Sunday, 10 May 2026

The Farrer by-election.

 Before I start here are some articles:


Let us put this into perspective. One Nation has taken a seat from Liberal heartland and made it a safe one nation seat.
This is despite a miserable campaign from their candidate and one nation having to 'release from staff a convicted rapist. ( Imagine the furore if albo had to get rid of an convicted rapist on their staff!).

Nothing stuck. voters did not care

The independent candidate was labelled a teal because wait for it she took some money from climate 200. Did her policies mirror those of Teal mp's? Well no.
Thus you had sheer hypocrisy. Criticising the one nation candidate was a personal attack but doing it to the independent candidate was fair game.

This result means that in the regions there is no safe Liberal or National seat. One Nation on this result will take a lot of 'safe' LNP seats. ( remember what I said about Littleproud resigning!). The Nationals will become a rump party!
The more the Liberals ( and Nationals) advocate one nation type policies the more their safe city seats become 'Tealy'.

Do the math. It is possible one nation becomes the largest party after the next election. However one problem for one nation is that preferences will flow to them from either the Liberals or Nationals in regional australia however it is doubtful this will be as consistent in the outer western seats. Just remember a person voting Liberal will know preferences is now not just an academic exercise!

The major question now is whether voters will overlook one nation quirks and failures. They clearly did not do this with Farley and with at least one candidate in the SA election. At present they do not get interviewed by anyone who is not seen as sympathetic to them.

We live in interesting times

Thursday, 7 May 2026

Around the Traps 8/5/26

 it is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia


Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

Vox Wonk


Wednesday, 6 May 2026

ISIS Brides.

 The last of the ISIS brides are coming home. I see a number of people who want to deny them passage back here even though they are Australiaan citizens. Just remember a number will be charged with crimes if only  for being in an area Aaustraalians cannot be.

On the whole subjest I agree with Ben Saul.

Just remember these are the last of the group. They started coming back when the LNP was in government. We have not had a whiff of anyone in the 'group' doing anything illegal let alone engaging in terrorist activity.

Just a thought but what do you think would occur in  their behaviour towards the group if you showed kindness. Part of this will be people accepting they made wrong decisions and therefore have to pay the consequences/punishment. 

Mothers  usually care more about bringing up their kids than ensuring their children become orphans for a cause. If the women believed that then it would have already occurred!!


I forgot to add most if not all of the brides went there as teenagers and males in ISIS are known as highly misogynous.

Tuesday, 5 May 2026

The RBA had no choice

 well the RBA raised rates.

see:

and heavily related that great star Mark the Graph

I want to go back into time and do a mea culpa.
I was one of those who thought the RBA was too slow in cutting rates. Everything around us at the time was showing inflation was dropping quickly and wages was NEVER a problem.

That proved wrong. It was wrong becaause the speed limit of the economy was now a lot lower than we previously thought. CBA economic research was first onto this ( after being like me hawkish on rate cutting.) Mark the Graph was also on the job writing brilliantly on this topic.

This also had consquences for fiscal policy. I was sympathetic towards the government. If the RBA is raising rates the budget should be at worst balalnced as Ken Henry has noted. A Government tightening fiscal plicy as the RBA is tightening monetary policy means avoiding a recession becomes quite hard.
However now wee all onow fidcal plocy has to be contractionary. The structural deficit is around $20b and this has to be cut.
I see nothing wrong with the government informing the RBA how much it will cut it. Neither wants to see a recession however the RBA does not want to see any supply side effect turn nito rising inflation!

Monday, 4 May 2026

The Bondi Royal Commision

 I am not happy with the Royal commision.

To my mind there are two things it needs to make judgement on.

  1. Were the intelligence and security forces doing their properly in this instance.
  2. Why did the two murderers do what they did

I am underwhelmed that Dennis Richardson gave up the ghost on the first. On the surface, as I have constantkly said, it is very hard to stop lone wolf events unless they are incredinly stupid. ( They have been thus far in Australia. We need to see in black and white whether they did their job !

We were told by all and sundry and presumably with the blessing of the various agencies that the two people were very influenced by ISIS. However we have had some politicians like our over-rated premier and some in the media say they were influenced by happenings in Gaza. 

The BIG problem here is the inherent contradiction between these beliefs. IF you are a fervent supporter of ISIS then how in the hell do you support Gazans when ISIS hates them to death. This would be cognitive dissonance big time. Another  problem was the  planning started well before October 7 and the consquences! 

Killing jews in Sydney makes no sense if you believed this for various reasons which are easily apparent.On the other hand killing jews in sydney does make sense if you are a disciple of ISIS.

On a related matter I am dissapointed the council of sydney have not allowed speakers talk on why globalise the Intifada should be banned as a slogan. I have written before how absurd it is for people to believe their lives are threatened in sydney over this phrase. Clearly a lot of education is needed. I hope the speakers can do this otherwise the event will be wasted.

Sunday, 3 May 2026

Gerard Henderson watch

 Our friend Gerry is playing the grumpy old man well.

He didn't like panelists on Sally Sara's breakfast program not mentioning the bondi attack involved jews. Well unless you have been living under a rock everyone knows that! He is also with the crowd that allege that it was part of a anti-semitism wave in Australia. No mention from our Gerry of Iranian based motives and their hand in this nor of a criminal attempting to get a better deal by instigating anti-semitism 'problems'. What was also missing was how people who are essentially ISIS disciples' would kill jews because of Gaza when ISIS hates  Palestine and their people!

He is very good at saying people or organisations are left wing, far left wing etc BUT he never defines this. Is it absolute or relative for example. We do not know.

He doesn't like Jimmy Kimmel's joke. He clearly needs an education. Since self-awareness is not a Henderson strength he simply does not understand he is showing , like Chris Kenny did , a lot of ignorance of the topic. Perhaps he should get onto youtube and look up some don rickles roasts where the husband was a lot older than the wife and in advanced years!!

He also claims the independent in the Farrer by-election is a teal without any real explanation. For example is she campaigning on issues the teals have? This apparently too much worrk for our Gerry to do. He simply says climate 200 has contributed to her campaign. Okay how much money was it and was it comparable to the teals in the last election? It is all insinuation. A bit like when he continually refered to Obama as Barak hussein Obama. See


Thursday, 30 April 2026

Around the Traps 1/5/26

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

Vox Wonk