In which little Timmie Bleagh holds the fort, and a tungsten light bulb ...

 

The pond really began to scrape the bottom of the reptile barrel as it attempted to find a little reptile-related cover for its Melbourne junket.

With coverage of the lizard Oz impossible, the pond was forced to revert to little Timmie Bleagh, but anything's better than offering up the Bolter.

The pond banned the Bolter long ago, and nothing has happened which would lift the ban.

On the other hand, the pond hadn't thought of Tim Blair for a long time. He was such a lightweight that he only occasionally turned up in the pre-lizard Oz specialisation pond era.

The pond remembers that little Timmie had a terrible time at the ABC ...

In 2001, he and Imre Salusinszky hosted a shortlived weekly one-hour radio program, The Continuing Crisis, that was intended to respond to conservative Australian Prime Minister John Howard's plea for a right wing answer to the Late Night Live program of Philip Adams on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC) Radio National. (The ABC is the government funded public broadcaster, the equivalent of the BBC).
The program - an initiative of the then Managing Director Jonathan Shier - ran from June to September 2001, when it was scrapped due to low ratings. Salusinszky subsequently complained that "we were given a tiny office, containing one desk and one phone". (Their office space was no worse than is provided to other specialist programs). (here)

Much as early exposure to fur, leather or plastics can result in fetishes, this left a deep Freudian scar in little Timmie's psyche, and thereafter he became a Don Quixote, forever tilting at ABC windmills.

He also became devoted to lost causes ...

For years little Timmie fought a rear guard action against those dreadful bulbs that threatened his cherished tungsten pets.

This is the result of a quick search, a reminder of his light bulb jihad at its peak ...

Deeply weird, but how he struggled and fought, and who knows, he might still have a supply of 60w and 100w bulbs lurking under his bed, so he'll never have to bother with saving electricity.

Back in the day, little Timmie made his name as a blogger when blogging was still a thing, and every reptile had to have one, and News Corp even financed a few.

Little Bleagh was infamous for routinely getting it wrong.

One moment came when he decided to do battle with Media Watch and David Marr, with a flag the basis for the feud.

Luckily the transcript can still be found in full at Trove here, with this the end piece the culmination of a yarn about a flag allegedly buried in Iraq...

It was part of that tormented quest by Bleagh to punish the ABC wicked ...

Flags, light bulbs, what a dedicated crusader he was...

These days he's just a dutiful hack, hacking it out for the Daily Terrorist, and you guessed it - deep sigh or groan - in the pond's curated examples, it's more Pauline.

The pond thinks that it's gone way above the odds to prove that the Hansonification of News Corp is real.

In this outing, Bleagh (so unfortunate to share the name with that sexed-up dossier rat) explained why Pauline was all the go:

The header: Tim Blair: Left sees common sense as a conspiracy; Besides shaking up the major parties, Pauline also causes leftist paranoia; my own explanation for One Nation’s rise is a little simpler. It’s that Australians are tired of being lied to by the major parties and Australia’s political class

The caption for the AV distraction:

PREMIUM
High Steaks with Pauline Hanson
Become a member to access our premium video content

Not more PREMIUM content and the alternative illustration saved in the intermittent archive didn't inspire the pond to reach for its shekels-laden purse.

Eek, she turned chef, as Bleagh turned effusive ...

One Nation’s primary vote in the 2025 federal election, barely more than a year ago, was just 6.4 per cent. Even the Greens, who took a hammering in 2025, racked up more than 12 per cent.
Then something changed. It’s still changing now.
By mid-October, just five or so months after the election, One Nation’s polling had leapt to double figures.
That number, Macquarie University’s Professor Shaun Wilson wrote at the time, was “high enough to challenge the Greens as Australia’s third-largest party in polling terms”.
“If this result was replicated at an election, it would put One Nation in a position to win House of Representative seats.”
Astonishing. But why not aim higher?

The reptiles then slipped in a cartoon, not the sort the pond usually features ... Warren Brown cartoon for June 2, 2026. One National Pauline Hanson

Luckily Timmie did the right thing and kept the outing to a tabloid short 3 minute read, as he marvelled at Pauline being the future:

Skip ahead another seven months to the present day, and the latest Redbridge poll puts Pauline Hanson’s party on 31 per cent – ahead of Labor’s primary vote and within reach of government.
This is all proving too much for ex-Labor strategist turned Redbridge director Kos Samaras. Even before the latest One Nation approval spike, Samaras and his nervous colleagues deduced that an old-fashioned global conspiracy was afoot.
“What’s actually happening,” wrote Samaras last month, is that “a sophisticated, transnationally-networked information operation has spent years cementing Pauline Hanson as ‘one of us’.”

He's such a wag, and so there was a waggish visual moment ...Behind the scenes as Redbridge's pollsters try and figure out One Nation's appeal, or a scene from the cult TV classic, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

Brilliant, and Pauline's brilliant too, and giving lefties paranoia, and isn't it all about owning the libs and that bloody ABC which was so cruel to him way back when, leaving scars that can never be erased ...

Hanson’s Please Explain YouTube cartoons, created by my Sky News mate Mark Nicholson’s Stepmates crew, are all part of this sinister plot.
“Cartoons don’t get scrutinised the way normal political ads do,” Samaras darkly explained. “They get shared. Laughed at. Quoted at the pub. They become the in-joke and once you’re in on the joke, you’re in the tribe. That’s the trick.”
Kos Samaras needs a holiday.
Redbridge researcher Alex Fein seems similarly jittery, claiming of Hanson: “The depth of the parasocial relationships that voters have now formed with her cannot be overstated. This is an authoritarian-style influence apparatuses of a kind we know well from overseas.”
A transnationally-networked information operation! An authoritarian-style influence apparatuses! Besides shaking up the major parties, Pauline also causes leftist paranoia.

Time for a worshipful snap of the new reptile heroine and "warrior queen" (thank you Joe): One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. Picture: Richard Dobson

Little Timmie sometimes purports to be a deep thinker, and he knows the reptile litany, and he chanted it in the same way that one might chant the responses in a Latin mass ...

My own explanation for One Nation’s rise is a little simpler. It’s that Australians are tired of being lied to by the major parties and Australia’s political class.
It’s not just the little lies, of the sort you expect from all politicians. It’s big lies, massive ones, such as:
Coal is expensive. Renewable energy is cheap. Jihadists are our friends. Australians aren’t taxed enough. Blokes can have babies. The UN knows what is best. Nuclear energy is dangerous. Diversity makes us stronger. Wages should always be set above demand. Housing regulations are a touch on the light side. Questioning immigration is racist. Colonisation is bad and multiculturalism is good – although you can’t have the latter without the former. Climate change is our problem to fix. And so on.
Concerns about these issues weren’t implanted by any transnationally-networked information operation. Australians have been rightfully worried about all of them for decades. Yet our political class has scorned those Australians. The Coalition signed us up to net zero, and even now, with One Nation consuming its core vote, the Coalition won’t withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Turnbull’s ghost haunts his party still.
Meanwhile, Labor is led by someone unable to make any decision at all without self-interested political analysis. Fifteen people were slaughtered on Bondi Beach, and the PM actually dithered over a royal commission.
The man views mass murder through a political prism. He does the same with basic biology. Albanese was asked last week by the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas if he supported reintroducing women to the Sex Discrimination Act. The stonewalling began. “I’m not engaging in culture wars here,” the PM said. Albanese dodged and ducked three follow-up questions before offering this telling line: “I haven’t seen the Coalition stuff.” Because that’s what he needs in order to compose a response. He needs a political framework.
Finally, softly, Albanese said this: “It’s important that women’s spaces be available for women.”
He got there at last.
Yet One Nation got there a lifetime ago.
In Albo-land, Labor would always succeed by taking down the Liberals. But if Australians can’t find a fit-for-purpose opposition that is ready-made and waiting to go, it turns out they’ll build one themselves.
One Nation may not yet be a finished product, but all the raw materials are there.

Yes, all that remains is for it to be fashioned into shape by News Corp and what a fine party they and Gina will have.

Have a break, because the pond reckons this will be still going down while the pond's away:

Now on with bonus Timmie, though regrettably the bonus was also about Pauline.

By this time, the pond was completely over the reptile infatuation with her, but summoning up what remaining strength the pond had, it was time to dive in.

The header: Tim Blair: Here’s to Hanson’s ever-helpful hater mates; Unable to see that the things they hate about One Nation are the same things that many Australians love, cranky leftists have turned their anti-One Nation movement into a great big Elect Pauline Project, writes Tim Blair.

The caption: Pauline Hanson creates history as support for One Nation now leads Labor for the first time in Newspoll, Anthony Albanese criticises Barnaby Joyce and the opposition parties. Plus, Donald Trump storms out of a sit-down interview with NBC.

Again the intermittent archive had an alternative illustration ...

...but the pond found it hard to get excited, especially as little Timmie trawled over the same ground as all the other reptiles.

The pond began to wonder if Pauline might just become a tungsten light bulb, another little Timmie enthusiasm:

Another poll, another spectacular win for One Nation. The latest Newspoll confirms that Pauline Hanson’s party is the most popular political organisation in Australia.
One Nation has achieved this in the most cost-effective way possible. Rather than spending huge sums itself on promotions and campaigns, One Nation is relying on its leftist enemies to get the word out and drum up support.
They’re doing this for free, God bless ‘em. Unable to see that the things they hate about One Nation are the same things that many Australians love, cranky leftists have turned their anti-One Nation movement into a great big Elect Pauline Project.
Here, for example, is eternal ABC activist and current X commentator Quentin Dempster’s fever-dream version of One Nation’s platform: “Frack, drill, open cut coal; deport/ban Muslims; restore landlords’ neg-gear/CGT slush; open slather gambling; paywall for ABC; axe Family Court; ‘work choices’ 2.0, burn Aboriginal flag.”

How little Timmie loves to hate the haters, being not too shabby a hater himself.

How the ABC must regret inflicting that scar on him so early in his career, leaving him shattered and bitter... Pauline Hanson is detested and sneered at the by the left, but their hatred only fuels her support. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian

Those memories of the evil ABC came bubbling back to the surface like the witches' brew in Macbeth:

Put aside Dempster’s misrepresentations, exaggerations and fearmongering, particularly about Aboriginals and Muslims, and you’ve got a pretty workable nation-rebuilding strategy there. As my mate Fred Pawle responded: “You had me at ‘frack, drill and open cut’. But a paywall for the ABC as well? Bring it on!”
Many similarly embraced One Nation’s opposition to an increased minimum wage – a stance characterised by Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth as horribly anti-worker.

A paywall? How noble he is. So deeply scarred, he might have called for its privatisation or defunding, but a paywall would put it in the same situation as News Corp, desperately scrabbling for punters, and not succeeding that well.

The next caption took on Timmie's words... Dopey Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth is unable to comprehend that the lowest paid workers in the country will earn even less if employers can’t afford to hire them, which is why Pauline Hanson has opposed increasing the minimum wage. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Oh yes, she's a worker's dream, and Gina loves her for it ...

Straight out of the Uncle Elon playbook, what a fine time will be had Dogeing the ABC and SBS ... fulfilling little Timmie's lifelong dream (and maybe tungsten bulbs can make a comeback).

“Senator Hanson’s comments about the minimum wage were deeply disappointing,” Rishworth whined on the weekend. “She says that she’s on the side of working people but can’t bring herself to back in a minimum wage increase for the lowest paid workers in this country.”
That’s because Hanson knows the lowest paid workers in the country will earn even less if employers can’t afford to hire them. She also knows that attacking average Australian employers runs counter to working class ambition.
Modern Labor is increasingly class-bound and ideologically rigid. By comparison, Hanson is reviving the spirit of Bob Hawke’s Accords. “There’s a give and take in employment,” Hanson told Sky News a week or so ago, “and people have a right to employ who they want to.”
Again, bring it on. And bring on more of the left’s elitist sneering, which just keeps driving Middle Australia towards One Nation.
Another ex-ABC chap, Barrie Cassidy, lately portrayed inner-city voters as too sophisticated for Pauline’s team. “They’re young, they’re better educated, they’re multicultural,” Cassidy said. “That is not fertile ground for One Nation.”

Dammit, not another ABC chappie, and even worse an Ex one, and never mind that little Timmie Bleagh was something of an Ex himself, Ex-ABC journalist Barrie Cassidy (with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, right) is a fervent Hanson hater. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Little Timmie was - surprisingly - pleased that vulgar educated youff might be rallying to the cause (other reptiles held their noses at such a notion):

When a party is running at more than 30 per cent on primary votes, it is inevitable that quite a few of those votes are coming from the young, educated and multicultural.
(Cassidy is of course a famously inaccurate analyst of non-traditional political shifts. Back in November 2016, as counting began in that year’s US presidential election, Cassidy grandly declared: “Trump cannot win. The nightmare is over.”)
Hanson is definitely a nightmare for ex-Department of Immigration file sorter Abul Rizvi. Referring sarcastically to One Nation’s call for locally trained medicos, Rizvi wrote in February: “All those One Nation types who left school at 15 could easily have become doctors and nurses. Everyone knows that!”
As it happens, my mother left school at 15 and became a nurse. She’s now a One Nation type – and a figure of scorn for tax-enriched Canberra ponces. An X reply nailed it: “Telling people they’re stupid for wanting to vote for Hanson will work really well I’m sure.”
And then after berating the ponces, little Timmie Bleagh broke into the satirical wit for which he's justly famous:
But the contest isn’t done yet, not with the next federal election so far away. If One Nation wishes to further increase their polling advantage, they need to activate the arts warriors.
An announcement along these lines might do the trick:
“Australian art is too vital and too beautiful to be administered by government. One Nation will liberate artists from government’s choking grip and allow them to create visions, sounds and spectacles worthy of awe and admiration.
“The arts funding machine in Australia, inflicted on us for decades by all the major parties, has generated masses of expensive rubbish but very little actual art. It has turned artists into bureaucrats whose talent is not expressed through image or song but via grant applications, paperwork, required criteria and approved politics.
“One Nation will abolish arts funding and erase the arts ministry. Those calling themselves artists may protest. In time, however, art itself will thank us.”
That’ll get them going. Let the crazy-framed arts administration glasses glow with indignation and the big dangly earrings rattle with rage. One Nation’s got some votes to harvest.

Big dangly earrings? The pond supposes it's a variation on Joe's derisive yowl about pearl-clutching, but not by much.

The final extended y'artz metaphor left the pond wondering what might be the sort of big-selling art that little Timmie cherished.

There came a tungsten light bulb moment:

Say no more, a perfect encapsulation of the sort of philosophically deep art that's at one with Gina, little Timmie and the thugby league-infested minds of the Daily Terrorist readership ...

And now, as John Oliver might say, this ...because the pond reckons this will also be still hanging around like a bad smell ...

In which the pond starts to get desperate, and turns to Joe to provide holiday filler...

The pond began to get a little desperate in its attempts to find a little tabloid filler while junketing in Melbourne (and so unable to fulfil the usual lizard Oz studies).

Eventually the pond had to land on Joe Hildebrand, who, to put it kindly, is not the sharpest reptile in the swamp.

He's always smirking (in lieu of a smile) and always wants to be liked, and is about as shallow as a algae-saturated reflecting pool.

This is how the reptiles pitched him to the Daily Terrorist readership ...

Joe Hildebrand is a columnist for news.com.au and The Daily Telegraph and the host of Summer Afternoons on Radio 2GB. He is also a commentator on the Seven Network, Sky News, 2GB, 3AW and 2CC Canberra. Prior to this, he was co-host of the Channel Ten morning show Studio 10, co-host of the Triple M drive show The One Percenters, and the presenter of two ABC documentary series: Dumb, Drunk & Racist and Sh*tsville Express. He is also the author of the memoir An Average Joe: My Horribly Abnormal Life.

Sheesh, yet another reason not to watch the ABC.

With gritted teeth, the pond plunged in ...

The header: Hildebrand: Labor risks losing its blue-collar base in a two-front war on ‘wokeness’; Labor is losing its working-class base to Pauline Hanson while also fighting off inner-city elites, in a two-front battle that could remake the party, writes Joe Hildebrand.

The caption for the AV distraction which seems to start off all these tabloid outings:

PREMIUM
Hanson says Australia can't be 'multicultural' in National press club address
Become a member to access our premium video content

Premium? Nah, and what followed suggested that as far as telling English history, Joe might have been better off studying rocket science.

The biggest turning point in English history came in the year 1066.
A bunch of Frenchy former Vikings led by William the Conqueror – the spoiler alert is in the name – did not entirely destroy the Anglo-Saxons but they so violently hollowed out their power structures and replaced their culture that England was never the same again.
Today the Labor Party is facing its own Battle of Hastings, and like the one King Harold had to fight it is a war on two fronts.
Harold famously marched north to Stamford Bridge to fight off an invasion by some proper Vikings led by Harald Harvard. Having disposed of the legendary warrior king he then marched south to face William of Normandy.
That travesty was all in the name of supporting the new reptile fixation with Pauline, demonstrating yet again how the reptiles are more than Hanson curious, and are now well into the Hansonifcation of News Corp.

This made the pond think that Joe learned his history from 1066 and All That, which can be found at Project Gutenberg ...

CHAPTER XI

WILLIAM I. A CONQUERING KING

In the year 1066 occurred the other memorable date in English History,
viz. William the Conqueror, Ten Sixty-six. This is also called The
Battle of Hastings, and was when William I (1066) conquered England at
the Battle of Senlac (Ten Sixty-six).
When William the Conqueror landed he lay down on the beach and
swallowed two mouthfuls of sand. This was his first conquering action
and was in the South; later he ravaged the North as well.
The Norman Conquest was a Good Thing, as from this time onwards England
stopped being conquered and thus was able to become top nation.

DOOMSDAY BOOK AND THE FORESTS

William next invented a system according to which everybody had to
belong to somebody else, and everybody else to the King. This was
called the Feutile System, and in order to prove that it was true he
wrote a book called the Doomsday Book, which contained an inventory
of all the Possessions of all his subjects; after reading the book
through carefully William agreed with it and signed it, indicating to
everybody that the Possessions mentioned in it were now his.
William the Conqueror (1066) is memorable for having loved an old stag
as if it was his father, and was in general very fond of animals: he
therefore made some very just and conquering laws about the Forests.
One of these laws said that all the forests and places which were not
already Possessions belonged to the King and that anyone found in them
should have his ears and legs cut off -- (these belonged to somebody
else under the Feutile System, anyway) -- and (if this had not already
been done) should have his eyes put out with red-hot irons; after
this the offender was allowed to fly the country.
Another very conquering law made by William I said that everyone had
to go to bed at eight o’clock. This was called the Curfew and was a
Good Thing in the end since it was the cause of Gray’s Energy in the
country churchyard (at Stoke Penge).
Although in all these ways William the Conqueror (1066) was a very
strong king he was eventually stumbled to death by a horse and was
succeeded by his son Rufus.

Questions will be asked:

1. Give the dates of at least two of the following:
(1) William the Conqueror.
(2) 1066.

Quite so, and a goodly break from Joe.

Joe used polling to celebrate the one-time fish and chip shop owner as an "almighty warrior queen", which means that the pond could possibly claim the title of being the new Virginia Woolf: New polling has confirmed One Nation, led by the almighty warrior queen that is Pauline Hanson, has become the party of choice for blue-collar voters, as Labor faces a ‘two-front war’ threatening its working-class base.

Dear sweet long absent lord, the Daily Terrorists do even worse AI memes than the lizards of Oz.  What on earth possessed them to do this, with bonus lightning ...

What did she do to deserve this kind of humiliation? Even the pond thought it went too far ...

Joe kept on with the metaphor, and whatta you kno, being a reptile, or possibly a bear of little brain, the pond began to think of Molesworth:

There he met his end with the apocryphal arrow in the eye. England’s government fell and its ruling class was quickly overrun by people speaking French.
Labor’s current dilemma is the same. It needs to defeat the almighty warrior queen that is Pauline Hanson coming at it straight from the heartland of its working-class base.
But even if it wins that victory it still needs to fight off an army of Frenchified show ponies in its rear.
Today we call them “Teals” or “Greens” but they are every bit as elitist and dangerous as the Francophile Scandinavians that hollowed out the power structures of England a millennia ago.
So let’s cut straight to the modern day. It is now beyond doubt – it has been quantified, analysed and verified – that working class people are fleeing Labor for One Nation.

Read that line again and weep at the idiocy of it:

Today we call them “Teals” or “Greens” but they are every bit as elitist and dangerous as the Francophile Scandinavians that hollowed out the power structures of England a millennia ago.

The pond did warn that Joe wasn't the shiniest penny in the jar, especially as he decided to go off on a crow eater jag ... South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas just won a record majority but his most working-class electorate swung heavily towards Pauline Hanson. Picture: Eleni Tzanos

The only thing the pond noted recently about the crow eaters is that they have a considerable number of loons in the upper house ... Sarah Game's bill restricting late-term abortion access voted down in lower house

And who supported the bill in the lower house?

Only three lower house Labor MPs — Mr Malinauskas, Mr Koutsantonis and Michael Brown — supported the legislation. From the Liberal Party, Ms Hurn and Sam Telfer voted in support.

Say no more, or more to the point, sayeth on Joe:

Polling shows that One Nation is now the party of choice for a majority of blue-collar voters.
Even at the South Australian state election, where the mighty Peter Malinauskas just won a record majority, voters in Adelaide’s most working-class electorate swung heavily towards Pauline Hanson.
Malinauskas, a former supermarket shelf-stacker, is the epitome of a working-class boy made good, unabashedly mainstream and – as the rest of the result showed – overwhelmingly popular with everybody else.
So why not with blue collar voters? In fact it’s not Mali at all. It’s ordinary battlers sticking their finger up at the establishment because they feel they are not being listened to or getting a fair deal.
We know because we have seen it before. In Trump. In Brexit. In SA.
In fact Pauline Hanson’s policies would be terrible for workers but that doesn’t matter – any more than it matters that immigration isn’t even a state issue. It is simply an up yours to the elites.

The reptiles kept on trying to persuade the pond to pay a PREMIUM:

PREMIUM
James Morrow’s take on Hanson’s press club address
Become a member to access our premium video content

Nah, not if that meant a cent going towards Joe blathering on about 'leets ...

And that is not even the supposed “top end of town” – they clearly have no problem with Gina Rinehart – it is the cultural elites that they feel are determining the nation’s priorities and governing for themselves as well as the activist elite who dominate political debate with ideological crusades to the exclusion of bread-and-butter issues.  Just look at the self-appointed standard-bearers of progressive politics and you are instantly drowned by an endless sea of grievances that are incomprehensible to the average wage earner just trying to stay afloat.
Pauline Hanson and One Nation have launched a new attack ad aimed at Anthony Albanese and the Labor party.
Now it might not be the ALP actually saying these things, but if Angus Taylor reckons the Libs are being punished by association with Labor, just imagine how much Labor is being punished by its association with the left.
That is why, as Right faction supremo Don Farrell warned in The Australian on the weekend, wokeness is death.

Okay, the pond resisted earlier iterations of Joe's "woke" salad, but finally the pond could take no more ...

And then Joe ended by pretending the reptiles cared about the workers ...

It is not enough for Labor to simply ignore the toxic tropes driving workers away, it must actively condemn them and cast them out of its own ranks.
In the end the English lost and the Normans not just invaded England but remade it politically, culturally and economically.
Labor cannot allow the same thing to happen. It cannot allow its blue-collar base to be effaced by woke white-collar whingers and become a Labor party in name only. Not for its sake, and not for the workers’.

Pull the other one Joe.

Now please enjoy a Python moment ...

It wasn't much of a break, but it'll have to do, as this Joe double bill unfortunately doubled down on Pauline ... so much Hansonification, so little time...

Joe Hildebrand: How the ‘stupid’ GetUp stunt is driving voters to Pauline Hanson; GetUp’s anti-Hanson stunt at the National Press Club has backfired, casting her as a victim and accelerating blue-collar voters’ historic shift toward One Nation, writes Joe Hildebrand.

The caption for the AV distraction, of a kind that apparently is used at the start of all Daily Terrorist "think" pieces (the pond realises that's an abuse of the English language): Sky News host James Macpherson believes activists gaining covert access and remotely triggering a device near One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson exposed alarming security vulnerabilities. “GetUp were able to gain prior access to a venue where a well-known right-wing speaker was to give an address, then used a remote control to activate a device within metres of the podium,” Mr Macpherson told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. “Thank God it was only a banner, but it just goes to show the more Pauline grows … the more seriously they’re going to need to take security.”

Still no rebrand for the home of hysterical nonsense?

The pond realises that it's already been down this path with lovely Rita, meter maid, and sundry other reptiles, but to drive the metaphor home, this is yet another reminder of how the reptiles resemble a murmuration of starlings, or perhaps a chattering of cockatoos.

By golly, they've learned their lines, and they're all going to write them down:

The stupidest thing about GetUp’s Pauline Hanson stunt – from an outfit that specialises in stupid – is that it was a real-time, real-world display of exactly why voters are deserting the left for One Nation.
The best that can be said about it was that instead of just calling her a racist, the banner highlighted Hanson’s hypocrisy on better wages for working people.
But of course that didn’t matter because, instead of getting people talking about One Nation’s non-existent record in helping workers – which Labor has been valiantly attempting to prosecute – everyone was suddenly just obsessed with the fact of the stunt itself and the subsequent whodunnit as to the person behind it.
Thus the first cardinal rule of PR was broken: Never let yourself become the story.
It was also the first time Hanson had addressed the National Press Club, leaving her wide open to lengthy and long-awaited scrutiny of her party’s paper-thin policies.
Instead, all of that interrogation was buried by GetUp’s undergraduate attention seeking, thus breaking the first cardinal rule of warfare: Never interrupt your enemy when he – or she – is making a mistake.

Pauline was making a mistake?

In all the reptile coverage of the press club event, Joe was the first to introduce this as a variant, but it didn't last long, with the caption for the next image righting the ship, The best that can be said about it was that instead of just calling her a racist, the banner highlighted Pauline Hanson’s hypocrisy on better wages for working people – but it instantly once more cast Hanson as the victim of the angry activist left. Picture: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images

Way to go Joe, way to remove all memory of Gina from the hive mind.

Joe was all in on Pauline, a veritable Hansonite of the first water:

But the dumbest thing by a country mile is that it instantly once more cast Hanson as the victim of the angry activist left that is driving traditional blue-collar voters into her arms.
It is not GetUp’s banner that the working class is flocking to, it’s One Nation’s. And why wouldn’t they? For decades now the loud and trendy left has been obsessed with almost everything but the economic advancement of working people.
If Angus Taylor can blame voters’ desertion of the Coalition on Labor, then Labor can surely blame workers’ desertion of them on the shouty overprivileged tosspots who dominate debate on the left.
The toxic scourge of identity politics, with its twin obsessions of race and gender cooked up on university campuses where blue hair outnumbers blue collars, has become the modern left’s fundamental cornerstone. Little wonder working-class people think the left has nothing to offer and a majority back One Nation for the first time in history.
Meanwhile, Palestine has replaced Vietnam as the cause du jour to such a white hot extent that anti-Semitism – trussed up as anti-Zionism – runs rampant, while the radical Islamism that ended 15 lives in Bondi is wholly ignored.
Little wonder Barnaby Joyce recorded the slaughter that day as the moment when One Nation’s vote exploded. This is the tectonic shift causing the political earthquake we are now experiencing, and yet still the oh-so educated smart arses of the inner-city activist class are too stupid to see it and too far removed from ordinary people to feel it.

Trust Joe to celebrate Barners, Tamworth's eternal shame, and for some reason, after that rhetorical flourish, the pond felt some sympathy for a loon berating the oh-so educated smart arses of the inner-city activist class as too stupid, while imagining Barners as some kind of rustic rocket scientist.

The pond takes it back, what a comfortable way to make a phone call ...

The next Daily Terrorist snap had the pond thinking it was seeing double, or perhaps somehow Pauline Pantsdown had made it into the picture, We are now experiencing a political earthquake, and yet still the oh-so educated smart arses of the inner-city activist class are too stupid to see it and too far removed from ordinary people to feel it. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

At last Joe wrapped up his uxorious paean of praise for Pauline:

Labor, however, is feeling it like a punch to the guts. It may well survive the One Nation juggernaut but if it does not counter this shift it will be left as a party unrecognisable from the noble working-class origins that forged it, formed it and should be its most fundamental foundation.
Ironically, the Budget was meant to be a step in the right direction: Giving more money to workers while launching a populist tax grab from the supposed “top end of town”.
In fact it was two steps back, as anyone with any memory of Bill Shorten’s infamous 2019 campaign – with the exact same policies and the exact same rhetoric – should have known in their bones.
Instead, they should have borrowed the playbook of the great Neville Wran, who famously said: “Everyone aspires to do a little better. That’s what being in the working class is all about: how to get out of it.”
He should know. The Boy from Balmain became a lawyer and a statesman. And that is what every worker wants, to get ahead and provide a better life for their family than the one they had.
Anything that stands in the way of that aspiration is anathema to the wants and needs of ordinary people. They do not want wealth redistribution that keeps them on life support, they want pathways to the life they aspire to.
Thus to his credit, and as predicted by yours truly, the PM has now reversed some of his Treasurer’s most contentious Budget measures and reinstated more tax relief for small businesses and start-ups.
Tellingly, Albo also rightly condemned GetUp’s dumb stunt as “counter-productive”.
His next task must be to divorce himself from the pretentious whims and pearl-clutching protests of the activist class and focus entirely on the everyday needs and dreams of ordinary mainstream Australians.

Really Joe, the best you've got as idle abuse is blathering about pearl-clutching by the activist class?

You really are keen to make 1066 and All That and Molesworth sound like a deeply intellectual read. Get serious Joe, “a red-headed chiz is a swiz or swindle as any fule kno.”

Hey, Joe

Where you going with that devastating wit in your hand?

Hey, Joe

I said, where you going with that devastating wit in your hand?

I'm going down to bring the ladies down

You know, ain't be gunna clutch them pearls

Once they hear the line I lay down

You know, ain't gunna be messin' with other men

Huh, not with me being so cool...

Never mind, as the pond mentioned the pool at the start, the pond bets this remains an ongoing joke, days into the saga ...

In lieu of a reptile update, lovely Rita, meter maid, fills the pond's Monday slot ...

 

The pond has a confession to make - Benedic mihi, Pater, quia peccavi.

In all the time the pond has been tracking assorted Murdochian reptiles, and that's now a long, long time, the pond has paid absolutely no attention to lovely Rita, meter maid for the HUN.

As the pond is currently in Melbourne, and in absentia padding the pond with tabloid nonsense to keep up the hits, it seemed only right and proper to pay some attention to Rita ... and to her HUN outings (the pond realises that she's also a big player for Sky Noise - still no rebrand? - but best to start slowly).

What a disappointment. In a recent outing, Rita was just a part of the murmuration of reptiles, dedicated to the perils of Pauline, and in the way of the tabloids, just a three minute read. Such drivel, and in such small portions.

The pond realises that the dismal press club fuss is now well in the past, but expert herpetologists will find a couple of things of interest:

(a) yet more proof of how widespread the Hansonifcation of the Murdoch press has become, with every Murdochian reptile rallying to the cause;

and (b) how inclined Rita is inclined to hysteria. It was just a press club outing, not a trip around a Florida swamp surrounded by 'gators:

The header: Rita Panahi: GetUp responsible for biggest own goal in Australian politics, The left-wing activist group’s stunt at Pauline Hanson’s Press Club address must be one of the dumbest acts of political sabotage imaginable.

As usual, being a tabloid, Rita was only required to drum up a feeble three minutes, the maximum length that the AFL infested hive mind could attempt to swallow at a sitting.

The reptiles started with a AV distraction, featuring the IPA, which tells you as much about Rita and her attempt to pump up the Pauline volume as you need to know:

IPA Deputy Executive Director Daniel Wild is impressed by One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson tackling the issues shaping Australia's future and challenging topics many politicians are too afraid to discuss. “I thought Senator Hanson’s performance was very strong at the Press Club,” Mr Wild told Sky News host Rita Panahi. “The issues that she was discussing are the issues that matter to Australia’s future. “I think her assessment of multiculturalism was spot on, as was her assessment of net zero and various other issues, including gender ideology. “What I think is very exciting about this time in our country is that the strictures of debate are being blown open. “You’re not supposed to debate these things.”

Rita proceeded to show how she was more than just Pauline curious or IPA supportive:

Pauline Hanson nailed her address at the National Press Club on Wednesday as a new poll revealed the majority of Australians believe One Nation is ready to govern.
Facing a hostile audience, Hanson articulated her party’s vision for Australia, outlining policy positions on housing, immigration and productivity, alongside key cultural issues ranging from radical trans- activism to the Islamist threat.
It was ideologically clear and unapologetic – the sort of speech conservative voters have for years wanted to hear from a Liberal leader.

Farcically Rita presented the docile press club as a hostile audience, when they mostly - with a few honourable exceptions - acted like sheep baaing a homage: Facing a hostile audience, Pauline Hanson articulated her party’s vision for Australia. Picture: Martin Ollman

How many times have you read in the Murdoch press a devotion to Pauline because she wants to take down their media enemies? Add to your count now:

This wasn’t a leader worried about offending the political or media class, indeed she declared war on both, announcing any government she leads would abolish SBS and make dramatic cuts to the bloated ABC.
Her message to the media was clear: you can criticise and scrutinise but activism masquerading as journalism would be called out. “I’m an elected representative and I should be scrutinised, that doesn’t give you the licence to pile on … (and) delegitimise my party,” she said. “It doesn’t give you the licence to continue to repeat the lie that we are a racist party – because that is untrue. The Australian people can make up their own mind and they are.
“Rest assured, there will be big changes if One Nation is given the chance. SBS will be gone, there’s no need for it anymore; the internet has overtaken the need for it.”
Hanson also hit back at Leftist activist reporter Sarah Martin who she labelled “trashy”, accusing the Guardian writer of publishing “lies”.

It's not just the pond that has made the observation that Hanson has made a career out of demonising the media and making herself a poor pitiful me victim.

See the Malcolm Farr in the Graudian:

Pauline Hanson’s media attacks are not just Trump-inspired. For 30 years she has sought to control the press
The One Nation leader’s anger at reporters reflects an intolerance towards anyone who challenges her preferred, self-crafted reality

Well yes, it's the authoritarian way, but the reptiles also live in their preferred self-crafted reality, and so, together with another snap came another tribute, Hanson nailed her address at the National Press Club. Picture: Martin Ollman

It's funny to see a migrant, one whom Pauline would have liked to stop at the border - right origin, wrong surname - carry on this way, but consider it a variation on the Stockholm syndrome or a form of appeasement or perhaps learned helplessness:

Similarly, her exchange with SBS reporter Anna Henderson was robust, with Hanson telling the network’s chief political correspondent: “You’re going to be without a job.” When Henderson claimed that SBS’s foreign language services were needed to help migrants “integrate into Australia”, Hanson responded with “I want them to be able to learn English … that will help them assimilate into our society.”
It’s a sound argument that will have widespread appeal.
Hanson understands that most of the media, whether taxpayer funded or not, are not her friends. Nor do they understand why she has surged in the polls. They have contempt for her, her party and her supporters. It’s the same disdain the political establishment has for much of the population, a theme Hanson touched on in her speech.
“Two years ago, I tried to secure a national plebiscite on immigration numbers. As usual, most of the Senate dismissed the notion of giving Australians a direct say on policy and voted it down,” she said. “During the debate I … remember Coalition senator Paul Scarr saying the issue was too complex to put to the Australian people.
“That disgusting comment says all you need to know about the political establishment’s contempt for the Australian people: contempt for their intelligence, and contempt for the very concept of actually listening to them. I’m always listening, and that’s why my policy to slash immigration reflects what most Australians want.”
What was most impressive was the manner in which Hanson handled media questioning.
It’s little wonder the latest Sky News Pulse/YouGov survey found that 50 per cent of voters believe One Nation is ready to govern today with 33 per cent saying the party will be ready by 2028.
One of the dumbest acts of political sabotage imaginable
GetUp has serious questions to answer after a stunt designed to damage Pauline Hanson ended up embarrassing the National Press Club and led to the Leftist activist group being referred for investigation by the Australian Federal Police.
During Hanson’s speech, a large banner was unfurled behind her in a shocking security breach.

Note the generous dollops of praise, another indication that Rita and the rest of the reptiles are way beyond being Pauline curious.

Naturally, keeping up with this new lizard Oz tradition, the reptiles flung in an AV distraction featuring the dog botherer, celebrating the "political juggernaut":

Sky News host Chris Kenny questioned why a protester was able to disrupt One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson’s National Press Club address. “She [Pauline Hanson] turned up today as the political juggernaut upending politics around the country, outpolling both Liberal and Labor nationally,” Mr Kenny said. “An anti-Hanson poster was unfurled early in her speech; the National Press Club claimed no knowledge. “How could this be allowed to happen? How could the Press Club be so slack about security at such a highly anticipated event? “It was an appalling lapse. Still, Hanson was unfazed, and she wasn't afraid to get a little bit prickly inside the Canberra bubble.”

That was enough for Rita, the verdict was in, and the stunt was unimaginably bad (do the reptiles have the first clue about the sorts of tricks that happen elsewhere in the world?)

In a statement, the Press Club apologised to Hanson and confirmed it would explore legal options to seek damages from GetUp once the AFP investigation is concluded.
“We have referred the relevant footage and other evidence to the AFP for further investigation,” the statement read.
“The organisation GetUp is claiming credit for the stunt. The GetUp representative at the address was David Sharaz. At time of writing, we understand he is yet to be interviewed by the AFP.”
Barnaby Joyce also condemned the stunt: “It’s so dangerous when you think about it, they got in there and managed to rig up a sign and had the capacity to lower it. What if it was a bomb?”
The incident must be one of the dumbest acts of political sabotage imaginable – GetUp only succeeded in making Hanson look calm under pressure while exposing the organisation to criminal investigation.

And so to establish the mood for the next Rita moment:

The pond supposes this outing is still slightly relevant, what with the World Cup still going down.

The header: Rita Panahi: To suggest that those against mass migration are anti-refugee or anti-migrant is a fallacy; Before the final whistle blew, blowhards swarmed social media with claims that those who are anti-mass migration or pro-Australian values, specifically anyone who supports One Nation, could not celebrate the Socceroos’ victory. It’s typically asinine and unintentionally racist commentary.

As seems to be the form, the reptiles started with an AV distraction, 'Won't be at Watford much longer': Irankunda draws global headlines in World Cup debut; After a performance that drew global headlines, Julian Linden expects Nestory Irankunda...

The reptiles proposed that what Rita was offering was "less than 2 min read", which seems to be short serve even by tabloid standards.

What with the pond boycotting the World Cup - hardly surprising as the pond routinely boycotts most sport - the pond doesn't have much to offer, especially as Rita drew herself up and took umbrage.

Australia’s race-obsessed Lefties are trying to politicise our World Cup triumph.
Before the final whistle blew, blowhards swarmed social media with claims that those who are anti-mass migration or pro-Australian values, specifically anyone who supports One Nation, could not celebrate the victory.

The activist class never misses an opportunity to inject their poisonous brand of politics into every facet of life, even a famous World Cup victory against the odds.

There was a specially selected stock footage snap to go with the outrage: Race-obsessed Lefties are trying to politicise our World Cup triumph. Getty

The pond knows what the AFL mob would make of it, because they're so sports obsessed they'd watch a couple of flies race up a window.

Rita carried on ranting ...

Their reasoning was typically asinine and unintentionally racist, but nevertheless, almost every post about Australia’s win or the heroics of Player of the Match and opening goal scorer Nestory Irankunda was soiled with political commentary.
Our youngest ever World Cup scorer’s refugee status was weaponised to turn a unifying moment for Australia into another partisan fight.
To suggest that those against mass migration – incidentally, that’s the majority of Australians according to polls – are anti-refugee or anti-migrant is a fallacy.

Actually the pond has noted in the short summaries of matches offered by SBS (and insisted on by the pond's partner) that there are a remarkable number of players in teams with what might be called "different characteristics".

This is clear enough in teams from Scandinavian countries, but also in other European teams.

Is it wrong to draw attention to the benefits of migration, and the stacking of teams with those who have the right skill sets?

Not really.

The pond did a little digging and came across this in The Conversation ...How migration became a key to World Cup success

Then there was this one, with "expatriates" standing in for those who move around... Origins and destinations of football expatriates (2020-2024)

And so on, and Vox came up with this graphic for the previous World Cup ...

The reptiles instead decided to fling in a snap with a caption evoking the toilet: Almost every post about Australia’s win or Nestory Irankunda was soiled with political commentary. Picture: Getty

Don't get the pond wrong. The pond is all in favour of migrants moving about, making the best of their skills, and benefiting the clubs and the countries that will have them, something which shouldn't be restricted to sport, whatever the first world guilt involved in depriving some countries of skilled medical workers or other urgently needed specialists.

Gosh darn it ...

Trust Rita to get the wrong end of this stick:

Why, in a sane world, it should be possible for a migrant to move countries, and turn into a barking mad far right columnist for the HUN, getting down with migration basher Pauline ...
As is the notion that those who support One Nation must be white and Australian-born.
Those tired old narratives look pretty silly when One Nation is leading the polls as the most popular political party.
On Monday, we saw Pauline Hanson overtake Anthony Albanese to become the nation’s preferred prime minister, according to the latest Resolve Political Monitor poll.
The polling also shows that One Nation’s level of support is almost identical between those born here (29 per cent) and first generation migrants born overseas (28 per cent).
When looking at ethnicity, 31 per cent of Anglo-Saxon Australians support the party as do 24 per cent with a non-Anglo background.
Efforts to divide the nation and rob the joy out of this unifying World Cup moment must be rejected.
Those who support policies to lower migration, stop illegal immigration and deport non-citizen criminals are not fringe dwellers; they are very much in the mainstream.
None of those policy positions are at odds with backing a national team that has multiple refugees from Africa, and one from Europe.
As a fellow refugee, I see our national team as a shining example of what a uniquely welcoming and egalitarian country this is, where anyone with talent or work ethic can achieve enormous success.

She's a fellow refugee?

Fleeing Arkansas, USA, and then Iran, is the same as moving from Tanzania and Watford?

Uh huh. Go tell Pauline's mob that and see if they care.

The reptiles attached a thumb bio, and the pond thought, given the way it had ignored Rita, that it should be included for those as ignorant of her as the pond has been ...

Columnist and Sky News host
Rita is a senior columnist at Herald Sun, and Sky News Australia anchor of The Rita Panahi Show and co-anchor of top-rating Sunday morning discussion program Outsiders. Born in America, Rita spent much of her childhood in Iran before her family moved to Australia as refugees. She holds a Master of Business, with a career spanning more than two decades, first within the banking sector and the past ten years as a journalist and columnist.

Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, USA? 

Now there's a tidy balance to the brain drain that saw the Murdoch family abandon their Australian citizenship for filthy lucre and head off to the States. You're welcome America.

Just because this is all filler, the pond decided to throw in some Rita comments, to see the level of intellect the hive mind readership could show ...

And so on, but that's more than enough, and now you can hazard a guess as to the nature of the HUN's readership ...

Akker Dakker on a Sunday? The pond relives ancient hits with the fat owl of the Terrorist remove ...

Continuing the pond's visit to ancient tabloid wonders - placeholders while the pond visits the deep south - the pond thought that Akker Dakker could hold the fort.

Sure, it's old, stale beer, but back in the day, Akker Dakker - dubbed the fat owl of the remove by the politically incorrect, anti-woke pond - was once a regular, celebrated guest at the pond.

He even had his own evocative artwork ...

Ah memories. Smug and arrogant, as he was, is and will be ...

Even better, Akker Dakker only manages short two minute bursts (the pond understands this is typical of Australian men and scribblers for the Daily Terror), so the pond could indulge in a number of trips down memory lane ...

First up, Akker Dakker reveals his inner war monger ...

The header: Piers Akerman: Trump’s peace deal nothing of the sort as Iran is given free rein to prepare for next conflict; America ended two world wars with unconditional surrender – but the US-Iran deal has taken just 107 days to hand Tehran $425bn and dominion over a vital global waterway, writes Piers Akerman.

The caption for the AV distraction at the start, so that punters could save themselves the trouble of reading on ... Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney believes significant pressure from the private sector about the war’s impact on the global economy made US President Donald Trump cut a deal with Iran. “Trump did make a comment about how he didn't want to drive the world into a recession or depression,” Mr Mulvaney told Sky News host James Morrow. “I think it was about the captains of American and Western industry coming to him and saying that the world is going to end economically unless you end this war.”

Mick? Now there's a memory as ancient as Akker Dakker ...

Iran’s evil ayatollahs and its proxies – Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis – are celebrating their victory over the US.
The Strait of Hormuz has reopened, oil revenues are flowing to Iran, plus it’s been handed $425bn.
America has been humiliated; Israel, its only substantial ally in the Middle East, remains at risk.
In defending the US surrender, American Vice President JD Vance made the absurd claim that “if you go back to World War II, if you go back to World War I, you go back to every major conflict in human history, they all ended with some kind of negotiation”.
Nonsense. In World War II, Japan surrendered unconditionally on September 2, 1945, barely a fortnight after Emperor Hirohito broadcast Japan’s acceptance of the Allies’ terms of surrender.
On August 15, 1945, the Melbourne Herald ran two small boxed paragraphs under the headline Nearly Six Years of War.

Who knows what's happened to the MOU negotiations as Akker Dakker took the couch lover at his word and reverted to WWII (what, no memories of signing treaties and MOU's at Versailles?)

Just to confirm the historical flourish, and the read's remarkable irrelevance, the Daily Terrorist slipped in a snap...Supreme Allied Commander General Douglas MacArthur signs the formal Japanese surrender documents on September 3, 1945, in a ceremony to mark the end of World War II aboard the battleship USS Missouri docked in Tokyo Bay.

Akker Dakker kept on reliving the glory days ...

“Australia has been at war five years, 11 months and 11 days since war was declared on Germany on September 3, 1939. The war with Japan began at Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, and lasted three years, eight months and seven days,” the breakout read.
Germany was crushed by Russian forces from the east and Allied forces from the south and west. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki finished Japan.
The US capitulated to Iran after just 107 days of war.

As if to rub it in, the reptiles provided a snap of mad King Donald trying to match Dugout Doug ...US President Donald Trump signs a deal with Iran to end the Middle East war before France's President Emmanuel Macron inside Chateau de Versailles on June 17. Picture: @Scavino47/AFP

It wouldn't do for any reptile to have a bash at the Islamics, with Akker Dakker apparently forgetting that Germany in the 1930s was allegedly an Xian nation, while good old Italy managed to contain both a pope and Mussolini, but never mind, it's all the fault of the Islamics ...

President Trump signed off on MOU at the Palace of Versailles (the Iranians didn’t bother attending) a few days ago. The glittering gold-leafed Versailles was where the Allied powers and Germany signed the fateful peace agreement to end World War I.
Dictator Adolf Hitler ignored it. On June 22, 1940, he accepted France’s surrender in the same railway carriage Germany had surrendered to France on November 11, 1918.
Support for Hitler’s insane Third Reich came from the Islamic world.
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, lived in luxury in Berlin from late 1941 until 1945.
He had fled to Germany to seek refuge and collaborate with the Nazi leadership.
He was provided with a generous stipend and made regular radio broadcasts to the Middle East, urging Muslims to revolt against the Allies.
Trump has lashed out at those critical of his deal, saying on his social media: “These fools, who think I haven’t been tough enough on Iran, when the Stock Market Just Hit A RECORD HIGH, and Oil prices are ‘tumbling’ down, are either jealous, bad people, or stupid.”
No, his critics are just more attuned to reality. The unconditional surrender by Germany and Japan saw both nations effectively demilitarised, then get assistance to rebuild their economies. US troops stationed in both nations stabilised them.

One down, another to go ...

Next up was a fairly standard bit of Labor bashing, what you might call lizard Oz lite ... as Akker Dakker took a hearty swipe at those pesky, difficult uppity furriners who are ruining everything ...

The header: Piers Akerman: Lucky Country to Stagnant Continent as Labor’s immigration accelerates decay; The prosperity Australians enjoyed when Sydney hosted the Olympics has “evaporated” as youth crime, gang warfare and Labor’s immigration policies tear at the nation’s fabric, writes Piers Akerman. (The reptiles like to get into the heads of their thugby league-addled hive mind who they're actually reading).

The caption for the AV offering, thoughtfully provided for those who don't want to read on: The funeral service for slain Sydney gangster Lorenzi Lemalu has been hit by a hail of bullets. No injuries have been reported.

This is a variant on Dame Groan's routine "we'll all be rooned" shriek to the heavens, and Akker Dakker carried out his task in style ...

Labor’s policies, particularly relating to immigration, have led to the institutional decay of the fabric of our society.
Australia is on edge of the abyss. Internationally, we just don’t rate as an admired nation any longer. This is the not the Lucky Country, it is the Stagnant Continent.
Confidence has tanked, businesses, large and small, are collapsing. The aspirations of young people have been trashed by Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ budget.
The prosperity we enjoyed when Sydney hosted the Olympic Games just 26 years ago has evaporated and, with it, our way of life.
To see the future, look no further than the dystopian condition of Victoria after decades of the same extreme hard Left Green/Labor ideology that drives Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s socialist government.

Yes, our way of life has disappeared into a void, and it's possible that it's all the fault of those from the deep south ... should the pond have taken weapons to keep this chilling world of Mad Max clones at bay? Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan’s highly politicised public service is all-but dysfunctional. Picture: Jason Edwards

Oh dear, the pond will be meeting up with one of those highly politicised public servants, and regrets not having packed garlic, holy water, a silver bullet and a stake ...

The situation is incredibly dire ...

The unelected Labor Premier Jacinta Allan’s highly politicised public service is all-but dysfunctional.
The civil structure is on its knees. Melbourne is dangerous. Defecation on public streets is not uncommon, and criminal acts are ignored. Even the worst recidivists are granted bail. Last year, Victorian Police arrested 1223 children a combined 6997 times, with minors committing 57.6 per cent of carjackings in Victoria and 52.6 per cent of home invasions.

To reinforce Akker Dakker's point, the reptiles flung in a snap which made the lizard Oz graphics department look lackadaisical ...More than 32,000 cars were stolen in Victoria last year, the most since 2001. Picture: Victoria Police

Hang on, hang on, did the reptiles get that snap from Victoria's highly politicised, all-but dysfunctional public service? How on earth did they get their act together enough to supply a snap which is remarkably meaningless?

Never mind, Akker Dakker was in his Laura Norder mode...

More than 32,000 cars were stolen, the most since 2001, an increase of 96.9 per cent over the past three years. Victoria’s total car-theft bill –$243m across more than 12,500 claims – was higher than the combined sum of all other mainland states.
Magistrate Gail Hubble achieved some notoriety a year ago when she ordered the immediate release of a teenager who had accumulated more than 400 charges over 663 days.
At the time, the 15-year-old, a refugee visa-holder, had already spent 419 days in pre-sentence detention. In 2024, he admitted guilt to six aggravated burglaries, 14 car thefts, four robberies, three shop break-ins, along with multiple offences including dangerous driving, trespass, and handling stolen goods.
Despite having absconded 23 times in the preceding six months, he remains under the supervision of child protection services in a residential care setting.

There came final, conclusive visual proof of chaos in the land, though sadly it involved a shift from those southern wretches to the streets of Sydney ... Police and forensics on the scene after a man died and four others went to hospital following a shooting in Sydney last month. Picture: Gaye Gerard/NewsWire

Akker Dakker was too canny to fall for the Minns Liberal-lite routines, and went into outright hysteria mode for his climax ...

Under the Minns Labor government in NSW, violent gang warfare has reached unprecedented levels. Today’s criminals control international trade through highly organised, multimillion-dollar syndicates such as the Alameddine network, the Hamzy clan, outlaw motorcycle gangs, and the Lone Wolves. Gang bosses routinely co-ordinate hits and drug shipments via encrypted communication apps from hiding places in Lebanon, Turkey, or Dubai.
The modern toolkit consists of high-powered automatic and semi-automatic firearms, military-grade explosives, tracked “kill cars”, routinely firebombed to destroy DNA, and sophisticated counter-surveillance tracking devices.

Talk about Mad Max. Child's play in the Akker Dakker universe.

Two down, and only one to go ...

Akker Dakker also knows how to cheer on the Hansonites.

It's not just the lizards of Oz that love her willingness to peddle their policies, it's the entire bunch of Murdochians ...

The header: Piers Akerman: Strong case for Hanson – and the case against Albanese, Chalmers, Bowen, Wong and O’Neil; Australians will fight back against the class warfare Labor is waging – they want their nation back, writes Piers Akerman.

The caption for the AV distraction, a rousing celebration of Hansonism (still no rebrand for Sky Noise?): One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson discusses One Nation’s surge among working class Australians. “The Labor Party hasn’t been loyal to them; they haven’t supported them; they’ve made their life harder,” Ms Hanson told Sky News host Steve Price. “Our job is to ensure that we give people out there a quality of life, a standard of living, and to look after their best interests. “Our governments have failed the people.”

How the reptiles love the redhead, how could Akker Dakker fail to succumb to her charms?

The unsurprising rise of One Nation is a natural response to the white-hot anger with Green-Left Labor governments, federally and in the majority of states.
The Albanese government’s socialist policies created legitimate grievances but people have been ignored, or worse, sneered at by the Left and self-anointed university -educated elites in Teal electorates.
Pauline Hanson has been around for 30 years. She hasn’t changed her politics – the nation has.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese learnt nothing when the Voice to Parliament he championed was smashed by voters 60-40.
Despite this humiliating defeat, versions of the divisive policy have been introduced in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and are being examined in NSW.

Oh dear, while it's good that the Voice lives on in the minds of the Terrorists, surely there's a typographical error.

No way would the lizards of Oz contemplate it being capitalised. It's "the voice" in lizard Oz land, and the pond was startled to see the Terrorists make such a basic error... 

On the other hand, the reptiles stayed true to the edict of always running a funny looking snap of Albo ...Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his government’s socialist policies have created legitimate grievances. Picture: Dan Peled/NewsWire

Akker Dakker was outraged in his usual way...

On Friday, a Sydney police officer was held criminally responsible for an Aboriginal death after a 16-year-old boy riding a stolen motorbike at 68km/h in a 40km/h zone slammed into an unmarked police car.
District Court Judge Jane Culver said the officer should have known he was creating an obstacle which posed a real risk of collision with the bike.

And then came a snap of Pauline surrounded by flags, designed to relieve Akker Dakker's tension ... One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has been around for 30 years. She hasn’t changed her politics – the nation has. Picture: NewsWire/John Gass

Hah, as if even a snap of Pauline could soften Akker Dakker' fury ...

He should have guessed someone disobeying road rules and showing no signs of slowing would not stop at the end of a bike lane.
The unfortunate officer has avoided jail but was sentenced to 500 hours community service.
A death of any Australian is painful to family and community, but this offender died trying to escape the law.
Race should not enter the equation just as police officers can’t be expected to second guess the actions of criminals fleeing from justice.
This is just one example of the many incidents contributing to the anger evident across the nation with the actions of the Left and the sluggish response of the traditional conservative parties.

Hang 'em all, the long, the short and the tall, and will someone finally get around to casting Akker Dakker as the lead in a remake of Dirty Harry?

As this has been a trip down memory lane for the pond - already out of date, because this very Sunday there will be a new Akker Dakker - for a closing cartoon, the pond needed something timeless, something that evoked the classics ...

Why not James Latham's Reimagining Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”

What a vision, though perhaps not pure Seurat ...