In which the reptiles lose their way, and neither the bromancer nor the returning ravaging Robbster can help them find it ...

 

Tomorrow is a travel day for the pond, and the pond has arranged a placeholder in lieu of usual reptile coverage. 

The pond thinks it will satisfy the most fastidious and fussy herpetology student, featuring as it does the Emeritus Chairman as sage, prophet, seer and futurist.

In any case, the pond isn't sure of the benefits of daily coverage, as the reptiles have lost their way, in no small part because of the baleful influence of their kissing American cousins at Faux Noise, what with King Donald I, affectionately known as the Cantaloupe Caligula, routinely snatching the top headline ...

The reptiles were all set up to run with scare headlines about banned lobbyists and Labor lacking a buffer for the Klown King's Kavortings ... when the bully pulled another social media stunt, and snatched the top spot with tales of wildly swinging markets...

Over on the extreme far right, there was a sense of desolation and despair, with only the debate tonight offering some forlorn hope ...

"Snappy" Tom was extremely snappy ...

‘The Art of the Dill’ a godsend for ailing incumbents
While poison for investors, business, consumers and policymakers, the US tariffs could be good news for Labor at the federal poll.
Tom Dusevic
Policy Editor

"Dill"? Had it come to that? 

Elsewhere, Simpleton Simon (here a conflict of interest) wailed and moaned at the upheaval ...

COMMENTARY by Simon Benson
Deep uncertainty: Trump has turned the federal election on its head
Labor’s model now has an electoral trigger in common with John Howard’s Tampa election of 2001. Like Howard, fear is what Anthony Albanese is seeking to exploit.

"Fear"? How wretched and shameless. As if the reptiles would ever peddle fear ...have the reptiles reached the very bottom, labelling the lying rodent as a fear monger?

Even the bromancer, at the top of the digital world ma early in the morning, was in a sort of "pox on both their houses" mode ... but as always the pond listened to our very own Reichsmarschall des GroßAustralisch Reiches, soon to lead us into the war with China ...

Dutton is no ‘Bulldog’ on Port of Darwin call, So far, the opposition has been entirely reactive in this campaign. At the last election, they left their one good policy until the last minute, making it entirely ineffective politically. Will they this time do the same on defence?

The reptiles began with a snap of the object of the bromancer's ire, Peter Dutton holds a press conference in Darwin regarding the port in Darwin on the campaign trail for the 2025 federal election. Picture: Thomas Lisson

The bro was agitated, and dismayed by what the advent of the mango Mussolini might mean ...

It’s good that both sides of politics have decided to take back control of the Port of Darwin from the Chinese-owned Landbridge company. But what a colossal mess they’ve both made of this issue for the past decade. How wretchedly they’ve both been effectively forced into doing the right thing, only after exhausting all other possibilities.

Darwin has become a militarily crucial port. In one of the very few positive strategic developments for Australia in recent years, increasing numbers of US troops, aircraft and navy ships rotate through northern Australia.

From Australia’s point of view, this serves key national interests. It strengthens allied deterrent capability in Australia. It reinforces the US alliance. It helps the US manage its regional force structure. And it ties the US into the Indo-Pacific.

The advent of Donald Trump makes these objectives much more difficult. That doesn’t make them less important but more important. We need to keep the substance and structures of the alliance intact.

From the US perspective, the northern Australian initiative helps decentralise and disperse its regional forces, making them harder to hit, especially pre-emptively, and offering greater operational flexibility.

Indeed, indeed, we must do everything to pretend that King Donald isn't daily doing an impression of King George III, we must pretend the substance and structures are intact.

To think otherwise would create a serious issue: how could the bro possibly bung on a do with China?

The bromancer's objectives were much more difficult with either mob in charge, with the reptiles triggering a flashback by featuring another snap, Peter Dutton has announced he will end the uncertainty and security for the future of Port of Darwin. Picture: Thomas Lisson

That provoked the bromancer into a funk, not back to the second world war and the bombing, but to a reminder that it was the Liberals that had been the ones that wot did it... and by golly and by Jiminy, did he have it in for Little to be Proud of ...

Since the US began this process Chinese interests have emerged everywhere the US went. We can speculate about what the Chinese wanted out of such presence. The original decision on the lease, in October 2015, was a national security atrocity. The then Liberal government did subsequently reform foreign investment regulations concerning critical infrastructure.

But it had from 2015 to the election in May 2022 to reverse the situation by requiring the sale of the lease to an approved entity, either Australian owned or perhaps a company owned by an ally or friend. That it never did this is evidence of its woeful passivity in the face of Defence bureaucracy inertia. The Defence establishment would never admit its initial advice that the lease was perfectly harmless and happy was wrong.

So for all the anti-China talk from the Turnbull and Morrison governments, including when Peter Dutton was defence minister, precisely nothing happened.

No Coalition spokesman looked quite so clueless as Nationals’ leader David Littleproud explaining on the ABC’s Insiders that responsible governments, and even responsible oppositions presumably, had to act when given certain advice.

What advice was he referring to? Official advice? Defence advice, rebuking its former findings, findings that had been reaffirmed by the Prime Minister’s Department as recently as 2023?

Of course, there was no advice. Nor was any advice needed. Here’s a giant, radical idea: political leaders sometimes actually lead. Dutton’s decision to take back control of the port is sound but there is no explanation for the Coalition’s failure to do so in government.

Littleproud sounded astoundingly unfamiliar with national security as a coherent policy area, more like a word processor than a political leader. Why hadn’t the Coalition put forward its defence spokesman, Andrew Hastie, for an interview like that?

Clueless, astoundingly unfamiliar? 

To do a proper pox on both their houses, there needed to be an urgent, even more severe poxing of the other side, set off by a snap ...Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles hold a press conference in Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman

The bromancer didn't need any visual cue, he was right into the poxing ...

But the Coalition was a positive combination of Winston Churchill, Clausewitz and Sun Tzu compared with Anthony Albanese and Defence Minister Richard Marles. The Prime Minister claimed the Labor Party had always opposed this lease. But his very government in 2023 conducted an inquiry that found – quelle surprise! – that the former official advice was sound and there was nothing to worry about in the lease arrangements.

This was a very convenient finding when Albanese was desperate to “stabilise” the relationship with China.

Marles was interviewed by a heroic Tom Connell on Sky News on Monday. Marles was even more ridiculous and word processor-like than Littleproud. Echoing Albanese, Marles repeatedly stated that Labor’s overriding concerns on the Port of Darwin had been consistent since 2015. But what about your assurance in 2023 that the lease was fine, Connell asked in several different formulations. What’s changed? Is there new advice?

Marles, robot-like, simply repeated the preposterous line that Labor had always been consistent on this.

There is a kind of banal, national tragedy in this whole issue. The nation needs and deserves a national security dialogue about 28 standard deviations better than this.

It demonstrates, among other things, that both sides of politics routinely hide behind the tattered fig leaf of formal “advice” in making crucial security, defence and even foreign policy decisions in government. No Australian government should need official advice to know that the Darwin lease was ridiculous and against the national interest right from the start. Even that well-known warmonger, Barack Obama, complained about it.

But from 2015 to 2025 our national leadership, on both sides of politics, couldn’t bring itself to take the obvious and necessary action. This indicates that in national security the quality of our political leadership is very poor.

As if to remind us it was a both sides sudsing, the reptiles reverted to a snap of the deeply clueless, and the bromancer's pet, the pastie Hastie, No Coalition spokesman looked quite so clueless as Nationals’ leader David Littleproud. Picture: News Corp, Coalition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie. Picture: News Corp

If only the bromancer could be out on the field, rather than a coach shouting on the sidelines at the inept teams ...

Politicians don’t know enough, they don’t understand enough, they don’t take responsibility and they don’t lead. 

Unlike the bromancer, who knows much more than enough, understands much more than enough, takes responsibility for his columns, and aspires to be the lizard Oz's leading reptile ...

The pond snapped - almost like a snappy Tom.

Surely the bro was being manifestly unfair, surely some politicians made decisive decisions, surely some led from the front?

The bromancer was inconsolable and being something of a thugby boofhead, resorted to thugby league for his closing metaphor ...

The Darwin decision has happened now, it seems, only because each side was scared it would lose a trick to the other and thereby might appear weak.

Albanese has been Prime Minister for three years, so his is the more proximate responsibility. But the Liberals are meant to be strong on national security. Dutton was a defence minister. So their decade-long failure on this issue is even more politically damaging.

So far, Dutton is losing this campaign and he’s even managing to mangle national security.

Where and when is the Liberal commitment on defence spending? If it’s a lot, the Liberals need to campaign for it, explain what it will produce, why it’s necessary and where the money’s coming from. If it’s not much, then they should hang their heads in shame.

They can’t do what both sides of politics currently try – simply avoid all hard discussions and all hard decisions. US founding father Alexander Hamilton famously argued that “energy in the executive” was a critical quality in good government.

It’s pretty important in good opposition too.

My beloved Bulldogs in the NRL are at the moment in the place God always intended for them, at the top of the competi­tion. Supremely, they display “energy in the executive”. They dictate the tempo of the game by being faster than their opponents in everything. And they never give up on a play.

So far, the opposition has been entirely reactive in this campaign. At the last election, they left their one good policy, letting people use their super to buy a house, until the last minute, making it entirely ineffective politically, because they were scared it would be opposed. Will they this time do the same on defence?

By the way, in Sunday’s game, the Dogs’ opponents were entirely reactive. And they didn’t score a point.

As if the mutton Dutton had been entirely reactive ... as if he couldn't score a point ...

How deep was the reptile despair?

For some reason, they decided to exhume Andrew Robb and offer up three minutes (according to the hive mind clock) of the Robbster talking tough, Begging for concessions legitimises Trump’s illegal tariffs, Australia should not negotiate with Donald Trump. We are a sovereign nation not to be bullied and intimidated. We should just ignore him. No gratuitous comments. No supplicant phone calls.

Things got off to a bad start with a snap of the orange tubby pointing, a confronting posture designed to inflame, President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House. Picture: AP

That set the Robbster right off ...

Australia should not negotiate with Donald Trump. We should just ignore him. No gratuitous comments. No supplicant phone calls. No offer of concessions. No response to his illegal tariffs. We are a sovereign nation not to be bullied and intimidated.

Oh dear... it had all started so splendidly, and then the sniping began, Labor accuses Dutton of copying Trump ... Education minister criticises 'extreme' Coalition stance as treasuer warns threat to funding comes 'right from the Doge playbook', followed by the walkbacks, Coalition abandons 'end' to work f rom home, walks back 41,000 job cuts ... and now here was the Robbster returned from the political grave to ravage the mango-coloured monster, still being defended against all odds by Faux Noise... themselves under stress as they had to face rivals offering even better defences, Newsmax guest defends Trump golfing during market crisis: “You don't want people to see you stressed out”

The pond is well past doing a montage of King Donald berating Obama for always playing golf - there's way too much footage, it would last forever - but it was difficult to ignore the way that the reptile world was falling apart, Fox vs. Fox: Trump apologists defend tariff chaos while experts raise alarm. 

The pond pressed on with the Robbster ...

Trump is desperate for a cringing phone call, an opportunity to glory in his power, a reason to claim that our offer on concessions confirms the legitimacy of his actions. We mustn’t play his pathetic game.

How can Trump plead “unfairness, currency manipulation and trade barriers” when the US has the highest living standards in the world; sure, there are serious inequities in the US, but it is a problem of its own making, not ours. The response in Australia to date has focused on our across-the-board 10 per cent illegal tariff. Yet, the biggest impact on Australia will come from our neighbours in the Asian region.

Our biggest trading partner is China and, taken as a bloc, the ASEAN countries are our second-biggest trading partner. The tariffs imposed by Trump on all these countries range from 35 per cent to 65 per cent. There will be a deep recession in Asia, and it will profoundly impact on growth, jobs and investment in Australia. It is cruel to poorer countries such as Cambodia and Vietnam; punished for being key to US supply chains.

The reptiles helped out by featuring a clip which wasn't in keeping with their Faux Noise kissing cousins, George Washington University's Steven Hamilton weighed in on the reverberations of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, claiming “I don’t think anyone … expected it to get this far”. Mr Hamilton explained how after tomorrow, the US markets will experience “the sharpest stock market crash since 1987”. He told Sky News Australia that a pause on these tariffs won’t cancel out the damage as “the damage comes from the uncertainty that’s been generated by these moves”.

Et tu, Sky Noise down under?

The Robbster was as angry as hell, and opened his window wide and shouted he wasn't going to take it anymore ...

Australians have been a loyal ally of the US for over 70 years. We have supported every US-initiated war around the globe, and in doing so we have lost so many young Australian lives and condemned thousands more to lifelong post-traumatic stress disorder, with so many ending in suicide.

We have a significant trade deficit with the US – last year we imported over $60bn of US exports, and the US imported just over $30bn of Australian products and services. As well, we host, free of tax, US tech giants. Furthermore, we also have an investment deficit with the US – we invest more of our savings in the US than the US invests in Australia. And, more importantly, more than 20 years ago we signed a legally binding free-trade agreement that committed both countries to imposing zero tariffs on one another’s exports. It is why Trump’s 10 per cent tariffs on everything we export to the US are illegal and in total violation of this legally binding FTA.

Now we get told that unless we respond with “phenomenal” concessions, we are stuck with the 10 per cent tariffs on everything we export, with potentially more to come if we don’t “bend the knee” to this hapless President. America does not become greater through making allies supplicants.

Why should we meekly negotiate concessions with the US? It won’t be a negotiation; the US will expect unilateral concessions. A concession implies we have wronged the US. Yet, there is nothing to negotiate because the tariffs are illegal, totally unwarranted and deeply offensive given the loyalty and friendship Australia has extended to the relationship with the US for more than 70 years. We have not wronged the US in any way.

To help out those who had completely forgotten about the Robbster, the reptiles inserted a snap, Andrew Robb. Picture: News Corp

Then it was on to a final flourish of defiance ...

We should just get on with finalising an FTA with the European Union, and consider initiating a process to combine two existing Asia-Pacific agreements: the 12-county Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the 15-country Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership – to deliver a comprehensive Asia-Pacific free-trade zone, open to the current 27 member countries, which include China, Japan and South Korea, and with an invitation for India and the US to join when they see fit. This would be an unequivocal statement of where we stand. This should be our response to President Trump.

It would also recognise the reality that while the West is closing up its economies, Southeast Asian countries, and India, have been opening up by dismantling so many of their former protectionist positions, with the result that billions of dollars are being invested, and tens of millions of people are joining the middle class – a clear demonstration, once again, that freer trade works.

Sadly, this Southeast Asian progress will be smashed by Trump’s 35-65 per cent tariffs in Asia. Retaliating to US tariffs by imposing our own tariffs will only increase Australia’s inflation and hurt our own people, as we saw in the 1930s global recession.

We must resist the Trump mantra, which involves throwing the law of comparative advantage out the window. We must not give credence to his demands and expectations. We cannot negotiate with this man.

Andrew Robb was minister for trade, investment and tourism, 2014-16.

Talk about withering. Why "this man" was almost as insulting as "that woman" ...

And so to close with an immortal Rowe, and a plea to keep those comments flowing while the pond goes travelling.

Yesterday, the pond learned a new term of abuse, "Bunyip Lord Downer", cackled at the notion that Killer Creighton was the "heel" - it's all wrestling in the mango Mussolini's universe, especially education - and rolled Jaffas down the aisle at the notion that Le Pen should compare herself to Alfie Dreyfus, on the proviso he changed his religion ...

That's the vexatious, vexated loon spirit ...

As usual, it's all in the detail ... treasure Gina, national treasure Jane, treasure the rustics ...

But did the immortal Rowe get the wrong footie for the bro? And was that poster and the 'puter screen designed to enrage the already raging Robb?

And then there was this treasure designed to delight the pond. Give that man a briefing, give them all a briefing, they're all confused and befuddled and bewildered ...