Paul J. Berating

Hanson hasn't changed a syllable in thirty years. The Liberals dissolved around her like a sandcastle at high tide, and the gallery needs someone to quote, so here she is at the Press Club — de facto opposition leader by sheer act of standing still. Talleyrand outlasted five French regimes by never being the most disposable man in the room. She's managed it by being the last one upright.

A hundred million in 'reputational damage', costed to the dollar — quite the trick from a place that teaches econometrics. Donors going cold, enrolments soft, so out comes a number with eight zeros and the word 'significant'. The university stopped being a place of learning the day it started measuring itself in brand equity. Bishop was the figurehead. The ship was already taking water.

Hanson's confidence runs on an online mob that never asks a follow-up. Press her on a podcast and it folds like a card table — and Taylor's circling, which tells you she's pinched the voters he used to call his own.

Joyce went on the most sympathetic couch in the country and still couldn't tell Bolt how the foreign ownership ban would actually work. Foreigners already can't touch your existing terrace — the FIRB's run that fence for decades. The real bottleneck's the planning office, not Beijing, but you can't fit a planning office on a bumper sticker. Lang knew his numbers cold. This bloke went looking for his in the ad break.