.
What was missing from Dizdar’s story, as told to Australian Story, was any analysis why the NSW Department of Education has dropped 25,000 student enrolments in a mere three years. Especially since Australia was experiencing severe cost-of-living pressures during this time.
Australian Story was very supportive of government schools. So much so that it did not attempt to address why many parents elect to pay fees in the private school system that do not exist in the public system. Whatever the reason, it is evident that parents and grandparents of children in the private school system – from the rich to those on medium incomes – believe they are getting value for money.
This is despite the expectation of some in the recent past that the crimes of child sexual abuse in religious schools – primarily Catholic and other Christian schools that were revealed in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – would lead to a drop in demand.
Peter McClellan KC, who chaired the royal commission, has challenged my view that his commissioners did not inquire into any existing government school with respect to pedophilia (as distinct from sexual assaults of children by other children). But this statement of mine is correct. I wrote to McClellan about this on July 12, 2023, but he did not reply.
To be fair, the body set up by the Coalition government in Victoria specifically required that its inquiry was not to cover government organisations. In Victoria, this matter was not officially addressed until 2023. This has yet to occur in NSW and some other states.
In any event, non-government schools, including Christian ones, tend to be popular. The government system has its supporters, as does its non-government equivalent. That’s why NSW Premier Minns and NSW Education Minister Prue Car have distanced themselves from what Dizdar told Australian Story before it was dropped from his story.
After all, the demise of independent schools would put more pressure on government budgets.

Having set the switch to domestic, it was time to forget that other track ...

Instead the pond would ride the Ughmann rollercoaster of despair ...

What hope in world of plunging trust, The big parties are exhausted. Their membership has collapsed. But the worst of it is they have lost the trust of a large part of the population and that will be hard to recover.

The reptiles immediately began with a snap, Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton ahead of their TV debate during the week. The collapse of faith in the traditional parties of government and the rise of independents is a defining symptom of a loss of trust. Picture: Jason Edwards/AP

The Ughmann is of course following a recent, preferred reptile strategy of a "pox on both their houses", with the hint that a pox on the Duttonator's house needn't be a full-on pox ...

It's a tricky strategy, as even the harassing Hartcher in that other place was inclined to a full-on pox ...

How could the Ughmann steer a course through these troubled waters? 

What with anyone prepared to trust Faux Noise, or the local reptiles, clearly a mug punter, an idiot or a fool ...

Trust is the most valuable commodity, even more enduring than gold. We all know this instinctively because we trade in it every day.
You know who you can trust. You invest your time, your confidence and your secrets in them. Trust is profoundly personal. Its betrayal cuts deep and when inflicted it’s a spiritual wound. Once trust is lost, it’s the hardest treasure to recover.
But trust is not only the glue of human relationships, it also is the bedrock of society. A community cannot function without it. Every day we rely on strangers to follow unspoken rules: to obey the law, to act decently, to do the right thing when nobody’s watching.
This trust extends through the human supply chain from homes, to streets, suburbs, cities and nations. It runs through all the veins of community and commerce. Our economy is not just a spreadsheet, it is a moral project: a living network of human exchange.
We trust that strangers in businesses will act in good faith when we pay for a service. That anonymous employees in banks will keep our money secure. That governments will back the value of our currency. That the rules won’t change without warning.
Value itself is simply a measure of trust. We build our lives on this foundation.
I had a visceral sense of the ruin a widespread loss of trust might bring during the global financial crisis. As markets tumbled and banks collapsed I called one of Australia’s most eminent economists and asked what was the greatest threat to our nation.
“A loss of confidence,” he said.
Lose trust in the financial system and economies are brought to their knees.
Trust is also the currency of politics and the deep story of recent elections is the collapse of faith in the traditional parties of government and the rise of third parties and independents.

Of course it's likely all the fault of womyn, so cue a snap of those wretched indie womyn, Eight female independents are sworn in together at the opening of parliament after the 2022 elections. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Damn you impudent hussies, ruining everything, as the Ughmann continued his meditation ...

For all of Australia’s post-war political history, federal elections have been a contest between two great blocs: the Australian Labor Party and the Coalition of Liberals and Nationals. For decades these parties commanded more than 80 per cent of the primary vote.
A slow walk away from the old order emerged at the end of the 20th century, when the anyone-but-them vote first hit double figures. That walk hit a jog in 2013 and turned into a sprint in 2022.
At the 2022 federal election the primary vote split into thirds for the first time in our history. The Coalition (35.7 per cent) and the ALP (32.6 per cent) both shared the ignominy of hitting historical low-water marks while the combined vote for all others jumped to 31.7 per cent.
The left flank of the major parties has sheared off in shades of green and teal. On the right, One Nation and whatever party billionaire political hobbyist Clive Palmer invents rarely deliver lower house seats but do drain blood from the majors.

As for the next AV distraction, words fail the pond. 

In what known universe should we be seeing such a formless shape, and yet here we are ...A group of independent MPs known as the Teals are reshaping Australian politics, campaigning on climate action, integrity, and political reform. As the possibility of a hung parliament looms, these crossbenchers could hold the balance of power and play a crucial role in determining who forms government.

Could the reptiles top that wretched image? Hold your horses, they could, right after this gobbet ...

Since 2007, 10 percentage points have been stripped from the baseline support of Labor and the Coalition but our system of allocating preferences has disguised this enormous fall from grace. Despite Labor enjoying the comfort of the government benches, its primary vote trend should terrify the party’s hardheads, while the Coalition is staring at a future in opposition if it can’t lift its share back into the 40s.
Forming a government has become harder, with the majors now scrapping for seats on either side of a growing crossbench bloc. A uniform swing of just 1 per cent would cost Labor its majority. But the Coalition would need a swing of about 3.5 per cent to be in a position to bargain for power, and more than 5 per cent to win government in its own right. This is why the prospect of a Labor minority government has always been the safest bet.
The big parties are exhausted. Their membership has collapsed. But the worst of it is they have lost the trust of a large part of the population and that will be hard to recover.

Here it came, a truly wretched image, a female form with blurred gesticulating hands and a caption, Politcal (sic) reporter Sarah Ison answers your question ahead of election day. So what is a minority Government, and what does it mean for the party in power?

Together those images represented a new low in visuals for the reptiles, and if that's the new normal, the pond is unlikely to adjust or to trust their ability to get anything right ...

This may be the new normal and Australia will adjust. That adjustment may be a run of minority governments and, if that’s what the population wants, then to borrow from Labor giant Bob Hawke, the voters usually get it right.
But this may be a good election to lose if the winner has to govern with a minority in the lower house and a Senate that pushes even harder left.
Tough choices will be forced on whomever forms the next government and that will involve higher defence spending and decisions on energy that the Greens and teals will viscerally oppose. Should chaos ensue, then election 2027 may spell a hard end to the rise of third parties and the government will fall with them.

At this point, the reptiles turned to the fly in the ointment, President Donald Trump speaks at a cabinet meeting during the week. Picture: pool via AP

The pond could match that with a Rowson ...

It turned out that the Ughmann was yet another down under reptile completely unaware of the diligent work being done by the kissing cousins at Faux Foise ...

The world will force those hard choices on us because the US is now burning through its reserves of trust like fire through dry grass. President Donald Trump does not appear to understand that he is gambling with the reputation of the US as he treats other nations like chumps at a casino where he owns the house.
The insult isn’t just in the policy, it’s in the posture. In the shrug, the smirk, the slight, the assumption that the rest of the world is irrelevant, weak or stupid. Trump is deferential to dictators and openly dismissive of allies. He treats democracies with disdain and autocrats with awe. “I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up kissing my ass,” Trump said at a dinner with fellow Republicans on Tuesday night in Washington.
A wise leader would have sought to make his allies part of the project. He could have enlisted them to shore up supply chains, reinforce the democratic world and help build something new from the bones of the old order. Instead, nations are ridiculed, conventions are demolished and America’s reputation is trashed.
Consider what is being lost.

The pond wasn't sure what was being lost, it's all good, isn't it? 

Trust Faux Noise, trust the reptiles? Sure can ...

The down under reptiles preferred to slip in a snap of strange bedfellows, Delegation of South Korea, centre, China and Japan, left, attend the 13th trilateral economic and trade ministers' meeting to discuss economic co-operation in Seoul on March 30. Picture: Lee Jung-hoon/Yonhap via AP

That set the Ughmann off again ...

If one of the aims of this tariff war is to bring Beijing to heel, then mark this: a fortnight ago trade ministers from Japan and South Korea met China’s trade minister for the first time in five years and declared they would “closely co-operate” in talks on a three-party free-trade agreement. So US allies are now finding common cause with its chief adversary. Brilliant.
Economists are modelling the damage that may flow to Australia from a 10 per cent tariff and some seem pretty sanguine. But you can’t model trust. And there are a couple of financial anchors to watch for signs of a run on trust. The first is US Treasury bonds.
For decades, US Treasury bonds have been the cornerstone of the global financial system, the asset of last resort, backed not only by America’s economy but also by its perceived stability and rule of law. Yields on those bonds are now rising, not only because of inflation fears or deficits but also because investors are starting to price in political risk.
In finance the gold standard of trust is physical gold. Countries still hold it as insurance against a crisis. Today Germany still has 1200 tonnes, or about a third of its gold, stored in the vaults of the New York Federal Reserve in Manhattan. At current prices, the US-held gold would be valued at more than €100bn ($182.5bn). In Berlin, there are calls for it to be repatriated because of a growing concern that the US is no longer a reliable partner.

At this point the reptiles slipped in a snap of stupefying banality, accompanied by a caption of mindless materialism, The gold standard of trust is physical gold.

To think that we've reached a point where a former seminarian would propose The gold standard of trust is physical gold, and yet here we are ... 

The New York vaults have 6331 metric tonnes of gold stored on behalf of central banks from 36 foreign nations. This makes it one of the largest repositories of monetary gold in the world.
There are longstanding concerns about whether the gold held in major custodial vaults such as the New York Fed or the Bank of England actually exists in full, is unencumbered and could be delivered if demanded.
What if China starts dumping its billions in US Treasury bonds? What if every country with gold in America’s vaults demands it be delivered? And what if it couldn’t be? What happens in a worldwide bonfire of trust?

Relax dude, we'll always have the rapture, and an eternity in heaven, mucho pie in the sky, as preached by Polonius's preferred instructors, admittedly accompanied by a lifetime of guilt and disappointment.

If only the Ughmann had caught a glimpse of the mirror the pond has been holding up these last few days, so that he might better understand the causes of his discontent and his lack of trust. The calls are coming from inside the reptile house of horrors ...

And so to the dog botherer, more as a formality, a way of completing coverage, than for anything new on offer ...

Reptile devotees will be delighted at the way the graphics department managed to situate the Duttonator in an aura, a halo, so tacky it might have been better if they'd limited it to an ECU of waving hands ...

For those not up to the small print, the reptiles clocked it as a six minute read under the header Clarion call for Dutton to rally a nation in peril, If we’ve learned anything, it’s bad governments do not improve with a second chance.

The caption was a tad weird: 10 April 2025; A photo comp of Peter Dutton with a blue and yellow background. Collage. Sources: supplied. Ratio 16:9.

It was good to know that the image was 16:9 and not in some only for snakes CinemaScope screen, or hellish, vile VistaVision format, and then came the mystical injunction, This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there.

We're there, and the pond had to pause immediately after the first sentence:

Peter Dutton is attempting to make history. As has often been noted, no first-term government has been defeated in the post-war era.*

* That asterisk isn't a typo, it's a vital caveat, though by the time many readers get to the end, they'll have completely forgotten its import.

On with the botherer, doggedly doing his thing ...

Still, by way of paradox, we need to understand that Anthony Albanese it trying to make history, too. Our politics has become so febrile that no party leader has won two elections in a row since John Howard’s fourth victory 21 years ago.
Yet while Dutton’s performance at the Sky News People’s Forum this week was solid, probably kickstarting his campaign a week late, the Coalition pitch does not seem fit for purpose. The 2025 contest is coming across as a trifling popularity contest, akin to a state politics campaign with squabbles over competing giveaways, when the issues at stake are historic, consequential and grave.

Can't get too much dog botherer, and so there was an AV distraction featuring ... the dog botherer ... Sky News host Chris Kenny claims Opposition Leader Peter Dutton “really cut through” during the People’s Forum debate on the “core” cost of living issue among voters.

Oh dear another reminder of Sky News reptiles stitching up the reptile rat pack with a stacked audience, but do go on ...

The superficiality suits the Labor strategists. They want this campaign to remain muddled in discussions about Medicare entitlements, education funding and minor infrastructure projects.
Dutton needs to make a compelling case for change. He needs to reflect the urgency of the moment, the dire nature of the challenges and the dramatic changes our country must embrace.
Our security environment is bracing, with China testing our mettle, the US suddenly as erratic as its commander in chief and our defence preparedness underdone. Our economic situation is perilous with debt soon to top $1 trillion, federal government spending accounting for more than 27 per cent of our economy, our cheap energy advantage deliberately squandered and productivity declining as a global trade war erupts.
Winston Churchill was not the first to observe that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. Neither is it novel to note that democratic systems vary greatly and all have their imperfections.
It is often argued that our compulsory voting and preferential system ensure politicians must win “from the centre” rather than seek to energise their bases in the way of US politics. This is true to an extent, but it also means we have election campaigns that, by necessity, focus on the least engaged and informed voters.
This is why the People’s Forum format is so telling – it tests the leaders in front of the undecided voters who will determine the contest. Yet it also can be deflating because this showcases the narrow focus, self-interest and even ignorance that can drive some voting decisions, demonstrating how politicians must pander to those instincts or perish.

Then came another overly familiar reptile debate snap, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese debates Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on Tuesday. Picture: Getty

At this point the dog botherer began to produce one of his listicles of disaster and despair, a kind of reptile equivalent to the Catholic catechism preached by tykes ...

Unless politicians break out of these necessary confines with a bolder vision or some unpalatable truths, elections will be condemned to petty auctioneering, stunts and the endless search for campaign gaffes. To supercharge the campaign and convince people to change government in worrisome times, the onus is on Dutton to generate the sense of urgency. He needs to make the case that a re-election of the Albanese Labor government will materially damage the national interest and make life worse for most Australians.
This is not a small charge but I believe it is true and it must be made out explicitly, with evidence.
We are on a disastrous fiscal path with federal funding for health, education and the National Disability Insurance Scheme in permanent expansion despite unimpressive outcomes.
Our productivity is in decline as union power increases and the public sector and nonproductive sectors of the economy expand at taxpayers’ expense.
Our defence forces lack the naval platforms, remote control weaponry and personnel they need. Albanese has failed to stand up to China as it repeatedly and dangerously has intimidated us and he has failed to stand up for Israel or against anti-Semitism at home. Our immigration rate has outstripped our capacity to provide housing and infrastructure.

Of all the stupid charges, this surely is the most fatuous, Albanese has failed to stand up to China. Picture: Jason Edwards / NewsWire

Back to the listicle of despair ... and never mind the climate science denialist preaching chaos, as if chaos wasn't already apparent in the world ... what climate crisis story would you like?

We have given a right of veto over almost all economic development to environmental and Indigenous activists, their lawfare sometimes funded by taxpayers.
Our climate and energy policies have contributed to industries closing or moving offshore while increasing the cost of living and fuelling inflation, hurting the most vulnerable families and small businesses. This renewable energy push also has imposed heavy costs on taxpayers as they fund grants and subsidies, while it has eliminated our cheap energy advantage, acting as a disincentive for investment and an internal tariff on all our production without delivering one iota of environmental benefit (global emissions continue to rise sharply).
This week’s debate on energy was dismal, with Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen refusing even to admit that electricity prices had risen rather than fallen under his watch and failing to detail the total cost of his renewables-plus-storage model. More to the point, most of the global evidence and experience show that this model will not work, so Bowen and Labor are taking us further down the road to energy chaos.

And so to another AV distraction, and as noted before, in a dog bothering column, you can never have enough bothering of dogs, and so yet again we have ... the dog botherer on Sky Noise down under ... Sky News host Chris Kenny claims Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s National Press Club debate today shows how he “refused” to confront reality. “The nation’s energy self-harm was under the spotlight in the National Press Club debate today,” Mr Kenny said. “It was pretty extraordinary for the way the Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen simply refused to confront reality.”

If ever you wanted to understand just how tightly constricted the hive mind is, consider the nightmare of dog botherer lumped on top of dog botherer to form an indigestible stew ...

And so to the rest of the listicle ...

We have schools and universities that teach children to be ashamed of our history.
We have large licks of taxpayers’ money flowing to institutions that promote only green-left views, from the ABC to writers festivals; taxpayers even see funds earmarked for social cohesion go to groups associated with radical Muslim clerics. While Australia’s national energy self-harm is undeniable, our cultural and educational undermining may do more damage. The insidious nature of the cultural rot facilitates the economic malaise because young people do not learn what has driven our prosperity, and public debate too often is superficial, jaundiced or non-existent.
To correct the national drift, Dutton first needs to call out the problem. He needs to explain how the nation is in peril and why this election is so crucial, otherwise we will float through the campaign like so many frogs in warming water. He might like to wonder aloud how much better off the country would be if Gough Whitlam’s government had not been returned for a second term in 1974, or if the Kevin Rudd-Julia Gillard government had not been given a second chance in 2010.
Those Labor governments made plenty of mistakes in their first terms but it was the second terms when the whole caboose went off the rails. They provide salient lessons for this election.
Albanese is only just getting started; wait until you see a second term of Labor, probably sharing power with the Greens – it will be a catastrophe of unconstrained spending, union dominance and strategic weakness.

A catastrophe? The pond isn't sure that we could match the catastrophe the Faux Noise mob has helped unleash on the world ...

And so to the dog botherer closing as campaign coach and advisor, a reminder of his glorious days as the Utegate man ...

The second part of Dutton’s task is more difficult. If he is to declare the national emergency then he will need to propose substantial policy differentiation to repair it.
Unfortunately, this cannot be done overnight and so far he has done so only on energy – which is significant enough. In other areas such as tackling union power, boosting productivity, curbing government spending and properly resourcing defence, we are left to assume the Coalition will outline broad intent without being prescriptive – the regional and future generations funds are a welcome step towards fiscal repair, ensuring windfall tax receipts offset debt and fund productive infrastructure.
Dutton’s campaign launch on Sunday needs to be elevated beyond the orthodox campaign packaging we have seen to this point. It needs to be a dramatic call to action, a raising of the alarm and a plea for voters to look above and beyond the cheap salesmanship of what giveaways politicians can offer with taxpayers’ funds.
The Opposition Leader needs to call on voters to rescue the country. To pull it back from the brink of day-to-day living funded on the intergenerational credit card, unreliable and unaffordable electricity, uncontrolled immigration, expanding government, diminishing productivity, subservience to China and irrelevance to our alliance partners.
When we have a government that increasingly identifies with the nutty climate activists who glue themselves to the roads, we need an alternative that readily aligns with the people stuck in traffic wanting to get on with their lives. We need a government that will back economic development rather than make excuses for those trying to block it.
We had Whitlam’s disastrous second term 50 years ago and we got an extension of the Rudd-Gillard chaos 12 years ago. If we have learned one thing from this experience it is that bad governments do not improve with a second chance; rather, the damage they cause is compounded.

And never you mind the onion muncher, or the liar from the Shire or Malware, or come to think of it, the lying rodent himself ...

And so eventually to that footnote ...

* It is arguable that Tony Abbott defeated Labor in 2010 before former conservatives Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott rolled over for Julia Gillard.

Argue away, if you're inclined to argue with fatuous stupidity.

Instead of arguing, the pond will close by celebrating the current state of affairs with Tom the Dancing Bug ...

The pond is always helpful. Here's some help for the local reptiles so they can finally understand ...