In which the pond celebrates group think, especially the group giving the lettuce a bigly chance ...

 

Give the pond a break.

They're still banging on about it ... and this time the wretched miscreant is nattering "Ned" ...

The three little-known factors in the Whitlam Dismissal saga
Goal of total victory cost Gough total defeat
Gough Whitlam wanted an unqualified victory that meant no opposition in future would ever thinking of blocking supply again.
By Paul Kelly
Editor-At-Large

Nah, that's an Everest climb too far, there's the archive link (relax, it might or might not work), and masochists can have at it, or just stare at the archive's whirling circle of doom, an infinitely more rewarding pastime.

The pond would even have accepted yet another obituary for the Swiss bank account man as an alternative, lickspittle reptile fellow traveller that he became ...

And the reptiles couldn't just honour the fallen, they had to turn it into a political point scoring fest...

War memorial blast
Decorated ex-soldier’s dire defence warning
The outgoing RSL president has stunned Anthony Albanese with an extraordinary Remembrance Day rebuke over Australia’s defence spending and preparedness.
By Jamie Walker

Oh go sell some iron ore to the Chinese with the help of Gina ...

And as part of his rehabilitation campaign the swishing Switzer turned up to blather on ...

The BBC crisis offers lessons for our own public broadcaster
Few things upset ABC and BBC journalists more than the allegation their news output is institutionally biased but a strong groupthink is too often at work at the broadcasters.
By Tom Switzer
Contributor

This was the credit ...

Tom Switzer is a former ABC presenter.

This is the way the pond prefers to remember Switzer, per the AFR...

Switzer resigns from CIS after harassment complaint

Former executive director Tom Switzer has resigned from the Centre for Independent Studies following a sexual harassment claim against him, which he denies.
A CIS spokeswoman confirmed on Tuesday that “Switzer has decided that it is in the best interests of the organisation for him to resign”.
In August, it was revealed that Emilie Dye, who worked as a marketing and research analyst at the centre right think-tank, had alleged in an application with the Fair Work Commission that her employer had retaliated against her for refusing to sign a non-disclosure agreement over her alleged sexual harassment by Switzer.
In it, she alleged Switzer rubbed her leg, told her she had a “great arse” and described himself as “a very sexual guy” on a night out in March. Switzer told The Australian Financial Review he “categorically denied” the allegations, both the alleged physical touching and inappropriate remarks.
On Tuesday Dye, who worked at CIS for two years and is still listed on its website as an analyst for its Intergenerational Program and regular contributor on Sky News, said she welcomed Switzer’s decision to leave.
“I see Tom’s resignation as a step forward toward CIS putting this behind them,” she said.
“All I ever wanted was to be able to do my job and to be compensated appropriately for my role in a collegial, productive and safe work environment.”
Switzer was executive director from 2017 to 2025, before he moved into a “senior fellow” position. On June 2, the CIS announced former Financial Review editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury would succeed Switzer in the executive director role.
Switzer is a contributor to The Australian, the Financial Review and Sky News Australia, and a former ABC Radio National presenter.
In an email to staff on Tuesday, Stutchbury said CIS “is facing a challenging workplace dispute in the Fair Work Commission”.
“The pressure of this process has affected both the CIS and Tom personally,” Stutchbury added. “After careful consideration, Tom has decided it is in the best interests of CIS that he resign effective immediately. We acknowledge his contribution to the organisation and wish him well for the future.”
The FWC case returns to mediation on Friday.
Switzer told the Financial Review: “I believe that the pursuit of sound classical liberal and conservative ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking.
“Since 2017 I’ve been grateful to have played a role in fostering popular events, digital output and media outreach as well as evidence-based public-policy scholarship at CIS, which have helped shape public discourse both across Australia and abroad. As we head into our 50th anniversary, CIS is more important than ever.”

Now as for the swishing Switzer's use of groupthink?

As in his opening flourish ...

Few things upset ABC and BBC journalists more than the allegation their news output is institutionally biased. But a strong groupthink is all too often at work at the Australian and British public broadcasters, which are obliged to be even-handed.
Indeed, it is striking how quickly the ABC or BBC “position” on any news story emerges. I worked at Radio National for a decade and I know expressing dissent in editorial conferences could be an uncomfortable experience.

He surely knows about uncomfortable matters and uncomfortable experiences, but the pond had been waiting for a reptile to use the word "groupthink" so that the pond might turn to David Merritt Johns in The Atlantic, musing thusly ...

In Defense of ‘Groupthink’
Are we too quick to agree on the dangers of consensus? 

Inter alia...

“Groupthink is a compelling myth,” Fuller and Aldag argued in their contribution to an academic journal’s special issue for the 25th anniversary of Janis’s theory. “Despite a quarter century virtually devoid of support for the phenomenon, groupthink refuses to die.” Other papers in the journal took more specific aim at the theory. One argued that what Janis took to be a herd mentality might just as well be seen as deliberate, venal compliance. In other words, the misguided bureaucrats weren’t so much “victims” of groupthink as they were savvy operators who were minding which way the political winds were blowing. Another paper, by the Stanford psychologist Roderick Kramer, drew upon newly declassified documents to reanalyze the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam cases from Janis’s book, and found that much of the new evidence did not support the original interpretation. According to Kramer, neither case showed groupthink; they both showed “politicothink.” (Needless to say, Kramer’s coinage has not caught on.)

That special issue marked a turning point for the academic bandwagon that Janis had kicked off. “It would be hard now to get a groupthink paper published in a top journal,” Aldag, who is retired but still sits on editorial boards, told me.

The implosion of Janis’s model has left groupthink in an odd place. In popular discourse, the word has taken on a life of its own, as an insult deployed without clear reference to any theory of psychology. “I don’t think people always know what it means,” Fuller said. Dominic Packer, a Lehigh University psychologist who has written about groupthink, told me that the term has become a useful pejorative. “It’s what the other people think,” he said. “You never hear people say it to their own group.”

Taking potshots at groupthink has become especially popular on the political right, where rugged individualism is beloved and elite consensus makers are not. From 2016 to 2023, Tucker Carlson often signed off from his weeknight Fox News show with a tagline declaring it “the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink.” Before taking roles in government, both Makary and Bhattacharya joined the chorus in their appearances on Fox News, taking whacks at the groupthink in the U.S. pandemic response.

To be sure, there is something deeply familiar about the idea that human beings will sometimes follow the crowd because they cherish their place in the group. Yet the claim that our public-health mistakes can be pinned on some special force called groupthink is both unhelpful and misguided. For one thing, the label implies that we’d all be better off if a monkish master of “lonethink” could be recruited to weigh the science on their own, and then arrive at the objective answer to a thorny problem, such as whether to shut down schools and when to reopen them. But decisions like these are usually carried out in the face of competing values, squabbling constituencies, and genuine uncertainty about the facts. Deciding what to do requires negotiation and democratic politics. It’s a group activity.

Indeed, the failure of our leaders to explain that public health is never just a matter of “following the science” may be one of the pandemic’s most enduring fiascos. Now the MAHA crusaders themselves seem ready to repeat that error in extravagant ways. “This group is going where the science takes them,” Hilliard, the HHS spokesperson, told me when I asked about Kennedy’s decision to stack the nation’s vaccine-advisory panel with a group of his like-minded associates. To insist that this was necessary to rescue the committee from “vaccine groupthink” is to get the matter backward: It labels a triumph of systematic decision making—one that has saved countless lives—as a tragedy; it courts disaster rather than forestalls it. (Hilliard did not respond to a question about the scientific controversy surrounding groupthink.)

Well-managed groups operating under clear and transparent rules—groups such as the vaccine-advisory committee and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (which Kennedy seems ready to also dismantle)—are some of the most powerful and trustworthy decision-making tools that we have. They are guided by published research and hard-won experience on how to avoid bad group decisions. For example, group leaders should not impose their views at the outset, and should make it clear that they value candid input from the team.

But our MAHA leaders don’t appear to be heeding this advice. “A core aspect of the Trump administration is that these leaders are not willing to admit a single mistake ever,” Packer told me. That might drive team members to hide their own mistakes, and to never criticize their bosses, even when leadership is screwing up, he said. Any group decision comes with a degree of acquiescence and a leap of faith. But the best decisions involve bringing groups together, hearing out their different views, and not denying that we have a social nature. Our nation’s thinking isn’t broken, and this administration shouldn’t try to fix it.

Well that was a droll detour, all thanks to the swishing Switzer.

As for the rest early this Wednesday morning, Dame Slap again disappoints ...

Legal rights threatened by campus injustice
Lurking beneath fine intentions to reduce the incidence of gender-based violence in higher education is the codified vigilante justice of zealots.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

Where's the bloody bromancer? 

Remember, it was on 28th October that he made his most recent appearance, and since then the world has gone to hell in a hand basket, the craven Senate Democrats and Chuck have folded, and the war with China is looming, as is Xmas, time for his usual celebration of Xianity ...

Only his patented brand of unhinged hysteria offered any pleasure in this dreary hive mind, groupthink reptile wasteland.

After surveying that sodden field, that's how the pond was left with the lettuce wars ...

The header: Do-or-die moment for broken Liberals as net-zero call looms large

The caption for the snap of the ruck: Opposition Leader Sussan Ley with Dan Tehan and Angus Taylor last week. Picture: Martin Ollman

Put it another way ...

Not that the pond cared, save for how the lettuce was going as Sussssan performed her Ssssipyhian feats ...

Sussan Ley has allowed two words – net zero – to become a festering wound that has crippled her leadership and diluted the ­influence of her moderate Liberal backers.
Over the next five days, Liberal MPs will finally abandon the politically motivated deal hatched ­between Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce before the UN climate change conference in 2021.
The misguided belief of Ley and her energy and climate change spokesman Dan Tehan that they could dither for 12 months over the conservative kryptonite net-zero issue smacked of poor political judgment.
The moment Matt Canavan challenged David Littleproud for the Nationals leadership after the May 3 election was when Ley should have known the Coalition’s net-zero emissions by 2050 policy was dead, buried and cremated.
Unlike Ley and Tehan, who aren’t staunch net-zero backers, Canavan and NSW Nationals Senator Ross Cadell moved decisively to develop a plan and secure partyroom support for the Nationals to reject net zero.
Littleproud, considered a net-zero sympathiser, had no choice but to go with the majority. “They did the work. Dan (Tehan) tries to please everyone, but has dropped the ball on this. It’s a mess,” a senior Coalition figure said.
More than six months after Peter Dutton led the Coalition to one of its worst ever election defeats, Ley has called Liberals to Canberra for a net-zero showdown against the backdrop of moderates threatening to quit and conservatives pushing to reclaim influence.

Suddenly the pastie Hastie was a consensus man ... Conservative Andrew Hastie has been working behind the scenes trying to land a consensus position. Picture: Martin Ollman

On and on the battle raged, the lettuce looking on with wild-eyed pleasure ...

The net-zero saga has transformed into an ugly public battle between Liberal moderates and conservatives that most believe will culminate in a move on Ley’s leadership early next year.
The Coalition was never going to maintain support for Labor’s legislated climate change agenda given the net-zero backlash in the regions, increasing scepticism the mid-century target will be achieved and rising fears about higher energy bills and job losses in heavy industries.
By retaining the net-zero policy, Dutton and Littleproud exposed the Coalition to backlash from moderate and conservative supporters. Moderates didn’t believe them and conservatives – repulsed by the words net zero, Paris agreement and emissions reduction targets – were outraged.
Ley’s supporters can condemn Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Andrew Hastie and others for her predicament but the net-zero issue should have been dealt with sooner. The blame game in the Liberals must stop.

The reptiles were so excited they introduced a gab fest ...

The Front
Liberal showdown over net zero
12:18
volume_up

The agonising was endless ...

Voters elected them as candidates for the Liberal Party of Australia, not as individuals. If a majority of Liberals support a leader or new climate and energy policies, including zero-emissions nuclear power, the rest should fall into line. Those best equipped to serve in shadow cabinet should do so without undermining the leader or threatening to quit.
While there has been some disagreement among Liberal conservatives, the moderates were too slow in making their case. Most conservatives accept staying in the Paris agreement, support a full repeal of net-zero legislation and bureaucracy, endorse ending the nuclear power ban and want reviews into impacts of wind and solar farm projects. Prominent moderates want to keep the words “net zero”.
Liberals including Hastie and Andrew Bragg, who are considered the next generation of conservative and moderate leaders, have been working behind the scenes trying to land a consensus position on net zero that allays concerns on both sides.

Damn you moderates, yearning for the science, Senator Jane Hume is one of the moderates who wants to retain net zero. Picture: Martin Ollman

Then it was a final bout of unhappiness, with the lettuce savouring the chance of an Xmas feast ...

Ley critics lament that the Liberal leader has outsourced negotiations to Tehan and not personally intervened to secure agreement across her party room.
North Queensland MP Phillip Thompson, a veteran and conservative who holds the biggest lower house margin of any Liberal MP, nailed it after he was forced to disrupt Remembrance Day events.
“It saddens me that on such an important day, now I can’t spend it with loved ones, my friends, families of my mates who have been killed in action, those who’ve lost people most important to them,” he told Sky News. “Because I’ve got to get on a bloody plane to fly back to Canberra to talk about something that we should’ve resolved months ago, I think it’s really a big kick in the guts. We’ve now seen people threaten to quit positions and throw all their toys out of the cot – once again the Liberal Party talking about itself. Those people who want to threaten to quit, then quit, you’re not that important anyway. We need to get on with the job.”
With One Nation on the march and conservative voters splintering across minor parties and independents, the alarm bells are ringing for Ley and Littleproud.
Since the election, the Coalition’s primary vote has plunged to a record low of 24 per cent.
One Nation’s primary vote has risen to a record-high 15 per cent and minor parties and independents are at 14 per cent.
Labor’s core support remains static at 36 per cent and 51 per cent of voters are dissatisfied with Anthony Albanese’s performance. The Greens have fallen to 11 per cent.
There is opportunity for the Coalition to rebuild but Liberals and Nationals MPs won’t move the dial if they can’t devise well-considered policies promising Australians a clear alternative vision, stay united and differentiate themselves from Labor.

Meanwhile, the infallible Pope had a splendid vision ...

Strange, is there some kind of conference going on?

Never heard of it says the devout follower of the hive mind.

But wait, there was more, because the Brown out also offered a bout of navel gazing and fluff gathering ...

The header: Net zero showdown ultimate test for Sussan Ley’s leadership

The caption: Opposition Leader Sussan Ley at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra on Tuesday. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Geoff had chambered a goodly 5 minute read, but the Brown out outdid him with a total of 6...

Sussan Ley faces the ultimate test of her leadership as the Liberal party room meets to debate a net-zero emissions target but is not guiding her MPs on how she wants the policy to land, with conservative powerbrokers claiming her only chance of holding onto the top job is dumping any ambition to a carbon-neutral future.
Moderates are still hopeful a deal can be struck to retain a net-zero goal under the Paris ­Agreement, claiming some conservatives had suggested they were open to a long-term aspiration as long as it was not accompanied by domestic policies mandating it is reached.
Conservatives including leadership aspirants Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie are backing remaining committed to the Paris Agreement but are claiming there is no need for a net-zero commitment as part of the international agreement.
Mr Taylor said on Tuesday he was not “focused on” on challenging for the Liberal leadership but did not rule it out in the future. “It’s not something we’re planning,” he told the Nine Network’s Today, when asked if he would rule out a challenge.
Pro-net-zero frontbencher Tim Wilson put his support for the Opposition Leader on notice based on the outcome of the policy, he told Sky News.
“I’m looking for leadership because that’s the way through this debate. And it’s very important that people step up, they rise to the challenge.”

The reptiles had devised a new kind of video player ... think of all the ad revenue ...

Your video will play after the ad
Ad 1 of 1 (00:12)
‘All sorts of strife’: Liberal showdown looms over net zero debate
Sky News host Chris Kenny highlights how Shadow Assistant Defence Minister Phillip Thompson...more

The pond avoided any time with the dog botherer, and ploughed on ...

Allies of Ms Ley say she has not advocated any position internally, in an approach that has infuriated moderates who believe she has created a vacuum that has provided momentum to the push to abandon net zero.
Ms Ley wants the issue to be resolved by consensus from the “bottom up”, although MPs expect her to junk net zero in line with the wishes of top conservatives and other powerbrokers key to her leadership, Alex Hawke and James McGrath. The position of deputy Liberal leader Ted O’Brien is unclear among Liberals, with conservatives claiming he is in favour of junking net zero while moderates say he has signalled support for retaining it.
While Mr Wilson, Andrew Bragg, Paul Scarr and Maria ­Kovacic are not ruling out quitting the frontbench if net zero is dumped, retaining the goal would likely see more conservative MPs join Mr Hastie and Jacinta ­Nampijinpa Price on the backbench.
The Australian reported on Wednesday that some moderates were conceding that a majority of MPs favoured dumping net zero, with the views of Liberals shifting over the past month on the back of the rise of One Nation’s polling numbers and the frontrunning of the Nationals.
Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh, who is from Mr Hawke’s centre-right faction, said she did not believe Australia needed any net-zero ambition under Paris, even if it was a vague one. “I know that my community doesn’t want net zero, not at all,” Ms McIntosh told The Australian.
She said she hoped there would be no frontbench resignations after the position on net zero was finalised.
The party room meeting on Wednesday will include presentations from energy spokesman Dan Tehan and federal director Andrew Hirst. There will be contributions from MPs, with the Liberal position to be finalised after a meeting of shadow ministers on Thursday.
A committee of senior Liberals and Nationals will work through the differences of the policies and unveil a joint Coalition position on Sunday.

Remember the pond is only doing this to give the lettuce an update on its chances ...

Your video will play after the ad
Ad 1 of 1 (00:13)
Angus Taylor denies planning challenge to Liberal leader Sussan Ley

The MP who unsuccessfully challenged Sussan Ley for Liberal leadership in May has revealed his... more

... even if that meant getting past the windmill-hating beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way ...

There are unlikely to be major differences between the policies of the two Coalition parties, with many Liberals favouring the Nationals policy of linking interim emissions targets with the average achievements of OECD countries. There is also broad support for including coal and gas in the Capacity Investment Scheme as part of a plan to make the underwriting program “technology neutral”.
Denying Ms Ley’s leadership was under any pressure, Mr Tehan said bringing the Coalition together under one policy would be like “threading a needle” but he was confident consensus could be achieved.
He said there had to be a balance between taking action on climate change and ensuring there was affordable and reliable energy. “If we don’t have a strong economy we are not going to be able to address climate change in the manner that we need to,” Mr Tehan told the ABC.
Moderate MPs are telling Liberals that the party will fail to win an election if they drop net zero, with the issue particularly important in capital cities. They are sharing polling showing 49 per cent of respondents think the Coalition should keep a net-zero by 2050 target, compared with 30 per cent who believe it should be dropped.
The YouGov poll commissioned by the Blueprint Institute showed just 21 out of 150 House of Representatives seats had a majority of voters who wanted net zero dumped.
Mr Wilson, who beat former teal MP Zoe Daniel in the Melbourne seat of Goldstein at the last election, took aim
at the Nationals policy to link emission targets to the OECD average. “I find the idea that we would outsource to a globalist standard like the average of OECD emissions, frankly, bizarre. And I don’t really see that that’s a tolerable policy,” he said. “We need to be honest about what’s achievable and with what time frame.”
Assistant NDIS spokesman Phil Thompson – an opponent of net zero – criticised MPs threatening to quit the frontbench if the carbon neutral target was dropped. “Those people who want to threaten to quit, then quit. You’re not that important anyway,” Mr Thompson told Sky News.
An Afghanistan war veteran, Mr Thompson joined West Australian MP Ben Small and South Australian senator Alex Antic in criticising Ms Ley for forcing Liberals to cut short Remembrance Day commemorations to be in Canberra for the meeting. He said the issue “should have been resolved months ago”.
Groom MP Garth Hamilton attacked moderate MPs for calling to retain a version of net zero that was not Labor’s.
“The same people who tell us net zero is just semantics now insist on calling it ‘Labor’s net zero’. You just can’t beat mod logic,” Mr Hamilton said.

Talk about moles discussing the fate of mountains in their hive mind, groupthink way ...

What chance was there to discuss events in King Donald's realm, or even mention the pond's stunning promotion to being an official advisor to the White House?

In celebration of that appointment, a little TT ...just imagine the pond standing alongside the serial couch molester and the vampire, advising away ...