Melongate rulez, with the bromancer fully woke, and Clive assigned his mad king Donald duties ...

 

A housekeeping note: perforce the pond will be in the big smoke tomorrow and away from a computer and the reptiles, so there'll be a placeholder, but it's a Thursday in the hive mind, so no biggie ...

As for today, it seemed for a moment that the reptiles had given up on melongate, what with new lines of attack for the relentless jihadists.

This day seemed at first glance to be all about housing, with three fear mongering hit pieces at the top of the digital "news" world, ma...

Off to the intermittent archive with them ...

PROPERTY
Housing price falls? PM is down with that
Anthony Albanese has backed falling house prices and labelled negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts ‘taxpayer-funded landlord welfare’ as the Coalition unveils rival housing policies.
By Geoff Chambers, Noah Yim and Elizabeth Pike

MID-SIZED CAPITALS
‘Perfect storm’ hits property market
Perth and Brisbane property prices tumble as housing market enters ‘perfect storm’
New data has revealed Perth and Brisbane’s once-resilient property markets are now among Australia’s fastest cooling, with declining locations nearly quadrupling in a single quarter.
By Mackenzie Scott and Ben Wilmot

Even the indefatigable Geoff, chambering yet another round in his barrel-hot shottie, had to go ...

COMMENTARY by GEOFF CHAMBERS
Albanese wields sledgehammer on property for votes
The PM gives Labor MPs a green light to be honest about how the budget inflicted a sledgehammer – rather than a scalpel – on an already vulnerable property market.

Will we ever return to sob stories about vulgar youffs and younglings exiled from the housing market?

But the pond didn't have to brood for long about that, because down below all that came the bromancer and he was hot to trot on the melongate saga, because what red-blooded reptile could fail to keep this jihad alive?

It was time for the bro to go fully woke, and be incredibly polite...

The header: Anthony Albanese tries to be cool but gives us a high-class, refined stupidity; Anthony Albanese’s attempt at casual banter has backfired badly, reinforcing Japanese quiet doubts about Australian political maturity.

The caption for the sinisterly sneering PM: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faces criticism over his podcast remarks regarding Japanese leadership. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The bromancer started out in typical hard-hitting style ...

It takes a special kind of high-class, refined stupidity, not available to normal people, for an Australian prime minister to choose to make crude jokes about a female Japanese prime minister.

Ah memories ...

Don't get the pond wrong. The pond is incredibly pleased that the reptiles have at last gone fully woke.

No country more thoroughly practises, and places greater value on, courtesy, politeness, dignity, “face” and respect than Japan. So Anthony Albanese in his all-but-inexplicable jokes about Sanae Takaichi’s “melons” has re-established that the Les Patterson streak of deeply unimpressive Australian mediocrity lives on.
Leave aside for a minute the grotesquely crude innuendos – which everyone except Albanese and his hypocritical defenders recognise (imagine if Scott Morrison or Tony Abbott had made these remarks) – of talking about the Japanese PM smuggling in “two melons, as you do”, while mimicking, in front of his chest, the hand gestures of his interviewer who was clearly referencing a woman’s anatomy.
For what reason on God’s green earth would any Australian PM with an IQ above room temperature answer a question about the worst gift he had ever received by referencing Japan’s leader?
The whole Japanese language is built around formal terms of address. You use a different term to address an aunt, as opposed to a cousin, a friend or a stranger. It is a profound achievement of contemporary society that it is so orderly, polite and law-abiding.

The reptiles tried to bolster the bromancer's rage - he's a gentleman and a scholar - with a few inserts ...

Way back when the pond had extensive dealings with Japanese wheeler dealers, and discovered that you could never win in the civility games, and that a lot of crude gaijin behaviour would be tolerated if there was a deal to be made.

It's safe to say that this epic failure caused more pain ... Japan building Australian submarines is a match made in heaven

And the rest, as they say, is history ... and that had to hurt.

And now back to being woke...

Albanese’s defence of his comments is almost comically implausible. He referenced the melons shortly after saying, in response to a question, that he would like to “shag” Kylie Minogue. This is Albanese imitating Donald Trump at his crudest. It’s the opposite of virtue signalling, it’s vice signalling.
Some genius in the Prime Minister’s office, perhaps in the social media team, must have advised him that this was a good way to “connect” to young people who don’t normally follow politics. The problem is you can’t narrowcast to one audience without all audiences seeing you. At no point has Albanese ever shown he understands the importance of the Japan relationship.
Japan is perhaps the US’s most important ally in the world, certainly its most important in Asia. It’s immensely important to us. Yet while the Albanese government is relentless in making special gestures of friendship towards China, it seems permanently tone deaf, if not downright reckless, in the way it treats Japan.
Was there an invitation to the Japanese leader to address our parliament during her recent visit? Why is it that Albanese couldn’t be bothered attending the 50th anniversary dinner of the NARA Treaty between Australia and Japan?
The PM and his defenders argue that only his political opponents are making a fuss of the melons. That’s not true. His crude and inexplicable remarks were the subject of a devastating opinion piece by a left-of-centre feminist in The Japan Times, which is read by much or most of the Tokyo leadership class. It was also subject to devastating criticism from former Japanese ambassador to Australia Shingo Yamagami. Albanese defenders dismiss Yamagami as a hawk who never liked the Albanese government. But the bottom line remains, he’s a senior Japanese diplomat and well plugged in to Takaichi and her conservative government.

Cue the final insert ...

And so to a final gobbet ...

The Albanese gaffe was subject to official cables between Canberra and Tokyo. The Japanese government, unlike its Canberra counterpart, is led by people of maturity and substance, so naturally they didn’t lower themselves to get into the grubby muck with Albanese. But this incident will certainly reinforce every negative opinion, every doubt, that senior Japanese have long privately held about Australians.
After the catastrophe of World War II, Japan went about building a new and thoroughly good society, not perfect but very good. It emphasises hard work and social solidarity at home, and is generally exemplary internationally. It’s one of the great human success stories of the past 80 years.
The Japanese greatly appreciated the reconciliation and friendship they received from Australia, pioneered, inconveniently for Labor, by Robert Menzies, Black Jack McEwen and later Malcolm Fraser, who signed the NARA Treaty, and John Howard. They also recognise, unsentimentally, that Australia has three great assets – strategic geography, mineral wealth and alliance with the US. But they’ve long harboured doubts that Australia is not altogether a serious country, not led by serious people.
As long ago as the 1990s I unintentionally caused a diplomatic incident. At a small dinner a visiting Japanese economics minister was speaking off the cuff. He said that while Japan valued Australia, trade unions made us one of the most difficult countries in the world in which to run a business.
Thinking the remarks were on the record, I reported them. The minister thought his remarks off the record. It was an innocent misunderstanding. The minister was mortified that he might have unintentionally given offence to his Australian hosts.
There is a lurking, generally publicly unspoken, sense among many Japanese that Australian leaders are not to be taken altogether seriously. Albanese reinforced that a hundredfold and added to it the perception that we can’t even muster elementary good manners either.

Only the immortal Rowe could bring together the two lizard Oz strands for the day in his own inimitable way ...

The bromancer wasn't the only reptile to be mortified. 

The pond only notes it by way of a screen cap, but the bouffant one was also on hand ...

And Dame Slap went fully woke as well ...

Albanese’s women fail their own sexism test
Labor’s most senior female ministers have spent years calling out sexism – until their own leader made a lewd remark about a female ally.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

Dame Slap's opening thrust set her fully woke tone ...

It must be exhausting being a lefty feminist. Always toeing the line, tying yourself in knots, pulling up a po-faced expression one minute, then contorting a smile to fob off a boob gaffe by your leader the next, gaslighting us, all while carrying that heavy flag for hypocrisy.
Hard work. I’m glad it’s not me; I prefer a more honest day’s work.

Um, that'd be the honest work of telling womyn to stop being snowflakes, stop being teary-eyed pussies, and to harden the fcuk up, and so on and so forth ... and anyone wanting more of Dame Slap carrying that heavy flag of hypocrisy can head off to the intermittent archive.

What else?

Early in the morning the canny Cranston was out and about ...

Labor has no answer on weak productivity
Labor’s cheap population trick no answer for feeble productivity
The Reserve Bank is not happy about Jim Chalmers using increased population in an attempt to boost lacklustre economic growth.
By Matthew Cranston
Economics Correspondent

And William Wright delivered the sort of advice that proved astonishingly handy for the conservative German businessmen who were on hand to help Herr Adolf in his rise to fame and glory (and didn't that work out well)...

Business ponders ways to win the ear of One Nation
The lobbyists who built careers connecting business to Labor and the Coalition now face a problem: nobody knows who to call at One Nation.
By William Wright

It's not just Gina who should be pampering Pauline ...

Whether One Nation forms government, holds the balance of power or simply reshapes the political debate remains uncertain.
What is not uncertain is that corporate Australia can no longer afford to view politics through a two-party lens.
William Wright is chief executive and co-founder of GovLens, an AI political intelligence platform for Australian and British businesses. He was previously UK managing director of GovConnex and is a regular political commentator.

Well played Bill ... showing off all the best that AI can offer.

And so to a bonus, and with so many reptiles fully woke and others sent off to the archive, the pond was left with just Clive ...

The header: Donald Trump learns there are no clear winners in Middle East war; US President promised American strength would deliver – instead he faces an Iran that survived and an Israel that won’t comply.

The caption for the snap of a man imitating a cane toad: President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. Picture: AP

Clive could only manage a three minute piece, but be fair, he was standing in for the bromancer, what with the bromancer being far too busy dealing with being fully woke, the real issue this day ...

Iran has demonstrated resilience and tactical opportunism under pressure, while Benjamin Netanyahu has put Israel’s security red lines ahead of alignment with Washington. Donald Trump, meanwhile, is discovering the limits of presidential leverage in a region where allies and adversaries pursue their own interests.
The pattern is less a novel Iranian psychological victory than a familiar feature of Middle Eastern politics. The US and Israel launched their campaign against Iran on February 28, targeting its nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities. Iran suffered severe military punishment but survived and responded with attacks of its own. The conflict then moved towards negotiation, particular after the impact on domestic oil prices became difficult for Trump to ignore.
Since then, Trump has combined military threats with somewhat erratic diplomacy. A June memorandum of understanding with Tehran declared an end to military operations, provided for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and committed the parties to ­negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. The nuclear issue was not resolved: enrichment and the disposition of enriched uranium were left for subsequent negotiations. The agreement has since frayed, while negotiations over Hormuz remain difficult, with Iran seeking a significant role in controlling maritime access.
Iran’s achievement is therefore not that it has defeated the US or Israel. It is that it has survived without losing the regime or all of its strategic leverage. Its nuclear infrastructure has been severely damaged, but military action cannot easily destroy the scientific knowledge needed to rebuild a nuclear capability.
Nor has the fate of all Iran’s nuclear material been conclusively established. This is consistent with Iran’s longstanding approach: absorb punishment, preserve the regime, negotiate when necessary, and exploit divisions or fatigue among its opponents.
Netanyahu faces a different calculation. For Israel, the possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapon and the survival of hostile armed groups on its borders are existential security questions. Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that Iran must not acquire a nuclear weapon, with or without an agreement. Israel’s willingness to act independently is consequently greater than Washington may find comfortable.

Clive won the pond's heart with that sublime understatement about "somewhat erratic diplomacy".

That's worthy of Sir Humphrey providing discreet advice to Minister Hacker - or is that Bernard,  explaining eccentricity: "I have an independent mind, you are an eccentric, he is round the twist".

The pond also appreciated the subtle nuance in mad king Donald not feeling "comfortable" about Benji telling him to fcuk off, he was going to keep the ethnic cleansing going ...(that's what the google bot forces the pond to do) ... Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in March. Picture: AFP

Clive continued to make the whole affair seem like a normal set of diplomatic tiffs, with the odd bit of biff ..

The disagreement is now particularly visible over Gaza. Netanyahu has rejected Trump’s 15-point roadmap, which envisages Hamas disarmament in stages alongside a phased Israeli withdrawal and a new civilian administration in Gaza. Netanyahu insists there will be no withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely and comprehensively disarmed. The rejection is a significant disagreement with Trump, although not a rupture: discussions continue and Netanyahu still describes him as “a close friend”.
Israel is due to hold a national election on October 27, and Netanyahu is under pressure from right-wing coalition partners and voters concerned about the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. His refusal to accept an American timetable can therefore be seen as both a security position and domestic political positioning.
Trump needs diplomatic successes, lower regional tensions, stable energy supplies and a foreign policy narrative demonstrating that American military power produces results.
Netanyahu must satisfy Israeli security concerns while managing a politically divided country and coalition pressures. What Washington sees as a necessary sequence towards ending the conflict may look in Jerusalem like an unacceptable gamble.
Iran benefits from every significant disagreement between Washington and Jerusalem. But this does not mean Tehran has somehow played Trump or Netanyahu; its advantage is structural. The longer a conflict continues, the more difficult it becomes for the US to reconcile military objectives with energy prices, military resources, regional stability and domestic ­politics.
Israel also benefits from continued American pressure on Iran: a weakened regime and degraded missile and nuclear capabilities reduce the threat to Israel, while the Gaza war keeps Hamas and other armed groups under pressure and diverts international attention away from settlement expansion in the West Bank.
Military success does not necessarily produce a political settlement. Iran’s nuclear knowledge cannot be bombed out of existence; Hamas cannot simply be wished away; and Gaza cannot be reconstructed without resolving who governs it and who provides security.

Again Clive won the pond's heart ... what a program ...

Trump needs diplomatic successes, lower regional tensions, stable energy supplies and a foreign policy narrative demonstrating that American military power produces results.

He does realise mad king Donald is barking mad, clearly on the downhill slide mentally and physically, surrounded by yes men who don't have the first clue? Right?

No matter, time to terrify the hive mind ... Members of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, in Rafah, Gaza, last year.

In the end, Clive sounded a little despairing ...maybe there might be a few hurdles facing that ambitious program he assigned to mad king Donald ...

Destroying military capabilities is much easier than creating a durable political order.
One of the principal losers may therefore be American influence. Trump entered the conflict promising that American strength would produce decisive outcomes. Instead, he has found himself on the back foot negotiating with an Iranian regime that survived the initial assault while confronting an Israeli government that is unwilling to accept American proposals when they conflict with its own security ­calculations.
The US remains far more powerful than any individual regional actor. But power is not the same as control. Iran has demonstrated that it can endure American military pressure; Netanyahu has demonstrated that Israel will pursue its own interests even when Washington disagrees; and Trump is discovering that in the Middle East, even an American president cannot always dictate the end game.
The main beneficiaries of the conflict seem to be the American and Russian oil producers who are making up for the global shortfall in Middle East oil ­supplies.
Clive Williams is director of the Terrorism Research Centre and a former Australian Defence Intelligence officer clive.williams@terrint.org

What a relief to look away and enjoy the infallible Pope for the day ...

Not the bloody melons again!

Must it always be melons?

And forget the gambling. The reptiles love their gambling revenue.

Why can't there be talk of apples?

Yes, it's not just the ABC that can have a bit of DW filler, dealing with life under Vlad the sociopathic invader ...

What a reptile cavalcade, what a cornucopia ... Lloydie of the Amazon, the bromancer and Dame Groan (and the Caterist skulking at the bottom) ...

 

Talk about an overload. This day the reptiles went into overdrive, with many of the pond's favourites out and about, and the pond's chip fried, like a transistor radio left out too long in the Tamworth sun.

Luckily the top of the "news" story could be dismissed to the intermittent archive ...

EXCLUSIVE
Wear something ‘really f—able’: nasty side of Atlassian’s ‘assassins’
Atlassian has for years trumpeted its industry-leading culture. But a new book reveals startling tensions over the official company narrative.
By Perry Williams and John Stensholt

It's news that Faux Noise's devotion to sexy blonde attire is shared by tech bros?

So too could the bouffant one, nobly pursuing the 'melongate' jihad ...especially as the brave warrior could only wring a two minute read out of the crisis.

PM’s ‘melons’ gaffe was bad – Plibersek’s defence is worse
Self-described women’s rights advocate has refused to criticise PM’s crass remarks about Kylie Minogue and a female foreign leader.
By Dennis Shanahan
National Editor

But still that left the bromancer, the quarry-whispering Caterist, Dame Groan and Lloydie of the Amazon.

Where to start, what to do?

The reptiles made a big splash for Lloydie, featuring a gif that showed the reef moving from dismal desert to triumphant blooming flower ...

Besides, the pond rarely hears from Lloydie of late, and had been unduly disturbed by all that idle talk of droughts, wildfires, and sundry other climate disasters.

What the pond needed was reassuring words, with Lloydie of the Amazon and the Riddster triumphant ...

The header: Great Resilient Reef: reports of wonder’s death have been wildly exaggerated; New data have revealed Great Barrier Reef coral cover has rebounded to near-record levels across all three regions following a recent mass bleaching event.

The caption for the lead still, which disappointingly didn't replicate the grand animated gif on the main digital page: Coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef is at near-record levels across its 2300km length from Cape York to Bundaberg. Picture: The Australian Institute of Marine Science

It was time to put all those doomsayers and neighsayers in their place, and the Riddster was the perfect guide ...

Despite decades of scientific consensus that it is facing a catastrophic climate change triggered demise, the Great Barrier Reef is refusing to die.
The latest results from the Australian Institution of Marine Science shows that coral cover on the reef has bounced back from mass bleaching in 2025 and early 2026 and remains at near record levels across its 2300km length from Cape York to Bundaberg.
The AIMS long-term monitoring program confirms the GBR maintains its resilience and ability to recover from disturbance, saying coral cover across all three regions of the reef, the northern, central and southern GBR, increased slightly or remained at similar levels to those recorded last year.
AIMS does not report a combined figure for total reef cover but marine physicist Peter Ridd said the results showed that for all of the past five years, the raw cover on the reef had been higher than in any of the previous 35 years.
He said five bleaching events – in 2016, 17, 20, 22 and 24 – had not produced a major drop in coral cover.
Dr Ridd said the AIMS data showed that the major cause of temporary coral loss over the decades had been from cyclones and crown of thorns starfish plagues, both of which were entirely natural. “There is no evidence that these are any worse than in the distant past,” he said.

Everything's fine, everything's hunky dory, the planet's never been in better shape, and there were graphs ...

Some might think that Lloydie and the Riddster were in the grip of a heady triumphalism, but after all those slings and arrows from "experts", it was time for them to strut in the tropical sun ...

The results follow a major ­global study by Macquarie University that used machine learning to evaluate decades of real-world ­observations to identify 165,992sq km of potentially ­climate-resilient reef locations spanning 71 countries and 100 territories and jurisdictions.
About one-third of the Great Barrier Reef was judged to be resilient to the impacts of climate change.
According to the latest AIMS survey, an annual snapshot of coral cover on the reef showed that in the northern region from Cape York to Cooktown, it had increased by 16.7 per cent relative to 2025 levels (from 30 per cent to 35.1 per cent).
The central region from Cooktown to Proserpine increased by 10.2 per cent relative to its 2025 levels.

However you cut it, it was good times for reefs and planet ...

As for those bloody useless neighsayers ...

The southern region from Proserpine to Gladstone decreased by 2 per cent from 26.9 per cent to 26.4 per cent, which is within the margin of error. ­Announcing the results, AIMS said the GBR was in a comparatively better condition than many reef systems worldwide, which had been heavily impacted by the fourth global bleaching event and other pressures.
“However, the increased frequency and extent of bleaching events in the last decade are unprecedented,” AIMS said. “Climate change remains the greatest threat to the reef, along with other pressures from more localised sources.”
Scientists have been warning about a collapse for decades.
In 2007 they warned that under conditions expected in the 21st century, corals would become increasingly rare on reef systems.
A 2024 paper in Nature, Benjamin et al, said climate model analysis confirmed that human influence on the climate system was responsible for the rapid warming in recent decades.

Nonsense, climate science is just a cult, the sort of secular replacement for declining belief in old fashioned religions. Time to put those preachers in their place ...

Did silly cultists hearken to these fools? Hear thou the words of Lloydie and the Riddster...

“This attribution, together with the recent ocean temperature extremes, post-1900 warming trend and observed mass coral bleaching, shows that the existential threat to the GBR ecosystem from anthropogenic climate change is now realised,” it said.
A 2026 paper in Nature communications, Eakin et al, said the impacts of ocean warming on coral reefs were accelerating, with the “near certainty that ongoing warming will cause large-scale, possibly irreversible, degradation of these essential ecosystems.”
“With heat stress levels during this event surpassing those observed previously, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration developed more extreme Bleaching Alert levels that are now being used during the ongoing Fourth Global Coral Bleaching Event,” the paper said.
After UNESCO declined to put the reef on the World Heritage “in danger” list last month, Greenpeace said “the reality is that this global icon is still in deep danger from runaway climate heating, coral-killing deforestation run-off, ocean acidification and coral bleaching”.

What would those greenies know, with their minds full of climate science?

Why with a bit of luck, Australia will be blessed with a stupendous bushfire season this summer, so that the bush can be cleansed and made right, just like the reef ...

And so to the final part of the homily, with all shipshape, present and correct, and the Riddster singing his sweet song of reef joys...

“With these compounding pressures and a record El Nino around the corner, action to protect the reef has never been more urgent,” it said.
Releasing the latest data, AIMS said the findings showed many reefs retained the capacity to begin recovery after major coral loss, when given the opportunity. “Unlike the impact of the 2024 mass bleaching event, the 2025 mass bleaching event resulted in limited coral loss,” AIMS said.
“This likely reflects its lower intensity and shorter duration, highlighting that bleaching events do not always have the same consequences.”
AIMS Long-Term Monitoring Program leader Mike Emslie said the reef had experienced a summer of above-average sea temperatures, but the late summer monsoon activity, which increased cloud cover and reduced sea temperatures, likely limited the severity and extent of bleaching in the 2025-26 summer.
The reef faced other impacts from flooding and two tropical cyclones, including Narelle, but most of the surveys for the latest report were completed before its passage as a category 5 system over the northern region in March.AIMS does not give a reef-wide average for coral cover because Dr Emslie said it would be an “overgeneralisation of what is going on on the reef”.
“Our view is we should be looking at things on a smaller scale to get an appraisal of how different parts of the reef are fairing,” he said.
Dr Ridd said the latest data on the GBR indicated it was in good shape.
“It happens to have a great deal of coral in 2026 because there have been few major mortality events over the last five to 10 years,” he said.
“The five bleaching events since 2016, which have been widely reported in the media, could not have killed much coral otherwise the 2022-26 statistics would not be so good.
“The data since 1986 shows every region, every sector and most reefs have had periods of very low coral cover. This is entirely natural. The data collected by AIMS shows that the GBR is a robust system with rapidly fluctuating coral cover.
“We must expect that sometime in the future, a sequence of events will cause the coral cover to halve, as it did by 2011. We must then remember that this is almost certainly natural.”
Dr Ridd said recent bleaching events had killed very little coral, and that the institutions had been exaggerating the impact of those events.

What a relief, and with the reef never having been in better shape, the pond could quickly move on to the salvation of the country.

The pond skipped past Ben, packing it in his usual way ...

EXCLUSIVE
Marles’ missile boast slammed as ‘performative procurement’
The Albanese government is claiming credit for buying air-to-air missiles that are yet to enter service and aren’t due to be delivered to Australia for years.
By Ben Packham

A teaser trailer would suffice because there was only one important note in the piece ...

The pond had been operating on the notion that there'd be a war with China by Xmas, but it seems that the war will now take place in 2027 ... and with war just around the corner, who better to show the way than our very own Reichsmarschall des GroßAustralisch Reiches?

The header: US nuclear-armed boats based in WA will make us more secure; The US plan to send 2300 personnel and up to four submarines at a time to Perth is the best news Australia has had in defence for decades.

The caption for a stern-looking loser: Defence Minister Richard Marles at the 50th National Labor Conference in Adelaide Picture: NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

After mad king Donald's stunning defeat of Iran, his splendid peace initiative for Gaza, and his incredibly able repelling of Vlad the impaler, is it any wonder that the bromancer would seek shelter in those broad, if somewhat bruised, arms?

The revelation that the US plans to send 2300 personnel to Perth to support its Submarine Rotational Force, that it could rotate up to four submarines at a time through Perth and that the length of these rotations will be entirely up to Washington, is the best news Australia has had in defence for decades.
Frankly, I’d much rather entrust Australia’s security to the US Navy than to the Albanese government. Indeed, the only part of the entire defence and national security portfolio the government has handled really well has been developing the relationship with the Pentagon.
Defence Minister Richard Marles is good at defence diplomacy. He’s terrible at everything else.
The areas where he has demonstrably failed are legion – delivering capability, delivering budget resources, addressing urgent deficiencies, producing a coherent sense of what ADF operations may look like, producing budget transparency and coherence, meaningfully reforming procurement, injecting urgency into the bureaucracy or the military. Unauthorised drones penetrating our undefended air force bases is a classic illustration of our unpreparedness across every domain. On all that, he’s a dismal failure. But on the critical question of US alliance management, he has done quite well.
And he’s better than Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy. The sheer size of US resources to be deployed in Perth makes Conroy’s wacko comment that nuclear weapons in US subs after 2032 would not be a problem because the sub rotations would come to an end in 2032, which comments he had to recant a few days later, even more mystically indecipherable. If there are to be tactical nuclear weapons on some US subs, we should welcome this.

Indeed, indeed, let's nuke Perth, heck let's nuke the country, and why not think big and nuke the world?A US nuclear submarine during military exercises in the Atlantic Ocean in 2022.

Where once the bromancer was inclined to be malcontent, this day he was super content and happy ... a realist ready to blow up the planet if that's what it took ...

We actively and happily shelter under the US extended nuclear umbrella. Occasionally we have to face reality.
There has been much talk about whether the US subs in Perth will constitute an American base. ALP policy is against foreign military bases during times of peace. But as a simple matter of fact, US subs and their supporting structures won’t become a formal base. In reality, the status of a US base would make no real difference to Australian control anyway. Host governments have full knowledge and concurrence. A number of European US NATO allies prevented Washington using its own bases in those countries to prosecute war in Iran.
However, if the US has two or three submarines in Perth at any time, that’s a formidable force and they’re not just there to train Australians. As usual, the Albanese government is utterly incoherent.
Occasionally Marles talks about Australia participating in US-led deterrence. Very occasionally, Foreign Minister Penny Wong says something similar. Mostly she talks about strategic equilibrium which implies deterrence, which implies US and Australian forces acting together. Anthony Albanese almost never talks of deterrence, and never allied deterrence.
Unlike US NATO allies, Australia has no common battle plans with the US, though it’s widely reported the Trump administration, particularly Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and senior Pentagon leaders, want such plans. These would not remotely compromise Australian sovereignty. Any nation can decide to join, or stay out of, any military action, whatever contingency plans exist.
But if the US and Australia are to mount joint deterrence they ought to plan how they might work together in the event of conflict. Obviously the only candidate for adversary in such a conflict is China. But it’s the beginning of wisdom to recognise that effective deterrence is the most likely way to avoid military conflict.
Within the government, Marles would be the most likely to want to develop such plans. He has sometimes spoken of the role Australian geography plays in US military planning. But Albanese, and presumably Wong, would be against such joint planning as it might provoke the Labor Left and activist base. Naturally Marles would be unable to deliver.
In the meantime the left’s critique of AUKUS is even more barmy than the government’s constipated, spasmodic AUKUS defence. Gareth Evans’s contribution to Peter Garrett’s AUKUS inquiry is a classic.

Why not get on board with Kegsbreath? His incredible performance in Iran is just the sort of thing to create confidence when we go up against China in 2027.

Talk about the joys of AUKUS ... Former foreign minister Gareth Evans. Picture: AAP

Now in the past the bromancer has been pretty gloomy about AUKUS.

Here's one example from quite a few:

AUK-ward truth: the sinking feeling behind our subs pact, Australia has paid the US another billion dollars for submarine manufacturing capability despite AUKUS facing production delays and Britain’s naval crisis threatening the entire partnership.

But all that's forgiven and forgotten ...

Evans was a fine foreign minister but, like many good Labor ministers, out of office he has drifted ever leftward. He advances four propositions common in the left’s attack on AUKUS that are laughably wrong.
One, he repeats the claim that eight Australian nuclear submarines would make no difference to the military balance. That’s rubbish. The US has about 55 nuclear attack subs it must deploy all over the world. Eight is a significant difference. If you have eight you can reliably deploy only two or three. If you have 55 at best you can deploy 15 or 20. The problem is not the number of our subs but that they will take so long to arrive.
He argues that the only strategic purpose of our nuclear subs would be to track and attack Chinese ballistic missile nuclear weapons-carrying subs.

And what's wrong with a war on China, as if they had any sort of kit that would match the skills of Pete Kegsbreath and his incredible ability to stash away missiles for future use ... People walk past an illustration of a Chinese nuclear submarine at the Military Museum in Beijing in 2024. Picture: Greg Baker / AFP

Let's hear it for the subs...

That’s completely bonkers. Submarines are one of the most versatile military platforms. It’s true the best counter-submarine force is submarines, but they are critical in a thousand other contexts.
As Julia Gillard once explained, despite their expense subs have an asymmetric quality in that they can attack so many different military assets in so many different locations that they’re very hard to defend against.
Evans asserts that beyond Taiwan, China would never mount territorial aggression against anyone else. That’s ludicrous. Evans seems to contradict, or be unaware of, the statements of China’s President Xi Jinping, who routinely tells his own troops that they must prepare for war. Beijing’s pattern of aggression in the South China Sea and north Asia, its grey-zone conflict, its cyber attacks, its political interference campaigns, its descent into one-man dictatorship, its massive armament-building, all apparently convince Evans there’s no realistic chance of Beijing engaging in military aggression.
It’s possible to argue Chinese military attack on another nation is unlikely, but it’s not so unlikely that it shouldn’t influence military planning.
And then he rejoices in the fact that ANZUS does not automatically commit the US to military action in defence of Australia. As Evans surely knows, no military alliance is legally enforceable. The depth of the US-Australia alliance and the presence of US forces in Australia make mutual assistance much likelier.
Alliances are two-way streets. We get enormous benefit from the US alliance. We need to contribute as well.

It was a great relief that the bromancer had been distracted, and so was Dame Groan, and so there'd be no reptile squawking about gambling ads, what with the News Corp tabloids reliant on footy, and footy in love with gambling, and Labor in love with the whole damn thing ...

And so to the ancient Groaner, and no matter the length of this post already, including Dame Groan was obligatory. 

There was no way the pond could disappoint her massive fan base:

The header: Labor must bite the bullet on its immigration mess; The Albanese government declared Australia’s migration system ‘broken’ nearly two years ago, but is yet to fix it, with temporary migrant numbers now approaching 10 per cent of the population.

The caption for the snap of a grinning deviant sent to torment the old biddy: Minister for Home Affairs, Immigration and Citizenship Tony Burke MP Picture: Richard Dobson

Sure it's just more of the same, bees buzzing in the old biddy's noggin about the dangers of all those furriners ruining her lunch, but it's important to be aware of the cumulative impact of incessant repetition on the hive mind:

There was a great deal of information in last week’s decision by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to cancel his speech at the National Press Club. It was widely anticipated that he would announce a series of changes to the migration settings that would have the effect of lowering the ­migrant intake. The Albanese government’s migration policy is in disarray, it would seem.
We had already learnt that Burke had instructed his department to prioritise onshore over offshore applicants for permanent residence, thereby reducing the observed figure on Net Overseas Migration, the difference ­between long-term arrivals and long-term departure.
Recall here that the Albanese government has consistently failed to meet the NOM targets set down in each budget, overshooting them in each case.
In the 2022 October budget, it was stated that “NOM is assumed to continue in line with pre-pandemic trends at 235,000 from 2022-23.” The actual figure for 2022-23 was 536,000.
This financial year, the NOM target as set down in the budget is 245,000, with the most recent NOM figure coming in at 306,000. A lot of work will be required to achieve this outcome as well as the target of 225,000 for the following financial year.
The fact is that both Burke and the previous minister, Clare O’Neil, have been aware of the weaknesses in the migration policy settings for a very long time. The increasing irrelevance of the permanent migration program has been apparent to everyone. Demand-driven temporary visas are the main source of new migrants and many of them seek to game the system to prolong their stay in the country.
The point we have reached is that there are nearly three million temporary migrants in Australia, although we should probably subtract New Zealanders who have a legal right to come here. Even so, temporary migrants make up close to 10 per cent of the population, an all-time high.
O’Neil had gone to the trouble of commissioning a former senior bureaucrat, Martin Parkinson, to write a report on the migration challenges. In March 2023, she declared “Australia’s migration system is broken, it is unstrategic, it is complex, expensive, it’s slow … it’s not delivering for the nation.”

She allows Kiwis to stay?

That's mighty big of her, even if they can't talk English, what with blather about fush and chups, and here's a snap designed to send Dame Groan right off ... Clare O'Neil MP, then Home Affairs minister, addressing the National Press Club in Canberra in 2023 Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Dame Groan was sounding just like Alice, falling beneath a pack of furrin cards ...

These were strong words but were never followed up with practical solutions. The most telling indication of our broken system is the alarming rise in the number of people on bridging visas. Prior to the pandemic, there were around 100,000 people living in Australia on bridging visas. In March of this year, the number was 432,000. This was an increase of 14 per cent on the previous year.
The flood of international students, a proportion of whom are not motivated by receiving an education but obtaining permanent residence, has been one of the main reasons for the surge in migration.
This trend had become apparent prior to the pandemic but, even so, the numbers have continued to rise. There were more than 600,000 student visas in March this year, compared with 460,000 in December 2019. Associated with these numbers has been the rapid increase in the numbers on temporary graduate visas, which now number around 260,000.
Less widely recognised is the surging number of Working Holiday Makers, with current numbers around 237,000, a rise of 6 per cent over the previous year. Special concessions for UK citizens have contributed to this trend.

At this point, some might be wondering if anyone could or should be let in. 

The pond is glad you asked, because the reptiles provided a snap of the right sort of furriner, British visitors dress up for Australia Day celebrations around Sydney Harbour.

You see? They're just visitors, they can turn up and drop some cash, and then they can bugger off home ...while Dame Groan must grapple with the way we'll all be rooned by Xmas (and not just from China bunging on a do, but because all those bloody Chinese keep turning up):

The number of temporary resident (skilled employment) has also been rising strongly, currently numbering around 256,000, an increase of a quarter over the previous year.
The overall picture is of a program that lacks proper controls and is driving excessively high intakes while dissuading departures. The proliferation of migration agents with detailed knowledge of the legal provisions of the visa system has led to many migrants stringing out their stay in the country while bringing in potential partners on tourist visas who then apply for bridging visas. Bridging visas entitle holders to access Medicare.
Without the benefit of Tony Burke’s speech, we can only speculate on what policy changes he would have outlined to reduce the net flow of migrants. Three have been mentioned: swifter action on onshore asylum-seekers; reduced residence times for WHMs; and offshore application for family visas.
In terms of asylum-seekers, it’s worth quoting former immigration official Abul Rivzi: “The total number of asylum-seekers in Australia under Labor increased from about 94,000 in May 2022 to 121,000 in February 2025. The number of asylum-seekers refused at primary stage and still living in the community increased from 68,000 in May 2022 to 93,000 in February 2025.” A great many of them do not come from countries that would be deemed to be a risk to citizens – for example, Malaysia.
One approach is to classify countries according to this risk and to create a fast-track means of dealing with those from safe countries. This would involve rapid enforced departure.
One proposal for dealing with WHMs is to introduce a lottery for extended stays. There is also a case for removing the preferential treatment for UK citizens, although there may be some impediment to doing so because of the intergovernmental agreement struck some years ago.
The final method of insisting on offshore application for family visas may seem harsh, but bear in mind that most migrants, permanent and temporary, are currently entitled to bring secondary applicants, which covers spouses and children. In the UK, undergraduate international students are not entitled to bring partners with them, a restriction that doesn’t apply here. Any change must be seen in an overall context.
The real conundrum is why the Labor government has taken so long to clean up the migration program and to ensure the NOM settles at a manageable (and politically acceptable) level. There is no doubt that pressures from the education sector, parts of the business community, property developers, even state governments have weighed on the decisions made or not made by the government.
The Treasury has also been playing a role in providing misleading figures on the fiscal costs of reducing the NOM, as well as overstating the economic and budgetary benefits of high migrant intakes. Even on Treasury’s own figures, the only two types of migrants to make a positive lifetime fiscal contribution are employer-sponsored skilled and independent skilled migrants. All others generate a drain. In turn, these two groups make up a small proportion of the total intake.
With productivity and real wages essentially stagnant and voters feeling cost-of-living pressures, the political climate that is conducive to high rates of immigration simply no longer exists. It hasn’t existed for quite some time.
The Albanese government has finally woken up to this fact, but it will be a difficult road to achieve effective adjustments. Targeting a precise NOM figure is difficult enough but dealing with the massive number of temporary migrants living in the country is an even greater challenge.

Is there no end to the old biddy's suffering?

Finally, the pond must confess to being more than usually irritated and miffed by the late arrival of the Caterist.

He missed his Monday deadline, where there was plenty of room to indulge him in a seemly style, and then he turns up the next day and expects to be included in the host of reptile luminaries strutting their stuff?

The pond decided to reduce him to an intermittent archive link. Intergenerational bargain broken in name of fairness

Anyone wanting to do a copy and paste of his verbiage would have go go there, leaving the pond able to dispose of him with a few screen caps ...

So there's nothing to see there, at least for those who think that the Caterist thinking he understands the laws of economics is as risible as the notion that he understands the movement of flood waters in quarries...

The next gobbet was just as silly, with the Caterist getting into Labor mythology as a way of celebrating the joys of feral capitalism in the 1890s ... because this British black sheep loves his jumbucks ...

Indeed, indeed, Gina'spet is all the fault of the Labor party, though there was something about her glowering presence that the Caterist seemed to envy. 

Perhaps he should get out a suitable hair dye?

There was only one bit of the entire text the pond deemed worthy of mention and it came in that final gobbet...

Angus Taylor has elevated raising productivity as the nation’s primary lever for raising living standards and highlighted the folly of using immigration as a Band-Aid for deeper problems.
The seemingly inevitable decline in household living standards under Labor is likely to move the debate in his favour before the next election. The challenge of conducting a serious conversation above the noise, however, is not inconsiderable.
In the event that Albanese wins a third term, Labor will own this decade.

The Caterist just ran up the white flag, surrendered the next election in a massive sulk? 

Albo will likely own the decade, and the jig is already up, and that leaves the poor old beefy boofhead to stare into the immortal Rowe's mirror...

Friends of Dame Groan at play ...

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So what do the reptiles of the lizard Oz do?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contributor

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

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

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

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

One thing the reptiles left out of the splash header?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Really? MAGA in 2013?

Is there an upchuck bucket handy?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His Lordship reeled away in fear ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What did 1925 have to do with anything?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheer up, it could be worse ...

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