In which nattering "Ned" and pedantic prattling Polonius give Pauline a go, with sundry other reptiles as supporting acts ...

Yesterday's session was probably as heavy as its ever got for the pond ... the bromancer dancing with Pauline, the dog botherer gone snowflake, the Ughmann deep in Marist land ...

And yet any hopes the pond had for a quiet Sunday meditation were dashed by the leftovers that hovered into view, because the song of Pauline continued.

Pauline, Pauline, Pauline
Your beauty is beyond compare
With flaming locks of red-dyed (died?) hair
With fish and chips skin and eyes of emerald green
Your smile is like a breath of outrage
Your voice is grating like summer hail damage
And I cannot compete with you, Pauline.

Well it's not Kez - where's the rhyming? - but it is free.

It turned out that prattling Polonius, most ponderous, pompous pundit of all, was all in on Pauline ...

The header: One Nation surge shakes up both sides of politics; Rising support, security fears and shifting voter loyalties signal a deeper realignment that both major parties can no longer ignore.

The caption: Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has surged in support amid voter discontent and security concerns. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Some might object to the pond joking about Pauline's hair colour, but the pond can confirm from personal experience that at her age, the colour comes from a bottle or similar delivery system.

As for Polonius's piece, it had one upside. 

That opening snap was the one illustration the reptiles had deigned to offer to break up the text.

And that's about it.

The pond decided to match the style, and let Polonius ramble on until his four minutes had expired, and the pond could reclaim its time:

The South Australian election last Saturday confirms that there has been a dramatic change in Australian national politics during the past six months. This partly reflects a sense of disillusionment in the electorate with the cost of living and security concerns.
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party increased its support throughout 2025. As measured by Newspoll, One Nation’s support was at 15 per cent on October 27-30 and it remained so in late November. By January 12-15, support had risen to 22 per cent and by February 23-26 it was at 27 per cent.
This is a dramatic increase over the holiday season, explainable only by the Islamist terrorist attack on the Australian Jewish community at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025.
As Gemma Tognini pointed out in her address to The Sydney Institute on antisemitism in Australia earlier this year, what is different about December 14 turned on the fact the attack occurred at a popular public place. Previously, antisemitic attacks in Australia had targeted synagogues, Jewish schools, Jewish-owned businesses and the like.

(No, the pond won't interrupt to note that sly plug for garrulous Gemma and the Sydney Institute, nor comment on Polonial praise for Minns and Malinauskas, which in an alternative world might have made the two state humbugs pause and reflect on their assorted follies).

NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns performed extremely well after the massacre, as did NSW Liberal Party leader Kellie Sloane (who was present at the scene of the crime and assisted in helping some victims). Hanson and One Nation’s recruit Barnaby Joyce made a prominent visit to Bondi in the aftermath of the murders.
As Minns has pointed out, the two young members of NSW Police who were present when the attack started acted courageously and walked towards the alleged gunmen. But there were only two police officers. Many others came later and the gunmen were put down.
When 80-something broadcaster Alan Jones was arrested for historical sexual assault in November 2024, it was reported that 12 police cars attended. In recent times, Jones’s charges have been downgraded from the District Court to the Magistrates’ Court.
The NSW Police Force initially underestimated the risk to the Jewish community on December 14. Many other Australians did likewise. This is no longer the case.
At times Hanson has made intolerant statements about Muslim Australians. But her message about radical Islam has got through to both sides of politics.
It is not clear what will be the final count of the South Australian election. But with around 70 per cent of votes counted, the Labor primary vote is at 38 per cent compared with One Nation (22 per cent), Liberal Party (19 per cent), Greens (10 per cent) and others at 11 per cent.
The Peter Malinauskas-led Labor Party has won an estimated 33 seats compared with the Liberals four, One Nation two, independents four and four in doubt.
The outcome is a stunning success for Malinauskas and Labor, but not without problems. For its part, the Liberal Party remains the official opposition despite some predictions that it would lose all its seats. So, it has a base of support from which to recover.
Writing in the Australian Financial Review on March 23, John Black (a former Labor senator for Queensland) commented: “One Nation candidates with a few weeks’ campaign experience ripped the heart out of the traditional South Australian Labor Party demographic base vote of battlers.” Black added: “One Nation candidates did even more damage to the middle-class urban base vote of traditional Liberal voters, leaving Labor likely winners of every Adelaide seat except Bragg.”
One problem for the Liberals is that they did not receive One Nation preferences. Nationals leader Matt Canavan criticised One Nation for requesting preferences from the Liberal Party (which it received) while declining to do likewise with respect to the Liberals. It’s called a double standard.

In the lead-up to the South Australian election, One Nation SA leader Cory Bernardi said his party wanted to make preference deals a thing of the past. Bernardi (who was a Liberal senator before he quit and established the Australian Conservatives, which failed to take off) should know better. Any decision of One Nation not to preference the Liberal Party or the Nationals above Labor is of assistance to Labor.
Some commentators say a significant number of former Coalition voters (the Liberal Party plus the Nationals) have parked their votes with One Nation due to disillusionment with the Coalition. This may be the case. Certainly the new leadership team of Angus Taylor and Canavan has improved the Coalition’s performance. Nevertheless, One Nation’s support base is not going to shrink any time soon.
After all, One Nation voters have reason to feel alienated from contemporary politics as their standard of living declines. Moreover, many support Hanson’s call for a substantial reduction of immigration and her determination to junk any commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050. And then there is her public condemnation of radical Islam.
On the basis of current polls, it would appear to be disastrous for the Coalition parties if One Nation fails to preference them ahead of Labor. It seems Hanson recognises that such a decision would be counter-productive for her party.
Addressing the Minerals Council of Australia in Canberra last Monday, Hanson said she would be “very happy” to help elect a Coali­tion government at the next election. She said she would not join a Coalition government but would agree to support it in votes of confidence motions and the granting of supply.
Meanwhile, former Victorian Liberal Party premier Jeff Kennett told Sky News’ The Kenny Report last Monday that he wanted all Liberal, Nationals, One Nation and independent voters who wished to defeat Labor at the election in November “to get together and put the interests of Victoria first”. That is, to defeat Jacinta Allan’s government.
Kennett said, “I am less Liberal than I am a Victorian.”
Already One Nation’s growing support has changed Australian politics, for the moment at least. In federal parliament last Tuesday, Taylor warned that “Islamic extremism” was a threat to Australia, while in Adelaide Malinauskas warned Labor supporters to put the question of “are you for Australia” ahead of appealing to the left wing, many of whom sneer at One Nation voters. Australia is different in 2026 from what it was in 2025.

That was exceptionally tedious, even by Polonius's unceasing quest for banality and for titillating himself by veering off into the thickets of Islamophobia and climate science denialism and furriner bashing..

Even worse, there was not a single mention of the ABC, or its strike, and the shocking way the reptiles had been deprived of ABC content for a day.

At least the dog botherer whined about how he was deprived of his much loved ABC shows.

It's getting so that the old dotard is even forgetting his favourite shortcuts on the keyboard ...

What he needs is a plan ...

What else? Well the pond was facing a dire overload, so it sent the usual flourishes of transphobia off to the intermittent archive, currently working, but who knows when it might next collapse.

There were two offerings, with a serve of garrulous, grating Gemma to go...

Hands off our female experience: Why the unique suffering of women is not ‘up for grabs’
As women’s unique biological experiences are co-opted for the gender diverse, I’m defending science, not fighting a culture war.
By Gemma Tognini

The second offering was even more offensive, purporting to be caring, but making clear that there was not the slightest interest in what had motivated the sibling...

The cost of silencing medical debate on gender
Witnessing a sibling’s transition, I’ve found that medical institutions are narrowing compassion by stifling honest discussion.
By Elizabeth C*

The pond has always given the reptiles' transphobia a pass, and there was nothing in that drivel to change the pond's mind.

The pond prefers to see real men in action, caught in a phallic thrust ...

As usual, the pond seized the chance to avoid Nick ...

We are witnessing the unmaking of class politics itself
As Australia marks 125 years since its first election, the forces that once built the two-party system now appear to be pulling it apart.
By Nick Dyrenfurth
Contributor

A small sample will explain why ...

...Figures such as Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce capture the insurgent mood, but both are products of the existing political class rather than architects of a new one. The question is who – if anyone – can translate insurgent energy into a coherent, durable political project. In other democracies, figures such as National Rally’s Jordan Bardella in France and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hint at what that next phase may look like.
It is why I have argued that Andrew Hastie – drawn from outside the traditional political class, unencumbered by ideological dogma and possessing a measure of outsider credibility – may offer the Liberals their best chance of resisting displacement on the centre right.
The question is no longer whether the system will change. It already has. The question is whether a new alignment – a modern equivalent of the Fusion – will emerge, or whether fragmentation will persist, leaving Labor dominant by default rather than design.
Nick Dyrenfurth is executive director of the John Curtin Research Centre.

The pastie Hastie is what we need, or maybe a Bardella or Meloni?

John Curtin is likely rolling in his grave.

Similarly the pond avoided these offerings, from Brownie and snappy Tom...

Libs give Labor green light for big spend on fuel excise
Angus Taylor has made it easier for Labor to avoid tough choices with a sugar hit that will ultimately make Australians poorer.
By Greg Brown
Chief political correspondent

From oil bump to slump when grave expectations bite
Rising fuel costs and fragile confidence collide, raising the stakes for policymakers as global conflict feeds inflation fears at home.
By Tom Dusevic
Contributor

Relax chaps, it's an Emeritus Chairman approved and encouraged excursion, what could possibly go wrong?

Just get on board with the ship of fools and sail off to the klown karnival ... (is there an Iranian hacker in the haus for the kache of hockey Olympic medallist Kash's klassics?)

The pond also dodged and weaved its way around Cameron's piece...

Two problematic options for Trump as Iran holds global economy to ransom,
Caught in a no-man’s land, the US President is faced with some unpalatable choices. Wisely, he’s leaving his options open.
By Cameron Stewart

The pond did catch a teaser trailer ...

... but then, spoiler alert, skipped to the end of the show ...

...Trump seems to be moving ever closer to what would be a mixed outcome from this war. If he chooses to end it in the next few weeks, he, along with Israel, will have dealt a severe blow to the 47-year-old Islamic regime, weakening its ability to spread terror and to threaten its neighbours. That is a good outcome for the Middle East.
Some will argue that this alone has justified the conflict while others will argue that the damage to the global economy has been too high.
But the president will have failed in his initial aim of toppling the regime or bending it to his will.
He may have set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions but not ended them. And the regime still will be able to repress those millions of brave Iranians inside Iran who oppose it.
What’s more, Iran will have demonstrated its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz whenever it wants to rattle the global economy. And then there is the longer-term economic fallout from the energy price shocks of the past month.
It is too early to say how many of these outcomes will come to pass, but that is the direction in which it is heading. For now, Trump has to make the critical decision about whether to further escalate and lengthen this war through the introduction of ground troops or end it by seeking a negotiated ceasefire that is unlikely to contain all that he wants.
It’s a big decision. And one that will shape his legacy.

Legacy? 

Truth to tell, a completely dysfunctional United States is already his legacy to the world, and that legacy was in place the moment he took the throne.

Deep inside the hive mind, Cameron doesn't have a clue, but this is his chance to hit fury road:

Besides, it will all change by tomorrow, as quick as two shakes of a lamb's tail or one King Donald brain cell creating a shower of sparks by accidentally rubbing up against another one ... (man, woman, TV, camel, elephunt)

All that intermittent archiving cleared some room for the lizard Oz editorialist.

As noted yesterday, the reptiles were heavily into their new angle for their climate denialism, which is to pretend that they're caring environmentalists, and these two offerings can be viewed in that light.

The world will never be weaned off coal and gas if the reptiles of Oz have their way, and be damned to the climate and the planet ...

There was also an Oz ed note on Pauline:

All she's doing is touting the sort of white Xian nationalism you could expect from the bromancer, together with the lizard Oz's campaign against furriners, its Islamophobia, its disdain for climate science, and its love of coal, oil and gas.

But at least it serves as a cue for "Ned" nattering on about Pauline ...

The header: One Nation is shaking the system amid volatile new political dynamic; Establishment politics is under massive assault in a nation that is losing its way — but don’t be misled by Hanson’s ‘consistency’ myth.

The caption, which at last gave a credit, to the mighty Emilia and her mighty collage artwork: The ascent of Pauline Hanson, centre, might make One Nation the popular alternative to Anthony Albanese’s Labor in terms of voting strength. Artwork: Emilia Tortorella

Stand back. Where Polonius had only one snap, "Ned" was given many visual distractions, and laboured long and hard for ten minutes to produce a mouse, whereas Polonius had managed the feat in just four:

Establishment politics is under assault in Australia. The two-party model and the political class are on notice. The Pauline Hanson One Nation success at the South Australian election has convulsed the Liberal Party but also made inroads into the Labor Party despite its landmark victory.
At a time of living standards stagnation, rising prices and cultural division Hanson has emerged as an iconic champion for an Australia disappearing in the rear-view mirror. She falls outside an increasingly discredited political class, taps into a “feelings” vibe that Australia is on the wrong track, exploits the generational alarm that younger people will be worse off than their parents and channels anxiety around housing, energy and a “lost nation” nostalgia.

Didn't "Ned" read the bromancer's celebration of Pauline?

 ...it may be that the new duo-leadership of Hanson plus Barnaby Joyce just about gets there. Hanson’s stuttering delivery and Joyce’s many misadventures confirm their anti-politics “authenticity”.
Commentators completely misunderstand much of this. Sean Kelly, an often insightful writer in the Nine newspapers, listed racism as a core appeal of One Nation. With respect to Kelly, I think that’s dead wrong.

Sheesh, instead the reptiles flung in the bouffant one in an AV distraction, The Australian’s National Editor Dennis Shanahan on Pauline Hanson’s decades-long political transformation.

This was a tough "Ned" Everest to climb, with the Chicken Little clucking at clouds exceptionally strong ...

Above all, Hanson constitutes the most potent backlash from the crisis of the Australian system – where both recent Liberal and Labor governments have failed to deliver substantial increases in living standards to wide sections of the public. There is a sense of system failure. The latest Newspoll shows support for the major parties – Labor and Coalition – at a dismal 52 per cent, proof of Hanson’s massive assault.
“The other two political parties have not delivered,” Hanson told The Australian after the SA result. “All they’ve delivered to them (the people) is hurt and pain, instability, no vision for the future, and the people don’t want any more of that.”
Don’t be misled by the ‘consistency’ line
Hanson upends our political model. Who is the real opposition, the Coalition or Hanson? The Liberal Party must urgently wind back her primary vote – yet the better Hanson polls, the more the media elevates One Nation. Don’t be misled by the line that Hanson’s popular surge is because she has been consistent for 30 years. The truth is that Hanson is more formidable today because our nation’s tribulations play far more powerfully into her grievance mantra.
Most of the population has been under economic and price pressures for too long; the urban-rural divide in Australia now runs into a “two cultures” dilemma; immigration is too high and social cohesion is being eroded; the nation is more divided over what constitutes Australian identity; and there is a potent backlash against progressive values, from climate action to identity politics to the assault on traditional Christian-oriented morality.
As One Nation steals votes from the Coalition and guarantees the election of Labor governments, the Liberal Party is mired in tactical confusion: how best to resist Hanson yet work to maximise her preferences.

Note this caption ...Pauline Hanson’s core propaganda line is that Australia is losing its way and she is its saviour.

Now see how that caption is transformed into a bald statement of fact in "Ned's" text ...

Hanson is now winning a degree of legitimacy she didn’t enjoy during 1998, her previous high tide. Among much of the cultural right in this country Hanson is depicted as a cultural heroine, a cult figure known as “Pauline”, an old-fashioned Australian and a battler for her causes. She benefits from the intellectual and political crisis that afflicts Australian conservatism. And the old rules still apply: attacks on her as a racist don’t work, they merely fuel her standing.
“The public have now caught up with me,” Hanson said earlier this week. “They trust me. They trust the fact that I’m passionate about my country. I’m a patriotic Australian and the way the country’s gone and going is not what they want.”
Australia is losing its way
Her core propaganda line cannot be missed – Australia is losing its way and Hanson is its saviour. The economic and cultural tensions vest Hanson with far more traction than at any time in the past generation. Hanson’s success exposes Australia as a fractured nation with its politics being atomised. The trend will not be confined to the centre-right. The two-party model is eroding.
RedBridge director of strategy Kos Samaras told Inquirer: “The post-war political order is dead. The stable system that got established in Australia and many Western countries is now fragmenting. We are seeing politics reverting to a pre-Second World War period, with multiple conflicts, where new movements arise and where the urban-rural divide hardens into incompatible political cultures.”

But it must be true we're losing our way, because the lizard Oz highlighted the way Australia is losing its way

Quick, an AV distraction featuring Tamworth's endless, ineradicable shame ... looking decidedly sleazy, in a way only certain New England men can manage ...

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce outlines One Nation’s policies. “We’d get rid of the climate change department,” Mr Joyce told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. “In removing the climate change department, we remove so many of the regulations that are a direct impediment to the construction of new oil refineries. “We believe in the construction of new coal-fired power plants. We believe in the construction of new oil refineries. “Part of our national security is having fuel security.”

You see? Tamworth's shame is just repeating lizard Oz editorial policies to the Bolter, himself a firm climate science denialist man ...

This is the monster these reptile Frankensteins have created and now urge on ... while "Ned" clucks away at clouds in his Chicken Little way ...

Samaras says while the Liberals have succumbed to centre-right fragmentation, the Labor Party will soon be under pressure from centre-left fragmentation. He envis­ages the rise of parallel and competing populist movements on the right and the left but united by a common bond: a burn-down-the-system mentality.
He says: “There’s a large number of people who want significant change in the country, in excess of 60 per cent of all voters. About a third of One Nation voters have this ‘burn the place down’ view.
“When you speak to people who have moved from the Liberal Party to One Nation – they tend to have a trade qualification and live in the outer suburbs or the regions – the No.1 reason they give is rejection of the two-party system. They believe the two-party system has failed them economically.
“For the Liberals to rebuild trust, I think it will take as long to rebuild as it has taken things to fall apart.
“Many of these people now in their 50s were the Howard battlers. When Howard was around they were in their 30s and 40s and felt the Liberals managed the economy in a way that rewarded their hard work. Their thinking was: I work hard, pay my taxes, accumulate wealth and allow my family to prosper – but that contract is now broken. These people feel they have been going backwards and this goes back to the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison period.
“There is an emerging problem on the Labor side, it’s just taking a little bit longer. There are definite signs of a growing appetite for an alternative on the left side of politics. All our surveys show that among Gen Z the green vote is around 30 per cent and among women of that age it’s in the mid-40s across the entire country. In the UK nearly half of 18 to 24-year-olds are open to voting Green.”

And why do vulgar youff think about voting Green? Well they have to try to live on the planet a lot longer than "Ned", or for that matter, Tamworth's enduring shame.

Strategist Kos Samaras warns that Labor is better placed to manage the coming fragmentation; Zohran Mamdani’s victory is seen as a pointer to the potential disruptive power of the youthful left

The pond did appreciate "Ned's" attempt to seem vaguely relevant by dragging Zohran into the mix. The pond had thought he was some bloody socialist from Kenya, or maybe the middle east:

A golden opportunity for populist disrupters of the right
The populist disrupters of the right and left have a golden opportunity because living standards face further attrition. Examine the outlook for the coming 12 months: it is a deadly mixture of foreign wars, a global energy meltdown, higher petrol prices along with higher infla­tion, rising interest rates, weak productivity, punishing income tax and a housing market locking out younger aspirants, a climate made for assaults on the existing political system.
But Samaras warns that Labor is better placed to manage the coming fragmentation. “Australian Labor has a strong and diverse support base,” he says. “As the political base of the country has moved towards the big cities Labor has been able to secure Bennelong, Reid, Menzies, Deakin and Parramatta off the back of a new working-class and middle-class constituency. The university-educated constituency votes for parties of the left, the Millennials are strong Labor supporters, and the professional working class, teachers, nurses, public servants, is basically Labor’s Praetorian Guard.”

Samaras says these rival movements have “a shared destructive impulse that makes the current moment so volatile and so reminiscent of the 1930s”. He warns that Gen Z is concentrated in the inner cities, among youthful and diverse communities, and that the victory of democratic socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York is a pointer to the potential disruptive power of the youthful left that is digitally connected and comfortable with diversity.

Next up was a man who couldn't even manage a writers' festival:

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has urged Australians to be “proud” of who they are and has called for every leader to be “patriotic”. “I don’t like the idea of patriotism and pride in our country being adopted or co-opted by only one segment of the political spectrum – it belongs to all of us, all of us as a country,” Mr Malinauskas told Sky News Australia. “I don’t like it when progressives sneer at One Nation voters wrapping themselves in the flag anymore than I like it One Nation voters wrapping themselves in a flag and sneering at a group of people from another ethnicity or faith background. “We should be proud of who we are as a country. I’m patriotic for our country. I think every leader should be.”

Every day the pond says a little prayer to the long absent lord offering thanks for having escaped croweater land, only to then realise it landed in Minns land, and he couldn't manage a writers' festival either ...

Now stand back, more worry about the sky falling, and not because of all the CO₂ ...

In response to Hanson, both governing parties are plunging into reassessment. Victorious SA Premier Peter Malinauskas invoked patriotism and the flag in his novel victory speech as necessary steps to check Hanson’s momentum. “The cultural question must be top of mind,” Malinauskas said. “It comes down to: are you for Australia?” Echoes of this pitch trickled out of the Albanese government during the week.
Malinauskas, a symbol of the once all-powerful Labor Right, warned progressives against “sneering at those who wave the flag or wrap themselves in the flag”. He said patriotism did not belong to any political ideology and that the task today – to combat Hanson – was to get both the economics and the culture right. This is the task of the Coalition under Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan.
As the South Australian election revealed, One Nation cannot command many seats because the preference system works against it. But the actual vote shows One Nation at 22.5 per cent and the Liberal Party at 19 per cent.
Devastating damage looms
Hanson’s lead over the Liberals constitutes a threat to centre-right politics unprecedented since World War II: that Hanson might become the strongest party on the right of politics. That would locate Hanson as the popular alternative to Albanese Labor in terms of voting strength, an outcome for Australia that would do devastating damage to our public policies.
Hanson shakes the cage in which we have consigned our history. She exploits the contemporary division over Australia’s identity, notably the progressive mantra that Australia is a morally flawed project, the product of a 1788 invasion, blighted by racism, sexism and patriarchy, legacies yet to be fully purged and that contaminate our national icons from Anzac Day to Australia Day. Such thinking is now deep-seated in our cultural institutions and deeply resented by many people.
There was always going to be a fierce backlash against this progressive moralism. The tragedy is that it seems to be centred on Hanson. For years the Liberals have failed to mount a broadbased persuasive view on Australian identity, apparently uninterested in the task.

At this point the reptiles tried to sucker the pond into a premium price point ...

PREMIUM
Former Australian of the year leads controversial chant at protests
Become a member to access our premium video content

Pay to watch the reptiles bash Tame when the pond can watch Benji perform ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank for free?

Nah ...

Meanwhile, the independent Scanlon Foundation Research Institute’s findings in the latest 2025 report make chilling reading. It finds only 34 per cent or one-third of people take “great pride in the Australian way of life and culture”, that only 42 per cent “strongly agree that maintaining the Australian way of life and culture is important”, and that only 46 per cent have “a sense of belonging in Australia to a great extent”. The results show that generational differences are widening; younger people have less sense of belonging in Australia and show less support or pride in the Australian way of life.
Australia increasingly cannot get things done because it cannot agree on issues and cannot agree on its national narrative.
What the Liberals must do now
The Liberals need to project a more relevant and vibrant view of Australian identity – a patriotism both strong and inclusive, as distinct from their episodic forays into this endeavour. They should adopt the formulation championed over the years by Indigenous leader Noel Pearson and developed in his 2022 Boyer Lectures.
Addressing the question of who we are and who we can be, Pearson saw our identity in three stories. First, the spiritual inheritance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples over 65 millennia, the First Nations of this continent. Second, the British institutional inheritance arising from January 26, 1788, in terms of the rule of law, parliamentary government, the English language, British and Irish people, convict and free, leading to Federation. Third, the “diversity in unity” from the migration program showing that people with different roots can live together, making Australia an example to the world.
For Pearson: “These three stories will make us one: Australians.”

Pearson's willingness to perform humbug for the reptiles never fails to astonish the pond, but then he's either a glutton for Voice punishment, or he likes to see his snap in a "Ned" column ... The formulation championed by Indigenous leader Noel Pearson brings together the past, present and future. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

The pond just had to separate this next line out because it might be good for anyone wanting to have a go at stand up, as celebrated in Is This Thing On?

Over the years Labor has shown no interest in this formula. Liberals have periodically engaged, notably Tony Abbott. 

Killer line. It could help generate laughs if you could put this up on the screen behind you ... (warning, you'll be confronted by a shameless plug for his book by the shameless hustler)

There you go Noel, that's the company you keep. 

To get any closer you'd have to be Viktor Orbán and have a healthy budget for wandering indigent former PMs ...

And so to a toad hack who can never be persuaded to shut up ...

But the Liberal Party has never formalised its commitment. It should embark on that process, unless the party is now so broken it cannot agree. The Pearson formula has three immense merits – it is a true account of our story; it is readily understood by most people; and it offers a strong and inclusive Australian identity. It brings together the past, the present and the future.
Putting One Nation into a governing frame
Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie, who fought Hanson during the peak of her powers in Queensland, told Inquirer: “This situation today is totally different to 1998 when I faced her. There’s now a movement on preferences. The Liberal Party is courting her gently, and if they enter a deal to exchange preferences that will be an entirely new political dynamic.”
Beattie highlights Hanson’s statement this week that she would be “very happy” to use her numbers to help elect a Coalition government, that she would always preference the Coalition before Labor but would not be part of any Coalition government.
This is a potentially critical statement, if it sticks. It puts a vote for One Nation into a governing frame. It has the potential to promote One Nation as more than just a protest vote. Hanson, in a cunning move, is saying that a vote for One Nation can assist a change of government – a statement that is contrary to the arithmetic and political reality since votes for One Nation weaken the Coalition vote and therefore assist Anthony Albanese to get re-elected.
Beattie says: “This is a major change for her. She’s usually hated the Coalition almost as much as she hates Labor. But if she is prepared to say this, I think psychologically that makes a difference – people could vote for her with more confidence they might actually change the government.”

Good one, tedious, tiresome toad. 

Keep talking her up, and soon all your wishes and desires will be consummated...Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie says the movement on preferences makes today’s situation very different to 1998. Picture David Clark

Luckily, after that, the Everest peak was in sight ...

That would be an illusion. But it would serve the Coalition in an important way – to maximise the preference flow from One Nation to the Coalition, and that is a vital requirement. Beattie is pessimistic about the ability of a Liberal Party revival in its own right. “The teal seats are gone and any chance of getting them back is delusional,” he says. “I can’t see the Liberal Party coming back under its own force. Its credibility is too low.”
How Labor could exploit this
But Albanese Labor is ready and waiting to exploit any closer ties between the Liberals and One Nation. That would gift Labor’s election campaign with the slogan: “A vote for the Liberals is a vote for One Nation.” This pitch would be powerful in urban seats, threatening the Liberals, and it would offer the teals the chance to expand their numbers.
Meanwhile, the Labor-Greens preference model is stronger than ever. Voting analyst Antony Green in his election blog shows that at the 2025 federal election Greens party preferences went to Labor at an extraordinary 88 per cent – a Greens vote is almost equivalent to a Labor two-party preferred vote. There is no way One Nation preferences to the Coalition will come anywhere near this level.
The Hanson party polled 6.4 per cent at the 2025 election but this had erupted to more than 25 per cent in the latest Newspolls. Hanson was elected to the Senate in 2016, re-elected in 2022 and in 2025 secured a team of four senators. Whether Taylor and Canavan can cut back her high primary vote remains to be seen.
But economic pressures, cultural divisions and the tactical skills of Barnaby Joyce mean One Nation’s vote will remain far above its 2025 election level.

Barners, Tamworth's enduring shame, is the answer?

B*gger it, the pond entirely forgot the question ... (*google bot friendly)

The revolt against the two-party system has deep roots – but looking at its beneficiaries only a foolhardy optimist would think this is good for Australia.

So the lizard Oz is full of foolhardy optimists? A whole pack of them titillated and tempted by the shift to the far right, wherein they have always resided.

And somehow that's a turn up for the"Ned" books?

But it will be be a boon for their climate science denying agenda and they can cluck away about Pauline while assiduously recording and reporting all her talking points, which she gleaned from reading the lizard Oz, and the Murdochian tabloids and watching Sky Noise down under (still no rebranding?) ...

Luckily, no matter how often the pond returns for a kicking, it can never forget that first kick ...

And so to news from America, a day old, but surrealism never ages as a genre ...