In which the bromancer and Dame Groan set the lizard Oz Tuesday pace, while ancient Troy takes time out with peanuts and scones...

 

The judges awarded try-hard Perry a nomination for trying to achieve pond immortality with this effort ...

EXCLUSIVE
Wake-up call on green energy a hydrogen bombshell
The cost of green hydrogen is far in excess of alternate sources of energy.
The initial cost of producing green hydrogen from Australia’s two largest projects will be more than four times the price of rival energy sources, posing a fresh setback for Labor.
By Perry Williams

There he was atop the digital edition of the lizard Oz...

Perry did much better than Greg, pushed way down the page with his effort...

EXCLUSIVE
Coalition to take its time on net-zero policy preference
By Greg Brown

The judges also commended the Australian Daily Zionist News for a series of stories, and not just about Greta and her boat ...

‘Disappointed’
‘Not how allies act’: Israel blasts Labor over influencer row
Israel has joined the US in slamming Australia’s decision to ban Hillel Fuld, urging a reversal amid warnings the visa move risks damaging diplomatic ties.
By Mohammad Alfares

EXCLUSIVE
Hate-spewing preacher’s sword post ahead of court battle with Jewish leaders
By Stephen Rice

EXCLUSIVE
Zionist-loathing sheik planning $6.9m Muslim ‘sanctuary’
By Mohammad Alfares

Hate speech good and wise and proper for some, not so good for others.

And with that all noted, and the petulant judges refusing to hand out any awards for reptiles just doing what reptiles gunna do, the pond turned to the real action, over on the extreme far right, where the bromancer was top of the world ma ...

Naturally the bromancer was all in on fascist masked thugs roaming the streets ...

The header: Trump is upholding rule of law on illegal immigrants, Donald Trump’s feud with Elon Musk indicates the contradictions and difficulties in his coalition. But on enforcing immigration law, Trump has the people with him. Yet this could well become a very ugly conflict.

The caption: A burnt US flag is seen on the ground amid clashes with law enforcement in the streets surrounding the federal building during a protest following federal immigration operations in Los Angeles, California.

The magical proposition: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

The reptiles clocked it as a five minute read, but not once did the bromancer make the obvious helpful suggestion. Deport Melania and Leon, because trophy wives, especially the rich ones, can be a real pain in the butt ...

And so to the bromancer loving the fascist reality TV show event ...

In sending National Guard troops on to the streets of Los Angeles, in support of efforts to arrest illegal immigrants for the purpose of deporting them, Donald Trump has done what he likes doing best. He’s implementing an explicit election promise, acting lawfully, deploying the awesome power of the US government, and intensely, perhaps dangerously, polarising US society and politics.
Trump couldn’t have been clearer at the presidential election that he would enforce US borders and deport large numbers of those in the US illegally, that is, without valid visas. Those who regard this as inherently wicked Trumpery should remember Barack Obama deported more people than Trump did in his first term.
Obama’s homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, proudly announced that in fiscal year 2010 the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency had deported just shy of 400,000 people. More than half had no criminal convictions.

Ah, it's the old bothsiderist ploy, and yet for all that the pond can't remember that the Obama administration had managed to provoke rioting in the streets. 

Might there be a better way, with due process involved, or might we just all worship at the feet of the Cantaloupe Caligula? US President Donald Trump says rioters in Los Angeles who “spit” at police officers and National Guard will be “hit very hard”.

Back to the bothsiderism ...

The Obama administration also took tough action against businesses that knowingly employed illegal aliens. Napolitano declared: “This administration has focused on enforcing our immigration laws in a smart, effective manner that prioritises public safety and national security, and holds employers accountable who knowingly and repeatedly break the law.”
So it’s OK if Obama does it, but a crime against humanity crying to heaven for vengeance if Trump does it.

Maybe not do it in a way that deploys childish rhetoric and masked thugs and stomps on due process?

Not to worry, the bromancer then decided to introduce a billy goat butt in the form of an "of course"...

Of course, this is a really thorny, difficult issue. Illegal immigration has become one of the great defining issues all across Western politics. Keir Starmer in Britain says that, like the British public, he is angry at the number of people arriving in Britain illegally by boat. The problem is that if his government, just like the previous government, tries to deport anyone, they are effectively prevented first by the British courts themselves, then secondly by the European courts.
Anthony Albanese, leading a Labor government in Australia, continues Coalition policies designed to make sure no one who arrives in Australia illegally by boat gets to stay here permanently under any circumstances.
However, the irregular immigration route to Australia has now moved to the air. It’s not illegal immigration, exactly. People arrive legally but then claim asylum or whatever. Of course there might be some question over whether in every case they honestly applied for the tourist visas.
Let’s pause for a second to consider the ethics of immigration, and illegal immigration. I have always been in favour of immigration, for many different reasons. Provided the host society has a good sense of its own identity, laws, legitimacy and ethics, it can offer a wonderful new life to immigrants. Both those arriving, and those receiving, are enriched.
But it’s also the case that not all immigration is equal. If a society welcomes Albert Einstein, that has a different consequence from welcoming Adolf Hitler. So any national government has to exercise prudence in immigration policy. It’s not logical to be in favour of, or opposed to, all immigration in all circumstances.

Sheesh, he didn't just play the Adolf card and lose the plot entirely? He did, he did, and so it's back to the Cantaloupe Caligula ... President Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally at the US Steel-Irvin Works.

The bro kept dancing on the head of a pin (as pinheads often do), and decided that having masked thugs roam the streets, faces hidden for fear of being outed, was essentially a lawful approach to the issue ...

A rich society should be generous, wanting both to share and enlarge national wealth. But it also should pursue immigration at a rate it can absorb, economically and socially. And it must be in control of the process. The immigration program has to be worked out by the government and implemented according to law. Only in the most extreme cases, of warfare or acute persecution happening right next door, in which case people fleeing across borders might need to be accommodated, are any of these principles legitimately breached.
Part of the crisis in Western politics today is that illegal immigration has run completely beyond the control of democratic politics. This is now a deep crisis in all Western politics. Western electorates vote repeatedly to control illegal immigration but to very little effect.
The conventional centre left has essentially taken a lawless approach to the issue, while non-democratic institutions have elevated their own conception of morality above the rule of law. The presidency of Joe Biden was a fantastic contrast to that of Obama in its approach to asserting legitimate control of US borders.

At this point the reptiles trotted out two arch villains, both of whom should be arrested and deported, with Africa waiting on their return, Gavin Newsom, Barack Obama.

An even safer approach, one beloved by the mango Mussolini and his minions? Blame it all on Joe ...though it's a funny old, mixed up and deeply confused world, Noem praised Trump for sending National Guard. She opposed it Biden considered it. Do go on bro ... get on board with the mendacious puppy killer ...

Biden, whose presidency was feckless, confused and startlingly ineffective except in ways that it never meant to be effective, virtually abandoned the notion that the US had the right to determine its immigration intake. Not only did the southern border collapse but enforcement of immigration law within the US fell apart.
This was one of the most important issues in getting Trump elected to the presidency a second time. However, the left more generally, in America, Europe and Australia, moved against any kind of coherent immigration policy and control. Thus in the US we saw the movement of so-called sanctuary cities. These are Democrat-controlled cities that simply refuse to co-operate with federal government agencies in policing immigration control and enforcement.
This kind of movement is not based on genuine compassion and is profoundly anti-democratic. If the democratic left wants a more generous immigration program it should campaign for one politically and try to change government policy.
Anyone who wants to remember what politics should be like would be well advised to watch the movie Reagan, which stars Dennis Quaid. The producers made poor decisions to try to reconstruct Quaid’s face to look like Ronald Reagan, and used technology to allow an older Quaid to play a younger Reagan. These are ghastly decisions. But they did one very smart thing. They incorporated many actual remarks that Reagan made in his public life into the film.
One of the most important came in 1969 when Reagan, as governor of California, called out the National Guard to restore order amid student unrest at Berkeley. Reagan blasted the university administrators for giving in to the idea that students get to choose which laws they must obey and which ones they can ignore.

That mention of Ronnie Raygun deserved a snap ... Ronald Reagan.

What a pity that there was no mention of four dead in Ohio. 

Such a splendid inspiration. Much remains to be done, much remains to be achieved, there needs to be blood on the streets ...

The movement of sanctuary cities, and the tendency for the Democrats in Trump’s first administration to sanctify and excuse the lawlessness and violence of certain demonstrations, in particular Black Lives Matter demonstrations but others as well, was effectively a large chunk of society deciding to choose which laws to obey.
Ordinary people hate this. They rebel against it either by electing more determined, and sometimes pretty crude, politicians, such as Trump, or by themselves losing commitment to obeying laws. During the latest disturbances California Governor, Gavin Newsom and LA mayor, Karen Bass, while routinely denouncing Trump, have told demonstrators they must behave peacefully. They know the politics of this issue has changed.
The long history of US institutions eroding means there are well over 12 million illegal aliens in the US. Surely Trump can’t deport them all. Yet if you don’t have a visa, a lawful authority to live in the US, that is the legitimate legal outcome.
Trump’s feud with Elon Musk indicates the contradictions and difficulties in his coalition. But on enforcing immigration law, Trump has the people with him. Yet this could well become a very ugly conflict.

Is it wrong to note at this point how certain sectors of the US would be entirely gutted if the Mango Mussolini keeps on this way - agriculture, the service industry, etc. 

Notoriously, King Donald's own businesses employed foreign workers, as noted here and here.

Back in 2018 the NY Times ran a story Making President Trump’s Bed: A Housekeeper Without Papers, At the president’s New Jersey golf course, an undocumented immigrant has worked as a maid since 2013. She said she never imagined she “would see such important people close up.” (Archive link)

BEDMINSTER, N.J. — During more than five years as a housekeeper at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., Victorina Morales has made Donald J. Trump’s bed, cleaned his toilet and dusted his crystal golf trophies. When he visited as president, she was directed to wear a pin in the shape of the American flag adorned with a Secret Service logo.
Because of the “outstanding” support she has provided during Mr. Trump’s visits, Ms. Morales in July was given a certificate from the White House Communications Agency inscribed with her name.
Quite an achievement for an undocumented immigrant housekeeper.
Ms. Morales’s journey from cultivating corn in rural Guatemala to fluffing pillows at an exclusive golf resort took her from the southwest border, where she said she crossed illegally in 1999, to the horse country of New Jersey, where she was hired at the Trump property in 2013 with documents she said were phony.
She said she was not the only worker at the club who was in the country illegally.
Sandra Diaz, 46, a native of Costa Rica who is now a legal resident of the United States, said she, too, was undocumented when she worked at Bedminster between 2010 and 2013. The two women said they worked for years as part of a group of housekeeping, maintenance and landscaping employees at the golf club that included a number of undocumented workers, though they could not say precisely how many. There is no evidence that Mr. Trump or Trump Organization executives knew of their immigration status. But at least two supervisors at the club were aware of it, the women said, and took steps to help workers evade detection and keep their jobs.

And so on, and it's way past time for Melania and Leon to go ...

As for making the US a hot place to visit, on top of everyone's 'must visit' list? Great news ...

Bloombergs has the best graphs ...

And bring on the military. It's time for tanks to crush the dissenters and disbelieves, it's time for re-enactments of Tiananmen Square and the Prague Spring ...

It's Always Darkest Before It Goes Pitch Black ...

Trump and his apparatchiks may only lead us gradually down the slippery slope on which they have launched us. The normalization of the routine and open-ended deployment of the military at home requires that the public become accustomed to this departure from historic practice. But the departure has been announced. The Rubicon has been crossed.

And so to ancient, historic Troy making some historical discoveries ...

It’s time to rethink the life and legacy of Joh Bjelke-Petersen
It’s troubling some politicians today have a ‘don’t you worry about that’ attitude to evaluating Bjelke-Petersen. He may have been an achiever with popular appeal but he also led by fear and division.
By Troy Bramston
Senior Writer

It's time?

What a misuse of a famous slogan, and all for a crook.

The pond decided ancient Troy wasn't worth the full treatment, so these are the snaps that littered the piece ... an array of the usual suspects ...

The pond immediately knew why the reptiles had retreated into the past. 

That's by far the best way to deal with the random handing out of meaningless gongs to undeserving happy-clappies speaking in tongues and doing furtive, secretive ministry deals...

Much better to spend time with a brown paper, strictly 'cash in paw' man ...

The life and legacy of former Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen continues to looms large in Australian politics. Although reviled and despised by many for his combative and divisive approach to leadership, and the systemic corruption of his government from 1968 to 1987, he remains a hero to some.
David Littleproud, leader of the National Party, describes him as an icon to many in Queensland. “Bjelke-Petersen was a god in our part of the world,” Littleproud told me recently. His father, Brian, was a state MP during his reign and supported the Fitzgerald inquiry into police and political corruption. Yet Littleproud still subscribes to the great man legend.
So does scandal-prone Barnaby Joyce, a former leader of the Nationals. He has a large poster of Bjelke-Peterson on the wall above his desk from which he draws inspiration. Joyce also maintains the view that the former premier was a great and good man, and model leader. Bob Katter, the independent MP for Kennedy and former Queensland state MP, regards Bjelke-Petersen as one of the greatest-ever Australians. He once waxed lyrical to me about his achievements in turbocharging Queensland’s economy, and said all Australians owed him a debt of gratitude for their prosperity.
The story of Bjelke-Petersen, from a farming family in Kingaroy with limited education who went into politics and climbed the ranks of the National Party to become the state’s longest-serving premier, and the resultant mixed judgments about his premiership, is told in a new documentary, Joh: The Last King of Queensland.
The film screened to sold-out audiences at the Sydney Film Festival last weekend. Director Kriv Stenders told moviegoers Bjelke-Petersen remains an important political figure. “Even though he passed away 20 years ago, his ghost, I think, is still very resonant and that’s what the film ultimately tries to talk to,” he said.
The documentary takes a balanced approach to its subject. It blends archival footage with new interviews with Bjelke-Petersen’s family, colleagues and critics from across the political divide. Littleproud and Katter are among those interviewed along with John Howard, who saw his chances of becoming prime minister wrecked by the Joh for PM campaign in 1987.

Ah, a balanced approach, always handy when dealing with a crook or US riots.

To be fair, the reptiles did round up some snaps that would appeal to their aged demographic, the kind that faithfully followed Lady Flo's pumpkin scones recipe (you had to buy her book to get the inside gen on lamingtons, boiled custard, pavs and salmon mornay - remember, pineapple and peanuts go with anything).

Gunner Joh and the march on Canberra ...

As for the rest, let's hear it for the crook ... a brown paper bag laden with cash in every home, and a jury fixed to acquit!

One of the most extraordinary aspects of the documentary is the dramatic portrayal of Bjelke-Petersen by acclaimed actor Richard Roxburgh, drawing on the subject’s own words. We see him alone in an office setting, clad in a fawn suit brilliantly capturing Bjelke-Petersen’s mangled syntax, zigzagging sentences and distinctive gait. It really is something to see.
There is no denying Bjelke-Petersen’s electoral dominance, or that he was a cunning and shrewd politician. He had a unique appeal to millions of Queenslanders. They viewed him as a politician who was on their side, understood and lived their values, fought the establishment and centralised government from Canberra, and provided them with security and protection. He was patriotic and put Queensland first.
He facilitated the expansion of coalmining and oil exploration, including on the Great Barrier Reef, which created jobs. Many profits, however, went offshore. The abolition of death duties encouraged thousands of people from southern states to move to sunny Queensland. The expansion of tourism also boosted the economy. A massive infrastructure program of roads, rail lines, ports and bridges stand as icons in his memory.
The Bjelke-Petersen government was, nevertheless, riddled with corruption. Politicians lined their pockets with kickbacks from developers, miners, and tourism and casino operators. Bjelke-Petersen and wife Flo had interests in mining companies that benefited from government leases. The Fitzgerald inquiry implicated police in corrupt activities and led to police commissioner Terry Lewis going to jail.
For many Queenslanders, the violent suppression of protests remains most egregious. Queensland was effectively turned into a police state. The campaign against the visiting South African Springboks rugby team in 1971 was met with sheer brutality. More protests, whether over the demolition of historic buildings or over wages and workplace conditions, met the same fate and were eventually made illegal, violating civil rights.
When Labor senator Bert Milliner died in mid-1975, it was expected convention would be followed and the state parliament would appoint Labor’s nominee to succeed him. Instead, Bjelke-Petersen appointed Albert Field, a Labor member but a critic of Gough Whitlam, which tainted the Senate and reduced Labor’s numbers ahead of the supply crisis in October-November.
There is no question Bjelke-Petersen was able to stay in power for so long due to a gerrymander of electorates. This was electoral fraud on a grand scale. For example, at the May 1969 election, Labor received 45 per cent of the vote to the Coalition’s 44.7 per cent yet Labor gained just 31 seats while the Coalition had a majority with 45.
The documentary shows that by 1987, Bjelke-Petersen thought he was unstoppable. He made a quixotic bid to become prime minister but soon realised his appeal was strictly Queensland-only. He destroyed the Coalition, which formally split, and undermined Ian Sinclair’s leadership of the Nationals. Bob Hawke went to an early election and was easily re-elected. Howard’s hopes of being prime minister were put on ice.
The reporting of corruption by Chris Masters on the ABC’s Four Corners, and the subsequent Fitzgerald inquiry, set in train events that led to Bjelke-Petersen’s demise. In late 1987, he announced he would retire on the 20th anniversary of his premiership. He began sacking ministers for not pledging loyalty. Eventually he barricaded himself in his office before resigning earlier in December that year.
It is troubling that some politicians today have a “Don’t you worry about that” attitude to evaluating Bjelke-Petersen. He may have been an achiever with popular appeal but he also led by fear and division, turned a blind eye to corruption, trampled laws and conventions, and remained in power due to a gerrymander. The ends do not justify the means. Democracy matters and, in the end, Bjelke-Petersen’s own colleagues realised enough was enough.

All that might be news to Barners, despoiler of Tamworth and also to Little to be Proud of, and the like, but the main virtue of the yarn was the splendid distraction it offered ...

What else? Well Dame Slap was out and about, adrift from her usual Wednesday spot, but doing her usual judge bashing, shamelessness being her secret ingredient ...

Equality under the law must be upheld
NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley must step up and do the right thing by the state’s legal system and the people, given that NSW judges can’t be trusted to do it.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

"Equality under the law" means "anyone who can get the ear of a lizard Oz columnist."

But enough of Humpty Dumpty explanations for abstruse reptile verbiage, it's time to finish up with a super serve of Dame Groan, groaning away yet again in her inimitable style ...

The header: Coalition should stand fast on super tax folly, There is a significant matter of principle at stake. People have invested in superannuation according to the rules of the day. No one is suggesting they acted illegally or inappropriately. Then along comes the Treasurer.

What joy to be reminded of Little to be Proud of, in the caption: Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and National Party leader David Littleproud. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Preliminaries done, it was straight into the groaning, which immediately produced a tremendous sense of ennui and déjà vu...

Whether the Coalition negotiates with Labor to improve and pass the bill containing the 30 per cent tax on super earnings for accounts more than $3m is a political call. My view is the Coalition would be unwise to do so because it would dilute its warranted opposition to the proposal as well as connote support for higher taxes.
At this stage, it looks like the Coalition will take this approach. Everyone knows what the main weaknesses of the bill are – taxing unrealised capital gains and failure to index the threshold – so it’s not clear what contribution the Coalition would be making. In the event some concessions are made by Jim Chalmers, the Coalition could be trapped into supporting the bill or criticised for refusing to do so.
There is a significant matter of principle at stake. People have invested in superannuation, a long-term asset, according to the rules of the day. No one is suggesting they acted illegally or inappropriately. Then along comes a Treasurer, desperate for more revenue, who has no qualms about changing the rules even if the change is close to unimplementable.

There's no need for the pond to say anything, what with it all having been said many times before.

Even the most dedicated pond correspondents might find it hard to lather up any enthusiasm and show signs of life, even as a dastardly villain hovers into view to torment Dame Groan, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, desperate for more revenue and with no qualms about changing the rules. Picture: Martin Ollman

Oh the reprehensible reprobate, and sure enough he sent Dame Groan right off ... why he's even worse than Malware ...

(The same accusation can be made of the changes made by the Coalition government in 2016 when Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister. There are doubtless quite a few Coalition supporters who have never forgiven their side of politics.)
Chalmers tries to justify the change on the basis that it will affect very few people – around 80,000 to 100,000 – although the failure to index the $3m cut-off will mean more and more superannuation members will be dragged into the net over time. But here’s the thing: principles are principles; they are not dependent on how many or how few are affected by a change.
It beggars belief that wet-behind-the-ears Treasury officials should be expressing the view that farms should not be in superannuation funds when the debate about exemptions was being conducted. It was perfectly legal for farms to be an asset within a superannuation fund and trustees no doubt had good reasons to include them.
The fact the decision was made that there should be no exempted assets from the new tax impost is essentially a political one, recommended by public servants. It is these lumpy, illiquid assets – business premises are another example – that make taxing unrealised capital gains so problematic, not just unprincipled.
Chalmers seems confused about the implications of taxing paper profits when he justifies the proposed treatment of those people on (large) defined benefit pensions, including Anthony Albanese and several other members of the current parliament. The scope for those who are still working to defer the tax payable is a generous gift. After all, those with accumulation arrangements won’t be able to defer the tax.
He tries to explain this by pointing to the absence of an actual super account for those on defined benefits from which to draw funds to pay the tax. But the same logic applies to people who will be taxed on paper profits; there is no cash to pay the tax because the capital gain is unrealised.

It's always time to bring in Sky Noise down under, and so came a carping Clennell, Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell discusses a proposal from the Albanese government, which will allow people to pay the super tax on balances over $3 million from their superannuation funds. "Sky News can reveal that as part of the government's proposed tax on people with superannuation funds worth more than $3 million, there will be an option to pay the tax from the money in your super fund," Mr Clennell said. "In this way, the government can counter the argument that people will have to sell their farms or properties in order to pay the tax because it controversially will be levied on unrealised gains.”

The endless suffering of the rich, but the groaner was on hand to terrify. 

Why not tax houses? No, no, not landlords, not negative gearing, why did you think such a cruel thing? It's something those fiends have overlooked, but for how passing strange long? Or is it just a cruel joke designed to terrify the hive mind?

Some large superannuation funds are made up almost entirely of illiquid assets and there will be no way for the affected members to pay the tax bill. But there is no scope in the bill for their tax bills to be deferred even with a (concessional) rate of interest being charged, which will be the case for defined benefit superannuants. A last resort could involve affected farmers, for instance, taking out a bank loan to pay the tax. Is this really what the government has in mind, as many farmers struggle with drought or floods?
It is also passing strange that people can have extremely expensive houses – $10m, even $20m, well above the $3m – and there is no tax on the unrealised capital gains there. And when the owners of these massively expensive homes come to sell them, there is no capital gains tax whatsoever. Clearly, in Chalmers’s view, what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander.
(It is surprising that those same immature Treasury officials aren’t proposing to their boss that a tax could be levied on the so-called imputed rent of owner-occupied dwellings.
Just think about it: a rate could be struck, say 5 per cent, and owners of those expensive homes could be charged a tax on the value above a certain threshold – perhaps $3 million? Just think of the revenue. Just joking, of course.)
It has been an unshakeable belief within Treasury that the supposed superannuation tax concessions that apply to contributions and earnings are unjustified and skew heavily to those with the highest income.
But there is considerable debate about the methodology for calculating these tax concessions. Treasury’s estimates are based on simple cross-sectional comparisons that fail to account for the fact that the funds are locked away until the member reaches preservation age. A more appropriate methodology recognises that taxes accumulate year after year – it’s like compounding, but in a downward direction. It turns out that superannuation is not in fact particularly tax-favoured when these more accurate calculations are made.
As for the projections of revenue from Chalmers’s new tax, he should realise the Treasury has an appalling track record when getting even close to the mark. This is partly because the methodology essentially involves drawing straight lines while failing to take account of any second-round, behavioural changes. It is estimated that $2.3bn will be raised in the first year, rising sharply from that point.

Time for another Sky Noise down under, this time featuring petulant Peta, Sky News host Peta Credlin discusses Labor needing to do a “deal” with the Greens now to go ahead with their superannuation tax. “Labor’s proposed changes to superannuation with the Coalition today taking an in principle decision they will not do a deal with Labor,” Ms Credlin said. “Which it is down to a prospective deal with the Greens.”

Now for a little advice on how to dodge it all, what with tax dodging a reptile speciality, seeing as how much News Corp has avoided paying over the years ...

The fact is that many of those with large superannuation balances are likely to rearrange their affairs and redirect their funds into alternative tax-effective vehicles, including perhaps an expensive family home. There is also likely to be a plethora of disputes with the Australian Taxation Office involving valuation of assets. There will inevitably be a shortage of registered valuers, which will make the implementation of the tax problematic.
The most staggering part of this debate is that there are some obvious solutions, apart from ditching the proposal. For starters, index the $3m by the CPI; this will still bring in more people because most super funds have mandates of CPI plus a certain return. It is therefore a compromise. Large self-managed superannuation funds should be able to continue to pay tax on earnings on the same basis they currently do, including the higher rate above $3m.
If industry super funds are unable to precisely estimate the tax bill for their members with large accounts, then they should be able to use the simple rule of the difference between the balances of two years. And if this is all too hard, then some simple deeming rules could apply. It will be a test of whether the Treasurer is interested in good policy or simply ramming a piece of legislation through the parliament because he can.

Splendid stuff, and once again Dame Groan has been tremendously helpful ...even if the pond might have to reach out with a digital stick to prod correspondents to wake up ...

And so to wrap up with a Tom Tomorrow, celebrating all that makes everyone so keen to take a tour of the US ...(his new one should drop sometime today, but nothing much has changed since last week's outing).