Trust the Graudian to try to frighten the pond with terrifying stories of the boogeyman under the bed, and threatening to emerge and deliver fresh mayhem and chaos ...
Dan Jervis-Bardy
Chief political correspondent
The former PM is open to resurrecting his parliamentary career, if Angus Taylor does what Peter Dutton wouldn’t and actively drafts him in
Incidentally, that's an intermittent archive link because all too often of late the Graudian has been lumping access with this extortionate demand ...
Sorry, the pond refuses to use Google, wayward owner of blogger and in terminal AI decline, nor the pandering Apple (Tim Apple is such a suck), and won't surrender its email address, even though it has several anon accounts devised for such blackmail attempts.
Instead the pond will turn to its usual herpetology duties ... and what a dismal day it is.
As predicted, the reptiles are now in full campaign mode ... with Brownie and Crannie leading the way ...
Taylor’s Liberals ready to wage war over economy
With Labor set to come under further pressure over its second-term record when wages figures are released on Wednesday, Angus Taylor unveiled a frontbench team he said would be focused on cutting waste and boosting productivity
By Greg Brown and Matthew Cranston
How dire is that triptych collage, which verges, in terms of look, on some Liberal trinitarian view of life.
But together with the cardigan bashing, there was a secret terror bubbling to the surface ...
Polling reveals reasons behind One Nation’s rise
Pauline Hanson defends ‘good Muslims’ statement, as polling shows reasons for One Nation rise
Voters are searching for an alternative party to back, polling shows, as Pauline Hanson defends statements she made questioning whether there were ‘good Muslims’.
By Elizabeth Pike
There's a Melbourne joke that can go with that ...
Ah Melbourne, wet one day and deluded the next ...
It was way past time for the reptiles to wheel out their heavyweight to offer sage advice on the best way to bore the country to tears, with the beefy boofhead possibly a willing student ...
The header: Angus Taylor’s ultimate test: to absorb and project leadership mentality; New Liberal leader Angus Taylor has outlined his mission to restore living standards and protect Australian values
The caption for an unfortunate snap of mouth open and nothing to be heard: Opposition Leader Angus Taylor announces his new Shadow Cabinet. Picture: NewsWire / John Appleyard
It was the ultimate test for pond correspondents: absorb "Ned" while projecting a semblance of retained sanity.
There was a twist to this ultimate test: the pond doubts that there's a single reptile that ever looks at the pond, or notes its constant whining and moaning about the AI slop that serves as visual distractions, a relief from the tedium of wading through the drivel.
But somebody must have decided to take a stand, because for a full five minutes, "Ned" droned on without a single visual distraction, making the scaling of this particular Everest exceptionally burdensome ...
Taylor is confronting the heart of the Liberal crisis – the loss of conviction and the need to bring people back. He starts with the dual priorities: “to restore our standard of living and protect our way of life”. The two are fused together.
Taylor wants an economic agenda that delivers better economic growth, improved real wages and a better life for people, but he ties this to a social and moral stance: less state control, more incentive for aspiration, less government spending, less taxation, lower inflation, cheaper energy, individual choice and higher private investment. This is a sharp philosophical divide from Labor.
Of course, the actual policies are critical. But if this is the philosophy, there is plenty of scope for significant differences between the Coalition and Labor. The point is that before the policy rollout, people need to know your direction and your convictions. This absence was a disastrous omission from Liberal policies at the 2025 election; witness higher taxes and higher immediate deficits. Taylor now seeks to address this weakness.
Taylor and his deputy, Jane Hume, come with political baggage from the last election. Their admission of past mistakes was essential in their opening remarks. The real point is that Taylor will succeed or fail not because of his past mistakes but judged on what he does and says as leader.
There is an axiom about the Liberal future. The party cannot regain office without reclaiming its credentials as the party of superior economic management. That imperative is behind the new and long economic team starting with Tim Wilson as opposition Treasury spokesman.
But remember, Taylor as leader still will be the chief driver of economic policy. There is no alternative – the economic mantle must be reclaimed from Labor, otherwise the Liberals stay rotting in opposition.
Pivotal to this test is how the philosophical rift in the party plays out given the populist conservatives have kept beating the drum for more radical economic change, apparently a reversion to protectionism, hostility towards free trade, support for government intervention and a resurrection of a “making things” industrial base. It resembles Labor dogma to a distinct extent.
Taylor now seeks, for unity’s sake, to bring these people inside his tent, the decisive step being Andrew Hastie’s role as opposition industry spokesman, where Hastie will face serious pressure to perform.
Taylor’s pitch to the public offers a blend of economics and culture: “We must restore Australia to a country where life is affordable, where our kids can buy a home, where you can raise a family, and where there’s a fair go once again, where we’re a nation of strength and unity, where we unapologetically defend Australian values.”
Confronted with this sort of drivel, the drivelling "Ned" made an observation ...
It is easy to dismiss this as dross.
Well yes, but as soon as that came, there had to be a Billy Goat Butt, which the pond is thinking should become the BGB Exemption ...
Sheesh, it's past time for a breakfast tea or at least a relieving 'toon ...
"Ned" carried on with the burden of helping transform the beefy prime Angus boofhead from down Goulburn way into a contender ...
This follows the open displays of hatred and calls for violence from one group of Australians towards another group that have diminished our society in recent years. Taylor praises our immigration program and says he doesn’t seek to be One Nation-lite. To clarify his stance, Taylor should stress two points: that his immigration reform is aimed at restoring public confidence in the program and that he will work in co-operation with the ethnic communities. The message should be a program that doesn’t discriminate on race or religion but insists on tests relating to security, values and cohesion.
There is a long array of cultural options – some easy, some challenging – that Taylor will consider. This basket relates to one flag, support for Australia Day, opposition to an Indigenous treaty, law and order, ongoing reform of the education curriculum, gender as a biological construct, religious freedom, upholding the liberalism of equality for all against the divisions of identity politics and promoting shared values against the drift towards tribalism.
Economics and culture aren’t mutually exclusive. They fit together. Those people saying cultural issues aren’t important don’t get it – the public cares about values while Australian conservatism, the base that Taylor needs, is deeply immersed in questions of culture and values.
The pond should note that there was one visual intrusion, but it was, in the usual reptile way, entirely mystifying, and besides devoid of any human interest ...
Readers of the tree killer edition, frustrated by clicking on a link in "Ned's" column to no avail, might have found this web version online - if they'd only realised that it's hard to put a live link into tree pulp ...
The Liberals can recover only by resisting the rise of One Nation and winning back some of the teal-held seats. The party must do both – it will never form government again unless it makes progress on both fronts. This is basic politics and arithmetic. Ask yourself: what happens to the Liberal Party if it outflanks Pauline Hanson but is left with no voice in most of urban Australia, where it currently holds nine out of 88 seats? In that scenario it has no future.
Fortunately, Taylor and Hume are alert to such reality, with Taylor saying he doesn’t think of the challenge in terms of “left, right or centre” and Hume saying: “We’re going to take the Liberal Party forward. Not left. Not right.” In practice, some policies will pitch more to the right, others more to the left, and some will constitute an amalgam. The key is to win votes both ways.
In an interview last year with the author Taylor pledged himself to a Liberal Party based on the Howard formula of two traditions – classic liberalism and conservative belief. This means a broad-based party. Taylor called it: “Two traditions, one future.” He dismissed the push from sections of the conservative right for the Liberals to follow the tactics of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and US President Donald Trump. “Our task is not to mimic what we see overseas,” Taylor said.
He argued the Howard framework offered flexibility, a means of preserving internal unity, maximising an appeal to the public and providing a wide policy spectrum that included growth, enterprise, family and community. Asked how important it was for the Liberal Party to retain these two traditions, Taylor said: “It’s not the Liberal Party, if we don’t.” Of course, everything depends on the quality of policy and persuasion.
The ultimate test for Taylor, as the new leader, will be his ability to absorb and project the mentality of leadership. But there is also a collective test for the centre right and the Liberal Party. The new leader will require unity and time, both denied to Sussan Ley. Was Ley given a fair go? Of course not, yet the partyroom vote was decisive for change.
For Taylor and his new team there will be no easy recovery road. The party will need the toughness and nerve to stick by the new leadership. Taylor has unveiled a shadow ministry of sweeping change but with a balance across the party. The risk to Taylor lies with unrest from the populist conservatives who always wanted Hastie in the top job.
The reality, however, is that the party must hold together from this point – it may be the Libs’ last chance.
The last chance? Always with the doomsday interest in the apocalypse?
Down the road a piece
And then the battery went dead
And now the cable won't reach...
It's your last chance
To check under the hood
Your last chance
She ain't soundin' too good
Your last chance
To trust the man with the star
'Cause you've found the last chance Texaco
The last chance...
After that, the pond felt no qualms sending this off to the intermittent archive ...
Students using ChatGPT to cheat aren’t the real problem – they’re exposing how universities reward the wrong skills for an AI world.
By Adam Bridgeman and Danny Liu
AI might represent an opportunity to reshape higher ed, but damned if it's doing the lizard Oz's illustrations any good ...
Really reptiles? You can't even instruct AI on how to come up with an interesting visual distraction?
The pond also feels comfortable consigning TS to the intermittent archive ...
The leading Australian painter claims ‘woke’ ideology has created an alliance that marginalises Jewish artists, with cultural institutions showing ‘moral cowardice’ when they are targeted.
By Rosemary Neill
Only a wanker of the first water would pose for that sort of photo while deploring the "woke".
Just look at it full screen ...
What a prize preening, posing loon of the most abject, sublimely ridiculous kind, proud to be a paw under chin folly ...
Even worse, that mention triggered the pond's contractual requirement whenever the word appears ...
Please don't blame the pond for pointing this out in the matter of TS ...
And so to the bonus, but first a little mood and tone setting as the lizard Oz editorialist carried on yet another reptile jihad in a way only the reptiles can ...
Morally confused?
Sssh, don't mention the ethnic cleansing ... after all, it's the Australian Daily Zionist News ...
And now the pond reluctantly offers Dame Slap, but proposes there's a good reason for paying attention: the MAGA cap wearer should be treated as a dead canary in a coal mine, warning of dire events to follow.
Just as her MAGA devotion helped plunge the disunited states into an era of madness, so she now proposes to go full redhead ...
The header: Out-of-touch judges are driving mainstream Australian voters towards One Nation; Those attracted to One Nation simply don’t care if ‘rights’ dreamt up by our own High Court mean pro-Palestinian firebrands such as Lees and Grace Tame have to be given the run of our streets to spout words that are steeped in violence.
The caption for the uncredited inane collage: Pro-Palestine activists Josh Lees, left, and Grace Tame, right could be one of the best things to happen to Pauline Hanson, centre, and One Nation. Picture: Supplied
Just meditate on that header:
Out-of-touch judges are driving mainstream Australian voters towards One Nation
Credit where credit is due.
Out of touch MAGA cap wearers in the lizard Oz are doing their level best to drive the Liberal party and the beefy boofhead to adopting One Nation policies, in a desperate attempt to see who can reach the bottom of a bottomless pit of hate, envy and bigotry.
See how it's done .. (sssh, no mention of ethnic cleansing)
Many voters showing new support for One Nation may not live within cooee of the Sydney streets taken over by the extremists taking advantage of our laws to spread division. But, still, they may have had enough. While new Liberal leader Angus Taylor may prove to have more spine than his predecessor, it’s clear that many Australians don’t think mainstream politicians are doing enough to re-establish Australia as a socially cohesive country.
So, they’re throwing their lot in with One Nation.
It was ever thus. Not just in Australia but all over the world, average voters think their elites have let them down. Migration and law and order are the big two hot-button issues where a combination of out-of-touch political leadership and a legal system that favours abstractions over common sense have driven mainstream voters to populism. Increasing numbers of voters are sick of social cohesion being wrecked by judges and politicians who tell them they are rednecks. Rednecks who simply don’t understand the brilliance of the judge-made laws or the undemocratic international conventions that increasingly allow extremists to flout the laws politicians pass.
Those attracted to One Nation and its global counterparts simply don’t care if “rights” dreamt up by our own High Court mean pro-Palestinian firebrands such as Lees and Tame have to be given the run of our streets to spout words that are steeped in violence.
Those looking anew at One Nation aren’t ruminating over the finer points of the implied freedom of political communication; they just want the violence and division to stop.
And so, they turn to someone who also doesn’t lose sleep over the niceties of international law, Pauline Hanson.
That the increasingly nonsensical claims of the left would fuel the growth of populist parties on the right was so completely predictable, the big remaining question is why and how did we not see it coming?
The relentless rise of One Nation and the exponential growth in social division that is coming our way could so easily have been headed off a long time ago.
The simple application of historically tried and true policies about sensible control over migration, tough but fair crime policies, less zealous climate policies and planning laws that let a lot more houses be built a lot cheaper would have avoided the looming left-right battles to come.
This dull snap is the point at which Dame Slap gets truly weird, NSW Chief Justice Andrew Bell Picture: John Feder
See how Dame Slap uses the legal system as a battering ram, in a way which Pam Bondi and King Donald might admire ...
In Love v Commonwealth in 2020 our High Court found that two men serving jail terms for crimes of violence who were born outside Australia, were foreign citizens and had never been naturalised, could not be deported because they were descendants of Aboriginal people.
The judges’ justifications for setting aside the operation of our migration laws in this case ranged from Justice Michelle Gordon referring to “the deeper truth”, of a “connection that is spiritual and metaphysical” to Justice James Edelman who wrote of “essential meanings”, “metaphysical constructs” and a “powerful personal attachment to land”. It seems no matter how wacky the claim, some judge will fall for them.
As we learned last week, two more murderers and three more sex offenders have been granted bridging visas after the High Court’s NZYQ decision.
Home Affairs officials told Senate estimates that of the 335 people on so-called NZYQ bridging visas right now, 15 had convictions for murder or attempted murder and 98 had convictions for sexual offences. That’s up from 13 murderers or attempted murderers and 95 convicted sex offenders since the department last released figures less than a year ago. Only 14 people had low-level or no criminality.
The NZYQ decision overturned the longstanding Al-Kateb v Godwin case, which would have allowed the NZYQ cohort to be deported or at the very least detained indefinitely. The High Court gets a prize for judicial activism but not much for common sense.
The judicial wrecking ball that has undone controlled migration is not confined to Australia. Politicians in Britain despair at how European and UK courts have interpreted article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article eight, which protects the right to private and family life, has been used to protect law-breakers from deportation sufficiently frequently that even that most famous of lefty lawyers, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, is calling for it to be reformed.
Judges can be gullible on other matters, too. NSW Supreme Court judge Belinda Rigg fell for the arguments of Palestine Action Group leaders when she allowed the activists to lead a march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge last year. Rigg referred with apparent approval to Lees’s views on why that protest should be allowed, saying Lees had “compellingly” explained the reasons “he believes there is an urgency for a response to the humanitarian situation in Gaza”. She continued: “Mr Lees regards it as highly desirable in the current circumstances that the public assembly is authorised so as to provide structure, support and safety to those who participate.”
Okay, it was just the usual snowflake whining, a standard blonde assembly of grievances about foreigners, with the remedy implied ...
It wouldn't be a reptile outing without a visual reminder of all that terrifies the hive mind ... (sssh, no mention of ethnic cleansing): Demonstrators at Town Hall Square, in Sydney CBD, today, during a protest organised by the Palestine Action Group Sydney. Picture: Justin Lloyd
The problem is not just that judges make mistakes. Many of them know nothing of public policy so perhaps we should expect their mistakes. It’s more that they are not accountable for their errors to voters and their errors are almost impossible to rectify until a higher court gets hold of them.
That is the reason judges should not be given these powers – they don’t have the skills to exercise them properly. When former prime minister Tony Abbott criticised Justice Rigg’s decision as “political”, Chief Justice of NSW Andrew Bell jumped on him. Bell may have won the debating points for pointing out that the judge was simply following a statute but he missed the real point Abbott was making. Which is simply that judges should not be given these powers. Politicians should make these judgments.
A recent poll by The Guardian found 62 per cent of respondents nationally supported stronger police powers to curb protests, with 38 per cent strongly supporting such moves. That captured nearly two-thirds of Labor voters, three-quarters of Coalition voters and even 38 per cent of Greens voters nationwide. Only 17 per cent of people opposed enhanced police powers to curb protests.
Hanson may find herself featuring in an upcoming speech by the NSW Chief Justice, who appears to have a fondness for slapping down people on the right. Abbott copped it this year in Bell’s annual address to open the 2026 legal year. Last year, Bell whacked Donald Trump and Elon Musk at his 2025 address. Will One Nation be next?
The hubris of judges and other elites is a powerful reason for One Nation’s inexorable rise. When elites ignore commonsense concerns in favour of abstractions and damage social cohesion as a result, it should come as no surprise that disgruntled citizens – the new “forgotten people” of Australian politics – turn to those who promise a return to order and discipline.
It used to be said that Robert Menzies won so many elections because he was prepared to steal Labor policies to do so. Current politicians trying to fend off One Nation could do worse than follow his example.
