The reptiles were back on their energy jihad this morning, and in a bigly way...
The bigly lead in the early morning edition was blessed by a Tesla-sparkling gif and the attendance of a full five crusaders, inducing a temptation to wonder how many reptiles were needed to change a light bulb:
POWER SHOCKS
‘Without a plan, higher prices will kill us’: real cost of our spiralling energy crisis
Suffering under the burden of ever-increasing power bills after broken promises that energy costs would be reduced, small businesses across the country are now making some tough decisions.
by Marcus de Blonk Smith, Paul Garvey, Bimini Plesser, Sean Callinan and Kyle Leonard
‘Without a plan, higher prices will kill us’: real cost of our spiralling energy crisis
Suffering under the burden of ever-increasing power bills after broken promises that energy costs would be reduced, small businesses across the country are now making some tough decisions.
by Marcus de Blonk Smith, Paul Garvey, Bimini Plesser, Sean Callinan and Kyle Leonard
What a relief to send these crusaders off to the archive, quickly followed by a two reptile tag team ...
EXCLUSIVE
Solar, wind investment crash puts renewable target in doubt
Australia needs 6 gigawatts annually of wind and solar added to meet its 2030 renewable targets. This year is shaping up as a decade low for signed off investments despite a giant supply pipeline.
By Perry Williams and Rachel Baxendale
Solar, wind investment crash puts renewable target in doubt
Australia needs 6 gigawatts annually of wind and solar added to meet its 2030 renewable targets. This year is shaping up as a decade low for signed off investments despite a giant supply pipeline.
By Perry Williams and Rachel Baxendale
Only two crusaders required for that yarn?
Off to the archive with them, accompanied by Col, always packing it ...
GRID STABILITY
Energy operator sounds alarm on closure of NSW’s biggest coal station
The grid will need frequent interventions without new grid-forming batteries or synchronisers to replace coal, the energy market operator has warned. Australia risks a system that has enough power, but cannot operate safely in practice.
By Colin Packham
Energy operator sounds alarm on closure of NSW’s biggest coal station
The grid will need frequent interventions without new grid-forming batteries or synchronisers to replace coal, the energy market operator has warned. Australia risks a system that has enough power, but cannot operate safely in practice.
By Colin Packham
Strangely the quarry waters whisperer hadn't got the memo about the crusade, and was more concerned with Tamworth's eternal shame ...
The header: Note to Barnaby: Hanson’s theatrics will lead to political oblivion; Hanson’s popular appeal remains the party’s greatest strength and greatest weakness. But with her as leader the party will remain a mirror image of the Greens: a protest party that rallies the aggrieved and rails against the establishment.
The caption: Pauline Hanson speaks at the CPAP conservative conference at The Star in Sydney. Picture: NewsWire / David Swift
The Caterist spent a full five minutes trying to cope with ratbags, as if the reptiles had done nothing to encourage them, and the pond presumed some anthropologists might find the thought experiment briefly amusing...
Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson would have spent Monday night last week in furious agreement as they enjoyed a home-cooked dinner for two in the senator’s parliamentary offices.
From immigration to net zero, the differences between Nationals conservatives and One Nation are matters of presentation, not substance. Politically, however, they operate in different universes, which may be why the newly liberated independent member for New England is hesitating before throwing in his lot with One Nation.
Hanson’s impetuous decision to walk into the Senate wearing a burka last week condemns One Nation to remain on the fringes of political life. Joyce will have left a party that seeks outcomes to join a party of outrage.
Hanson is a remarkable politician, yet she is destined to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her arrival in parliament in March as she began: defying the pressure to conform to political propriety and forcefully articulating what many Australians think but are unable to say. Yet she remains a back-seat driver, powerless to alter the nation’s course or change lives for better or worse.
The reptiles followed up with a snap of the diners, leaving the pond to wonder if the photographer was included in the meal: Barnaby Joyce has dinner with Pauline Hanson in her office. Picture: Supplied
The pond suspects that Barners is off to the scrap heap, and bizarrely, of all people to help with the scrapping, the Caterist dragged in the Canavan caravan to help with the burial:
Hanson’s popular appeal remains the party’s greatest strength and greatest weakness. Hanson is 71 yet seems unconcerned about leadership transition besides hinting her daughter could inherit the role. Numbers in the Senate will ebb and flow, but the party will remain a mirror image of the Greens: a protest party that expresses dissatisfaction, rallies the aggrieved and rails against the establishment.
The purse-lipped indignation of the political elite only strengthens Hanson’s support within a narrow range.
Yet as Matt Canavan noted on Sky News, social media “likes” are a notoriously unreliable metric. “Has anything actually gotten better in this country by Pauline acting like this?” he asked. “Has it helped lower migration in this country? Has she banned the burka? No, she hasn’t.”
Canavan is unusual among Hanson’s critics in that he broadly shares her world view. Yet their political philosophies are worlds apart. Canavan is a democratic conservative for whom parliament is a forum for resolving disagreements, balancing interests and producing workable outcomes.
For Hanson, parliament is a stage on which to perform, a platform for signalling outrage and mobilising supporters. In this, she has more in common with radicals such as Lidia Thorpe than she may care to imagine.
In a passionate and thoughtful 10-minute interview with Andrew Bolt on Tuesday night, Canavan took issue with the TikTokisation of parliamentary politics and the indulgent theatrics of the Senate crossbenches.
The purse-lipped indignation of the political elite only strengthens Hanson’s support within a narrow range.
Yet as Matt Canavan noted on Sky News, social media “likes” are a notoriously unreliable metric. “Has anything actually gotten better in this country by Pauline acting like this?” he asked. “Has it helped lower migration in this country? Has she banned the burka? No, she hasn’t.”
Canavan is unusual among Hanson’s critics in that he broadly shares her world view. Yet their political philosophies are worlds apart. Canavan is a democratic conservative for whom parliament is a forum for resolving disagreements, balancing interests and producing workable outcomes.
For Hanson, parliament is a stage on which to perform, a platform for signalling outrage and mobilising supporters. In this, she has more in common with radicals such as Lidia Thorpe than she may care to imagine.
In a passionate and thoughtful 10-minute interview with Andrew Bolt on Tuesday night, Canavan took issue with the TikTokisation of parliamentary politics and the indulgent theatrics of the Senate crossbenches.
So the real problem is that she hasn't succeeded in her far right agenda? Senator Pauline Hanson wearing a burka on the floor of the Senate chamber for the second time in her career.
Oh it was on for young and old with the indignation and the righteousness:
“The right thing for our country is not to debase our parliament like this,” Canavan said. “It is to treat it as a sacred place. I don’t believe we should ridicule people by taking what they wear and putting it on ourselves as some kind of dress-up play to make a political point. There’s a role for deliberative and considered contributions about that issue.
“Unfortunately, this week, Pauline and One Nation have not contributed in that fashion.”
The trivialisation of parliamentary democracy is infectious. For some, such as 21-year-old Labor senator Charlotte Walker, parliament appears to be nothing more than a backdrop for narcissistic Instagram videos. At least Walker has the excuse of youthful immaturity. Not so those on Labor’s frontbench, such as Chris Bowen, who reduces parliamentary debate to a contest of smug one-liners.
That is why the future of conservatism rests in the hands of serious politicians such as Canavan, whose steady influence helped bring the Coalition to an agreed position on the voice and, more recently, net zero.
Canavan, together with Angus Taylor, helped Scott Morrison win the 2019 election by campaigning relentlessly against Bill Shorten’s ambitious emissions targets. They did so despite the unease within the Coalition campaign team, who feared provoking voters in what was then the Liberal Party’s affluent metropolitan heartland.
Canavan was prepared to put aside dogmatism and make trade-offs, dropping his overt opposition to the Paris Agreement and softening his advocacy for new coal-fired plants for the greater good of keeping Shorten out of the Lodge.
“Unfortunately, this week, Pauline and One Nation have not contributed in that fashion.”
The trivialisation of parliamentary democracy is infectious. For some, such as 21-year-old Labor senator Charlotte Walker, parliament appears to be nothing more than a backdrop for narcissistic Instagram videos. At least Walker has the excuse of youthful immaturity. Not so those on Labor’s frontbench, such as Chris Bowen, who reduces parliamentary debate to a contest of smug one-liners.
That is why the future of conservatism rests in the hands of serious politicians such as Canavan, whose steady influence helped bring the Coalition to an agreed position on the voice and, more recently, net zero.
Canavan, together with Angus Taylor, helped Scott Morrison win the 2019 election by campaigning relentlessly against Bill Shorten’s ambitious emissions targets. They did so despite the unease within the Coalition campaign team, who feared provoking voters in what was then the Liberal Party’s affluent metropolitan heartland.
Canavan was prepared to put aside dogmatism and make trade-offs, dropping his overt opposition to the Paris Agreement and softening his advocacy for new coal-fired plants for the greater good of keeping Shorten out of the Lodge.
Cue a snap of the statesman, Senator Matt Canavan
The pond has absolutely no idea where Pauline gets her taste for cheap stunts of a meretricious kind:
Oh wait ... Bizarre moment Nationals MP carries coal through Parliament - after Scott Morrison performed the exact same stunt in 2017 (caution, Daily Snail link)
Gentlemen dressed out in coal black ...
On with the Caterist, ever onwards...
American economist Thomas Sowell’s incisive observation about political life – that there are no solutions, only trade-offs – applies equally to parties on the right as it does to those on the left.
The rise of Reform UK led some to hope that One Nation might fill the Nigel Farage-shaped gap in the Australian political landscape caused by the collapse of the Liberals in the May election.
The transition from a populist figure of resistance to future prime minister is a work in progress for Farage. He must contain his policy ambitions within the arithmetic of budgets and the constraints of administration. A loose party of enthusiasts must be transformed into a disciplined campaigning machine with a mechanism for leadership transition. For a leader of Farage’s calibre, it is hard but not impossible.
The idea that Hanson could accomplish such a task, however, is fanciful.
Conservative governments, formed through coalitions of parties nominally on the centre-right rather than a single party, have become the norm rather than the exception in European democracies. The Sweden Democrats transformed themselves from a right-wing populist party to become the largest party in a disciplined centre-right coalition that has been in power since 2022.
The Finns Party made a similar journey, entering government in 2015 and 2023, learning discipline after internal splits and moderating positions for coalition viability.
Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy is one of the most successful examples of transition from a party of protest to a party of government. However, patriotic conservative parties forced by circumstances to go it alone, such as Alternative for Germany, have failed to find a path to government despite polling strongly.
The rise of Reform UK led some to hope that One Nation might fill the Nigel Farage-shaped gap in the Australian political landscape caused by the collapse of the Liberals in the May election.
The transition from a populist figure of resistance to future prime minister is a work in progress for Farage. He must contain his policy ambitions within the arithmetic of budgets and the constraints of administration. A loose party of enthusiasts must be transformed into a disciplined campaigning machine with a mechanism for leadership transition. For a leader of Farage’s calibre, it is hard but not impossible.
The idea that Hanson could accomplish such a task, however, is fanciful.
Conservative governments, formed through coalitions of parties nominally on the centre-right rather than a single party, have become the norm rather than the exception in European democracies. The Sweden Democrats transformed themselves from a right-wing populist party to become the largest party in a disciplined centre-right coalition that has been in power since 2022.
The Finns Party made a similar journey, entering government in 2015 and 2023, learning discipline after internal splits and moderating positions for coalition viability.
Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy is one of the most successful examples of transition from a party of protest to a party of government. However, patriotic conservative parties forced by circumstances to go it alone, such as Alternative for Germany, have failed to find a path to government despite polling strongly.
There came a reminder of a storm in the Sky Noise down under tea cup ... Nationals Senator Matt Canavan gets into a fiery clash with Sky News host Andrew Bolt on Pauline Hanson’s burqa stunt.
In the final gobbet, the Caterist made a desperate plea for Barners to return to the fold...
In France, National Rally has succeeded in detoxifying its brand but has limited government experience and faces structural barriers in the French system. Instructively for One Nation, it struggles to establish an identity distinct from those of its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and his daughter, Marine Le Pen.
The pattern is clear. New conservative groupings that succeed in moderating their rhetoric, exercise internal discipline and prioritise competence over anger have a chance of succeeding. Those unable to control their protest habits or build strong party structures will remain on the fringes.
Joyce has the summer to consider whether this is to be his future or if he has more to contribute on behalf of his New England constituents, fighting policy battles within a Coalition that remains the only viable alternative government.
The Liberals and Nationals both need him, as a politician who speaks One Nation’s language and might draw its supporters back into the tent.
The electoral mathematics are stark: the Coalition has no hope of governing with a primary vote in the low 30s, let alone the low 20s, which is where its support now sits.
Joyce’s greatest service to conservative politics would be to admit his mistake and accept Canavan’s offer for him to return as the prodigal son.
Throw another fatted calf on the sandwich press.
The pattern is clear. New conservative groupings that succeed in moderating their rhetoric, exercise internal discipline and prioritise competence over anger have a chance of succeeding. Those unable to control their protest habits or build strong party structures will remain on the fringes.
Joyce has the summer to consider whether this is to be his future or if he has more to contribute on behalf of his New England constituents, fighting policy battles within a Coalition that remains the only viable alternative government.
The Liberals and Nationals both need him, as a politician who speaks One Nation’s language and might draw its supporters back into the tent.
The electoral mathematics are stark: the Coalition has no hope of governing with a primary vote in the low 30s, let alone the low 20s, which is where its support now sits.
Joyce’s greatest service to conservative politics would be to admit his mistake and accept Canavan’s offer for him to return as the prodigal son.
Throw another fatted calf on the sandwich press.
Why on earth do they want to encourage this narcissist by indulging his attention deprivation syndrome?
Best leave him to squawk away in the bush as marriage plans are made ...
Regrettably this day the pond had to pass up simpleton Simon doing the daily "we'll all be rooned" routine ...
Tame inflation? We’re due a strong dose of fiscal medicine
Labor should be aiming at something shy of austerity to put a brake on the highest spending per GDP since World War II.
By Simon Benson
Political analyst
Labor should be aiming at something shy of austerity to put a brake on the highest spending per GDP since World War II.
By Simon Benson
Political analyst
It's a noble jihad - no doubt Dame Groan will help out - but the pond simply had to make room for the bromancer, sorting out Ukraine...
The header: Token aid means we’re helping Russia more than Ukraine; Here’s the thing: in life, and in international politics, it’s when your friends are in the most trouble, and everyone’s against them, that you most need to show you have their backs.
The caption: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks to press during the European Council meeting gathering of the 27 EU leaders last month.
There was a furious five minutes of fulmination by the bromancer, which successfully managed to avoid mention of murder on the high seas by Kind Donald and his minions, and provided an excellent distraction from the King's curs doing their best to sell out Ukraine ...though the scheme was in plain sight in the WSJ ...(*archive link)
No matter, never mind the wittering Witkoff, on with the bro ...
The Albanese government will almost certainly this week announce a new aid package for Ukraine.
The timing is perversely good. Ukraine is reeling from a terrible corruption scandal, Donald Trump is pressuring Volodymyr Zelensky to make unreasonable territorial concessions to Russia, there has been a gear shift in intensity of Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine and the bitter, cold, hungry Ukrainian winter is at hand.
But here’s the thing: in life, and in international politics, it’s when your friends are in the most trouble, and everyone’s against them, that you most need to show you have their backs.
The corruption scandal is shocking, but it was exposed by Ukraine’s own anti-corruption institutions. It doesn’t affect at all the justice or necessity of Ukraine’s cause.
The Senate estimates committee will hold defence hearings on Wednesday. Senate estimates is almost the last avenue of effective scrutiny that the Albanese government has not shut down, strangled, reduced, intimidated or gutted (choose your metaphor at will). The announcement will likely precede estimates.
The timing is perversely good. Ukraine is reeling from a terrible corruption scandal, Donald Trump is pressuring Volodymyr Zelensky to make unreasonable territorial concessions to Russia, there has been a gear shift in intensity of Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine and the bitter, cold, hungry Ukrainian winter is at hand.
But here’s the thing: in life, and in international politics, it’s when your friends are in the most trouble, and everyone’s against them, that you most need to show you have their backs.
The corruption scandal is shocking, but it was exposed by Ukraine’s own anti-corruption institutions. It doesn’t affect at all the justice or necessity of Ukraine’s cause.
The Senate estimates committee will hold defence hearings on Wednesday. Senate estimates is almost the last avenue of effective scrutiny that the Albanese government has not shut down, strangled, reduced, intimidated or gutted (choose your metaphor at will). The announcement will likely precede estimates.
Cue a military distraction, Anthony Albanese with Richard Marles and Pat Conroy meeting Royal Australian Navy sailors HMAS Stirling Base at Garden Island. Picture: Andrew Ritchie
Amazing really that the reptiles should finally have got around to deploring the deeds of Vlad the sociopath, but here we are ...
It’s almost the only process left that yields information the government may not like. So much of what the Albanese government says in strategic policy is misleading that it has a huge interest in preventing underlying facts from emerging.
The government has made a pitifully small contribution to Ukraine’s freedom over the nearly four years of the war. Former major general Mick Ryan, a close student of the conflict, expresses himself judiciously when he tells this column: “It’s clear our contribution has been valued, but in 2025 it’s been insufficient. It’s in our interests for Russia not to win this war.”
Ryan is being especially polite because so far in 2025 the Albanese government has announced exactly nothing for Ukraine.
It’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that, as in almost every other strategic issue, the Albanese government talks a big game but in reality does almost nothing, the absolute bare minimum to maintain quasi-respectability in the Western alliance.
The government claims to have given Ukraine aid worth a total of $1.5bn across the past four years. To get to that figure, the government uses valuations that are, to put it mildly, somewhere between heroic and delusional.
The government has made a pitifully small contribution to Ukraine’s freedom over the nearly four years of the war. Former major general Mick Ryan, a close student of the conflict, expresses himself judiciously when he tells this column: “It’s clear our contribution has been valued, but in 2025 it’s been insufficient. It’s in our interests for Russia not to win this war.”
Ryan is being especially polite because so far in 2025 the Albanese government has announced exactly nothing for Ukraine.
It’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that, as in almost every other strategic issue, the Albanese government talks a big game but in reality does almost nothing, the absolute bare minimum to maintain quasi-respectability in the Western alliance.
The government claims to have given Ukraine aid worth a total of $1.5bn across the past four years. To get to that figure, the government uses valuations that are, to put it mildly, somewhere between heroic and delusional.
The Major General was given a big snap, Former Major General Mick Ryan
Meanwhile, outside the hive mind, some were saying the quiet bits out loud ...
...The 47th President being reminded not to cave in to a bloodthirsty and corrupt tyrant like Vladimir Putin is not something any of his Republican or Democrat predecessors required.
Our MGH (Media Glass House) researchers also pointed out that the far-right Donald Trump is in a position – ie: in the White House – to give Putin all the Russian leader wants in any “peace” deal because of people like the far-right Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch who run the far-right organisation behind the far-right The Australian and the far-right Trump cheer squad in the US otherwise known as Fox News.
It was the two Murdochs – as the massive defamation payout they were required to make to a US voting machine firm showed – who looked the other way and kept raking in the dollars when Fox embraced and promoted Trump’s “I was robbed” bullshit after the 2020 US election that helped set him up to win in 2024.
It is suckholes like The Australian’s former US correspondent Adam Creighton ... who regularly and obediently echoed Trump talking points before and during the 2024 election.
It is The Oz’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan who has also boosted, excused, and enabled Trump in line with the Murdochs’ profits-before-democracy mandate.
Even in the same edition as the story carrying the warnings to Trump about appeasing Putin, Sheridan was – to use a technical term favoured by our MGH teams – weak as p*ss on Trump’s tactics.
“It’s very unclear that this is the best way to optimise Ukraine’s position or Western strategic interests,” Sheridan wimpishly wrote.
He has form in propping up Trump when it comes to handing corrupt criminals masquerading as world leaders whatever they want.
Our MGH (Media Glass House) researchers also pointed out that the far-right Donald Trump is in a position – ie: in the White House – to give Putin all the Russian leader wants in any “peace” deal because of people like the far-right Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch who run the far-right organisation behind the far-right The Australian and the far-right Trump cheer squad in the US otherwise known as Fox News.
It was the two Murdochs – as the massive defamation payout they were required to make to a US voting machine firm showed – who looked the other way and kept raking in the dollars when Fox embraced and promoted Trump’s “I was robbed” bullshit after the 2020 US election that helped set him up to win in 2024.
It is suckholes like The Australian’s former US correspondent Adam Creighton ... who regularly and obediently echoed Trump talking points before and during the 2024 election.
It is The Oz’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan who has also boosted, excused, and enabled Trump in line with the Murdochs’ profits-before-democracy mandate.
Even in the same edition as the story carrying the warnings to Trump about appeasing Putin, Sheridan was – to use a technical term favoured by our MGH teams – weak as p*ss on Trump’s tactics.
“It’s very unclear that this is the best way to optimise Ukraine’s position or Western strategic interests,” Sheridan wimpishly wrote.
He has form in propping up Trump when it comes to handing corrupt criminals masquerading as world leaders whatever they want.
And so on, (no, it isn't a link to another pond outing), as the bromancer waxed indignant
All the way through, the Albanese government has refused to take seriously Ukraine’s own priorities, as though Canberra understands what Kyiv needs to fight for its survival better than the Ukrainians do themselves.
Thus initially we gave armoured troop carriers dating back to the Vietnam war that would struggle to get a roadworthiness certificate in Tasmania, much less be any use in war.
We gave some Bushmaster infantry vehicles, which were useful and highly appreciated, but refused to give any more from our stockpile or to manufacture a few more to replace any more we might give. We refused to provide any Hawkei vehicles for the ludicrous reason that they allegedly had a small technical defect, although this was not enough to stop their being used in our own military and the Ukrainians very badly wanted them.
But the real objective of our actions has not been to have a military effect in Ukraine, just to tick a box of allied participation.
What will be in the new package? The Ukrainian media has been speculating there may be some money for the purchase of weapons or for investment in Ukrainian military industrial development. Either of those would be a very good idea.
There may be some Eurocopter Tiger helicopters that the Australian Army is retiring. We’ve taken delivery of our first few Apache helicopters, which will gradually replace the Tigers. The Tigers are expensive to operate but the Ukrainians have expressed a serious interest in them.
The government is doing a bit better with the Tigers than it did with the Taipan helicopters. The Ukrainians were interested in them too but our Defence boffins decided to cut them up and bury them rather than let the Ukrainians have them.
Thus initially we gave armoured troop carriers dating back to the Vietnam war that would struggle to get a roadworthiness certificate in Tasmania, much less be any use in war.
We gave some Bushmaster infantry vehicles, which were useful and highly appreciated, but refused to give any more from our stockpile or to manufacture a few more to replace any more we might give. We refused to provide any Hawkei vehicles for the ludicrous reason that they allegedly had a small technical defect, although this was not enough to stop their being used in our own military and the Ukrainians very badly wanted them.
But the real objective of our actions has not been to have a military effect in Ukraine, just to tick a box of allied participation.
What will be in the new package? The Ukrainian media has been speculating there may be some money for the purchase of weapons or for investment in Ukrainian military industrial development. Either of those would be a very good idea.
There may be some Eurocopter Tiger helicopters that the Australian Army is retiring. We’ve taken delivery of our first few Apache helicopters, which will gradually replace the Tigers. The Tigers are expensive to operate but the Ukrainians have expressed a serious interest in them.
The government is doing a bit better with the Tigers than it did with the Taipan helicopters. The Ukrainians were interested in them too but our Defence boffins decided to cut them up and bury them rather than let the Ukrainians have them.
The reptiles decided to introduce a snap of King Donald, doing dirty deeds ... US President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, February 28, 2025.
We retired the Taipans for safety reasons, but other nations were still operating them. Both the Tigers and the Taipans are European-made and the Europeans would have supported the Ukrainians in the operation of these choppers. Apparently there was a line of reasoning within the Canberra bureaucracy that the Ukrainians might’ve asked us for future support in operating the Taipans and we couldn’t expose ourselves to such terrible risk.
In fact the Ukrainians would have been happy to absolve us of any future liability for support or help in maintenance and the like. But the Australian Defence Department is one of the great pacifist organisations of the world. Chopping the weapons up and burying them in the ground surely exceeds the wildest dreams of Greens demonstrators.
Our new aid package will confirm and schedule the delivery of the last of the Abrams tanks, which we retired some time ago. We first announced the donation of these tanks more than a year ago. Surely nothing in the world moves quite so slowly as the Australian defence bureaucracy. If we ever move this slowly in a conflict involving Australia, we will have lost before the first white paper is sent for its initial interdepartmental review.
It’s likely we’ll continue the army training program, which is a useful and worthwhile contribution we make. The deployment of our AWAC reconnaissance and control aircraft to Germany is coming to an end. This was entirely ridiculous as an alleged military contribution to Ukraine, as though NATO, the biggest military alliance in the world, couldn’t supervise the air space over western Ukraine and Poland but needed our help.
In fact the Ukrainians would have been happy to absolve us of any future liability for support or help in maintenance and the like. But the Australian Defence Department is one of the great pacifist organisations of the world. Chopping the weapons up and burying them in the ground surely exceeds the wildest dreams of Greens demonstrators.
Our new aid package will confirm and schedule the delivery of the last of the Abrams tanks, which we retired some time ago. We first announced the donation of these tanks more than a year ago. Surely nothing in the world moves quite so slowly as the Australian defence bureaucracy. If we ever move this slowly in a conflict involving Australia, we will have lost before the first white paper is sent for its initial interdepartmental review.
It’s likely we’ll continue the army training program, which is a useful and worthwhile contribution we make. The deployment of our AWAC reconnaissance and control aircraft to Germany is coming to an end. This was entirely ridiculous as an alleged military contribution to Ukraine, as though NATO, the biggest military alliance in the world, couldn’t supervise the air space over western Ukraine and Poland but needed our help.
There was a final snap, Richard Marles
It was time then for the final gobbet ...
There was some benefit for us, in that we got to practice in operational conditions and no doubt scooped up a good bit of useful intelligence. But in terms of a priority capability for desperately embattled Ukrainian military units, and the civilians they were trying to protect, it was absurd.
Australia has profited immensely from the Ukraine war because of the consequent huge rise in commodity prices. Exporting commodities is what makes Australia rich. There is also the gruesome business that for four years we have been buying Russian oil refined in India. Presumably we didn’t initially know about this, but it would have been hard not to know something over the past couple of years.
Ukraine’s ambassador, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, calculates we have provided well more than $2bn revenue to Russia. That’s far more than the notional $1.5bn we claim to have donated to Ukraine.
In other words, we’ve been helping our enemies more than our friends. That’s Australian strategic policy for you.
Australia has profited immensely from the Ukraine war because of the consequent huge rise in commodity prices. Exporting commodities is what makes Australia rich. There is also the gruesome business that for four years we have been buying Russian oil refined in India. Presumably we didn’t initially know about this, but it would have been hard not to know something over the past couple of years.
Ukraine’s ambassador, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, calculates we have provided well more than $2bn revenue to Russia. That’s far more than the notional $1.5bn we claim to have donated to Ukraine.
In other words, we’ve been helping our enemies more than our friends. That’s Australian strategic policy for you.
The pond's takeaway?
Roll on the shift to renewables, as a way of quenching the appetite for oil ...
Oh, and when it comes to the main miscreant, the King who has done as much as anyone to sell Ukraine down the river, when will the bromancer grow a spine and stop offering watered down apologies for the King?
You know, this sort of apologia ...
Conservatives (like me) who like quite a lot about Trump
Please re-attach your spine ...
Meanwhile, only Major Mitchell heard the clarion call of the energy crusade, and joined in the jihad ...
The header: Media asleep as Labor botches energy policy; The Coalition’s fortunes would improve if it critiqued high power prices, network rollout failures, environmental destruction caused by wind and solar farms, and an apparent halt in actual emissions reductions under Labor.
The caption for the lettuce-challenged Susssan: Leader of the Opposition Sussan Ley speaks with Sarah Ferguson on 7.30. Picture: ABC
Major Mitchell has done this a zillion times, presumably relying on keyboard short cuts for his five minute diatribes, so he can spend more time out on the golf course ...
The world is waking up to what’s really happening to the climate and in electricity grids reliant on intermittent renewable energy.
As usual, most Australian environment journalists remain asleep. They were strangely quiet about the failure of last month’s COP30 climate meeting in Belem, Brazil, to map out a new, higher path for global emissions reduction targets.
Journalists who had been desperate for COP31 to come to Australia have been silent about the failure of 180 of the 195 nations signed up to the Paris emissions reduction accord to submit their 2035 targets ahead of the latest COP, as required. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen released ours in September saying Australia would lead the world with a 2035 target of between 62 and 70 per cent reduction on 2005 emissions.
This column asked on November 2 why Australia would want to lead the world and imperil its own heavy industries.
Rather than look at what’s really happening after Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Paris accord, media attention in Australia has focused on South Pacific Island nations that science shows are not sinking.
The Albanese government allows itself to be blackmailed by the region’s leaders as we try to keep China out. Never mind any ocean warming in the South Pacific would reflect China’s contribution of a third of annual man-made CO2 emissions.
Now journalists are obsessing about whether in his new role as COP president for negotiations ahead of next year’s COP31 in Turkey, rather than Adelaide, Bowen can handle his regular job while negotiating a pre-COP meeting in the South Pacific that will cost us a fortune and achieve nothing.
This parochial navel-gazing comes as many countries in the northern hemisphere reassess the damage they are doing to their own economies in trying to accelerate the phasing out of fossil fuels to meet an arbitrary 2050 net-zero deadline.
Feeding into slowing ambitions is a new consensus that warming trends predicted in 2015 when Paris was signed were overblown, perhaps by as much as 100 per cent.
Whereas scientists were openly talking about warming of as much as five or six degrees by 2100 back then, the latest consensus is less than three degrees. Many are settling on 2.5 degrees even if the world junks net zero by 2050. Given we are at 1.4 degrees now, this is only another degree over the next 75 years.
Here a politically naive Coalition has made itself the issue with a drawn-out, divisive debate about whether to drop its support for net zero by 2050, something former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison signed up for ahead of COP26 in Glasgow in 2021.
The media left at the ABC and Nine newspapers has ignored the drift away from global climate ambition to focus on demographic challenges the axing of net zero will present Opposition Leader Sussan Ley in metropolitan Australian electorates, where younger demographics are firmly behind climate action.
As usual, most Australian environment journalists remain asleep. They were strangely quiet about the failure of last month’s COP30 climate meeting in Belem, Brazil, to map out a new, higher path for global emissions reduction targets.
Journalists who had been desperate for COP31 to come to Australia have been silent about the failure of 180 of the 195 nations signed up to the Paris emissions reduction accord to submit their 2035 targets ahead of the latest COP, as required. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen released ours in September saying Australia would lead the world with a 2035 target of between 62 and 70 per cent reduction on 2005 emissions.
This column asked on November 2 why Australia would want to lead the world and imperil its own heavy industries.
Rather than look at what’s really happening after Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Paris accord, media attention in Australia has focused on South Pacific Island nations that science shows are not sinking.
The Albanese government allows itself to be blackmailed by the region’s leaders as we try to keep China out. Never mind any ocean warming in the South Pacific would reflect China’s contribution of a third of annual man-made CO2 emissions.
Now journalists are obsessing about whether in his new role as COP president for negotiations ahead of next year’s COP31 in Turkey, rather than Adelaide, Bowen can handle his regular job while negotiating a pre-COP meeting in the South Pacific that will cost us a fortune and achieve nothing.
This parochial navel-gazing comes as many countries in the northern hemisphere reassess the damage they are doing to their own economies in trying to accelerate the phasing out of fossil fuels to meet an arbitrary 2050 net-zero deadline.
Feeding into slowing ambitions is a new consensus that warming trends predicted in 2015 when Paris was signed were overblown, perhaps by as much as 100 per cent.
Whereas scientists were openly talking about warming of as much as five or six degrees by 2100 back then, the latest consensus is less than three degrees. Many are settling on 2.5 degrees even if the world junks net zero by 2050. Given we are at 1.4 degrees now, this is only another degree over the next 75 years.
Here a politically naive Coalition has made itself the issue with a drawn-out, divisive debate about whether to drop its support for net zero by 2050, something former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison signed up for ahead of COP26 in Glasgow in 2021.
The media left at the ABC and Nine newspapers has ignored the drift away from global climate ambition to focus on demographic challenges the axing of net zero will present Opposition Leader Sussan Ley in metropolitan Australian electorates, where younger demographics are firmly behind climate action.
The reptiles kept dragging hapless Susssan into the Major's rant, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley during the passing of the EPBC Bill last month. Picture: Martin Ollman
The pond used to introduce some alternative notes in relation to the Major's denialism...
As if the Major would pay attention or care ...
Over at Sky News and the News Corp tabloids, commentators imagine an Australian populist uprising built on rejecting net zero and high immigration, both reminiscent of Trump’s MAGA movement and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which leads the polls with 30 per cent of the British vote.
Australia’s compulsory preferential voting system would make the rise of a new populist movement more difficult here.
This column reckons the Coalition would do better to critique high power prices, network rollout failures, environmental destruction caused by wind and solar farms, and an apparent halt in actual emissions reductions under Labor.
All of this is likely to resonate when voters start to understand what is happening in the northern hemisphere – especially with reliability issues after blackouts in Spain, Portugal, California and Texas all triggered by high penetrations of wind and solar power that affect grid system inertia.
Ley has been out selling her new policy – “Affordable and Responsible: The Liberal Plan for Affordable Energy and Lower Emissions” – but it is light on detail and vulnerable to a Labor-driven media scare campaign. Remember Labor’s false claims ahead of May’s election that Peter Dutton’s nuclear plans would cost more than $600bn and kill Medicare?
ABC 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson gave Ley a brutal grilling on the new policy on November 17, interrupting her 35 times and wrongly insisting the policy was a smokescreen for reintroducing coal-fired power that is being phased out.
The contrast with Ferguson’s interview of Bowen on November 26 was stark. She was much less aggressive and let Bowen speak at length, interrupting him only five times. Bowen was allowed to deny – against all evidence – that network costs are increasing electricity prices. He was not asked about the rising cost of firming through battery and pumped hydro projects.
Arriving just before Ley’s policy was the International Energy Agency’s 2025 World Energy Report, released on November 12. ABC journalists saw it as a repudiation of Coalition claims that renewable energy was pumping up prices.
It was a selective reading given the report speaks of a 10-year time frame before renewables become cheaper. It is also clear in previous IEA work that power prices in the short term rise as a country’s penetration of renewables energy rises. This column dealt with the issue on March 31.
ABC political lead David Speers on the ABC website on November 13 argued the IEA’s discussion paper on power prices would be a problem for Ley.
Australia’s compulsory preferential voting system would make the rise of a new populist movement more difficult here.
This column reckons the Coalition would do better to critique high power prices, network rollout failures, environmental destruction caused by wind and solar farms, and an apparent halt in actual emissions reductions under Labor.
All of this is likely to resonate when voters start to understand what is happening in the northern hemisphere – especially with reliability issues after blackouts in Spain, Portugal, California and Texas all triggered by high penetrations of wind and solar power that affect grid system inertia.
Ley has been out selling her new policy – “Affordable and Responsible: The Liberal Plan for Affordable Energy and Lower Emissions” – but it is light on detail and vulnerable to a Labor-driven media scare campaign. Remember Labor’s false claims ahead of May’s election that Peter Dutton’s nuclear plans would cost more than $600bn and kill Medicare?
ABC 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson gave Ley a brutal grilling on the new policy on November 17, interrupting her 35 times and wrongly insisting the policy was a smokescreen for reintroducing coal-fired power that is being phased out.
The contrast with Ferguson’s interview of Bowen on November 26 was stark. She was much less aggressive and let Bowen speak at length, interrupting him only five times. Bowen was allowed to deny – against all evidence – that network costs are increasing electricity prices. He was not asked about the rising cost of firming through battery and pumped hydro projects.
Arriving just before Ley’s policy was the International Energy Agency’s 2025 World Energy Report, released on November 12. ABC journalists saw it as a repudiation of Coalition claims that renewable energy was pumping up prices.
It was a selective reading given the report speaks of a 10-year time frame before renewables become cheaper. It is also clear in previous IEA work that power prices in the short term rise as a country’s penetration of renewables energy rises. This column dealt with the issue on March 31.
ABC political lead David Speers on the ABC website on November 13 argued the IEA’s discussion paper on power prices would be a problem for Ley.
Strange to think that Speers was once inside the tent, and with all that forgotten is now just another traitor to the reptile cause, David Speers, host of ABC’s Insiders program.
On the upside, that's helped the pond shake its Insiders habit ...
Speers did concede the IEA report says there is “less momentum than before behind national and international efforts to reduce emissions”.
This column reckons when Speers looks at the three energy scenarios the IEA maps out he focuses too much on the “net zero by 2050” path when the wider context of the report suggests the world may not meet net zero or even its existing commitments but may continue on its present path.
Here is where the opposition needs to be smarter. Even on the IEA’s CPS (Current Policies Scenario), global temperatures by the end of the century rise by 2.9C above pre-industrial levels. This is about half the old IPCC RCP 8.5 scare forecast that persuaded the then Prince Charles to declare the world would face doom if it did not phase out fossil fuels before 2030.
The IEA’s STEPS (Stated Policies Scenario) scenario, in which countries act on existing commitments, cuts that warming to 2.5C.
The IEA also admits many of the technologies needed to meet its optimum net zero by 2050 scenario do not yet exist.
This column reckons when Speers looks at the three energy scenarios the IEA maps out he focuses too much on the “net zero by 2050” path when the wider context of the report suggests the world may not meet net zero or even its existing commitments but may continue on its present path.
Here is where the opposition needs to be smarter. Even on the IEA’s CPS (Current Policies Scenario), global temperatures by the end of the century rise by 2.9C above pre-industrial levels. This is about half the old IPCC RCP 8.5 scare forecast that persuaded the then Prince Charles to declare the world would face doom if it did not phase out fossil fuels before 2030.
The IEA’s STEPS (Stated Policies Scenario) scenario, in which countries act on existing commitments, cuts that warming to 2.5C.
The IEA also admits many of the technologies needed to meet its optimum net zero by 2050 scenario do not yet exist.
And now to a Major source, and of course it isn't an actual climate scientist, it's a political scientist, with a long history and as the pond mentioned droughts, here he is back when Skeptical Science was a thing ...
The Rogering one is of course listed on DeSmog ...with his extensive climate science credentials and impeccable field research on parade ...
Graham Readfern offered this example in the Graudian in October 2025 ...
After all that, the Major squibbed his attempt at Rogering climate science, and tailed away in a short final gobbet ...
Readers interested in understanding how warming predictions became so overheated should look at pieces published by Roger Pielke Jr on The Honest Broker site on Substack during November.
Pielke Jr is criticised by global warming activists but he is also a respected political scientist, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and former staff scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research.
Pielke Jr created a stir when invited to address a climate impact seminar at Cornell University on November 11. Readers can check out his piece about the event on Substack – “The Last Gasp of the Climate Thought Police”, published on November 16.
He ridicules the Paris accord in a November 22 piece, “The Paris Delusion”.
“To achieve deep decarbonisation … (of) more than 80 per cent by 2050 would require decarbonisation of more than 8 per cent a year every year. The world is currently decarbonising at 2 per cent a year … no country has ever sustained a rate … even approaching 8 per cent.”
Pielke Jr is criticised by global warming activists but he is also a respected political scientist, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and former staff scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research.
Pielke Jr created a stir when invited to address a climate impact seminar at Cornell University on November 11. Readers can check out his piece about the event on Substack – “The Last Gasp of the Climate Thought Police”, published on November 16.
He ridicules the Paris accord in a November 22 piece, “The Paris Delusion”.
“To achieve deep decarbonisation … (of) more than 80 per cent by 2050 would require decarbonisation of more than 8 per cent a year every year. The world is currently decarbonising at 2 per cent a year … no country has ever sustained a rate … even approaching 8 per cent.”
Well he would say that, wouldn't he? He's been peddling that snake oil for years.
And reptiles of the Major Mitchell kind, keen to destroy the planet, have been helping him flog his snake oil for years ... except that, in this case, in the classic reptile way - always eager to keep punters inside the hive mind - the Major didn't provide a link
Nor will the pond...such blather is best left in the form of a half-baked Major summary.
Instead the pond will end with another immortal Rowe ...
That acknowledgement of McCubbin is noted ...
Nicky Cate: "Joyce will have left a party that seeks outcomes to join a party of outrage."
ReplyDeleteBut, BG, butt, isn't that a good description of Barnabers himself ?
Cater: "...a protest party that expresses dissatisfaction, rallies the aggrieved and rails against the establishment."
ReplyDeleteBut surely every "democracy" needs one (at least) of those ? No allegiance to the billionaires and their lackeys, no connection to the masters or minions of the 'governing' parties ? For a little while we had the 'keep the bastards honest' Aussie Democrats, but sadly they had no central ideology ('we care' doesn't count) to shape loyalties and policies so they fell apart fairly quickly whereas the Greens might just last a while longer.
But as to the elements of foundation, formation and future of large organisations, try reading this:
https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-societies-evolved-into-fear-dominated-goliaths-then-collapsed-263800