The monthly DemosAU poll for Capital Brief is notable for recording a five-point drop for One Nation to 24%, with the Coalition up four to 25%, Labor steady on 26% and the Greens down two to 12%. A three-way preferred prime minister question has Anthony Albanese steady on 35%, Angus Taylor up one to 23% and Pauline Hanson down four to 22%, while head-to-head results have Albanese leading Taylor 38-36 after a 38-38 tie last time, and Albanese’s lead over Hanson out from 42-37 to 43-32. Albanese is up three on his positive rating to 28%, down two on neutral to 25% and down one on negative to 47%; Taylor is down one to 23%, up one to 50% and steady on 27%; and Hanson is down four to 30%, steady on 23% and up four to 47%. The poll was conducted Tuesday to Thursday from a sample of 1532.
The weekly Roy Morgan poll records movement in the opposite directions, with One Nation up two to 27% and the Coalition down two-and-a-half to 21%, while Labor drops one-and-a-half to 27% and the Greens gain two to 14%. Labor holds an unchanged 53-47 lead over One Nation on respondent-allocated two-party preferred, while its leads over the Coalition are unchanged at 52-48 on respondent-allocated preferences and 52.5-47.5, out from 51.5-48.5, on previous election preference flows. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1508.
Great article by Louise Clegg (who?) in the SMH about Scots College and accusations against three boys of sexual assault.
https://archive.is/20260824014448/https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/stop-blaming-the-school-for-sexual-assaults-the-buck-stops-closer-to-home-20260823-p60qpi.html
She’s not into victim blaming, but parents “who dropped young teenage daughters at parties with bottles of gin tucked beneath coats” get a bad rap.
The school is blameless: “Nothing about being drunk diminishes a girl’s right not to be sexually assaulted. But this does raise an obvious question for adults. If parents permit teenagers to drink themselves senseless on weekends at unsupervised parties, why should foreseeable consequences be diagnosed as a failure of school culture?”
I have struggled looking for a way to end this post, but I find myself sailing too close to the wind.
Anyway, Louise is a mother of sons.
Luigi Smithsays:
She’s not into victim blaming, but parents “who dropped young teenage daughters at parties with bottles of gin tucked beneath coats” get a bad rap.
_________________________
Sounds like bullshit to me. I’m among the most permissive of parents and this doesn’t ring true.
‘ why should foreseeable consequences be diagnosed as a failure of school culture?”’
Oh, so they were a validation of school culture.
Thanks for clearing that up.
SL
I too got fed up with him a couple of years ago. He is on a crusade of some sorts, and he distorts and misrepresents science.
He is actually harming public support for the transition, as are more than a few zealots. The facts are of climate change are sufficient in themselves to convince people that we have a problem, and that something needs to be done. Just look at the uptake of rooftop solar and batteries. It is partly to save money that people do it, but there is a component of wanting to be part of the solution.
In fact, the energy transition is going better than we could ever have hoped – with the amazing increase in efficiency and drop in cost of solar panels and batteries. Undermining support for this transition because "it is not enough" is another form of climate denialism, as Michael Mann (of the hockey stick graph) keeps pointing out.
I think most are useful idiots rather actively trying to prevent the transition, but there are also some massive egos involved, who believe that only they have the solution, and everyone else is wrong.
It was some years ago now, but a PhD student where I worked wrote an article for The Conversation saying that "It is important that climate scientists exaggerate the effects and rapidity of climate change because people need to be shocked". This sort of thinking does a great disservice to science, and tends to just make people even more sceptical.
Louise Clegg is Angus Taylor’s wife. I recall she an op-ed in The Australian a while ago saying Welcome to Country ceremonies should he used more sparingly. I don’t know enough about whatever happened re Scots College to say what should be done, but so far there are no mentions of alcohol being involved.
‘Nothing about being drunk diminishes a girl’s right not to be sexually assaulted. But this does raise an obvious question for adults. If parents permit teenagers to drink themselves senseless on weekends at unsupervised parties, why should foreseeable consequences be diagnosed as a failure of school culture?’
I have not read anywhere that the girl was drunk. Or the boys were drunk. Or that they were at a party.
‘Some 70 years ago, William Golding understood something about groups of children that many adults seem to forget. Even without alcohol, adolescents can behave in groups in ways they would not behave alone. They need boundaries because they are not adults.’
William Golding was a writer of fiction.
Equivalent events in real life have demonstrated that groups of children stranded on islands work co operatively together.
‘None of this tells us what happened or about the four families involved – about whom we should have the decency not to speculate.’
Thank heavens she’s not doing anything like that, then…
‘Once upon a time, we were better at this. Not necessarily better people, or blessed with better-behaved children. But more adults understood that belonging to a community imposed obligations of discretion and restraint, and that a school might help parents form a child but that it was not responsible for every choice a child made.’
No, we weren’t. We were worse. We swept incidents like this under the carpet, said ‘boys will be boys’ and blamed the victim.
A bit like Louise herself is doing here…
One nation will drastically reduce visas etc .Sorry lefties!
pied piper
No one – including One Nation – has any idea what One Nation will do about immigration.
So far it sounds as if they’ll keep exactly what’s in place now, with perhaps a bit of creative accounting to make it sound like they haven’t.
There are at least three different immigration policies at the moment attributed to ON. When they have more MPs, they’ll have even more immigration policies.
The problem with talk about “firming”, as with “baseload power”, is that defenders of fossil fuels in politics and the media (but I repeat myself?) use these arguments in an attempt to discredit renewable energy. It’s the same as “the sun doesn’t always shine” and “the wind doesn’t always blow”. It’s as if they think that scientists and engineers didn’t know this and that they need to set them straight.
Baseload power, like “firming”, like cloudy days and windless days, are engineering issues which designers and builders of power networks seem to have well in hand. Fossil fuel defenders use these arguments to give their opposition to renewables a veneer of credibility.
“The more he spoke about firming, the faster I counted the spoons”.
What is wrong with you PP?
Pied, Hanson’s loons can only reduce visas if they win an election and get support from a majority of Senators.
Won’t happen.
Steve777
😀
Labors globalist population scheme has resulted in this.
Newspoll 29-29 primary.One nation at labors nervous throat.
Btw Get back on ya bike Angus!
Thanks, Leroy. I was aware that she’s Taylor’s wife. I wrote “Who?” to encourage others to find out if they chose to.
Anyway, I don’t think it matters. The issue for me is the excusing of the boys’ alleged actions in the temporal context of the Swans/AFL’s Boys Behaving Badly saga. Also, despite the assertion that she doesn’t believe in victim blaming, she does a darn good job of it.
Hanson’s loons can reduce visa numbers by negotiation with a government if they hold the balance of power in the Senate.
Golding wasn’t writing about children in Lord of the Flies. He was writing about adults. It is an allegory for WW2.
I knew parents who dropped young teenage daughters at parties with bottles of gin tucked beneath coats. They knew their children were drinking illegally and excessively. They collected them in the early hours, stumbling drunk onto the footpath, and they would recount the exploits with amusement and a vicarious pleasure in their children’s participation in the “right” social scene. God knows what went on inside those homes, in unattended bedrooms.
_____________________________
Sounds a bit like a fantasy featuring drunk teenagers, gin, bedrooms and sexual secrets.
Pied piper says ‘Labors globalist population scheme…’
What is this globalist you ask?
And are Labor globalists? Only in a fevered conspiracy trained bot.
Nath, the significant point about the gin is that it was girls who did it, not the boys, or both. But it’s a fabulous story anyway. With no relevance to the alleged offences.
The great Indian remittance scheme? Err scam.
Albo needs to tell Aussies how much money is being siphoned out of our struggling economy…
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/25/india-billion-foreign-inflows-rupee-weakness.html
Albo sadly is Modi’s bitch.Another Hug ?
I have been busy, and have neglected the cartoons, which I will do today. Meanwhile, I got some good eclipsed photos just with my iPhone on 12th August in Logroño:
Fubar needs look no further than this in his efforts to argue the Nuclear case…
The cost of electricity from new nuclear reactors in the U.S. is estimated at around $110 per megawatt-hour (MWh), while the cost for solar power is approximately $55 per MWh and for onshore wind is about $40 per MWh. This indicates that renewable energy sources are generally cheaper than nuclear power in terms of new generation costs.
Cost of Building New Nuclear Reactors in the USA
Recent Vogtle Project (Georgia)
The most recent new reactor construction in the USA provides a clear benchmark. The Vogtle Plant expansion, completed in 2024, cost approximately $35 billion for two reactors with 2,228 MW combined capacity.
cleanairalliance.org
This breaks down to roughly $15,700 per kilowatt of capacity (or about $15.7 million per megawatt).
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The two new units took 7 years longer than originally scheduled and experienced significant cost overruns. In contrast, nuclear reactors built in the 1970s cost less than $2,000 per kilowatt when adjusted for inflation.
Cost of Building New Nuclear Reactors in the USA
Recent Vogtle Project (Georgia)
The most recent new reactor construction in the USA provides a clear benchmark. The Vogtle Plant expansion, completed in 2024, cost approximately $35 billion for two reactors with 2,228 MW combined capacity.
This breaks down to roughly $15,700 per kilowatt of capacity (or about $15.7 million per megawatt).
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The two new units took 7 years longer than originally scheduled and experienced significant cost overruns. In contrast, nuclear reactors built in the 1970s cost less than $2,000 per kilowatt when adjusted for inflation.
Cost for PV projected to be $25/ MWH by 2050
Renewables Still Win on Cost
Even when renewables’ operating costs are factored in, renewables are still 2–3 times cheaper on a per-MWh basis than nuclear:
Nuclear LCOE: ~$110/MWh (construction dominates)
Solar LCOE: ~$55/MWh and declining to $25/MWh by 2050
Wind LCOE: ~$40/MWh and declining to $35/MWh by 2050
The reason is brutal: nuclear’s massive upfront construction costs ($15.7 million per megawatt for Vogtle) spread over the 60-year plant lifetime are still far higher than the total lifetime costs of solar or wind. Renewables have lower upfront capital costs and continue declining, making their all-in cost much cheaper even though they don’t have fuel costs to compare.
Nett result.. Nuclear plants are in perpetual meltdown.. all over red rover.
That’s the problem with AI… AI makes it so easy to debunk propaganda / bullshit if you want to..
And this is the kick in nuclear groin…
The Bottom Line
Inflation is nuclear’s kryptonite and renewables’ strength. Nuclear projects that face inflation during construction become exponentially more expensive. Renewable projects can be deployed quickly and replaced affordably when technology improves. This is a major reason why renewables have become 2–3 times cheaper than new nuclear, and the gap is widening as inflation persists and renewable manufacturing scales globally.
Whoops last two photos too large!
Not necessarily hidden,
They’re called billionaires…
But the Right likes them.
As David Farley might put it — indeed, did put it — “they get an opportunity to make more money in Australia, take it back, and it helps growing their nation”.
I think Farley was referring to PALM workers sending their money home.
It’s not an issue because the island nations (incl NZ) have a negative trade balance with Australia. We get it all back.
These are the Australian LCOE estimates from the last CSIRO GenCost report:
The “diamond ring” in my last post showed an internal reflection below it that looked like Venus, but is not. The real thing is less exciting:
With zoom:
Back onto SMRs..
NuScale’s closest projects to construction:
Romania (RoPower): In March 2026, Romania’s RoPower utility approved moving forward with Europe’s first SMR power plant using NuScale reactors.
This is the first commercial customer to commit, but construction hasn’t started yet.
Idaho (previously canceled): NuScale had planned an Idaho project with UAMPS (Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems), but cancelled it in November 2023 when costs ballooned from $3.6 billion to $9.3 billion. …
what only a 300% increase in cost.. thats nothing & that was a projected cost increase.. double that in reality
I don’t know whether it’s more of a Melbourne thing, but Victorian courts seem to grant suppression orders on what appear, on the face of it, to be light grounds. Take, for instance, Carr & Silvagni, whose identities were suppressed until they went to trial. As far as I can ascertain, both men’s counsel made submissions about their mental health status. What person who’s facing a lengthy custodial sentence does not have mental health issues? The Victorian Law Reform Commission should have a look at this. I mean, they were both out in the community & both were convicted of rape, but the public was kept in the dark. They also sought bail until their appeals were finalised, which was denied.
PALM workers also go to parts of Australia where housing is cheap and there is no congestion. Whereas about 90% of Indian migrants live in our capital cities, where housing is prohibitively expensive and there are major issues with congestion.
https://news.uq.edu.au/2025-08-rich-and-growing-history-indian-migrants-australia
pied piper
Capital is global, foreigners make money in Australia and Australians make money overseas.
Confessions says:
Tuesday, August 25, 2026 at 6:58 pm
Re: Sydney Bludgers’ Catchup
Can I propose we move to October, either the weekend of 24-25 October or 31 Oct – 1 Nov?
_________
Both work for me as well. Thanks for organising 🙂
Ketan wants more renewables faster, no wonder Labor folk aren’t fans
We’re not going to hit the 82% target and getting there will be even harder as data centres increase demand especially when they can use offsets rather than actually providing additional renewable power
Noting Queensland and the NT are happy for the data centres to run on fossil fuels
Oh great Griff’s going. I’ll see you there Griff. Looking forward to it.
Last one..
NuScale Power stock has been publicly traded since 2020, and its historical data shows significant fluctuations, with a high of $53.43 in October 2025 and a current price of $9.05 as of August 24, 2026.
The Capitalist fat lady may have sung.. IF SMR were a goer anywhere but China the stock price wouldn’t have fallen so consistently.. maybe when Trump steps in to subsidise them the stock will go up.. like any crypto or Ponzi scheme..
Douglas and Milko:
Tuesday, August 25, 2026 at 8:18 pm
Good news. I’ve missed them. Great pics of the eclipse – thanks.
Cartoon Catch-up
Cathy Wilcox is leaving!
“Australian editorial cartoonist Cathy Wilcox is leaving The Sydney Morning Herald after 37 years, following her application for voluntary redundancy during a wider newsroom restructure at Nine Newspapers….”
I really worry that the lack of a viable business model for traditional media is killing political cartooning 🙁
Wilcox
Rowe
Pope
Golding
I think it’s great that the City of Melbourne has a “rapid response” van for the removal of graffiti (25/8), but it’s a pity that the word, “graffiti”, is spelt wrongly on the back of it.
Harry Bruce
Badiucao
Christopher Downes The Mercury
Rod Emmerson NZ Herald
One Nation, and other far right movements, make no secret of the fact that they are sponsored by oligarchs. And like all such movements they will blame and punish minorities and other such groups to gain power. But ultimately their only concern is padding the pockets of the uber-rich. Which means lowering wages and creating an underclass they can exploit
So let’s be real here. Migration is indirectly tied to wages, it’s the easiest source of cheaper skilled labour. When push comes to shove they will always push for whatever policy that redues the cost of labour. So they have zero intention of reducing migration. It’s just red meat they can throw out to win some cheap votes
There’s a reason why people like David Farley are so flaky on this question
HBG
No, it is because he gets the science wrong, and thus discredits the push for renewable to combat climate change. Climate deniers are very agile at pushing holes in science cases that are just incorrect.
So Ketan, who makes his money promoting renewables, is a climate change denier? Or because you think his approach supports the deniers?
Either way, whatever
Hopefully this YouGov poll breaks soon
One Nation has closed the gap to Labor to just three points in the latest News24.com.au Pulse / YouGov poll. Labor now sits on 29 per cent of the primary vote, up one point, while Pauline Hanson’s One Nation climbed two points to 26 per cent.
The Coalition fell one point to 21 per cent, leaving it five points behind One Nation, while the Greens were unchanged on 12 per cent.
https://www.news24.com.au/politics/australian-politics/one-nation-trails-labor-by-three-points-following-a-difficult-parliamentary-fortnight-for-albanese/news-story/d04bde51f5545775296ce13f7e15515e
Thanks Griff. Got it.
I see I’ve had no venue suggestions so will just go ahead and find somewhere central near public transport that works for us all and whichever of those weekend lunch times is available I will book.
Can someone please alert Upnorth and find his weekend preferences?
If people wanted to make a geostrategic argument for certain visa programs, I have long advocated for a significant cut in non-pacific visas offset by a gradual opening to full mobility (EU style) with the Pacific Islands.
This could be starting with the smallest, and gradually working upwards. Based on the Pacific Island Forum data, Australia’s current NOM could fully absorb every country smaller than Micronesia, then Kiribati and Samoa the next year, with one country opening annually after that and multi-year programs for Solomon Islands and Fiji (PNG… that would take a bit more work).
At least it would be coherent to the Australian public, locks in geostrategicly, development through market access, rugby I guess… unlike the current system where we offer AI at-risk uni degrees to people who then claim asylum onshore from countries with no justification for refugee status.
Thanks Holden
No real standout figures there, LNP still struggling
It’s a state by-election on Saturday but if the Liberals run a distant 3rd the pressure could well ramp up on Taylor, especially given Hastie’s links to the seat
The irony of Australians – of all people – whingeing about “migration” is laughable.
We have been, still are and will be, with the birth rate well below the 2.1 or thereabouts replacement level, a “migrant (destination)” country for some time ahead.
The question becomes who will do all the dirty, hard, lower paid work in Oz if there is not a steady and possibly higher inflow of workers and possibly citizens?
I would like not to think it is the case, but what cranks up the loons is where these migrants may come from.
I sense scratch just below the skin of some ON supporters and despite their claim that “They are not racist but………” it is the colour of the skin and culture that ON potential voters home in on.
Unfortunately for these people, not long after WW2, the mother country was not sending enough “British” people so, with some reluctance others (white and so-say Christian?) were encouraged to come here. What a catastrophe!
The only difference now is that Kiwis are a-okay to come in, but anyone wearing “funny” clothes or not speaking fluent Stine within 10 minutes of arrival are suspect usurpers of our fair land.
WeWantPaulsays:
Tuesday, August 25, 2026 at 7:27 pm
It is because he is a paid propagandist who says stupid shit, like
Do go over in detail who pays him, and why he is a propagandist not a journalist?
His and William’s defo lawyers will be fascinated I’m sure.
======================================================
It is common knowledge he is a Senior Research Associate at the Australia Institute. Which claims to be independent but most people believe is associated with the Greens political party. Like the IPA claims to be independent but we all know it is not too.
https://australiainstitute.org.au/expert/ketan-joshi/
Tricot:
My sense is that concerns about migration are always code for job insecurity, normally experienced by those with insecure attachment to the labour market.
I guess you can add housing insecurity these days given the Howard era housing tax breaks have created the disparity it took this Labor government to fix.
Is anyone surprised?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/08/25/kennedy-center-revenue-plunged-after-trumps-name-went-building/
Douglas and Milko
Beautiful eclipse pictures! I felt a bit sorry for most Icelanders who missed out due to clouds, especially those who had trekked up to the Westfjords Peninsula.
At the moment I am very concerned about the Saxony-Anhalt election in Germany on 6th September. AfD (Alternative for Deutschland) came ‘first’ with about 33% in the Thuringia state election in 2024 but the other parties kept them out of government. In Saxony-Anhalt AfD are currently polling around 42% which may be enough to win a majority due to a number of smaller parties getting between 3 and 5 percent so they don’t qualify for seats and their votes are essentially discarded in the calculations.
I thought this unlikely until the last month or so. Of course if AfD really do gain control of a state they may face new problems – it is predicted they will struggle to get the immigrant workers they need. And also many businesses may become wary of setting up there. In fact it may end up damaging all the old ‘East Germany’ as companies may rightly fear similar results in those other Eastern states causing uncertainty, an anathema to business.
If this does happen – I wonder if it could be highlighted in Australia that this could be the sort of outcome if One Nation was a partner in a state or federal government here.
Saxony-Anhalt may become a turning point, perhaps just not how the AfD leaders imagine.