Wry & Dry: a cynical and irreverent review of the week in politics, economics and life. For intelligent Readers who disdain the trivial.
Investment Matters
This week Craig:
- explains the unemployment data
- deeply dives into Emeco’s Investor Day
To read Investment Matters, you can still click at the bottom of this week’s Wry & Dry. Or here.
Wry & Dry’s musings…
Uncle Albo’s post honeymoon social-media-ban-celebration crashed on the rocks of a travel rorts scandal. Quisling Barnaby gifts a pay rise. Paul Keating’s RDS returns in time for Christmas. Trumpster is about to toss the toys out of the White House cot.
1. Just when Uncle Albo was settling into married bliss…
…and beginning to enjoy Australia leading the world in something other than iron ore exports, along comes the bane of any politician: an ‘event’.1
But there’s nothing like a travel rorts’ event to get the media energised for a pre-Christmas beheading. This time with Communication and Sports Minister Well’s head to be stuck on a spike at the city gates, as an example to others. Especially when the very-frequent-flying minister is supposed to be out there beating the drum about Australia’s other world leadership. That is, the under-16 social media ban.
Yes, yes, all the travel rorts are within the rules. The skill, of course, is to use the rules with judgement. A skill in which Ms. Wells is deficient. Acting within the rules is one thing, but if acting within the rules appears to the voter as a pig with its snout in the trough, then best to rethink.
On Tuesday, Ms. Wells tossed a bone in the form of submitting her travelling sins to an independent auditor. In January and from a campsite on the beach at Rye, the independent auditor will find Wells not guilty. But that is not going to quieten the howling media dogs.
The kudos for Uncle Albo’s excellent, world-leading, headline grabbing and innovative social media policy has this week been buried under an avalanche of denial, obfuscation and buck-passing. And his repeated mantra of wanting to restore trust in politics has run aground on the rocks of political loyalty.
Will the Sports Minister turn up to the MCG on Boxing Day?
1 Former UK PM Macmillan was once asked what he feared the most. He replied, “Events dear boy. Events.” It were events that brought his downfall: the Profumo scandal – a frontpage-worthy scandal involving a cabinet minister, a prostitute, a Russian spy and lots of dosh. Streamers will recall in The Crown, he is portrayed as resigning due to the Profumo Affair in Season 2, Episode 10, titled “Mystery Man.”
2. Barnaby gives Pauline a $100,000 pay rise
It is now clear why that intellectual giant of Australia politics, Pauline Hanson, Queen Bee of the One Nation party, was keen to get Barnaby to quit the Gants and join her. A mere $100,000 in her pocket.
Pauline’s four-man tent will now become a five-man tent. Which means it is now a recognised party in the parliament. And its leader, i.e. herself, now gets a 42.5% pay rise, to $340,900 p.a. And she gets extra worker bees.
Barnaby surprised no-one when he said he would stand as a One Nation candidate in the Senate for New South Wales at the next election. This with a view to succeeding Pauline ‘sometime later’.
Barnaby thinks that will be sooner. Pauline thinks it will be later. Much later. Probably after the next half-Senate election, due before 30 June 2028. Pauline’s daughter, Lee, will have most likely won the sixth senate position for Tasmania in that election, taking Tammy Tyrrell’s seat.
Pauline will then (a) quit the Senate (meaning her party in Queensland will select a successor); and (b) bequeath the leadership to her daughter. Barnaby will be friendless. The Hanson dynasty begins at the same time as Donald Trumpster Junior wins the 2028 US presidential election.
3. Keating’s RDS returns
In a pre-Christmas disaster, former PM Paul Keating had a really bad outbreak of RDS.2 He very publicly offered his strong support for the just-released Trump administration’s National Security Strategy.
In a statement of Trumpster-obeisance that was surprising from the former Trumpster-hater, he said, “Trump, all by himself, is employing his mandate to alter America’s post-war strategic direction to both acknowledge and accommodate other great powers…”
Trouble is, any smart person would know that the NSS is essentially a product of Vice President J.D. Vance. Trumpster would not have even glanced at the 33 pages, much less understood them.
The NSS is a dramatic document itself, which deserves further comment – see below.
2 Relevance Deprivation Syndrome.
4. Trumpster’s Ukraine plan gets the DCM
It won’t be long before Trumpster tosses the toys out of the White House cot. And again verbally and publicly eviscerates Ukraine’s president.
Y’see, President Zelensky just will not do as he is told. Trumpster wants Ukraine to surrender by Christmas. But Zelensky, with leaders of UK, France and Germany behind him, wants to make arrangements that don’t reward Tsar Vlad.
The subliminal plan, as Wry & Dry outlined last week, is for Ukraine to hold on over winter, and hope that UK, France and Germany (and others) provide kit to help push back Tsar Vlad in spring. After all, over the past three years, Russia has added only an additional 1.45% of Ukraine. Russia has not captured any large city.
Credit: The Economist 10 December 2025.
However, Readers with Pollyanna minds should not believe that Tsar Vlad will be pressured by a sharply declining domestic economy or a sharply increasing body-bag flow.
Russians have been brought up to accept adversity. And economic conscription (i.e. poor people having no fiscal choice other than to join the military) is hidden from the average Joe.
With Trumpster too cowardly to act, it’s up to Europe to more effectively come to the Ukrainian table. Meetings, photo ops and nice words are no substitute for hardware. Zelensky could do worse with Europe than channel someone famous who once said to the US Congress “give us the tools and we will finish the job.”3
The trouble is that UK, France, Germany, etc. don’t have many tools.
3 Winston Churchill, in a radio broadcast on 9 February 1941, with an explicit message to US President Roosevelt. FDR came up with the tools.
5. SA Liberals Hurn a corner (groan)
As forecast three weeks ago, another first-term female has been elected to lead a state liberal Party. Ashton Hurn got the gig on Monday, when the incumbent gave himself the DCM to ensure a smooth transition.
Ms Hurn has just over three months before leading her party against the country’s second most popular premier. The mountain to climb is huge. No, actually, it’s impossible. The Liberals are trailing Labor 66/34.
6. Ranking Australia
Yet another ranking has come from the halls of The Economist. This time, it’s which OECD country’s economy was best in 2025. As usual, it’s a mix of factors: inflation, GDP, stock market, employment, etc.
The top 10 are Portugal, Ireland, Israel, Colombia, Spain, Czech, Greece, Canada, Slovenia and Poland.
Australia came in 18th, that’s barely a pass in a table of 36. Very ordinary for a country filled with nature’s bounty. Australia finished behind the USA (17th), but ahead of Germany, UK, and New Zealand.
Grim Jim will not be crowing.
7. Remember Gaza?
Readers will remember that Trumpster’s UN-Security-Council-Approved Gaza ceasefire is like a drunken centipede – a hundred legs seeming to move forward, but each working spasmodically and independently.
Trumpster’s plan had just 20 legs, one of which was ‘The Yellow Line’. This line roughly split Gaza into two lengthwise, and one from which Israel’s forces would gradually withdraw.
But Hamas is not actively disarming, as agreed. In fact, it is rearming. Not surprisingly then, the chief of staff of the IDF said on Sunday that the “Yellow Line is a new border line…” So, the gradual withdrawal may be more gradual than first envisaged.
If Trumpster’s hopes for the Nobel Peace Prize rest on peace in Gaza, he’d better get back to the wheelhouse.
8. Trumpsters’ National Security Strategy
For Readers who do not have the time to read Trumpster’s just released National Security Strategy, Wry & Dry provides its essence. It has four elements:
- America First
- Focus on the Western Hemisphere
- Criticism of Europe
- Demand for allies to burden share
Within all of that, it has many flaws, the most obvious of which is the abandonment of the responsibility that comes with being the global economic leader.
But it does have a clear commitment to “deterring a conflict over Taiwan”, with a promise to “build a military capable of deterring aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain…” Emperor Eleven will not be happy.
However, it’s the beating up of Europe that raised hackles west of Tsar Vlad’s empire. It should be written that much of the beating up is much deserved. Wry & Dry observes that Europe is declining into a fantasy land of yesterday’s cultural elitism. It…
- is a shrinking share of the global economy; with few global business champions
- has accepted mass immigration without assimilation; hence the rise of the far-right
- won’t devote sufficient resources to secure itself; Trumpster’s imposition of 5% of GDP will take a decade to work
- presents virtue signalling foreign policies; e.g. recognition of a non-existent Palestinian state
- provides dependency-causing social welfare
- has self-destructive and restrictive rules that hinders competition
The UK was correct to Brexit from a diminishing collective of old-world countries. But it dismally failed to understand why it needed to. And so didn’t undertake the renovation it needed.
On Europe, Trumpster has belled the cat.
Snippets from all over
1. Trumpster to add social media history to ESTA rules
Tourists visiting the United States will have their social media profiles vetted before being allowed to enter the country, under proposals set out by the Trump administration. (New York Times)
Wry & Dry comments: Applicants will also be asked to submit other “high value data” that is “feasible” to collect, including telephone numbers from the past five years, the dates and places of birth of family members and any business emails used in the past decade. Just in time for the FIFA World Cup in 2026.
2. US diplomats ordered to change… fonts
Making America great again extends to the style of official communications — with US diplomats ordered to return to a Times New Roman typeface instead of Calibri. (The Times)
Wry & Dry comments: This is getting silly.
3. Scots have special needs
Scottish government statistics showed a record 299,445 children were classified as having additional support needs this year, the equivalent of 43% of the school roll. (UK Telegraph)
Wry & Dry comments: The equivalent figure for England is 19.6%.
4. Trumpster’s tariff circle of cash
The Trump administration unveiled $12bn aid package for farmers. (Economist)
Wry & Dry comments: Thereby confirming the uselessness of Trumpster’s tariff policies as they relate to agriculture. The money will be used to assist the agriculture sector as it reckons with the fallout from the president’s tariff policies.
5. Gen-Z unrest topples a government
[Bulgaria’s] Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov, the sixth prime minister in five years, bowed out amid public anger over corruption and democratic dysfunction. (New York Times)
Wry & Dry comments: This on the eve of Bulgaria joining the Eurozone and adopting the euro as its currency.
It figures
- 4.3%: Australia – Unemployment rate. Unchanged.
- 0.00%: Australia – RBA’s change to interest rates. And with a clear hint that the next move will be up.
- -0.25%: USA: – Federal Reserve change to interest rates. With a split vote: nine for the cut, one for a bigger cut and two for no action.
And to soothe your troubled mind…
“With the seeing this in Ukraine.”
Sir Antony Beevor, graph.
Wry & Dry comments: The article continued:
Beevor predicts that Putin will press on with tormenting Ukraine regardless of any peace agreement. “He will certainly want to continue the war. Even if there is some form of ceasefire or peace negotiation, he will break that and blame it on Ukraine and the Europeans, and once again count on Trump wanting to be proved a peacemaker.”
Summer schedule
Wry & Dry will quiver his quill for summer. The final Wry & Dry for 2025 will be next Friday 19 December. And the first for 2026 will be on Friday 6 February, unless there is an intervening event.
Disclaimer
The comments in Wry & Dry do not necessarily reflect those of First Samuel, its Directors or Associates.
Cheers!