In which the bromancer goes full Barners, but Mein Gott saves the day with Bunnings...

Well might John Hanscombe write in this morning's The Echnida ...

The image of the bridge deck packed with people on a day of horrible weather sent a clear message: Australian anger at the conduct of the war in Gaza is not some fringe concern; it's mainstream.

... because this day in the lizard Oz, talk of Gaza and the current Israeli government and its new war plans and mass starvation, and such like have been disappeared to the reptile cornfield ...

The shameful Chris Minns must be vastly relieved.

One reptile who might have liked to have been disappeared was the astonishing Carla Efstratiou and her Sky after dark down under report, Europe has fallen, which last night took centre stage on Media Watch.

There's no need to repeat details of her vile bile, rich in errors and misrepresentations.

Suffice to say, it was like visiting a dung heap and watching the beetles at work. 

The pond would have liked a more in-depth study of this Carla in action.

As an aside, is this the same Carla who had this as her LinkedIn page?

Aspiring print, online or broadcast journalist.

Specialties: Fashion, lifestyle, entertainment, news.

student BA Communication (Journalism)
UTS
Feb 2009 - Present 16 years 7 months

Wow, the pond used to be a professional student, and managed to keep the racket going for years, but that makes the pond gasp in woke awe.

With Twiggy and the reptiles war on super dominating the headlines, the pond turned to the extreme far right to see if there was anything worth actioning (the pond uses the word in a way designed to offend):

Nope, it seems Dame Groan was worn out by yesterday's exertion, leaving Geoff to chamber yet another round in the reptile war on Jimbo.

The pond did contemplate allowing Lindwall to bowl a quick over, but as the pond will QED, his taste for unrelenting cliché was worse than watching England collapse yet again against India...

As the government prepares to host its economic reform roundtable, we need clear thinking and an honest diagnosis.

The pond almost stopped right there. 

Any one who can bowl up words like "clear thinking" and "honest diagnosis" is either fraudulent or suffering from verbal diarrhea or deeply dishonest, or Scientologically speaking, unclear, or perhaps all four, but the pond carried on, because there's nothing like cliché-collecting in the morning.

Why it's almost as good as the smell of napalm.

By the end of this visually unrelieved journey, the pond began to wonder if this was in fact a sometime cardigan wearer intent on proving government contained the worst of the worst, by showing just what a word spillage ruining the coastline looked like ...

Productivity growth, the foundation of our past prosperity, has stalled. Without a broad policy overhaul to reverse this trend, living standards will fall and fiscal pressures will worsen.
There is no silver bullet. Tax reform frequently is cited as the central solution, and while an efficient tax system supports investment and effort it alone will not revive productivity.
Much of the current conversation around taxes is not even about improving efficiency but about increasing taxes – the antithesis of productivity-enhancing policy.
Governments do not create productivity; that task belongs to firms and workers through innovation, investment and adaptation. But government decisions profoundly shape the environment in which these efforts succeed or fail. For too long, successive governments have distorted incentives, crowded out private initiative and imposed costly regulations with little accountability for results. This is the core problem we must confront.
Industrial relations is a prime example. Recent reforms have re-centralised bargaining and introduced more rigid rules on casual work, gig platforms and multi-employer bargaining. These measures reduce flexibility and impose a complexity that small and medium-sized businesses are ill-equipped to handle. Enterprise-level bargaining has historically delivered results; reversing it will harm, not help, productivity.
Energy policy also has become a drag on our economy. Years of policy uncertainty and underinvestment have delivered higher prices and growing reliability risks. Electricity prices surged by about 25 per cent in 2023.
Without affordable, reliable energy, businesses cannot plan, invest or expand. We must restore a clear investment framework that delivers supply, ensures energy security and is genuinely technologically neutral.
Housing policy reflects a similar failure, where poor affordability is a direct consequence of government choices. Governments have focused on demand-side subsidies – first homebuyer grants and tax concessions – while neglecting supply. Planning delays, zoning restrictions and infrastructure bottlenecks have slowed the delivery of new housing, especially in our largest cities. High immigration and urban concentration have intensified pressure without commensurate infrastructure investment.
We must embrace modular construction, streamlined approvals and long-term planning to support regional centres and take pressure off the capitals.
The federal-state relationship is another significant drag on productivity. Duplication of responsibilities, cost-shifting and fragmented service delivery are common in education, health, housing and transport. Policy efforts work at cross-purposes and accountability is blurred, making reform difficult. A renewed focus on the principle of subsidiarity – that decisions should be taken at the lowest level of government capable of doing so effectively – is essential to improve service delivery and responsiveness.
The “entrepreneurial state” is a deeply flawed approach. Governments are not venture capitalists and should not try to pick winners. Bureaucracies are slow-moving and politically driven. Attempting to direct investment from Canberra risks distorting markets and encouraging rent-seeking over competition. Prosperity is built by entrepreneurs responding to market signals, not public servants allocating capital.
Public spending itself needs reform. Major programs such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Medicare and aged care are vital, but their costs are growing rapidly with little focus on efficiency. The NDIS alone is expected to exceed $50bn annually within a few years.
Unless we improve the delivery and sustainability of these serv­ices, they will crowd out other essential spending or collapse under their own weight.
Defence spending also is set to rise significantly. The focus must be on capability, but Australia’s record in defence procurement is poor: major projects are routinely delayed, over budget or cancelled. A full Productivity Commission review of defence procurement is warranted to ensure spending translates into actual capability.
Infrastructure delivery suffers from similar issues. Governments often announce major projects without proper costings, leading to cancellations, delays and multibillion-dollar cost overruns. One underlying issue is the lack of expertise in government agencies to manage complex construction contracts. Without commercially capable public servants, taxpayers will continue to pay for poor scoping and delivery.
Australia’s regulatory burden is another key barrier. Compliance costs have ballooned in many sectors and regulation is often duplicative, outdated or poorly enforced. It is rare for rules to be reviewed for effectiveness and sunset clauses are the exception, not the rule. Regulation should be proportionate, evidence-based and efficient, and regulators must be held accountable for the burden they impose.
Education and skills policy also deserves renewed focus. A more productive workforce depends on strong foundations in schools, modernised vocational training and university systems that align with emerging industry needs.
This is not just about more funding but about getting better outcomes for every dollar spent.
As government grows in size and scope, so too does the temptation for businesses to seek rents through lobbying rather than through innovation and competition.
This culture of dependency and protection emerges, sapping the dynamism that underpins productivity. We must resist the drift towards ever-greater intervention and refocus on enabling private initia­tive.
Ultimately, not every problem needs a government solution. In many cases, the most effective role government can play is to step back – to remove barriers, reduce duplication and allow individuals, firms and communities to respond in their own way. Productivity thrives in an environment of decentralised problem-solving, not centralised control.
There is no single reform that will restore productivity growth. The issues are systemic and interconnected. Tax reform is necessary but insufficient. Industrial relations, housing, energy, infrastructure, education, public service delivery and federal governance all demand attention. Delay makes the task only harder.
Change takes time to deliver results, but without it we are locking in a future of lower incomes and rising fiscal pressure.
Australia has rebuilt productivity growth before and we can do it again. But it requires clear priorities, coherent policy and a willingness to confront difficult trade-offs. The sooner we act, the sooner we can reverse the slide and secure rising living standards for the next generation.
This roundtable must not become another talkfest. If the government is serious about economic reform, it must show the discipline and courage to act – across the board, not just at the margins.
Paul Lindwall is a former Productivity Commissioner.

Eek, it was, it was, it was a veritable "productivity commissioner" busy proving his productivity by tossing out systemic blather.

Suffice to say, it was a veritable word salad, as much humbug packed into a single column as might be found in any talkfest, and for a nanosecond the pond felt the urge to leave the margins and walk the board walk, but then again, not so much ...

That exercise in regurgitated turgidity left the pond in urgent need of a proper reptile talkfest, and the only hand to shoot up belonged to the bromancer, doing climate change for the umpteenth hive mind time...

The header: Net-zero target is the emperor with no clothes, As even The Economist magazine abandons net-zero by 2050, the Coalition needs to find a politically saleable way of telling the truth on policy.

The caption for the uncredited assembler of images into a gormless, tedious and dull sepia brown collage: The Albanese government's blue-sky optimism on the renewable energy transition is on full display. Picture: Getty Images/The Australian

Is there AI in the house, the pond wondered, as yet again the mindless mantra at the top paraded into view: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

There might be a few correspondents unaware that as well as an expert in defence, preparing for war with China by Xmas, and Catholic cannibalism on a Sunday, the bromancer is a truly astonishing, deeply expert climate scientist.

With that in mind, some might wonder why he manages to ignore climate science, and prefers to join the Canavan caravan in celebrating coal that batters, but how else could he belong to the hive mind? 

There’s not a centre-right party in the English-speaking world, Nationals senator Matt Canavan points out, that remains committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
That the Morrison government had such a commitment, while never remotely expecting to meet it, reflected a failure of nerve that has caused much of today’s problem for the Coalition.
In the US Donald Trump rejects net zero utterly. In Britain both the Conservatives and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which is leading national polls, have repudiated a net-zero target. So did Canada’s Conservatives, who forced the Liberal Prime Minister, Mark Carney, to abandon carbon taxes. New Zealand’s government has kept the notional commitment but reversed Labour’s main policy actions.
So if the Coalition keeps net zero by 2050 it will be an outlier among centre-right parties. Of course, to win an argument you have to be able to mount an argument. The best place to start would be the facts.
It would be useful to dial down emotion and concentrate on what’s actually happening. Then we could perhaps make a sensible response in the national interest.
A good compilation of some key facts came in the March-April edition Foreign Affairs essay by Daniel Yergin, Peter Orszag and Atul Arya. The authors are not right-wingers. They’re sympathetic to net zero but recognise it won’t happen by 2050 or, though they don’t spell this out, for decades later.

You see? Not a single mention of actual climate science or the state of the world, just the Canavan caravan setting the pace, Liberal Senator Matt Canavan at a press conference during a hearing of the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport in Brisbane.

Truth to tell, if you want news on climate you're better off at The Conversation, Climate change: new method can more accurately attribute environmental harm to individual polluters or Only 3 years left – new study warns the world is running out of time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change

We need to face this head on: the window to stay within 1.5°C is essentially shut. Even if we can bring temperatures back down in future, it will be a long and difficult road.
At the same time, climate extremes are intensifying, bringing long-term risks and costs to the global economy but also, importantly, people. The African continent is now facing its deadliest climate crisis in over a decade.

And so on, but if you want someone who thinks the rapture will sort everything out, the bromancer is your sort of scientist ...

In 1990, they report, hydrocarbons made up 85 per cent of global primary energy. Some 35 years of climate change action later, hydrocarbons now account for 80 per cent. Even this figure may be a little low. The reputable Energy Institute says fossil fuels were 82 per cent of global energy in 2024.
Not only that, in 2024 the world generated more energy from coal than in any year in human history. Global greenhouse emissions rose. Yet Chris Bowen mocked the opposition for doubting net zero. If you doubt net zero, he claimed, you’re doubting basic reality. But the facts adduced by Yergin et al, and a million other sources, are irrefutable. Net zero is not real.
The world is not heading towards net zero and there is no energy transition. Or at least there’s no transition where renewable, or intermittent, energy – namely solar and wind energy – are replacing fossil fuel energy.
Huge, vast amounts of renewable energy have been added to the global system but this has been in addition to fossil fuels, not in replacement of them. Greenhouse gas emissions were 33.9 gigatons in 2020 and 37.4 gigatons in 2023. Yet these basic facts never enter the Australian debate, partly because the ABC has more or less come to an effective editorial decision to ignore them and to censor them.
Thus when Sarah Ferguson was effectively debating Barnaby Joyce (under the guise of an interview) recently on the ABC’s 7.30, she made a rhetorical thrust to the effect that 120-odd countries had committed to net zero.

True to the Canavan caravan, the bromancer also managed to bring in Nigel, busy making plans, Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage.

Think of the bromancer as Barners in drag, and you could imagine that duo playing the Tamworth town hall during flood season.

Or better still, start praying for that rapture ...

Wouldn’t you think a senior journalist would be more interested in what countries were actually doing rather than what notional aspirations they had signed up to, in most cases as non-binding “commitments”?
Yergin points out that previous energy transitions didn’t result in less energy being used by the old fuels. Coal replaced wood, but in fact the world uses more wood for fuel now than it did at the start of the coal revolution. Oil, it seemed, would replace coal. But in fact coal use in 2024 was three times greater than it was in the 1960s. This illustrates the so-called Jevons paradox. A technology becomes so cheap that people invent new uses for it.
Not only that, previous energy transitions were mostly motivated by cheaper costs for the new energy sources. But as Yergin makes clear, switching to renewable energy sources involves massive extra costs. It’s much more expensive than the energy it replaces.
As is well known, China today accounts for 30 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the US and EU combined. India, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil and Iran are among the top 10 emitters. No one in the developing world is going to put net zero, or climate change considerations generally, ahead of development.
Yergin points out some three billion people use less electricity a year than the average American refrigerator. A critical analytical point that Yergin demonstrates is that the developing world will carbonise before it decarbonises, simply because renewables are so much more expensive.

It wouldn't be a day inn the reptile hive mind without dragging in Sky Noise after dark down under, the home of the astonishing Carla Efstratiou, Sky News host James Macpherson discusses the Coalition’s review of net zero and energy, which “could take a year”. “Well, Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan says the Coalition review of net zero and energy policy, could you believe this, could take a year,” Mr Macpherson said. “They are trying to figure out how can you support net zero and cheap reliable energy, the answer, of course, is you can’t.”

It turns out that the bromancer gets most of his data, and all of his approach, from a close reading of that unreformed seminarian, the Ughmann, as the pair crank out a united form of unrepentant crankiness ...

He cites the trillions and trillions of dollars that would be needed to build renewable energy sources for all these folks, not to mention the two billion population increase forecast over the next couple of decades. It won’t be done because it can’t be done.
I could go on reciting similar facts endlessly, but let me offer you just two other straws in the wind. Alan Kohler on the ABC’s national news last Sunday became the first ABC presenter or commentator I’ve ever seen notice a basic fact about net zero.
The world will not get there or anywhere near there, he said, as he reported that both China and India in 2024 approved more new coal-fired power plant construction than at any time in the last decade. Yet every climate change advocate in Australia claims China is heading to net zero even as it obviously, manifestly, clearly, incontrovertibly, is not. Kohler’s basic statement of fact should be referenced in every ABC discussion of net zero from now on.
Finally, consider this week’s Economist. The Economist is the journalistic incarnation of Davos Man, a high-gloss rendition of every globalist piety there is. Sometimes its journalism is brilliant, but it makes many analytical mistakes. This week it crossed a Rubicon by declaring the world should abandon net zero by 2050 as a hard target and conceive of it as a “more of a guideline strategy”. It further commented that many nations’ net-zero pledges “are barely physically imaginable, let alone politically feasible”. Bizarrely, saying this sort of thing in Australia gets you labelled a crank.

Naturally Zanny earns a snap, Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief at The Economist.

Now better get those insurance policies lined up, if you can afford them, because in the bromancer's world, an awful amount of sh*t is going to come down, in a most unrepentant way (* the pond is now aware that this is 1984 and the bots are watching):

It is not the climate wars initiated by the Coalition that have been the enemy of good policy but the thought-police quality of the ABC and the progressive political class that not only polices acceptable remarks on climate change but actually refuses to admit most relevant facts.
The Albanese government won’t make its climate targets, but really, who cares? The targets aren’t important. A reliable power supply at an affordable price ought to be the priorities. Australia has an obligation to remain wealthy and take effective mitigation steps where necessary.
Wealthy nations are typically reducing emissions, though net zero is an inherently fraudulent and impossible concept. We ought to have a mature national debate on a realistic national response, including cost. The difficulty for the Coalition is its two-faced approach up till now, its lack of powerful advocates while it insanely keeps Canavan on the backbench, and the need to make a nuanced argument. Yes, we’ll reduce emissions, but we won’t hurt the economy in the process and we won’t be bound by net zero, which virtually no other country will achieve either.
It’s a tough gig but politics, like life, wasn’t meant to be easy.

By golly, it's not just Lindwall who can bowl down a cliché and milk it for a feeble, deeply pathetic attempt at cornball humour of the "life wasn't meant to be sleazy" kind... the bromancer, channeling Barners, can also manage to sound like Bob Hope on a bad night on a tour of 'Nam ...

That 'toon wrongly credits Dali, the source of course is Chuck Jones ...

For those made despondent and cast into despair by Barners and the Bromancer, fear not because Mein Gott has the solution.

The pond has felt a tad guilty of late for not paying attention to Mein Gott - his arvo outings never match the pond's schedule -  but yesterday he provided the perfect solution to all the hive mind fears surrounding renewable energy ...

The header: Bunnings to lead city power cost fightback, Australia’s governments would do well to learn a thing or two from our most trusted brand.

The caption, as if one was needed: A new project from Bunnings and Intellihub aims to boost renewable energy uptake in Australia.

Yes, it's Mein Gott spruiking Bunnings...

Australia’s capital cities and large towns are going to get the chance to fight back to avoid the power price jumps set to be imposed on them by the federal – and some state – governments.
Australia’s most trusted brand, Bunnings, in combination with Intellihub, aim to transform and boost renewable energy in Australia.
The governments believe the best way to achieve emission targets is to plonk limited-life windmills and solar panels in remote locations and then spend countless billions on transmission lines to get the power to markets. And gas power generating stations will still be required to cover times when the turbines and solar farms are not generating.
As a result, Australia will have some of the highest cost power in the world. Subsidy demands will be huge.
But there is a better way: generate renewable power in the cities and towns where it is consumed, and generate it next to batteries. If the Bunnings/Intellihub plan works it looks set to happen on a massive scale.
Intellihub, which makes and installs smart meters, will provide the technology and installation capacity and Bunnings the customer base.

The reptiles diligently mined stock footage for the one interrupting image, For solar to work in cities today, batteries need to be installed along with rooftop panelling.

Mein Gott was also up on the roof ...

At the moment, about 40 per cent of Australian rooftops have solar panels. Most were installed when it was possible to generate worthwhile revenue by “exporting” power generated by the sun to the grid for a reasonable fee.
But now that fee has become token at best. Solar panels still provide energy for dwellings and warehouses, but the economics are no longer as attractive.
To make city solar work, a battery is required to store the power generated in peak sunshine times. But the battery installation market usually requires a substantial upfront fee and is dominated by a large number of small operators, some of whom have questionable qualifications.
Despite government subsidies, only 8 per cent of those with rooftop solar power have batteries. Bunnings and Intellihub plan a nationwide launch of a business called Zelora which will offer Bunnings customers roof top solar panels and a battery with a fire protection unit which is connected to a smart meter. Trials are taking place in Newcastle and Sydney. By the end of the year Zelora aims to be extended into other major markets.
Intellihub is expanding its existing smart meter installation workforce to install the panels, the batteries and, of course, the smart meters. Intellihub has installed three million smart meters across Australia, most of which are linked to the large energy companies like Origin, AGL and EnergyAustralia.
Intellihub became a metering powerhouse when Pacific Equity Partners brought together several metering companies led by Origin’s Acumen, which it sold in 2018 for just $267m. Three years later Brookfield bought 50 per cent of Intellihub. Intellihub is now worth $3bn.
Bunnings’ great selling point will be 10-year instalment contracts reduced by a government solar panel subsidy. The monthly instalments required on a 10-year contract will normally be offset by the power savings.

Ah, of course, it's the government subsidy, and never mind all those balls bowled down the leg side by Lindwall.

Now the pond is all in favour of solar and batteries, and preferably hooked up to an EV- if you can stand the capital costs, life is sweet - but as for Bunnings, there have been a few doubters ... per the ABC ...

When Warwick Johnston heard Bunnings was preparing to sell solar panels and batteries to households, he was unsurprised.
Word that the commercial giant was joining the market for one of Australia's hottest retail categories would be big news to most. 
But Mr Johnston, who is the head of solar industry research firm SunWiz, had seen it before.
Years earlier, Swedish multinational IKEA made a similar move.
As IKEA soon found out, Mr Johnston suspected Bunnings would find the going harder in the solar and batteries market than it was anticipating.
"I think it's fantastic that these big brands are getting in on it. It remains to be seen how successful it is," he said.
Mr Johnston said the solar industry had historically been hyper-competitive, and large companies had found it tough.
"The number one player in the solar industry had a 3 per cent market share. So, this is a market with many, many small players.
"And large companies have tried to compete in that space and actually found it challenging to be nimble and responsive and lean enough to make it work."

So it's not just niche YouTubers like the Electric Viking who have their doubts...

Bunnings launches zero up-front home battery & solar deal - but there's a catch
Bunnings has launched a zero up-front solar and battery subscription deal, letting customers install systems with no initial cost—but over time, monthly payments may end up costing more than buying outright.

As always, do your own research and arrive at a deal that suits you, and crucially, an installer who'll still be around by Xmas and available to fix his/her mistakes ...

And take Mein Gott's enthusiastic spruiking of Bunnings with more than a few grains of salt ...

While such power savings will not apply to all households, most installments will be covered and there will often be a “profit”. And, via smart meters, households will be able to give the networks the right to drain between 50 and 60 per cent of the power in a battery when network power is short. Not everyone will want to do it, but it should be very profitable.
Never before have solar, batteries and smart meters been set to be promoted in such a vigorous way through one of the country’s biggest retail customer bases. The Bunnings promotion will be multiplied by increased rooftop solar/battery promotion by the large energy companies, which must be aware those who sign up with Bunnings can choose their own power company.
They will want keep their customers. The competition, including from smaller groups, makes it highly likely the 40 per cent of roofs with solar panels will expand dramatically, and this will be accompanied by an even greater increase in batteries which will make the system work.
Australia potentially could show the world how to make renewables achieve their aim.
The current renewables thrust, including transmission lines, is not only high-cost but creating a very angry rural community. As pointed out in The Australian on Saturday, the high-cost renewables brigade want to decimate the Blue Mountains area, as well as seeking offshore windmills.
Generating the power where it is used makes a great deal more sense and should trigger economic investment in capital city grids so they can take excess power.
Meanwhile, the smart meter can help in using power when it is at its cheapest. Down the track, the systems being installed will be used to charge the batteries of electric cars, although, economically, the best time to do that is mid-morning or early afternoon when the sun is at its brightest and enormous amounts of power are being generated both on rooftops and in the remote locations. That time will not be suitable for those using their car during the day.
Under the Intellihub/Bunnings profit-share venture Bunnings will have no access to the customer data. Of course, power companies can offer their customers lower power prices in exchange for their data and one day Bunnings may alter its arrangement with Intellihub and offer the profit-share venture customers some form of incentive to allow their data to be used.
Whether it be via a power company or, in time, via Bunnings, data on power usage of individuals can signal anomalies that can indicate appliances such as a new refrigerator or pool pump may be required. This can be valuable to suppliers.
Bunnings’ huge customer base and brand goodwill is a unique feature of the Australian landscape. Globally, no similar organisation has entered the renewable space.
Bunnings is now going to use this venture to become a major renewables player in conjunction with Intellihub. It is also moving into the car parts space against a series of dominant operators.
Bunnings’ joint venture to transform the rooftop-based renewables industry will be widely welcomed. It gets a different reception when it pitches the strength of its retail base against the trade building suppliers.
If they were to be eliminated, Bunnings would control most of the building supply distribution in Australia and that has political implications. Solar panels and batteries are a much better application of Bunnings’ power.

So there you have it, renewable energy fixed.

And there's climate change done for the day, reptile style, and so to wrap up with a new form of cartoon wars ...

That's the only chance to catch the deeply redundant Spooner on the pond. 

When The Age gave him the flick and he entered the hive mind, he went kinda Bill Leak funny ... which is to say deeply unfunny ...

Meanwhile, Wilcox contributed her own version of the parade, with a spoonful of sweetness and light...