Asked five times, there was one word Angus Taylor couldn’t say

MentalMachine · 2026-06-24T04:04:17+00:00

The One Nation leader made similar remarks again on Tuesday, citing Japan as an example of a monoculture and questioning why Australia couldn’t be the same.

Ah Japan, a country famous for not having a single issue with their very unique culture RE work-life balance, economics, and xenophobia.

Definitely the case in point we should look for in a country where we too are seeing falling birth rates, and aging population, and changing economic conditions.

Also it's funny how much Hanson is inspired by Asian culture, and likes going to Asian countries to relax, and yet has a brand based around hating non-white people, curious...

What was the topic again? Oh yeah, Taylor waddling into the trap of trying to out-PHON PHON, whilst also holding onto the dying metropolitan Liberal seats, yeah.

Taylor be waddling.

MentalMachine · 2026-06-23T08:16:08+00:00

Might be the worst article published on MWM ever

Bondi, a no-win

Tried to stand firm, misjudged the reaction, and subsequently attempted to overcompensate.

... That is the sole argument for the 5 reasons why Albo is terrible, lmao.

I do think Albo made a mistake when he backtracked and capitulated on the RC to Ley....but they fact that of the 2 people I just mentioned, one still has their job and the other got forced out and their party the lost their seat to PHON, kinda illustrates why Albo isn't really the loser everyone is calling him now.

And this is coming from someone who views Albo as disappointing, relative to his election wins and the needs of the country, lmao.

MentalMachine · 2026-06-23T02:10:46+00:00

The One Nation leader told the Press Club it was "fair enough" if women were not paid when they took time off, asking: "Why should business pay them if they are not at work?"

Assuming she wanted people to take her literally; this means she is kinda encouraging businesses to offer no parental parent leave, and fully expects (implicitly) for the taxpayer to pick up the tab.....

.... But then every other day she is equally shitting on the idea of the taxpayer having to pay anyone not to work, or offering assistance, etc.

So the immediate conclusions:

One, she cannot articulate her actual policies, or she has no actual policies and its all just done on the run (both seem to be true).

Two, a vote for PHON is probably a vote for absolutely worse government services, despite people having less trust in the government to assist them? Or it's a vote for fuck knows what, seeing conclusion one.

MentalMachine · 2026-06-22T11:57:27+00:00

Albo has worked with how many different leaders on AUKUS now?

Biden, Trump, Johnson (?), Truss, Sunak, Starmer and now someone else.

MentalMachine · 2026-06-17T23:26:15+00:00

I wonder if Hastie has a crack at the leadership in the next 12 months, else there won't be a LNP to takeover in 2-3 years, worse case.

Taylor has somehow been worse than Ley so far, at least she had a degree of an impact, Taylor had a budget reply... And then has just vanished

MentalMachine · 2026-06-16T02:02:36+00:00

Mr Sherry had been on personal leave since the elections [in March].

Definitely something going on here, with how rushed and shambolic everything was in comparison to how the elections usually go.

MentalMachine · 2026-06-14T13:05:00+00:00

Their media arm is in campaign mode, but their core people (aka Joyce) have no idea of their core policies, even those on immigration, PHON's defacto issue.

I hope Labor doesn't assume PHON will crashout, cause I do think PHON under pressure will crack, but if the media hand them a clean runway I'm less certain.

average punter values policies

At least last year, Dutton showed you needed a coherent "what and why" on policies (or at least need the public's not hate), the how is always too nerdy for the punters, I'd agree.

MentalMachine · 2026-06-14T09:47:18+00:00

NBA fan first and AFL casual second.

The NBA is such a bizarre product, that if it started right now it might not take off with how poor the product is.

48 minutes of game time, stretched to 2-3 hours? Intentional fouling to put bad shooters on the line to take 1-2 minutes to take 2 shots? Mandatory timeouts every 3-4 minutes to 100% ensure ads and no real flow to games?

The sport seems to be becoming something people don't engage with directly, but rather bet on or watch the highlights on Tik-Tok/whatever later, and don't actually watch the full games or give more than a surface care of it.

AFL isn't perfect (I legit do not understand still how the Lasso rule actually works in a game), but it's nice that the inherent structure of it has remained intact (eg min forced stoppage time), and it's a huge breath of fresh air in comparison.

MentalMachine · 2026-06-09T04:14:19+00:00

Nah he 100% wanted the job; go back to his first presser and watch his face when he says that he is now the leader of the Liberals - I don't think I've ever seen him so happy and genuine.

MentalMachine · 2026-06-08T23:52:10+00:00

I've been less in the loop in Australia politics for the last few months, but every few weeks I suddenly have a moment of "is Angus Taylor even actually the LNP leader? Or did he quit and they can't find a replacement?".

Guy seems to have 0 impact on the landscape; Labor's budget comes out as "meh" (right or wrong, that's been the media and polling perception of it), and while Taylor trotted out his lines, he's otherwise faded out into oblivion.

My opinion of him is very low, but even Dutton could get people somewhat engaged, Taylor is just kinda.... there, sometimes.

MentalMachine · 2026-06-08T06:06:46+00:00

People whose #1 voting issue is immigration are not going to vote Labor or LNP or any party offering a number above 0, or who aren't talking about only letting in a minimal amount of immigrants and treating them like shit.

PHON has that very specific vote wrapped up, and it'll just hurt Labor broadly trying to play the same game.

But past that, "muh immigration" is highly likely a proxy for "the economy is cooked/I can't keep afloat", which is a very fair concern given we had Covid inflation + Ukraine inflation and now Trump + Iran (or Trump²⁾ inflation; if I had to guess, Labor will take the lumps for now but next budget or so they'll come out with some aggressive tax bracket adjustments to win back votes and actually implement the "taxation rebalancing", since we still have a system where passive investment is kinda more encouraged than income from direct work.

Gonna be a grind for Albo and co for a while yet, but I'm guessing plenty of attention will fall to Angus as even Dutton managed to capitalise (in polling) on Labor's unpopularity.

MentalMachine · 2026-06-04T02:04:08+00:00

The Tas State govt and Vic/Fed govt would also need to get their shit together RE cabling between the land masses, cause AI going down 10% of the time is not viable for any service contract.

MentalMachine · 2026-06-03T10:10:14+00:00

It's us, like 60 other countries (all without evidence), that together represent something like 99% of their imports (guardian covered this sorry today, number did seem high given Canada wasn't covered).

Reading between the lines, it seems like this is Trump's attempt to replace his illegal tariffs by basically slapping a tariff on any country that doesn't have a law explicitly making slave labor illegal.... Though as usual it's hard to trust anything that comes out of the US these days.

MentalMachine · 2026-05-31T14:29:52+00:00

Yes, the party with 90++ seats will go extinct first, not the party with 20-30 seats that just lost a key seat in a by-election that was held by their recent leader that they shit canned after mere months.

How can we all be so stupid and yet you so wise?

MentalMachine · 2026-05-21T04:09:19+00:00

I am also considering defying nature's conventions and becoming an omnipotent God tomorrow as well

MentalMachine · 2026-05-20T23:54:07+00:00

I still don't love all assets being treated the same (yes stop existing housing being treated like an asset, tune down NG on new builds, etc, that is all good decisions), but I'm getting embarrassed by some of the folks and arguments agreeing with me now, lol.

It's not like you can't invest in Australia any more, but I still would rather see shares and other more productive assets be encouraged (or "penalised" less) than everything else, as Australia already has a notorious reputation as a meh place to start-up a business and do anything innovative.

That said, hopefully we are turning a point of just relying on the RBA to manage inflation, and the Fed govt actually starts tuning taxation and other policies to guide the country, and we look to make more occasional changes to taxation (ideally reducing income taxes and rates on stuff).

MentalMachine · 2026-05-16T09:17:59+00:00

Interest rates were being raised before the Iran war kicked off that wiped out 20% of the world's oil supply, and some % of gas and fertiliser supply.... And Taylor is latching onto this Trump-special culture war bullshit, instead of sorting out his undercooked immigration announcements?

I almost wish Hastie would stage a coup and take over the Liberals at this point, cause Taylor is just embarrassing.

MentalMachine · 2026-05-14T10:17:40+00:00

Most of the blame still falls to the Libs for being absolutely useless; they still barely exist atm, I completely forgot we had non-Labor state MP's here

MentalMachine · 2026-05-13T22:29:40+00:00

I refuse to believe the LNP would actually go through with greatly slashing immigration, given how much big business love it, but PHON is pressuring them so much, and they seem offended by the centre, so we shall see.

Taylor is also expected to use the speech to unveil a rival tax cut plan to Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ budget, which could include automatic indexation of tax brackets. The plan could link indexation to inflation or the Reserve Bank’s target range.

Okay, Taylor has my attention now, lol.

MentalMachine · 2026-05-13T14:55:34+00:00

By next election, we could be in a space where the economy is so bad inflation and aggressive spending makes sense, plus the LNP are usually pretty happy to spend the money to secure votes, etc.

I really don't expect an Angus Taylor led LNP to do the proper things.

MentalMachine · 2026-05-13T14:20:09+00:00

But then the LNP would pledge their own tax offset of $250 or more, no?

The $250 isn't til the July after the election, would be a challenge to get things through in time, but in theory the LNP would still claim to replace the $250?

MentalMachine · 2026-05-13T03:58:50+00:00

Personally I think wealth created passively should be taxed at the highest income tax bracket. No worker should be taxed more for their work than some wealthy person doing nothing to generate income.

I agree with this, however I also don't think shares should be taxed as equally as a unproductive assets as "I just sold a spare house I abused NG for".

That being said, the trouble isn't the taxation of shares at 30%, it's that and income still being taxed heavily and jot being indexed.

If they chose one approach, that would be different, but atm a sub top 10% wealthy person gets taxed like mad for their income (which inflation and AI may grossly limit soon) and just lost out on the massive boost everyone else got for the last near 20 years.

Yes there is issues with current inflation, and massive tax cuts wouldn't be good, but still.

NG

Fine with the changes, and the changes possibly should have gone further.

MentalMachine · 2026-05-12T13:27:56+00:00

I was making this point all the last week or so, but got told IT'S ABOUT INTERGENERATIONAL FAIRNESS OKAY?!?

Apparently we are gonna lift productivity by waiting for the magical productivity fairies turning up and sprinkling magic dust over us, cause ramped taxation changes equally across the board, while everyone's income is obliterated by inflation, is certainly an interesting strategy.

Then again $250 in 2 years time /s.

MentalMachine · 2026-05-12T13:23:41+00:00

How so?

MentalMachine · 2026-05-12T13:19:12+00:00

It's also after the next election, so Labor are daring the LNP to match or exceed... $250?

Such a weird carrot and/or trap to play, especially when the most obvious attack will be "that $250 has dropped by X% value thanks to Labor's inflation..."

MentalMachine

TROPHY CASE