The pond is about to hit the road, and offers "Ned's" tears as fuel for the journey ...

 

The pond is hitting the road again, and will be abandoning its reptile studies over the Ēostre break, which is a pity in a way, because the reptiles always go into full liturgical and "white western civilisation" mode, but also a relief, because it usually results in a bout of rampant pond atheism ...

Perhaps it's better just to indulge in a hot X bun, and a bit of chocolate, and celebrate paganism ...

While the pond will attempt a few placeholders, the pond will be disconnected from the full to overflowing intertubes, so this will be the last manifestation of current reptile grief and what seems to be a grudging reptile acceptance that all is not going well.

Who knows how it will end, but the distress signals emanating from the hive mind are a constant pleasure.

As this morning's digital splash showed, the reptiles are still in campaign mode, and doing their very best, with an assault on the bulk billing pitch ...

The Ruskis are coming was another theme, though that was hard to balance in the pond's mind with the servile devotion of King Donald to Vlad the sociopath with tales of a Russian invasion ...

Aren't the Ruskis our friends, didn't Ukraine start the war? Why not give them a lease on Port Darwin as a sign we're at one with King Donald?

Over on the far right, there was at least a chance to sup the tears of "Ned" as he offered up a forlorn natter at the top of the lizard Oz world, ma ...

By this time the reptiles had dropped from its listing a splendid effort by the bouffant one ...

Three-term Albo? A bit of banter hoists PM on his own curtain rod

When Peter Dutton said he’d live at Kirribilli House, Labor rightly pasted him for hubristically ‘measuring up the curtains’. 

Now Anthony Albanese has had his own curtains moment – and more.
By Dennis Shanahan
National Editor

Desperate stuff, and how sad it was disappeared to the lizard Oz cornfield.

In the bouffant one's place came Dame Slap, returning to one of her favourite bees, always buzzing in her bonnet ...

ALP silent as low-rent super funds get off scot-free
Super fund directors are chosen because of their ties to the unions, the ALP or their industry group – not because of their cyber risk management knowledge, let alone their valuation, foreign exchange or liquidity risk skills.
Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

The pond confesses to not having the slightest interest in Dame Slap super sounding off yet again about super funds.

The pond was delighted to see that Jack Marx was still a thing ...

Animal cruelty a fine line out where the wild things are
Those who work the land insist there are methods of animal killing more humane than others. But humans are notoriously crap at humanity, and it’s hard to be kind to a nuisance.
By Jack Marx

... but that's as far as the interest went, what with Jack's history still haunting him ...

The pond did think one item deserved noting, it being part of a splendid effort by the reptiles to attack deviant greenies and indies and climate types ...

Climate donors accused of using slave labour

The Labor-linked Smart Energy Council, which counts Simon Holmes a Court as a senior adviser, has been receiving thousands of dollars from solar and battery firms black-listed in the US over concerns they use slave labour.

By Sarah Ison

There was just one fly in this ointment - the United States expressing concerns over slave labour, when the current administration consorts with thuggish dictators, has turned full fascist, ignores court rulings, and sends people willy nilly to prison hell holes.

When will the lizards of Oz catch up?

Possibly never, because this is the way Sky Noise down under dealt with that dictator matter ...

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins humiliated by Trump and El Salvador’s president after asking bizarre question
Donald Trump met with the President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele at the Oval Office today where they discussed deportation, terrorism and tariffs that affect both nations.
But instead of the leaders getting into a tussle, which is often the case at these Oval Office meetings, President Trump’s target was none other than CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins who was ripped to shreds by Trump and his administration after asking a very bizarre question about the deportation of an alleged terrorist to El Salvador. (no link, the pond never links to reptiles).

Collins' very bizarre questions included asking whether King Donald trusted Vlad the sociopath (he does) and whether blaming DEI for plane crashes was much help to victims' families (here).

There was also this exchange:

She said: “Mr. President, you said that if the Supreme Court said someone needed to be returned, that you would abide by that. You said that on Air Force One just a few days ago.”

Collins tried to continue her question, but that’s when Trump interrupted her. While his first comment in illegible, he then wonders why she keeps asking these questions.

He said: “Why don’t you just say, ‘isn’t it wonderful we’re keeping criminals out of our country’? Why can’t you just say that?” (here)

Trust Sky Noise down under to celebrate two dictators and an unlawful imprisonment in a dictator's hell hole ...

Enough of the pond's survey already, time to sup "Ned's" tears, as a little later in the day, the reptiles decided to give him a big splash ...

The reptiles had two different headers to hand, Dutton's campaign is haunted by the Indigenous voice referendum and History still haunts Peter Dutton’s election campaign, but nothing could hide the tears flowing in The voice was Peter Dutton’s finest call in the past parliament but the supposed permanent setback for Anthony Albanese has not materialised. The voice was a deceptive omen.

Ah, the Voice. The glorious days of doing down difficult, pesky, uppity blacks ...

It's only a five minute read, or so the reptiles say, a baby effort compared to "Ned's" usual Everest, and inevitably it began with a repeat of that snap of the high vis man, Peter Dutton who visited a new housing construction site in Upper Kedron to talk about the Liberal housing policy. Picure: Richard Dobson

Ned" did his very best to find kind things to say, but struggled ...

One feature of election 2025 is the absence of the voice referendum as a symbol in the political contest. The voice was Peter Dutton’s finest call in the past parliament but the supposed permanent setback for Anthony Albanese has not materialised. The voice was a deceptive omen.

The spectre of the 2022 election now haunts the Coalition. Its fear is that the cultural and structural defects that ruined the Coalition in 2022 have not healed but still exist to deliver another damaging Coalition result in 2025. The question is: Have the Liberals been deceived by a political mirage, abetted by their media backers?

Dutton has been an effective Opposition Leader most of this term – he kept the Liberal Party united, displayed courage in promoting nuclear power, outsmarted Albanese on the voice, launched devastating attacks on Labor over living standards, distanced the party from the Morrison defeat and, in late 2024, had the Coalition in a competitive position.

But two things have gone wrong. The Liberals failed to address the fundamental challenge – agreement on their core beliefs to be promoted at the election, and the hard work to devise and finalise ahead of time the policies that would spearhead their 2025 campaign. The related problem is that the fracturing of the Coalition vote – critical in the 2022 defeat – seems to remain with the teals on the left and the Hanson-Clive Palmer parties on the right, both undermining the Coalition primary vote.

Oh the saucy doubts and fears and the distancing and the alienation ...

The question is: Have the Liberals been deceived by a political mirage, abetted by their media backers?

Um, it's News Corp that's the main media backer, isn't it? 

Is "Ned" slagging off his kith and kin? Are they all at cross-purposes, tearing each other to shreds as an apocalypse approaches?

Never mind, a snap of comrade Albo to keep the hive mind thinking too hard about that one, Anthony Albanese on the campaign trail in Victoria. Picture: Jason Edwards

Then it was on to the polls and more saucy doubts and fears, and much hand-wringing and sighing at the falling sky ...

The latest polls point to a Labor win, presumably a minority Albanese government. But there are two qualifications. Much of the electorate is disinterested, with voting support being soft; and Coalition MPs still hope for a repressed conservative vote, not registering in the polls, but in areas that rejected the voice where resentment of governing elites still runs deep.

This week’s Newspoll had a warning siren – the Hanson One Nation vote at 8 per cent, up from 5 per cent at the last poll. And Palmer’s new party, the pro-Trump protest party Trumpet of Patriots, fuelled by a massive advertising campaign, is sure to register on the scoreboard. The danger is an ongoing fracturing of the conservative vote on the right.

Will the campaign break decisively one way or another in the final week? Maybe. If that happens, current trends suggest it will be towards Labor. It is hard to believe after the past three years that Albanese will be re-elected in a majority government, given the huge fall in living standards. Such a result would constitute a worse crisis for the Liberal Party than its 2022 defeat.

The Liberal Party brand is not strong enough. The core message – telling people why they should vote Liberal – is not cutting through. While Dutton has held the parliamentary forces together, conservative politics is plagued by ideological, policy and tactical differences.

What do the Liberals stand for apart from being against Albanese and determined to address the hip-pocket pain of Australians with more cost-of-living support than Labor?

The Liberals are weak on a future vision for the country. They have walked away from many of the icons of the Howard era: tax reform; industrial relations policy; they look unconvincing on fiscal responsibility; they are reluctant to show their credentials on spending restraint; incredibly, they still haven’t released their defence budget at a time of global geostrategic danger.

So many worries, so much to fret about, while the reptiles pumped up Pauline with a snap, One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson...

That set "Ned" off again ...

They retreated from their work-from-home policy, they are vulnerable over net zero, they have tried to be brave over nuclear and gas but left too many loose ends, and on housing they have released an audacious pitch designed to turn sentiment – with first-home buyers purchasing a new-built home able to deduct the interest paid on up to $650,000 of their mortgage, with no cap on home prices and eligibility for individuals earning up to $175,000, and for couples up to $250,000. The hip-pocket boost is hefty – a benefit of $12,000 a year for someone on a $650,000 mortgage and a taxable income of $120,000.

This reveals much about today’s Liberal Party. There is no way Peter Costello or Joe Hockey or Josh Frydenberg would have made this pledge. It will fuel demand, boost house prices, distort the income tax system and is highly regressive, with benefits to the better-off. It is economically flawed using the public purse to subsidise personal consumption in the form of housing purchases.

But think of the fun cartoonists have had with both sides ...

Poor "Ned" was inconsolable ...

This list suggests a Liberal Party struggling to sort its values and policy implementation. At a time of global transformation, its focus is narrowcast and retail politics. It is fighting Labor on Labor’s territory. Being more ambitious would have been risky, but would it have been more risky than this retail politics framing?

The reptiles slipped in a snap of the Duttonator and The Price is Right in their "finest hour", Peter Dutton and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price campaigning against the voice in 2023.

"Ned" did his best to find in another listicle, which strangely failed to mention SMRs, one of those loose ends they tried to be brave about ...

None of this should detract from Dutton’s stands against anti-Semitism, for border protection, a reduced immigration intake, a crackdown on the CFMEU, restoring law and order to the building industry, tougher action against crime, a priority on patriotism, and reform of the education system. These are all part of the Dutton agenda but that agenda lacks traction.

The Coalition’s backers say in their defence: look how bad Labor is. But if Labor is so bad, then why isn’t the Coalition more ambitious?

Cheer up "Ned", both sides are ambitious ...

"Ned" was still haunted by the polling ... how his hand wringing matched his tears ...

While Dutton took direct Coalition support into the 39-40 per cent range late last year, this was deceptive, relying on anti-Labor sentiment. The closer the election got, the more the Coalition vote has slumped. The trend is not Albanese winning votes, but Dutton losing them.

Federal election victories are driven by preference strategies. This is how Labor wins; it is how the Coalition loses. Labor is now a permanently weakened party, unlikely to ever recover; its primary vote in 2022 was 32.6 per cent. In the two recent polls, Newspoll has its primary vote at 33 per cent and the Resolve Political Monitor shows Labor at 31 per cent. Both results point to an ALP victory based on preference flows. At the 2022 election the preference flows to Labor were: from the Greens 85.7 per cent; from One Nation 35.7 per cent; from Clive Palmer’s UAP 38.1 per cent; and from independents 63.8 per cent.

With the Greens’ primary vote running at 12.3 per cent, much of this finished as a Labor vote. The paradox in 2022 was that despite the weak ALP primary vote, the country moved decisively to the left. This reflected the structural weakness of the Liberal Party, the power of the Greens and the emergence of the teals, winning six seats from the Liberals.

It would be a tall order, perhaps herculean, to imagine the Liberals could reverse this trend in one term. The Coalition is not just required to establish an ascendancy over Labor, but over the broadbased de facto alliance, Labor-Greens-teals, that constitutes a diverse anti-Coalition front.

For no particular reason, the reptiles slipped in a snap of Brian Loughnane...

The sight of this sturdy, contemplative trooper was no help. "Ned" remained full of despair ...

At the 2022 election the combined One Nation and Palmer party vote was 9.1 per cent, a hefty slice coming off the Coalition vote. The risk, reinforced by Trumpian politics, is that this fragmentation on the right will continue at the coming election.

But wasn't this a strength ... wasn't this the way to go?

Oh dear ..

For the past 18 months much of the populist right media has relentlessly promoted Donald Trump and Pauline Hanson but, as is now obvious, this hasn’t helped Dutton. Labor now taunts him with the Trumpian curse while Hanson’s vote is rising, partly at the Coalition’s cost.

The Liberal Party 2022 election review, conducted by Brian Loughnane and Senator Jane Hume, concluded the result was “not comparable to any previous one in Australian political history”, and that it posed a “unique challenge to the party”. Many political pundits felt the Liberals faced an “existential” crisis.

The report said it was apparent the Albanese government had “no answers” to Australia’s problems and the Liberals needed to be ready and able to present an alternative policy stance to the nation. Somehow, some way, it appears this didn’t happen.

Come on "Ned", enjoy the gingerbread house ...

And now for a couple of distractions ...

First, Steve Bannon Starts MAGA Civil War with Attack on ‘Disaster’ Cabinet Secretary

Lutnick has remained one of the biggest fans of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs but even Trump officials say that he’s put his foot in his mouth more than once. He first guaranteed there would be “no recession in America” in early March shortly before Trump declined to rule out the same.

Lutnick then backpedaled only days later, saying the “policies are the most important thing America has ever had,” on CBS News and adding that a recession “is worth it.”

He also angered the 40 percent of elderly Americans who rely on Social Security income by claiming only “fraudsters” worry about missing Social Security checks.

In the weeks since, he’s made various claims that have directly contradicted Trump’s. Not all have been successful and one was a particularly eyebrow-raiding Freudian slip that he posted on X: “The Golden Age is coming,“ he wrote. ”We are committed to protecting our interests, engaging in global negotiations and exploding our economy."

Lunkhead Lutnick is a constant delight, and what about this, Trump has already lost his trade war against China

It was originally in the UK Terror and was by a certain Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.

Evans-Pritchard in his day was a cranky expert in Clinton conspiracies, and now he’s urging on Chairman Xi, and celebrating a 1950s film on the Korean War …

Inter alia ...

The Chinese do not call it the Korean War. They call it the “Anti-American War”. It is now best known to young Chinese through the Battle of Triangle Hill – Shangganling – a 1950s film about a unit of the 15th Corps that resisted waves of assault for 42 days, forcing the US to retreat.

That film has been the rallying cry in China over the past week, trumpeted by Uncle Ming’s Remarks, a hugely popular WeChat blog, and relayed widely by China’s netizens – all reared on a rich diet of “patriotic education”.

If a penniless and backward China was willing to face down America at the zenith of its global power in 1950, China is hardly likely to roll over today now that it is the world’s industrial hegemon and financial creditor – with some $6 trillion (£4.5 trillion) of foreign exchange assets, once you include the opaque holdings of state-owned banks.

“How has it ever been possible in history that the world’s largest creditor would be defeated by the world’s largest debtor?” asks Uncle Ming.

Well, indeed. America’s savings rate has collapsed to 0.6pc of GDP. The US treasury depends on foreign investors to fund a national debt rising higher than ever before, already 122pc of GDP with a structural fiscal deficit of 6pc to 7pc as far as the eye can see.

And a rousing finale ...

Trump persists in telling the world that he will not retreat on tariffs and that “nobody is getting off the hook”. But markets are heavily discounting everything he now says.

They can see that he backed down against Canada and Mexico after discovering that US car prices would go through the roof, and that he dared not pull the trigger on full tariffs against Europe, and that he immediately unpicked his own embargo against China after discovering that a US-made iPhone would cost $3,000.

All but a diminishing band of Trumpian fellow travellers around the world can see, in short, that his bluff has been called. China just has to grit its teeth, like the 15th Corps at Triangle Hill, and wait until Trump’s voters can see it too.

It truly is a fully weird world, when Evans-Pritchard types berate King Donald, but fair cop, the pond only offered those distractions as a way of segueing to a closer with the immortal Rowe, offering yet another moment of fear ...