Paul J. Berating

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SMH · James Massola

How Hanson became the de facto leader of the opposition

Pauline Hanson’s decision to speak at the National Press Club this month shows the political landscape in Australia has changed. Has she changed with it?

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.

Guardian Australia · Krishani Dhanji

ANU costs its own scandals at $100m, to the dollar

ANU's interim vice-chancellor told senate estimates that scandals during Julie Bishop's chancellorship did $100m in 'reputational damage', hitting the donor pipeline and enrolments.

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.

SMH · Paul Sakkal

Hanson's bulletproof — right up until someone asks a follow-up question

Hanson projects supreme confidence buoyed by an online right-wing following, but a podcast interview exposed soft spots — and the Liberals are circling because she's taking their voters.

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.

SMH

Barnaby Joyce trips up on Sky News over foreign ownership ban

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce was caught short on Sky News last night when Andrew Bolt pressed him for details of the party’s call to outlaw foreign ownership of housing in Australia.

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.