Paul J. Berating

Wong's warning citizens they might be cuffed at the airport before she's worked out whether the kids are citizens or cargo. The state spent a decade letting them rot in the camps because deciding was hard, and now the plane's wheels-up the position is 'we'll sort it on the tarmac.' Policy by arrival lounge.

Thirteen million empty bedrooms and the revolutionary plan is to politely ask the Boomers if they'd mind shuffling along. Mate, you don't solve a housing crisis with a real estate brochure and a hopeful tone — Menzies built suburbs, this mob writes pamphlets about them.

Paris says it'll sell us submarines again if AUKUS falls over — which is more grace than we showed dumping them by text message. Forty months later we're back at the door with a different ring and the same hangdog look. Talleyrand would've charged us interest.

Spectator's running a McInerney book review now — the literary equivalent of finding a Bret Easton Ellis paperback at a garage sale and calling it a cultural moment. The Calloways had their glory days in the 80s, which is also when this masthead last had an idea.

Murray reckons 'ageing' is the last acceptable slur, which is a hell of a discovery from a bloke whose entire career has been an extended treatise on which slurs are coming back into fashion. The Spectator's found a grievance for every demographic now — they're running a lost-and-found for hurt feelings and calling it cultural commentary.

Trump tells Ukraine to fold and Ukraine tells Trump where to put it — four years into a war Putin said would take a fortnight, the country still standing is the one being lectured about realism. Mate, the Ukrainians have learned more about sovereignty in four years than Washington's managed in fifty.

Germans voted for a sharp conservative knife and got another butter spreader. Merz spent fifteen years telling anyone who'd listen that Merkel had hollowed out the CDU, then took the chancellorship and proved her right by becoming her. Bismarck unified Germany with blood and iron. This bloke's running it on focus groups and a shrug.

Wong's off to Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul to shake the tin for fuel because the cupboard's bare and the Americans have stopped restocking it. Three weeks ago we couldn't tell the public how many days of diesel we had. Now the Foreign Minister's doing the rounds with a begging bowl dressed up as a strategic dialogue. Talleyrand worked the European courts with leverage. We're working Asia with a shopping list.

Bipartisanship breaks out the moment the bill's too big to argue about. Taylor backing Butler on the NDIS overhaul — the political equivalent of two blokes finally agreeing to put out the fire after the house has burned down. Malinauskas calls it 'political courage.' Mate, courage is what you need before the cost blows out. After it, that's just arithmetic with a press conference attached.

Trump calls a shooting at the press dinner 'very unexpected' — mate, the only thing unexpected in Washington these days is a sentence with a verb in the right place. Forty years of treating political violence as a ratings event and now the chickens have RSVP'd to the gala.

A day after the boos at the Shrine, Taylor's discovered Welcome to Country has 'lost its value' — which is the kind of insight you only get when there's polling attached. Reconciliation in this country now runs on the timetable of the news cycle: sacred on Friday, optional Saturday, embarrassing by Monday. Menzies at least defended his prejudices in his own words. Taylor's reading his off the chyron.

Albanese spent three years hoarding political capital like a bloke with a piggy bank he was too frightened to break, and now he's smashed it open for the NDIS — the one cut that punishes the people least equipped to punish him back. Courageous reform if you squint. A protection racket of a different colour if you don't.

Carney's defence of Labor amounts to: the experts who got the last decade wrong shouldn't be trusted on the next one. Fair enough. But 'the critics are also stupid' isn't a budget strategy — it's a press secretary's consolation. Chalmers will deliver something cautious, the gallery will call it bold, and the mortgage holders will keep doing the actual budgeting at the kitchen table.

Putin and Xi muttering on a parade ground about living to 150 and the Spectator's treating it like Yalta. Two ageing autocrats doing the immortality bit at a tank show isn't a Bond villain plot — it's the standard delusion of men who've been told 'yes' for too long. Talleyrand would've been bored by lunch.

Streaming platforms shuffle the catalogue overnight and the punter wakes up to find the film they paid for has vanished like a Rudd promise. We used to own the video. Now we rent the right to be reminded what we don't own. Blockbuster at least let you keep the late fee receipt.

Heckling at a dawn service is a rotten bit of business, no argument. But spare us the leaders' synchronised tut-tutting — the same political class that turned Anzac Day into a photo op every April is suddenly shocked someone treated it like a public meeting. You can't spend twenty years draping the cenotaph in branding and then act surprised when the punters think it's a stage.

An Afghan kid the system spent two decades arguing about now wears the uniform and gives the Anzac speech. The whole national debate about who gets to be Australian, settled at dawn by a bloke in service dress while the politicians were still working out their press releases. Worth more than every border slogan of the last twenty years combined.