In which there's a Groaning and Ancient Troy, but it's King Donald's expert grifting that entertains...

 

So: 

These stones from Jerusalem, the Eternal City, the Eternal Capital of Israel ...

Or:

In October 2022, Wong announced that the Albanese government would be reversing the previous Morrison government's decision to recognise West Jerusalem as Israel's capital, adding that Jerusalem's status should be decided through peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. In August 2023, Wong confirmed that Australia would revert to its pre-2014 policy of designating the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip as "Occupied Palestinian Territories" and the Israeli settlements there as "illegal". (wiki)

Meanwhile the Australian Daily Zionist News is busy as usual in the usual way ...

The pond wasn't inclined to waste time or energy on links - there's always the intermittent archive for those who know how to copy and paste a url.

There was only one response required...

Here's why the pond never runs lizard Oz attempts at 'tooning ...

Such a reprehensible, deeply stupid man, eternally in the grip of some kind of Spoonerism, and yet in his own mendacious, malicious way, entirely befitting the Australian Daily Zionist News ...

And with that unpleasantness out of the way, time to turn to non-Zionist reptile studies ...

COALITION IN CHAOS
Angus Taylor in meeting with top moderate Anne Ruston
Conservative Liberal MPs have warned Angus Taylor he would look ‘impotent’ if he failed to challenge Sussan Ley this week, with a meeting between Mr Taylor and top moderate Anne Ruston sparking counter claims from rival factions.
By Greg Brown and Sarah Ison

Impossible to care really, or to care that the updated version yet to hit the archive started with an imputation regarding Lib manliness...

Conservative Liberal MPs have warned Angus Taylor he would look “impotent” if he failed to challenge Sussan Ley this week, with a meeting between the presumptive leadership candidate and top moderate Anne Ruston sparking a series of counter-claims from key figures in rival factions.

These days it's not a lack of ticker, it's a lack of balls or spunk or whatever passes for manliness in the bizarre world of manly Liberal men? 

The pond supposes that suits a piece of chunky prime boofhead Angus beef ...

At least the fuss was worth an immortal Rowe sporting metaphor (beware broken legs) ...

...and in the detail there was a touching in memoriam ...

Now please get back to the pond when something actually happens ...

Meanwhile ...

The "By" was left blank?

Some might think it was just a typical attempt by the reptiles to outdo the Graudian.

The pond took it as a slight. Surely that editorial had to be written by Dame Slap, and credit where credit is due ... that ongoing, never ending obsession of hers is always predictable.

Luckily Dame Groan was out and about; unluckily, speaking of the predictable...

The header: Nothing productive in Jim Chalmers CGT attack; With the opposition imploding, Labor escaped scrutiny after a rate rise and fresh inflation fears — but Jim Chalmers’ fixation on capital gains tax distracts from the real problem: productivity.

The caption for that insufferable man ruining Dame Groan's life a day and a column a time: Treasurer Jim Chalmers spent the week denying the obvious — that government spending is contributing to inflation — as interest rates rose again. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The pond is only presenting this five minute rant because Dame Groan has something of a cult following. 

Those outside the cult would be satisfied with a bald summary: four legs Dame Groan good, two legged 'tax the rich' Jimbo very bad ...

Were it not for the fact that the opposition spent most of the time talking about itself, last week would have been a bad one for the Labor government and for the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers.
A rise in the cash rate less than a year after it was cut was unwelcome news. Further interest rate rises look likely. Chalmers spent all his time trying to deny the obvious – that government spending is contributing to the inflation problem.
At the end of the week, the dithering governor of the Reserve Bank came clean and admitted that growth in both public and private demand are problems in the context of highly inflexible supply. Low productivity growth is a central problem.
When asked what the government was doing about productivity, Chalmers rattled off some trivial outcomes of the roundtable held last year: abolition of nuisance tariffs, pausing the next round of the National Construction Code, and the revisions to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Unsurprisingly, he didn’t mention the fact that the streamlined approval processes would not apply to gas projects, notwithstanding the fact that the government accepts the critical role of gas in the transition of the energy system.
Let’s be clear, none of these measures will move the dial on productivity. The refusal to accept the consequences of the re-regulation of the labour market as well as galloping energy costs mean that productivity is unlikely to pick up any time soon.
For this reason, among others, the Treasurer was probably quite happy to see much of the media discussion turn to changing the capital gains tax regime. Of course, increasing the tax burden on investors will, all things being equal, lead to lower investment. Investment is the basis of productivity improvement. But most of the media commentary is so muddle-headed that this truism is quickly forgotten. It’s about intergenerational equity; it’s about the unfairness of the system; it’s about increasing the rate of home ownership. In other words, it’s the vibe, rather than the facts.
So it’s worth going through these facts. The first point to note is that plenty of countries do not tax capital gains. New Zealand doesn’t have one. Singapore doesn’t have one. It is highly concessional in the US. When the UK increased its rate of capital gains tax, the revenue raised fell significantly. Our current rate of capital gains tax is high by international standards.
The second point to note is that capital gains tax should only apply to real (after inflation) gains. This was the case from the start of our capital gains tax, although the clunky use of annual CPI adjustment was replaced by the simple discount of 50 per cent at the beginning of the century. (For a time, investors could choose between the two methods.)
Treasury’s estimates of the cost of this discount are completely bonkers because it is using the counterfactual of taxing nominal gains made over the period assets are held. No one in their right mind thinks this would make any sense.

The reptiles only interrupted Dame Groan's rant with just one snap, an entirely meaningless illustration of a building... With media attention diverted to capital gains tax, deeper questions about productivity, investment and reform went largely unanswered. Picture: Newswire

That's the best visual illustration/distraction the reptiles could manage? They couldn't even summon up a single graph like an ABC finance report (YouTube link):

Back to the Groaner merrily groaning away without a graph to her name, as she valiantly battled for the filthy rich...

Another point to note is how capital gains tax is assessed in this country. The proceeds are assessed in the year of the asset sale, and the tax is calculated at the individual’s top marginal tax rate.
In the case of the disposal of property, this almost invariably puts the individual into the top income tax rate of 47 per cent (including the Medicare Levy). This is notwithstanding the fact that the top marginal tax rate is often not reflective of the income position of the taxpayer as judged by prior years.
(This instance is further illustration of the problem with our high, top marginal tax rate and the fact that it kicks in at the relatively low level of income of $190,000.)
Bear in mind here that capital gains taxation also applies to superannuation funds, albeit at highly concessional rates.
When opposition leader Bill Shorten proposed to tweak the capital gains tax regime going into the 2019 election, he specifically exempted superannuation funds from any change. Industry super funds are the equivalent of Labor royalty.
Given the government’s aspiration that superannuation funds invest more heavily in residential real estate, it would be puzzling to see the funds hit by a higher capital gains tax on property.
Without knowing precisely what is being proposed, let’s consider some of the consequences of reducing the discount on capital gains tax for individuals.
There is talk about confining the change to property, while leaving the discount unchanged for other assets. At a minimum, this would cause a disincentive to invest in property, which may be seen as desirable by some commentators, although not by renters with no hope of owning a home.
There is also the issue of grandfathering.

Oh noes, not this again ...

That interruption remains as undecipherable as a Dame Groan column ...

This was part of Shorten’s package: assets held before the change would be taxed in the old way. Of course, grandfathering involves forgoing some tax revenue, although all estimates of future revenue gains are highly speculative. Without grandfathering, there can be a lock-in effect as people hang on to assets.
There is talk of an additional $4bn of annual tax revenue being possible with a change to the discount figure on property assets. But given the size of the federal budget, with spending approaching $800bn, it’s hard to get too excited about the size of this gain.
Let’s also be clear that it’s older people who own and sell assets because it takes time to establish a financial position to do so. There is nothing shocking or immoral about this; it has always been the case. Ditto those with more wealth and higher incomes but note the qualification above about the way the capital gains tax is levied.
Having said all this, rapidly rising house prices and declining rate of home ownership are legitimate issues of concern for any government. But it is imperative that we analyse very carefully the reasons for these unfortunate developments and don’t simply blame property investors and the capital gains tax.
In fact, rising house prices are a global phenomenon; the answer is unlikely to be just about arcane features of our tax system. It should also be noted that the capital gains tax and negative gearing arrangements have been in place much longer than the rapid rise in house prices.
Ask any sensible economist about dealing with housing affordability and the answer will always be the same: increase supply. And the need to increase supply is made more urgent when the population is growing strongly – because of immigration, in our case.
The bottom line is that tweaking the capital gains tax arrangement on property is a low-order issue when it comes to the crucial challenge of raising the rate of productivity.
Australia currently ranks 16 out of 24 advanced economies when it comes to the level of labour productivity.
We should be able to do so much better. The last thing we should be doing is creating disincentives for investment.

Put it another way: the last thing anyone should think about doing in lizard Oz la la land is tax the rich.

As for a bonus, it being a Zionist Tuesday, there's a dearth of reptile material. 

Where's the bromancer? He's been MIA since the 24th January!

Likely he's off cooking up something, but in the interim, the pond ended up with ancient Troy ...

The header: Why Anthony Albanese must risk bold reform to secure a lasting political legacy; Anthony Albanese will soon become Australia’s longest serving PM since John Howard, eclipsing his contemporaries, but has he delivered the transformational reforms that define great political legacies?

The caption for the smirking man, looking kinda funny: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will soon rank among Australia’s longest-serving prime ministers — but the defining question is what legacy his government will leave. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Inevitably ancient Troy wanted Albo to be bloody, bold, and resolute, so the reptiles could then smack him down, either for his ambition or for his failing - either would do in the "get 'em coming, get 'em going" world of the hive mind ...

In 10 days, Anthony Albanese surpasses Scott Morrison to become the 12th-longest-serving prime minister out of 31 who have held the nation’s top job. He will be the longest-serving since John Howard, eclipsing his five immediate predecessors, and by the time the next election is due, Albanese will be in eighth place on the longevity table.
Time in office and election victories matter but what matters most is a policy legacy. How did the prime minister change the nation? How did they and their government respond to challenges and implement their agenda? Did the prime minister and their party leave their stamp on the country and turn it in a new direction?
The Albanese government has not been idle. It secured legislative change across the board, from education, social and environment policy to the economy and deepened relations with several countries. It has delivered election commitments. Albanese leads a process-driven, methodical, stable government. But what are the signature achievements?
Where are the big-bang reforms future generations will easily remember? Think of the Hawke government’s float of the dollar and introduction of Medicare; the Keating government’s national superannuation scheme and Mabo land rights legislation; the Howard government’s sweeping taxation changes and gun law reforms.
Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers bristle at suggestions they are not reformist enough.
They point to redesigning income tax cuts, extending paid parental leave, and introducing domestic and family violence leave, cheaper medicines and energy price relief, the social media ban for teenagers, and signing every state up to the Gonski school reforms.

Again the reptiles could only drum up one visual distraction, featuring the usual Satanic figures ... Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers argue their government has delivered steady reform — critics say the moment now calls for bolder ambition. Picture: NewsWire / Philip Gostelow

Troy bunged on a listicle, blithely asserting that AUKUS with mad King Donald was actually a thing ...

More recently, there have been environmental law changes and strengthening childcare regulation, cutting student university debt by 20 per cent, and hate speech and gun law reforms. The 2035 climate change target of a 62-70 per cent reduction on 2005 emissions has been set, and won plaudits from unions and business.
The $368bn AUKUS nuclear submarine agreement has been confirmed by the Trump administration and is being delivered. The China relationship was “stabilised” and “repaired”, and new security and defence agreements signed with Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The government is making a bid for a UN Security Council seat, reflecting Albanese’s ambition to be a constructive leader on the world stage.
Many of these initiatives are worthy, reflect election promises and show a busy agenda. But are they groundbreaking? Are they really contentious? Has the government tackled the really big challenges: productivity, debt and deficit, and the need to turbocharge the economy? And now interest rates are going up again, adding to cost-of-living pressures.
Albanese has emphasised the importance of unity and stability in party ranks and adherence to a proper cabinet government approach. He listens to advice, works decisions through, and will not be rushed. He wants to lead a government across several terms and establish Labor as “the natural party of government”.
When I interviewed Albanese a few months ago, he insisted now was not the time to throw caution to the wind with a crazy-brave reform agenda or push the limits of his mandate earned last year. The government has a program to implement, with some wiggle room, but process, timing and method matter. “That’s what I mean by bringing people with you on that journey of change as a progressive centre-left government that doesn’t try to do everything immediately but which shapes that change and that agenda going forward,” he said.

Not this again ...

The pond has no idea why they do it, but it's necessary to conjure up the web version experience ... as "reformer" ancient tRoy offered a few ideas from the lying rodent ...

While many of the changes have been incremental, there is scope in a second term, Albanese acknowledged, to be bolder. “Term one was turning the corner from an inflationary environment in order to lift living standards,” he explained in September. “Term two is building on that agenda further, for setting Australia up for the decades ahead.”
Prioritising processes alongside reform need not be limiting. He has talked about transforming the “mind and mood” of the country, and being a “change agent” who believes in using the levers of government. But he insists that what many commentators misunderstood about the last election was that voters rewarded his style of government.
“They underestimated the way that people felt about the direction of the country and I think people have respected the fact that it is an orderly government,” Albanese explained. “People who might disagree with it know that we have engaged with them. They know that we don’t shout at them, and I think there’s a lot of shouting in global politics.”
The government’s huge parliamentary majority needs to be used now to take risks and be brave. The circumstances could not be more favourable. The centre-right has fractured, One Nation is surging in the polls, the National Party is divided and the Liberal Party is existentially challenged, with its leader, Sussan Ley, facing a likely leadership showdown.
Albanese and Chalmers need to make taxation, productivity and growth their focus in the May budget. They are talking up reform, which is encouraging. The challenge is to shift the burden from taxing income to taxing capital, while cutting spending and reducing debt and future deficits. Addressing generational equity must be a priority and housing, therefore, should be front and centre.
None of this is easy. Reform is harder these days than a generation ago. Trust in government has declined. Potential allies such as business and unions are not as respected as they were. Reaching voters with a focused message is harder given the bifurcation of media, shorter attention spans and disinformation.
Howard recently told me he would support increasing the GST and using the revenue to provide an income tax cut. This is an opening that should not be missed.
Legacies are not only measured in election wins and time in office. What matters is what you do. The voters, as ever, are looking for leadership. Ambition, courage, boldness will be rewarded if reform is explained, is fair and in the national interest. When it comes to legacies, this is how Albanese and Chalmers can write themselves into the history books.

An opening not to be missed?

It's bold to expand a regressive tax which hurts the poor the most, while avoiding any hint of taxing the rich?

Only in the la la land of the lizard Oz...

Long may they contend ...

Determined not to entirely waste the day, the pond turned yet again to the delights of mad King Donald, delights routinely ignored by the reptiles in the lizard Oz ...

"Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules - and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress." Ransom K. Fern (Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan)

And still there are some twits who insist there is no such thing as the deep, endless depths of King Donald and his family's corruption.

Tim Miller did a Bulwark YouTube post about a promised series of articles in National Review, a flunky fellow-travelling rag which suddenly seems to have discovered a little spine.

It was also available at The Bulwark in shorter form ... A Conservative Finally Says It: Trump Is Incredibly Corrupt

If National Review Will Cover This, It’s Bad
Tim Miller takes on a stunning National Review series that details the scale of Trump’s crypto corruption—dwarfing anything ever alleged about Biden—and explains how Trump’s crypto business operated as a pay-to-play system for foreign money, why Republican oversight collapsed, and why it matters that conservatives are finally starting to say it out loud.

Miller was concerned to lay out the record because the NR stories were behind the paywall, but that's of little concern to devotees of the intermittent archive.

The pond would like to bring some further reading to the attention of its correspondents.

Andrew C. McCarthy set the pace, with this first outing:

The Sordid Story of Trump, the Trump–Witkoff Family Business, and the UAE
Even if crypto makes your head hurt, you’re going to be hearing a lot about this in the months to come.

Miller was intrigued by what he called the "to be sure" factor, known on the pond as the infamous Billy Goat Butt.

Miller called it "to be sure" on the basis that "to be sure anything King Donald might do, to be sure it wouldn't match the corruption of the Biden crime gang" ...

But this time the "to be sure" riff went badly wrong in the NR piece...

...House Republicans even opened an impeachment inquiry, which generated a scathing report on the “conspiracy to monetize Joe Biden’s office of public trust to enrich the Biden family.” The sum generated over several years of Biden self-dealing — “over $27 million” — flashed in neon throughout the report’s 291 pages. Republicans were especially incensed because the Bidens practiced their harlotry on foreigners — in particular, agents of China. Family avarice, rather than the national interest, drove United States government policy. The House impeachment report thundered:
"Joe Biden has exhibited conduct and taken actions that the Founders sought to guard against in drafting the impeachment provisions in the Constitution: abuse of power, foreign entanglements, corruption, and obstruction of investigations into these matters. The Committees [sic] investigative work has revealed that the Biden family — with the full knowledge and cooperation of President Biden — has engaged in a global influence peddling racket from which they made millions of dollars.
You know what the difference is between the Biden family business and the Trump family business? You’d have to add two digits to the sum of Biden abuses of power, foreign entanglements, and corruption alleged in the report to get near what Trump has raked in just from the UAE."
Of course, Trump can’t be faulted for obstructing congressional investigations. There haven’t been any. Comer is busy tangling with the Clintons, the better to take the Epstein heat off a president whose poll numbers have declined as this year’s midterm elections beckon. Now that self-dealing has achieved heights so astronomical that $27 million would barely be a rounding error, Republicans have lost interest.

The intermittent archive also had the second in the series (there are to be five all up):

The Corrupt Pardon at the Center of Trump’s UAE Windfall

Of course the WSJ has been running hot on all this stuff in recent times ...

One Generation Runs the Country. The Next Cashed In on Crypto.
Sons of top Trump administration officials made billions for their families, but their investors didn’t always fare so well (* intermittent archive link)

It's entirely possible the Murdochs are envious and jealous of this level of grift, and wish they could do the same...

In the depths of Donald Trump’s interregnum, his eldest two sons huddled in a Mar-a-Lago conference room with boyhood pal Zach Witkoff to conjure up a new money machine. Two other would-be cryptocurrency entrepreneurs showed up, one in sweatpants.
That pre-election confab sowed the seeds for World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that, with the senior Trump back in power, is generating cash far faster than the president’s decades-old real-estate business.
While his father Steve Witkoff acts as President Trump’s all-purpose special envoy, 32-year-old Zach Witkoff now heads up World Liberty, which has doled out at least $1.4 billion to both families since the president’s re-election, based on a Wall Street Journal analysis of public disclosures and private documents. Among the payouts: a secret $500 million deal to sell almost half the company to an Abu Dhabi royal and his co-investors.
Witkoff is part of a small cadre of Trump administration offspring who, since their fathers moved to Washington, have metamorphosed into wealthy financial celebrities in their own right. 
Key to their transformation has been the crypto sector, where they were all neophytes a few years ago, but now run businesses that raised billions of dollars from investors before the market turned sour. And because they were able to extract real cash from their ventures quickly, they are far less exposed to the current crypto downturn than retail investors who loaded up on digital tokens. 
The younger Witkoff now tours the globe alongside a phalanx of aides with an American flag pinned to his suit jacket and counts some of crypto’s most powerful figures as friends, including Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who Trump pardoned in October. He sports a Richard Mille timepiece worth half a million dollars on one day, a $250,000 rose-gold Patek Philippe on another.
Eric Trump is the public face of a bitcoin company where he holds a $90 million stake, while his brothers, Don Jr. and 19-year-old Barron join him as co-founders of World Liberty. Brandon Lutnick, the 28-year-old son of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, runs his father’s former Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, a midtier investment bank that has become a top choice for crypto deals.
World Liberty has earned the Trump family at least $1.2 billion in cash in the 16 months since its launch, not counting paper gains of at least $2.25 billion from various crypto holdings. By contrast, it took eight years for President Trump’s real estate, golf and brand empire to throw off that amount of cash between 2010 and 2017, according to Trump Organization financial statements disclosed in a New York lawsuit with the state attorney general. The Witkoffs have earned at least $200 million from World Liberty.

And so on, and again ...

‘Spy Sheikh’ Bought Secret Stake in Trump Company $500 million investment for 49% of World Liberty came months before U.A.E. won access to tightly guarded American AI chips (*intermittent archive link)

Also including ...

Top Democrat Launches Probe Into ‘Spy Sheikh’ Deal With Trump Company (just the archive link)
World Liberty said lawmakers are ‘harassing a private American business to score political points

There's a reason that King Donald loves the way his MAGA cultists are poorly educated and completely clueless, they're as thick as bricks, and dumb as sticks, and whatever other synonym you might deploy ...

That's how he can get away with the endless grifts and shakedowns of a government and a country he's purporting to be running ...

How Trump's $10 billion suit against his own government could go sideways
Any number of developments in and out of the courtroom could sidetrack a payout arising from the president's complaint, experts, lawmakers and ethics specialists told NBC News.

Over the years, Trump has cast himself as a careful steward of taxpayer money. He is using private donations to underwrite the massive White House ballroom he is building where the East Wing once stood.
Here, his suit demands a sum of money that exceeds 80% of the IRS’ budget last year.

Uh huh ... charity? 

Donald J. Trump pays court-ordered $2 million for illegally using Trump Foundation funds ...

then there's that other grifter shakedown ...

Trump Said to Demand Justice Dept. Pay Him $230 Million for Past Cases (archive link)
Senior department officials who were defense lawyers for the president and those in his orbit are now in jobs that typically must approve any such payout, underscoring potential ethical conflicts.

It's vastly more amusing than Vlad the Sociopath's psychotic war on Ukraine, or Chairman Xi punishing free speech in Hong Kong ... and it sets up TT for seasonal greetings and best wishes ...

In which the usual selection of Monday reptile suspects turn up ... Lord Downer in feral form, the Caterist keeping quarries safe, and the Major brooding about Pauline...

 

Brownie was the point man this day inn the lizard Oz, taking over from simplistic Simon to downplay the renewal of the marital vows... and give the beefy prime Angus boofhead from down Goulburn way yet another break ...though the only point of real interest was the unerring ability of the graphics department to produce a wretched collage ...

For those who care, the intermittent archive is to hand ...

Newspoll: Ley’s historic low gives Taylor a challenge trigger
The Coalition’s primary vote plunges to 18 per cent as One Nation’s core support skyrockets to 27 per cent, with Sussan Ley now the most unpopular major party leader in 23 years.
By Greg Brown

COMMENTARY by Greg Brown
Ley’s in real danger this week, but the Coalition has bigger problems
Sussan Ley could face a challenge later this week, while the newly reformed Coalition is at risk of losing its status as Australia’s dominant conservative force.

A bigger problem than having an actual leader?

Yes, you see it was little to be proud of man that really attracted Brownie's ire ...

...While it is Ley’s leadership that is under threat, the most damaging Coalition figure in recent weeks has been David Littleproud. Worryingly, Littleproud showed no contrition or regret on Sunday for publicly blowing up the Coalition in a move that has seen One Nation increase its primary vote by 5 per cent in just three weeks.
Instead, Littleproud was full of self-praise and pathetically blamed the tactics of the Albanese government for the circumstances that led to the split.
His behaviour over the past three weeks, according to him, showed “maturity”, “courage”, “leadership”, “strength”, “character” and “principles”.
Littleproud was on the verge of tears in a press conference on Sunday as he described how brave he had been to take a stand on an issue of conscience, given the Nationals partyroom was fundamentally opposed to the crackdown on hate groups. 
This argument ignores the reality that the stoush did not have to play out so publicly.
When Ley accepted the resignations of three Nationals senators who crossed the floor over the hate speech legislation, Littleproud could have absolutely voiced his dismay and declared he was revisiting the Coalition agreement. And those negotiations could have played out while the parties were still together.
Instead, he announced at an informal doorstop on the national day of mourning to victims of the Bondi terror attack that his party was exiting the historic political union.
Seventeen days of chaos and enmity ensued, and the winners were Albanese and Hanson.

The lettuce is so over it. There's only one question: does the beefy prize Angus boofhead have the ticker or not?

Over the weekend garrulous Gemma was also sounding impatient ... and the pond thought it was wrong not to do a catch-up:

Libs need to hurry, or they will lose our votes forever
The sisterhood is fed up with being patronised and insulted by the conservative side of politics. The failure to connect shows Liberals just don’t get women voters, and risk losing their votes forever.
Gemma Tognini

Gemma grated away as she came to this conclusion ...

...I know some of you are waiting to hear me talk about Opposition Leader Sussan Ley. Surely, a woman at the helm of the parliamentary party means there’s no issue. I take a different view.
Firstly, everyone knows whoever is tapped to lead after electoral dismemberment the likes of which happened last time, is just a glorified nightwatchman. They’re Dizzy Gillespie. They’re Nathan Lyon. Sure, they might occasionally score a ton, but everyone knows they’re just marking time.
Ley leadership on life support
I wanted Ms Ley to be a good leader, to succeed, and said as much. She is not, and has not. In corporate life, any CEO presiding over such a disastrous, chaotic, mess would be done. Keeping Ms Ley on life support is just as insulting to women because it’s tokenism. Move her on and find someone else (I don’t say that ironically). Give us a competent leader, with or without a uterus. It just feels like the party is in denial; like a person who keeps their pet alive long after it’s time for them to head to the big farm in the sky.
One friend offered a response to my question this week which I told her I would happily co-opt and share because it speaks to the heart of the thing. It’s not so much conservative or liberal ideology. Rather, it’s the disingenuous actions of the Coalition over the past 15 or so years, attempting to speak for and support women. It felt forced. And it has allowed the untruthful narrative (conservatives hate women) to spread. Historically, conservative policies across a range of areas have overwhelmingly benefited women but this is lost in the mire.
Like me, my friend is a lifelong conservative voter. A relationship counsellor once told me that women typically will give warning after warning. When things are unravelling, they might hint at first, but they’ll soon be explicit. Eventually, if nothing changes, one day you’ll just find they’re gone.

Indeed, indeed...surely there's a song lyric to hand that'll suit...

Someday I'll have a Lib leader
A leader isn't easy to come by
By the time the beefy boofhead's come by I'll be gone
I'll sing my song and I'll be gone

What else?

Well the Australian Daily Jewish News was in expected form ...

Respect? That's a tad hard to come by ...

The pond will probably repeat some of these images for the duration of the visit, but not to worry, assorted reptiles rallied to the ADJNews cause ...

COMMENTARY  by Cameron Stewart
Hypocrisy of protesters creates a more divided, uglier Australia
Those who protest Isaac Herzog’s visit should ask themselves what they really hope to achieve.

A rogue member of the Kelly gang didn't think a little bomb signing was an issue ...

Genocide’ attacks on Herzog only expose the hypocrisy of his accusers
The rank hypocrisy of those calling for the cancellation of Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit to Australia is breathtaking.
By Mike Kelly

Marvellous really, how the reptiles love themselves a good old-fashioned ethnic cleansing...

And to be fair, if you want to tear up the rules and indulge in a little genocide or territorial warfare or perhaps bomb Ukraine into freezing oblivions, you just need to invite anarchist Lord Downer to the feast ...

The header: Let’s be honest, the rules-based order never really existed; At the heart of the rules-based international system is the UN. The dewy-eyed multi-lateralists have great faith in the UN, but if you were US president and you looked at the modern world, you’d wonder what the UN was doing to solve those problems.

The caption for the hapless Canuck about to feel Lord Downer's wrath: Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney makes an announcement while visiting an auto-parts plant in Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada.

Lord Downer this day was feeling pretty MAGA ... elbows up, Canada, there's nothing like an Adelaide ponce to show fists of steel and a devotion to the survival of the fittest ...

Mark Carney’s speech to the Davos World Economic Forum a couple of weeks ago was greeted with rapturous applause. The Canadian Prime Minister argued that the rules-based international order had broken down and been replaced by great-power bullying. In response to this, Carney contended that middle powers should band together to rebalance great powers.
This was, of course, a barely disguised attack on Donald Trump. But there are two things wrong with the Carney speech. First, if he wanted to attack President Trump, he should have had the guts to call him out directly; hiding behind anonymous wording only demonstrates weakness.
What’s more, he implied that America was the moral equivalent of Russia and China. Frankly, that’s absurd.
But second, his thesis is based on a false premise. The world has not, as he suggested, operated smoothly and without conflict under an inspiring rules-based international system. Yes, most Western democracies have abided by international law but the trouble is their adversaries have not. China’s claim to contested reefs in the South China Sea and its occupation of those reefs is contrary to international law. An international tribunal concluded that China’s claims have no legal basis under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The tribunal also found that many of the areas China occupied violated The Philippines’ rights in its own exclusive economic zone. China rejected the tribunal’s ruling and ignored it.

Absurd? He certainly shares similarities with mad Mullahs ...

At this point the reptiles dropped in a snap of Lord Downer's hero, President Donald Trump is photographed by a gaggle of journalists at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

That sent Lord Downer into a frenzy of piety:

Then there was the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s hard to imagine what basis in international law that had. As for Iran, it has totally ignored international law by funding and arming proxy organisations to destroy the sovereign state of Israel. What’s more, Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. Building nuclear weapons, which it has been trying to do for some time now, is a breach of that treaty.
This is the central problem: autocracies don’t care about the rule of law, including the rule of international law, and they have successfully exploited the West’s adherence to it.
For years the West has done very little about these violations. China hasn’t been punished for illegally militarising reefs in the South China Sea. When Russia attacked Georgia in 2008 and sent tanks into Crimea in 2014, almost no action was taken by the international community at all.
Yet when the West has taken military actions, such as in Libya in 2011 and Iraq and Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks, these were conducted in accordance with international law. It’s true some people contested whether the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan was legal but the relevant governments all asserted it was.
At the heart of the rules-based international system is the UN. The dewy-eyed multi-lateralists have great faith in the UN, but if you were the president of the US and you looked at the modern world, you’d wonder what the UN was doing to solve those problems.
The Ukraine war has been raging since 2014. What has Antonio Guterres done to try to bring that war to an end? The turmoil in the Middle East, driven by Iran and its proxies, has elicited lectures to the Israelis from the UN secretary-general for defending their country. But nothing else.

It goes without saying that Lord Downer, as well as blaming the bespectacled UN ... United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights Situation in the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese leaves a press conference during a session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

... was completely on board with the Australian Daily Zionist News ...

Indeed, some people working for UNRWA, the UN agency in Gaza, were complicit in the October 7 massacre of Israelis. Between 2015 and 2024, there were 154 resolutions in the UN General Assembly, largely condemning Israel, and only 71 resolutions passed on other countries. It’s hard to believe the UN is playing a constructive role. It is simply being provocative.
The UN special envoy on human rights in the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, is rabidly anti-Israel and, as many Jews would see it, antisemitic. So hostile is the UN secretary-general and his agencies to Israel that the organisation can play no real role in solving that problem.
When it comes to the South China Sea, even AI can’t find any reference to the secretary-general’s admonition of China’s rulers.
Guterres is particularly weak. He is more a secretary than a general. A former socialist prime minister of Portugal, he tries to avoid alienating the Chinese and Russian leadership. From time to time, he does admonish Trump. But, of course, that would be fashionable within the UN Secretariat.
Now consider trade. Suddenly the Chinese and the Europeans are proclaiming their love for free trade. But hang on: it’s almost impossible to sell agricultural products of any kind into the European Union. It is highly protectionist. And as for China, it’s a remarkable thing that a country with such a history of protectionism has become a verbal advocate of free trade but doesn’t practise it.
The international rules-based trade system has allowed many parts of the world to maintain high tariff barriers and quotas, restricting international trade.

The reptiles flung in another snap to irritate His Lordship ... UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres hold a joint press conference with the European Council President during the European Union Summit.

Lord Downer eventually got around to an extremely mild billy goat butt, of the "I do not always agree with Trump's measures" kind ... but you know when a Downer goat does a butt, it's only so that the butt can be butted away ...

Looked at from Trump’s point of view, the rules-based international system led by the UN – which he is urged by Davos attendees to praise – has been remarkably unsuccessful. True, Trump has disrupted the status quo so loved by the Davos bien pensants, such as Carney, but he has intervened where the UN has failed. That is, to attempt to end the Ukraine war, to neutralise the impact of Iran on the Middle East, and to confront international protectionism, albeit using the retaliatory power of tariffs.
I do not always agree with Trump’s measures, and I certainly don’t think tariffs pass the test of economic rationality. But it is entirely understandable why, in the end, the Americans have just got fed up with the posturing of other Western countries, who have done nothing effective to solve these problems.
The President’s proposed board of peace probably won’t be a long-term answer to the failure of the UN, which continues to talk itself into irrelevance, but something will gradually emerge. In the meantime, let’s face facts: the so-called dreamy, rules-based international system, so beloved by Carney and his like, never really existed. Yes, it might be a great ideal, but too many countries and too many autocrats just won’t sign up to it.

Most of all King Donald, speaking as Lord Downer was of autocrats?

The pond hadn't tagged His Lordship as a devotee of Nietzsche but his "will to power", der Wille zur Macht if you will, is remarkable ...

What a dreamer, what a vision...

And so to the careening Caterist for the day, and up against wacky, zany Lord Downer, he looked and sounded almost staid, with a pro forma column that attempted a Groaning ...

The header: In Chalmers-speak, ‘reform’ and ‘inequity’ are code for tax grab; Envy used to sit at number four, sandwiched between lust and gluttony, on the list of the seven deadliest sins. The Albanese government wants to turn it into a virtue by rebranding it as intergenerational equity, the catchcry of the new class war.

The caption for the source of the Caterist rage: Treasurer Jim Chalmers during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The reptiles thought so little of this four minute rant that they only interrupted with one AV distraction, as the Caterist did his best to imitate Dame Groan ...

When Jim Chalmers flags tax reform as the theme of his forthcoming budget, which part of the government’s grasping revenue machine does he intend to improve?
We’ve heard nothing to suggest he wants to make it simpler. There’s no hint that he intends to remove the anomalies and disincentives that prevent individuals and businesses from thriving.
Indeed, there’s precious little evidence to suggest he intends to reform anything in the literal sense of the word. Instead, his chief and probably only intention is to raise more money to buy goodies to hand out to others in the hope of being re-elected – the one thing the government is genuinely passionate about.
Hence, there is no need for detailed economic modelling or extensive consultations. The only calculations the government is likely to make before removing the 27-year-old concessions on capital gains tax will be political. The noble art of reform as practised by substantial governments is invoked as a rhetorical cover for a sordid tax grab.
Labor has revived the politics of envy to persuade us the capital returns from years of sacrificial investment are windfall gains that must be balanced against the windfall losses of others.
It wants us to believe 2.3 million taxpayers, who have gone to the expense of buying and letting investment property, are greedy and unscrupulous landlords stockpiling homes that could be purchased by others. The countless hours spent finding a plumber to fix a broken sink or a tradie to fix a leaking roof without being ripped off are unworthy of reward in this zero-sum game. The secondary effects of this kneejerk policy are ignored. Homes relinquished by investors could conceivably lower property prices at the margins, but it will reduce the stock or rental property leading to a corresponding increase in rents.
Envy used to sit at number four sandwiched between lust and gluttony on the list of the seven deadliest sins. The Albanese government wants to turn it into a virtue by rebranding it as intergenerational equity, the catchcry of the new class war.
Like the old class war, intergenerational equity is a false war, pitching contrived categories of people against one another in a contest for a fixed quantity of resources. From this standpoint, baby boomers are the 21st-century bourgeoisie, merchants and property owners who have gained illicit control of the cultural, social and financial capital.
The new peasantry – gen Z and millennials – have been condemned to work solely for their own subsistence, according to this fatalistic narrative. They have been impoverished by exorbitant rents extorted by the landlord class, with no earthly chance of rising above their status without the government’s benign intervention.
Nominating beneficiaries of social justice measures by class rather than by individual circumstances is fraught with complications that inevitably result in new injustices. Consider the Albanese government’s attempt to address intergenerational injustice by paying off debts willingly incurred by students in pursuit of the presumed advantages of higher education. It meant that taxes paid by a 65-year-old bricklayer living in rented accommodation, with nothing more to look forward to than a state pension, could end up bailing out young lawyers or merchant bankers who, unlike the brickie, may well have had access to the bank of mum and dad.

After that outburst, the reptiles doubled down with a burst of actual AV Caterism, fresh from the quarry of life, Menzies Research Centre Senior Fellow Nick Cater says Australians are seeing political figures as taking the public for “granted”. “These revelations about Anika Wells and others in the party,” Mr Cater said. “They think the political class are taking them for granted.”

What a relief they avoided showing the Caterist. Even an array of heads from the back makes for more pleasant viewing...

As for Wells, best get her coming and not going ...

Sheesh, what a missed opportunity to give her a hard time about going on a junket ... as the Caterist resumed his rant ...

Yet we are deterred from dwelling on these regressive anomalies by the moral force of the social justice argument. To reject the framing of intergenerational equity is to favour inequity, which in today’s unthinking climate is a sin.
To recognise how unserious our government has become, we need only cast our minds back a little over a quarter of a century to the lasting reforms that introduced CGT concessions in the first place. The change emerged from the Ralph Review of Business Taxation in 1999, part of a broader attempt by the Howard government to widen the tax base to make it fair, efficient and less distortionary. Nine taxes were abolished and one, the GST, was introduced. Company and income taxes were lowered.
Many strong economic minds devoted much time to ensuring the reforms were right, and they achieved the higher aims of making Australia internationally competitive, friendly to investors and encouraging to would-be savers. The details were vigorously debated in serious newspapers, including the Australian Financial Review, which supported the measures, urging Treasurer Peter Costello to reform faster and harder.
The Howard-Costello encouragement to mums and dads to invest in shares and property as a means of accumulating a nest egg for retirement was spectacularly successful. Together with compulsory superannuation savings, they have given many who once would have fallen back on the state pension the dignity of paying their own way in retirement.
The reforms created a culture of aspiration, encouraging people of meagre means to save in the hope of being better off tomorrow. Their frugality contributed to the investment that stimulated growth and prosperity. The trillions of dollars sitting in superannuation, pension accounts or tied up in property represent wealth that was created, not plundered.
Twenty years ago, the Fin would have got that. Today it has simply fallen for the spin, parroting the government’s line that the 50 per cent tax discount would “cost” the government $247bn in forgone revenue, as if all our private funds belonged to the government except those it charitably allows us to keep. It recently editorialised about the “unequal distribution of the tax burden” that made “the status quo unsustainable”. Scaling back the CGT discount was “worthy of serious consideration”, it argued.
So this is what it has come to in the post-serious age. Un-serious journalists, poorly educated in economics or the delicate art of policy-making, urging an insubstantial government to continue on its merry way, scavenging the last rotting fruit from the reforms of the late 20th century to invest in its splendid vision of a just society.
Meanwhile, a much-diminished conservative opposition, frightened of its own shadow, stages vaudeville entertainment during sitting weeks, thus ensuring no serious analysis of this shoddy government will ever be published or broadcast. For anyone given to conspiracy theories, it would be easy to believe they’re all in on this – the executive, the opposition and the fourth estate – working together to eliminate the last traces of aspiration from this country.
If the Liberal Party is to survive, it must resist the siren song of the government’s contrived narrative and advocate tax reform that encourages enterprise and engenders hope. The message from the dismal poll numbers is clear: Australians want a reforming alternative to Labor’s economic strategy of managed decline.

Sublimely clueless, but the pond did its duty, even if it would have preferred some other topic...

And so, it being a Monday, on with the Major ...

The header for the Major's despair: Why One Nation’s rise to fill the fractured conservative void could deliver Labor victory; Disunity is poison and the Coalition’s fracture has catapulted Pauline Hanson’s One Nation ahead of the Coalition in polling, threatening to reshape federal politics.

The caption for the new lovebirds: One Nation recruit Barnaby Joyce addresses media alongside Pauline Hanson. Picture: Getty Images

The Major took a full five minutes to celebrate Pauline...

While the Albanese government has forgotten the economic reform lessons of Labor’s glory days under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating in the 1980s and 1990s, it is at least smart enough to remember the one critical takeout from the horror Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years of 2007-2013.
It’s a lesson the Liberal and National parties did not learn from their own horror show under prime ministers Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison from 2013 to 2022. It’s the oldest lesson in politics: disunity is death.
Most voters – conservative, Labor or Greens – want politicians to focus on their needs, especially as rising inflation and interest rates exacerbate post-Covid cost-of-living pressures on working families.
Yet, since the November 2007 election loss by four-term Coalition prime minister John Howard, the electorate has been dealt a series of prime ministers and opposition leaders more interested in their own advancement than the nation’s progress.
This is the key to underwhelming Albanese, the first leader of either side to win two elections consecutively since Howard.
And it’s the key to a polling surge by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

How the reptiles love to splash snaps of the redhead, Pauline Hanson at her Ipswich, Queensland fish-and-chips shop in 1996.

That sighting set the Major to brooding...

Voters have had 30 years to see what Hanson stands for, as an independent in the federal seat of Oxley or in the Queensland parliament where her party in 1998 won 11 of 89 seats – six from Labor and five from the Nationals.
Even after being jailed for electoral fraud in August 2003 – before her conviction was quashed in November that year – Hanson was able to win a Queensland federal Senate seat in 2016 and again in 2022.
One Nation has four federal senators today and has won upper house seats in state legislatures in Western Australia, Victoria and NSW and a lower house seat in Queensland in 2017.
Voters know what Hanson has always stood for: 

Racism, bigotry, fear and loathing, mindless stupidity?

Of course not ...perfectly sensible policies in line with the Major's vision and all that the lizard Oz reptiles aspire to ...

...lower immigration; opposition to minority rights based on race; criticism of Labor’s renewables policy; and protection for Australian agriculture and manufacturing.
Now a Newspoll here on January 18 and a Redbridge poll in The Australian Financial Review on February 2 show One Nation leading the combined support of the Liberals and Nationals.
Newspoll had One Nation at 22 to the Coalition’s 21 while Redbridge had One Nation on 26 and the Coalition on 19.
Newspoll had Labor down on primary from 36 to 32 after the Bondi Beach terror attack of December 14, but Labor still enjoyed a strong two-party preferred lead of 55-45, although it was down from 58-42 in November.

The Major flung "disaster" around freely, but with selective vision, as apparently the notion that the onion muncher and the liar from the Shire (not to mention Malware's ruining of the NBN) might have been a disaster never crossed his mind,  The Gillard-Rudd-Gillard years for Labor were a disaster for Labor.

That's the Major for you, always ready to reach for a chaff bag ... as at last he turned all truthy ...

This brings us to the truth about One Nation.
We have known since the 1998 Queensland (June 13) and federal (October 3) elections that a strong vote for One Nation helps Labor because One Nation preference flows are not disciplined in the way Greens preferences to Labor are.
So, could One Nation win seats at the next federal election on present trends? You bet. But most would be from the Liberals and Nationals, while any gains in Labor regional seats could be offset by a backlash over preference exchanges in Coalition city seats.
Three-party-preferred votes could easily give a One Nation candidate who polled in the mid to high 20s enough preferences from Liberals and Nationals, plus some drift from Labor, to achieve a 50-plus 2PP vote. As Chris Kenny on Sky News suggested while interviewing Hanson on Wednesday night, a preference deal between the Libs, Nats and One Nation could boost Hanson’s chances.
Former ABC election guru Antony Green on his blog on February 2 named 25 seats in which Hanson would have a good chance if its polling held up, including 12 Nationals seats, seven Liberal and six Labor.
These were just examples and “if come the next election, One Nation polls 25 per cent it will be sweeping up seats all over rural and regional Australia”, Green  wrote.

If the dog botherer says so, it must be true, as the reptiles dragged in a reminder of jailbird days, Pauline Hanson leaving prison in 2003 with her son Tony and stepson Steve Zagorski.

The Major decided to wander back to his glory days, back to the time when he could spot an historian wearing an Order of Lenin medal from a hundred yards away ...

The public can only marvel that Liberals Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor picked the post-Bondi Albanese slump when the PM’s approval rating fell five points to 42 and his disapproval rating rose six points to 53 to begin undermining the Liberals’ first ever female leader, Sussan Ley.
But Ley fumbled the post-Bondi politics by appearing too keen to politicise the issue. After demanding an early return of parliament to discuss new gun and hate speech laws, three Coalition frontbenchers crossed the floor unable to support what the Coalition was formally backing.
The three correctly quit the frontbench and Nationals’ leader David Littleproud, in an act of childish self-harm, pulled the Nats out of the Coalition.
He has blown up the Coalition twice since its worst ever defeat: it lost 15 seats in May securing only 43 seats in the 150 seat House. This was after losing 19 to 58 under Scott Morrison in 2022.
Littleproud had already fumbled by refusing to give the popular Barnaby Joyce a frontbench spot. Joyce defected to One Nation on December 7.
Voters unhappy with a very ordinary government deserve a coherent alternative. They are considering One Nation.
History signals danger. As Paul Kelly wrote here last week, One Nation voters have inadvertently helped Labor via preferences.
This column watched first hand as editor-in-chief of Queensland Newspapers and The Courier-Mail. In 1996, I published a page one story about a letter written by Hanson, then a federal Liberal candidate, and published in the The Queensland Times in Ipswich. The letter criticised benefits Hanson believed flowed to Aboriginal people.
Howard disendorsed Hanson the next day – and she went on to win the safe Labor seat of Oxley, formerly held by Bill Hayden.
In my 2016 book Making Headlines I detail how hostile media treatment ahead of the 1998 Queensland election, especially national interviews by Ray Martin and Maxine McKew, drove voters to Hanson. This was confirmed by nightly ALP poll tracking leaked to the paper.
Yet Hanson’s wins allowed then opposition leader Peter Beattie’s Labor Party to form a minority government. Several One Nation members later defected and at the next state election in 2001 the party won only three seats.

The Major's gloom was summed up in the caption ... can't ignore that woman, can't talk to her without giving her a boost ... Hostile media interviews with Pauline Hanson have historically boosted support for her party. Picture: AAP

Then it was on to the final gobbet of despair ...

Beattie secured a landslide 66 seats while the Liberals were reduced to a Brisbane rump of three seats after losing nine. The Nationals lost 11 seats to hold only 12.
Kelly’s Wednesday column triggered a backlash from Sky News commentators Peta Credlin and Andrew Bolt, who have advocated stronger anti-immigration and anti-net zero positions by the Coalition.
Howard on Wednesday night urged Ley to reform the Coalition. Nikki Savva, Nine papers’ regular Coalition critic and former adviser to Liberal treasurer Peter Costello, on Thursday morning suggested it might be good for the Libs to go it alone.

The savvy Savva? 

The pond hasn't mentioned her for ages, ever since she defected from the lizard Oz to go to that other place ... and yet there she was ...Ley is toast and the Coalition isn’t just on a break. This bust-up is serious (that's an intermittent archive link).

The savvy Savva was savage, and in strong book plugging form ...

...leadership changes loom. Senior Nationals say David Littleproud is safe for now. Senior Liberals – except Sussan Ley’s numbers man, Alex Hawke – agree she is toast.
If Angus Taylor has the numbers next week, likely boosted by another devastating poll, he will use them. If not, he aims to strike before the budget in May. Like many others, Taylor is in no rush to reform the Coalition. He wants freedom to zero in on the economy – the one issue that can unify the party – without worrying what the Nationals might do.
The right, and certain moderates, hope Taylor can do better than Ley. They stop short of predicting he will succeed. One senior conservative put it this way:“Taylor will be our next opposition leader, but Hastie could be our next prime minister.”
Andrew Hastie has withdrawn from the leadership race and despite requests is unlikely to run as deputy. He needs experience in an economic portfolio – which both Ley and Peter Dutton denied him – and to be ready to run if Taylor crashes and burns.
Ley’s gender and branding as a moderate have little do with her dire predicament. She failed to stand up on policies like net zero and quotas, then mishandled the response to the Bondi massacre. Left and right were exasperated by her passive posture on climate change. One MP described her as no more than a notetaker during party room discussions.
Many of her colleagues see her as an opportunist, driven by concerns for her leadership rather than core beliefs. As revealed in my book Earthquake, many do not trust her. They believed she and/or her office leaked to the media and canvassed votes for the leadership before and during the election campaign.
Ley treated Bondi as her path to resurrection. According to both moderates and conservatives who heard them say it, Ley and her office were convinced it would have the same impact on Albanese as the loss of the Voice referendum. Colleagues were unimpressed by the overtly political nature of her approach.
Albanese’s colleagues say he was poleaxed by the immediate, unwarranted and unedifying blame heaped on him for the killings on December 14.

And so on, and suffice to note that the looming changes are still looming, and the February lettuce is already starting to wilt, as the Major tried to snatch some laughs and good cheer from the karnival of circus klowns ...

There are no good options. The Libs hold only eight lower house metropolitan seats out of a possible 89. The Nationals could be destroyed by One Nation and probably need to move further right on issues that could damage city Liberals.
Yet as Kenny showed in his Hanson interview, One Nation is vulnerable to tough policy questions and does not have the resources to develop detailed policies across all portfolios. Angry criticism won’t cut it as coherent policy in a heated election campaign.
Offering a sensible alternative government looks like a project that could take two terms or more.
Yet the Liberals showed in May that an articulate candidate who can talk about the economy can defeat a sitting teal: former MP Tim Wilson reclaimed the seat of Goldstein from Zoe Daniel, leaving eight federal teals.

Two terms or more of the reptiles raging on the sidelines, howling at the moon, and baying at shadows in the dark?

The pond isn't sure it can take it.

Nor is the pond sure it will survive the next four days ... what with the welcome mat laid over any talk of a future for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank...

It's always in the details ...

Sheesh, just remember, there are no international rules, and the strong can do what they like to the weak, and it's all good ... and what an Adelaide ponce says must be true ... so come on down Chairman Xi, the pond is sure that Adelaideans will roll out the welcome mat ...