In which Lord Downer and simplistic Simon escape the pond's listicle of reptile reprobates...

 

The pond recently re-watched David O. Russell's American Hustle, which for those who've yet to see this American satirical comedy, began with Christian Bale's character Irving performing an elaborate and excruciating comb over.

Great cast, great movie, but the pond is haunted by what it implies about mad King Donald, narcissist, hustler grifter and comb over artiste supreme.

There's something vaguely indecent about the speculation that has resulted, Trump Goons Reveal Trick Behind His Fluffy New Hair, at a time when the country is at war, and the mad king is plunging the American and world economy into an abyss.

But here we are, and here the lizard Oz is on a Monday, discreetly walking by ... just as any sane person might want to walk past JD ...

(Vance recounted an experience) ... 'recalling how “a glass fell off the wall” while he was attending a conference with a friend and talking about Christianity.
“You know, I think an atheist would dismiss that as, ‘Oh, who cares? A glass fell off the wall,’” he said, adding that to him, “it felt like God trying to send me a message.”'

No wonder couches aren't safe in his presence, but you have to admire god, because She finds some incredible ways to pass on Her messages ...

Meanwhile, in actual news, Benji has told mad king Donald to get lost, he'll go on fighting as long as he likes, because you know, ethnic cleansing, greater Israel; the mad mullahs of Iran have told the mad king he must come to heel, and until then we'll continue in dire straits; and a desperate Vlad the sociopath has cranked up the heat on Ukraine, and might be dragging even more North Koreans deep into the fray.

So what do the reptiles of the lizard Oz do?

Walk on by, and better still, devise a new jihad ...with Ben packing it in an allegedly EXCLUSIVE way...

EXCLUSIVE
Albanese in denial over Japanese PM ‘melons’ joke as ex-envoy warns of fallout
Anthony Albanese denies he made a crude joke out of Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi’s ‘melons’
Tokyo’s former ambassador in Canberra warns the ‘insulting’ comment has damaged Anthony Albanese’s standing in Japan. But he is denying he made a crude joke at all.

It wasn't a lizard Oz EXCLUSIVE, this hare has been running for some considerable time.

See for example a column in the Japan Times back on 27th July, Sanae Takaichi: The prime minister nobody defended.

Surprisingly it took some considerable time to bubble to the surface in the lizard Oz, but the wrinkle was to drag in an indignant columnist over on the extreme far right ...

PM’s sexist melon joke was not only ungracious, it betrayed the close bond of our two nations
We are living in an increasingly dangerous world. So please, Prime Minister, enjoy Japan’s sweet melons and focus on what our two countries must do together.
By Shingo Yamagami

Contributor

Close on the heels of this melongate came another attack angle ... drag up Juliar and fling her into the fray, what with her still living rent free in the hive mind, and so always available to reference, what with chaff bags at the ready ...

EXCLUSIVE
Newspoll: Bleak winter for PM as Labor plummets to a Gillard low
Anthony Albanese’s popularity remains at near-record low levels, as One Nation maintains its dominance over the Coalition in the latest Newspoll.
Geoff Chambers

As always in these yarns, the double barrelled Chambers let off his other chamber, because one good blast deserves another ...

COMMENTARY by GEOFF CHAMBERS
Everything’s coming up Julia for PM
The Prime Minister and his government are entering a polling twilight zone many Labor MPs haven’t encountered since the bad old days.

One thing the reptiles left out of the splash header?

Everything’s coming up Julia for Anthony Albanese amid Newspoll blues, but the Coalition’s vote is just diabolical

Diabolism is a reptile speciality, just don't mention the diabolical coalition.

While doing a listicle of the things the pond consigned to the intermittent archive, this was a no brainer.

EXCLUSIVE
Shock at Bondi royal commission’s Frydenberg snub
Josh Frydenberg – the highest-ranking Jewish Australian government minister in history – has not been invited to appear at the final hearing block in Sydney.
By Geoff Chambers and Noah Yim

Nobody wants to hear from yesterday's man, a man notorious for lacking ticker? 

Shocking, but the reptiles were quick to remedy that and provided the loser with a platform...

COMMENTARY by JOSH FRYDENBERG
What we must do now to save our nation
The royal commission must be the circuit breaker
If the royal commission is to effectively bring the hate and violence to an end, it must do two things.

As soon as the pond hears a man with no ticker insisting on "must", and he thinks it's all about "saving the nation" - no one at the lizard Oz has any interest in saving Gaza - the pond turns off, tunes out and drops out. 

Sorry Josh, if you think you can help with the solution, the problem's likely beyond us ...

The pond also had no interest in pandering to Major Mitchell, pandering to Pearson ...

Noel Pearson’s reset puts politicians in their place, and offers fresh hope for nation
Following the defeat of the Voice referendum in 2023, media coverage of Aboriginal affairs fell away. But in truth, it wasn’t the media’s fault. Others were to blame, writes Chris Mitchell.
By Chris Mitchell
Columnist

What's that? It's suddenly become the Voice again?

Fear not, the reptiles apparently just made a typo boo boo in that sub-header, and the opening line in the Major's piece reverted to reptile voice form...

Asked during a panel discussion at Garma in Arnhem Land on Saturday, August 1, whether the media had dropped the ball on Aboriginal affairs since the defeat of the voice referendum in October 2023, this column steered moderator Sally Warhaft’s tricky question down leg side.

The Major is routinely tiresome but pretending the lizard Oz is in any way cared about Aboriginal Voices is tiresome beyond belief, especially as the Major ended with a major suck ...

As the founder of this newspaper and this company, Rupert Murdoch, wrote to Djawa Yunupingu – the Gumatj clan leader today – in 2013 when he visited Arnhem Land in a private capacity: “To all my Australian brothers we have a responsibility to make our great country even greater.”
It won’t be the voice but a deal will come.

Really? MAGA in 2013?

Is there an upchuck bucket handy?

But if this listicle of losers and dropkicks suggests the pond had run out of reptiles, fear not, because - to carry on a Major metaphor - plucky Lord Downer stepped up to the crease ...

The header: How the Liberals can counter Labor’s latest cunning play; The latest tactic from the progressive left – pinched from British Labour – is to bombard voters with the idea the Liberals will form a pact with One Nation.

The caption for the snap of the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way looking like a startled rabbit caught in the headlights: If the Liberals and Nationals want to win back the sorts of voters they have lost in teal and other metropolitan seats, then a sure way of failing to do that is to talk of an alliance with One Nation.

Lord Downer offered a standard four minute reptile ramble, but at least he took in British politics, though the pond must fault him for excluding Count Binface from the conversation.

For that aspect, you'll have to head off to another place, where the cawing Crowe is keen to help out ... Alien space warrior v right-wing populist: The UK election that is beyond a joke (*intermittent archive link)

His Lordship isn't famous for his sensa huma, and that form continued today as he dropped solemnity bomb after bomb, in an astonishing way ...

It’s quite astonishing how similar British and Australian politics are.
For a start, we both have Labour governments, and they apply exactly the same formula to governing. They like to tax savings and investment. They spend eye-watering sums of money on windmills and welfare. They run up ever-increasing levels of government debt, and they get the same results.
Both countries have anaemic rates of economic growth and declining productivity. Both countries suffer from declining real per capita GDP and sticky inflation. There’s no surprise here. The same policies give you the same results.
So poorly has British Labour been polling that it has recently changed its leader from Sir Keir Starmer to Andy Burnham. Australian Labor is not about to change it leader; however, its polling has dropped below 30 per cent.
Then there is the similarity of the opposition parties. The Conservative Party in the UK is polling around 20 per cent. Yet, just over two years ago, it was the government. Its counterpart in Australia is polling at a similar level, and it too was the government, albeit four years ago.
The insurgent parties – Reform in the UK, led by Nigel Farage, and One Nation here, led by Pauline Hanson – are polling in the mid-20s. In both cases, the traditional centre-right parties disappointed their voters, and some of their voters have switched to the insurgent parties. Both Reform and One Nation have also attracted a slice of Labour voters who are sick of the woke cultural agenda and their associated denigration of national achievements.
But that’s not the end of the similarities between the UK and Australia.

Nor is it the end of Lord Downer making tedious and meaningless comparisons, with only the odd illustration to serve as a distraction ... Andy Burnham and Keir Starmer … Labour’s claim that the Conservative Party could return to government only if it were in an alliance of some kind with Reform is lethal to both conservative parties.

On and on he rambled, in the smug, sanctimonious way he made famous as foreign minister ...

Both Labour parties are making extravagant speeches claiming, in the case of the UK, that the Conservative Party could return to government only if it were in an alliance of some kind with Reform. More than that, British Labour leaders argue that Reform is the real opposition.
No sooner had the British Labour Party been running this line, and, hey presto, up popped its Australian counterpart making exactly the same arguments about the federal Coalition and One Nation. Anthony Albanese and his team say One Nation are the real enemy and that the Coalition could govern only in an alliance with One Nation. Gone are the days when Labor leaders such as Paul Keating denigrated their opponents for tugging the forelock to the British. When it comes to politics, Australian Labor is British to its boot heels!
There is a very crafty electoral rationale behind British Labour’s argument. Australian Labor has cracked on to that. In the UK, Labour judges that if the Conservatives and Reform went into some sort of alliance, then erstwhile Labour voters wouldn’t switch to Reform because of their hatred of the Conservatives. Added to that, right-wing Labour voters who might, in normal circumstances, switch to the Conservatives out of disillusionment with the performance of the Labour government would hesitate to do so because the Conservatives would be in league with Reform.
The judgment is that even if people become disillusioned with Labour, enough of them will think Labour is a better and more stable option than some sort of alliance between the Conservatives and the more right-wing Reform party. I think this judgment is right. The split in the opposition parties in the UK is manna from heaven for Labour.
The same logic applies in Australia. Even if more right-wing Labor voters become disillusioned with the performance of the Albanese government, they would hesitate to vote for the Liberals or the Nationals if they thought they were going to form some sort of governing alliance with One Nation.
Equally, some hitherto Labor voters who are more attracted to One Nation would hesitate to vote for One Nation if they thought they were going to do some kind of electoral deal with the dreaded Liberals. On that basis, they would stick with Labor.
So, whichever way you look at it, be it in the UK or in Australia, for the two Labour parties, it’s a very cunning plan. The question is: How do centre-right opposition parties deal with this?

Lord Downer's answer? Cower at the sight of Nigel making plans, and whatever you do, don't point out he's a 'leet goose on the five million pound take ... Tory attacks on Nigel Farage will only reinforce support for his argument that the old parties are scared of him. Picture: Getty Images

His Lordship reeled away in fear ...

In the UK, there has been intense analysis within the Conservative Party to find the answer to this question. It has come up with two conclusions. The first is that personal attacks on Nigel Farage will only reinforce support for his argument that the old parties are scared of him and giving him the oxygen of more publicity. So from time to time, the Conservatives think they should attack Reform as a party over proposals they have that are unworkable or damaging to the country, but attacking Farage himself is seen as counterproductive. Secondly, they make it clear that under no circumstances would they go into coalition or some sort of electoral alliance with Reform.

There came a final image ... Kemi Badenoch would be wise not to speculate on what happens if there is a hung parliament in Britain. Picture: Getty Images

All that did was remind the pond how it had watched on YouTube The Rest is History mob do over Enoch Powell's infamous Rivers of Blood speech, (it's 74 minutes long so that's the day taken care off), wherein the former University of Sydney classics prof moved on to a form of racist bigotry that would have seen Kemi kicked out of the country

Then it was on to the final burble of Lord Downer, and how proud the pond had felt not to indulge in its usual visual slander ...

Sorry, but not really sorry, what with His Lordship not acknowledging Count Binface ...

Kemi Badenoch and her team know they have a huge task to win back sufficient support to win an election, but they have to campaign to achieve that, not speculate on what would happen in a hung parliament. Or worse still, to talk of forming some kind of electoral pact or even a coalition with Reform. The Conservatives know that is a path to disaster. For its part, Reform talks of eliminating the Conservatives from the electoral map, so it too can see the dangers of talking of an alliance with the Conservatives.
There’s a lesson here for the Liberal and National parties in Australia. If they want to win back the sorts of voters they have lost in teal and other metropolitan seats, then a sure way of failing to do that, and losing even more soft centre-right voters, is to talk of an alliance with One Nation. On the other hand, to win over working-class voters who might be planning to abandon Labor and vote for One Nation, those people might stick with Labor rather than vote for One Nation if they think One Nation is to form an alliance with the dreaded Liberals.
The challenge for the Coalition is simple. It needs to define its objectives for the country and explain the policies it will pursue to achieve those objectives, and, having done that, not waver in the teeth of attacks from the so-called progressive left. Be bold and be brave.

All that meant the pond couldn't talk about another movie it saw over the weekend, perhaps the most terrifying show it's seen since Weapons...

And now because so many had been ignored by the pond and the Caterist had last been sighted burbling away on 27th July, ‘Progressive’ Labor ditches workers for social moralising, the pond decided on a rare offering of simpleton Simon, though he's always keen to help ...

The header: Victoria is first true test of Liberals in the post-1925 One Nation world; Rarely, if ever, has the outcome of a state election been so critical to the fortunes of the federal Coalition. That is how grave things are for Angus Taylor.

The caption for a collage which saw copycat Emilia repeating her homework with a beyond predictable outing: Anthony Albanese, Angus Taylor and Pauline Hanson have much riding on November’s Victorian election. Artwork: Emilia Tortorella

Simplistic Simon took a dire and tedious four minutes to say his piece, but the pond was intrigued.

What on earth was a post-1925 One Nation world?

What did 1925 have to do with anything?

Talk about a hook, talk about a way to create a sense of deep intrigue ...

Rarely, if ever, has the outcome of a state election been so critical to the fortunes of the federal Coalition.
That is how grave it is for Angus Taylor. He is relying on Victorians to reinsure the future prospects of a national brand.
If the state Liberal Party can’t win Victoria, against inarguably the worst government in Australia, the obvious question arises: Where exactly is the pathway back to federal government for the Coalition?
The search for an answer, should Jess Wilson fail, will inevitably land on Taylor’s desk.
It is hard to know just yet how much the replacement of a deeply unpopular Labor leader with an unknown in Ben Carroll affects the equation.
But the outcome is not just about the future of Victoria. The consequences of a defeat could be significant for Taylor as well on a number of levels, including a renewal of factional blame.
A failure to perform in Victoria would deliver a significant psychological blow to the federal Liberals, not to mention a denial of potential political infrastructure delivered through a local party being in government in the second-most populous state.

Once again the reptiles interrupted to show the beefy boofhead still looking like a startled rabbit, Mr Taylor needs to see that the Liberals can prevail against the populist tide.

Or should that be a startled 'roo, because simple Simon seemed to think he might be close to becoming some form of roadkill ...

Spoiler alert. That's the last you'll be hearing about 1925, somehow it had become a post-2025 world (AI, are you there AI?) but credit where credit is due, simplistic Simon managed to scribble this whole piece with just one mention of comrade Dan, which came in this gobbet ...

The party is already denuded of this sort of ballast in South Australia and Western Australia, and is facing another term in opposition in NSW after next year’s March election, which leaves it with Queensland and the Northern Territory as the only Liberal parties in government in mainland Australia – and one is a country party and the other a hybrid.
So Victoria provides the first useful electoral test of whether the Liberal Party at any level can survive in a post-2025 world with One Nation.
While the South Australian election demonstrated the level of threat posed by Pauline Hanson, where a sitting Labor government was never under threat, Victoria will reveal whether the Liberals have an answer to this in a contest where a Labor government is deeply unpopular.
South Australia proved the One Nation phenomenon was real rather than a vestige of polling. Its primary vote was higher than the Liberals and it took four lower house seats off the party in an environment made for a conservative protest vote. The Liberals lost 11 seats in total, finishing with just five seats, one more than One Nation.
Victoria will tell us something even more compelling. As a forerunner of what we might expect in the federal campaign, this is it.
The principal question is whether One Nation can actually prevent the Coalition winning government when Labor should otherwise be unelectable.
A Liberal win is far from assured. The swing required is about 6 per cent and there is a mountain of seats the opposition must win.
While the change of leadership from Jacinta Allan to Carroll may assist Labor, there is no sense yet this will make a difference in washing away the Andrews-Allan decay.
And anyone trying to make predictions about what might happen based on the polls needs to do so with caution. According to Liberals in Victoria, this election will be a case of a very different story in each seat, with the effect of One Nation unknown. Some recent polls predicting a swag of One Nation wins across the state have as few as three voters per seat in their sample sizes.
The most recent Newspoll has One Nation coming off the boil in Victoria, and if this continues to happen, the Coalition will be in with a good shot. As The Australian’s Anthony Galloway reported last week, this is what a consequential vote looks like in a poll with an election looming.

How the reptiles are rooting for Jess to win, because if that happens might not the beefy boofhead dare to dream?

Another collection of figures did little to relieve simplistic Simon of his sense of impending doom, Pauline Hanson, Jess Wilson and Ben Carroll are all vying to make an impact in the Victorian election.

Were all those simple Simon signs of a nervous tic wrong?

Were the tea leaves not falling into the right patterns to sweep away the suppurating decay? Could the runes provide at least a sign of some hope?

Simpleton Simon knew how to do a Tarot reading and send the hive mind home happy ...

Does this suggest some tactical thinking among conservative voters? This theme will no doubt start to feature in the Coalition messaging over coming months; a vote for One Nation is a vote for a continuation of Labor in government.
And this is where there may be some hope for Taylor.
A win in Victoria, or close enough to it, will afford Taylor the benefit of being able to argue that it is possible for a federal Coalition to win government too against a rising tide of populism. Anything less than this, and the implications for Taylor and the federal Coalition become dire.
With the polls calculating two-party, or two-candidate, preferred results with the Coalition in front, expectations are now being set. A failure to convert this would make it impossible for the federal party to dismiss Victoria as simply an unwinnable state using the well-worn political artefact that there is no crossover when it comes to state and federal elections.
This becomes harder to sustain if One Nation performs well, considering it has next to no local policies.
Victoria is particularly important because of how the metropolitan seats will play out. This is where the implications for Taylor become more interesting than the headline result.
Victoria is a critical piece of the jigsaw if the road to recovery for Taylor runs through the outer suburbs of the east coast capitals. A state Liberal campaign that can start to win back outer-suburban electorates would give Taylor and the federal party machine some sort of template from which to work.
While a narrow loss might avoid a deeper angst among federal colleagues, if the Victorians are deemed to have underperformed – by whatever measure they might choose – it will simply emphasise what is probably true anyway: the Liberals have lost their persuasive ability to channel anger at a Labor government into forming one themselves.
Victoria will be the first major test of whether the Liberal brand can recover outside Canberra but will also provide a road map as to how it might recover nationally.
Either that, or it will reveal how structurally broken the Liberal and Nationals parties truly are.

Oh dear, it seemed so strong, and then he had to fling in a dire billy goat butt of the "it will reveal how" kind, with talk of the beefy boofhead's team being structurally broken? 

That uncertainty, that doubt, that lingering fear isn't the reptile way.

Cheer up, it could be worse ...

And as Lord Downer talked of England, how's Old Blighty going?