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 reviews FY-26:
- A ‘narrow’ return in a complicated year
- ASX300: a tale of three periods
- A signpost to stagflation?
- International markets & AI
- What about FY-27?
And, by the way, First Samuel’s Australian Shares’ sub-portfolios again outperformed both ASX300 and the median manager.
Read this week’s Investment Matters here.
Wry & Dry’s ponderings…
As Readers ponder the difference between mono- and multi-culture, contemplate America’s Trumpsterised semiquincentennial and weep at the worst ASX returns in four years, Wry & Dry enters FY-27 with a sharper tip of the quill.
The world is simultaneously becoming more bland and more bifurcated. So, to soothe Readers’ troubled minds, Wry & Dry’s response is more prods, stabs and thrusts.
Enjoy!
1. Inflation: The Dog That Ate Victoria’s Homework
Harassed Victorian Premier Allan has unveiled her government’s latest contribution to the lexicon of political deflection: inflation. This is her reason for the $15bn+ cost blowout on her ‘Big Build’ infrastructure projects.
Yes, Ms. Allan says it’s not the phantom workers padding payrolls like a Dickensian counting house. Nor the well-documented workplace standover tactics. No, she says, the culprit behind Victoria’s $15bn+ in cost blowouts is that most impersonal of villains: rising prices.
Wry & Dry admires her audacity. In a city where the word ‘inflation’ is as commonplace as “it’s raining”, her inflation thesis has appeal. After all, the price of that morning coffee has risen. But read the Big Build fiasco fine print. Consider contractors itemising costs for almost $200m of “non-productive workers” demanded by the CFMEU1. These costs are, according to Ms. Allan, simply inflation by any other name. This is true in the same sense that gravity explains why things fall.
Moreover, Ms. Allan’s resistance to a royal commission into the CFMEU speaks volumes. If corruption is truly minimal, one might think she’d welcome the opportunity to be vindicated. Instead, she prefers the ‘complaints should be referred to Victoria Police’ route; the equivalent of asking a patient to diagnose their own appendicitis.
This morning, however, Ms. Allan did concede that there had been “violence, intimidation and organised criminal behaviour” on Big Build worksites;2 an acknowledgement so long overdue it arrived with the faint smell of a leftover left out overnight. She apologised for it. She did not, however, accept responsibility for it, nor offer anything resembling a personal mea culpa. The distinction, apparently, is that one can apologise for a fire without conceding one left the gas on.
An apology without taking responsibility is nothing more than a press release.
1 Source: Metro Tunnel documents cited in the Melbourne Age, 30 June 2026.
2 In the Melbourne Age.
2. Trumpster’s “what conflict of interest?”
Trumpster has filed his 2025 financial disclosure, and at a modest 927 pages,3 it is the kind of light bedtime reading that doubles as a monument to the proposition that the presidency is, at its core, a revenue opportunity. Trumpster and his family have captured the opportunity, to the tune of well over $2bn.
So he will have little trouble in paying the $5m that the US Supreme Court said he now has to pay to a former magazine columnist. A jury had found that he had sexually abused and defamed her. He, typically, appealed. And lost.
The numbers in his regulatory disclosure require that Readers give a moment’s contemplation. Crypto-related income included approximately $515m from the sale of World Liberty Financial tokens, $65m from equity sales in its holding company, and a further $635m in royalties from “Celebration Coins.”
What, precisely, he is celebrating is left to the imagination, although $86.5m in legal settlements, a $24.5m haul from Meta, $16m apiece from Paramount and Disney, and $22m from Alphabet would be worth celebrating.
Golf, reassuringly, remained productive. Mar-a-Lago, Doral, Bedminster, Jupiter and Washington DC generated more than $290m. Melania, not to be overlooked, contributed $10.7m via a licensing agreement for her self-titled documentary.
The White House press secretary assured Americans the administration is “committed to transparency and accessibility.” On the evidence, it is committed to both: the transactions are transparently vast, and presidential accessibly is for sale.
3 Joe Biden’s equivalent disclosure ran to eleven pages, consisting largely of bank accounts. Data source for this piece is from the ironically named the US Office of government Ethics.
3. Liberal pest, part A
Far-right and certifiable nut-job Victorian Liberal Moira Deeming continues to find ways to attract attention, and at the expense of her colleagues.
In her penultimate episode, she refused to apologise for alleging that fellow MP Matthew Guy assaulted her, an allegation that police, within a nano-second, stated had no basis.
She has elevated stubbornness, intransigence and self-interest to a load-bearing political philosophy. By any normal accounting, this is the moment for a quiet, gracious climbdown. Deeming, instead, has dug in with the conviction of someone defending the Alamo.4
Her lawyer’s line that a no-charge finding “is not a finding that a complaint was falsely made” is technically true and entirely beside the point Guy is making. This is the rhetorical equivalent of admitting you fired the gun but insisting you didn’t know it was loaded.
Wry & Dry’s spies report that Deeming’s behaviour has exhausted even her most loyal supporters. Even Peta Credlin, that beacon of far right-wing journalism and former card-carrying bestie of Deeming, has closed her mouth and shuttered her keyboard.
4 The defenders of the Alamo mission also failed. Battle of the Alamo (1837) was a military engagement in the Texas Revolution in which American folk heroes James Bowie and Davy Crockett were killed, defending the mission against Mexican troops. The cause of the defenders was to gain Texan independence from Mexico, which was soon afterwards won. The US recognised the Republic of Texas in March 1837. In 1845, it annexed Texas. In 1867 it purchased Alaska. In 1898 it annexed Hawaii.
4. Liberal pest, part B
But wait, there’s more!
The State Executive of the Liberal Party was to meet tonight to decide whether or not to give her the DCM from pre-selection for November’s election action. Wry & Dry’s spies suggest that there would be little, if any, dissent to giving her the DCM.
And on Wednesday, Princess Pauline went to the trouble of issuing a media release that Deeming would not be welcome in her Monoculture Party. If the Liberals give her the DCM and PP won’t have her, then she would be down at Centrelink on the last Monday in November.
If nothing else, she needs both a platform and the dosh. So, she has lawyered up. And has sued the party (through its state president). There was a messy court hearing this afternoon, that has been adjourned for two weeks.
Perhaps a stay of execution DCM.
5. Anti-Semitism is profitable
The question Wry & Dry’s Jewish friends ask – why us, what have we done? – has been answered, testimony by testimony, before the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.
The answer, rendered in evidence, is this: nothing. Nothing at all.
The data behind the testimony is damning. A study of over two million Australian social media posts found that identity attacks targeting Jews increased from an average of 0.3 posts per day before October 7, 2023, to 16.8 posts per day in the year after. And remaining at that elevated baseline through early 2026.
The content is not merely political: researchers identified medieval blood libels, conspiracy theories about Jewish control of governments and banks, and a new category they call “Racist Anti-Zionism” – using the word “Zionist” as a vehicle for incitement against Jews as Jews.
The uncomfortable truth before the Commission is that the social media platforms on which this hatred proliferates have, to date, demonstrated the words, “nothing to see here.”
Outrage is algorithmically rewarded; anti-Semitism, it turns out, is enormously profitable. Hatred drives clicks; clicks drive revenue. Removing it from social media would cost money. So, it remains.
6. 1st July in Emperor Eleven’s Empire
Two leaders, two continents, one shared conviction that diversity is a problem requiring a solution. Princess Pauline wants Australia to abandon multiculturalism and embrace “monoculture,” helpfully nominating Paul Hogan and Norman Gunston as its essential features – a vision of national identity built, apparently, on two blokes from 1980s television.
Emperor Eleven, meanwhile, has been busy actually legislating the concept: his new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion, effective on Wednesday, makes ethnic unity a legal obligation across education, public administration, cultural institutions and local government. All to forge a single national identity under the Communist Party.
It also asserts jurisdiction over foreign organisations and individuals that “commit acts targeting the PRC that undermine ethnic unity and progress or create ethnic division”. The law empowers the state to pursue those outside of China perceived as undermining notions of ethnic unity. Good grief.
The difference is one of capability, not vision. Princess Pauline has a Senate seat and a falling primary vote. Emperor Eleven has a politburo, a national legislature, and 2,760 delegates who passed his version with only three votes against.
Princess Pauline dreams of Crocodile Dundee reruns and an Anglo-fish-and-chip-eating-nation; Emperor Eleven has Mandarin preschool quotas and a security apparatus to enforce them. Both insist their version is unity.
So once did a little Austrian with a toothbrush moustache. The difference is not the direction, but the magnitude.
7. Coalition breaking more records
The Coalition is breaking more records than Don Bradman. Another Newspoll and another record low primary vote. Liberal leader Angus Taylor’s response to “what do we stand for” remains a shrug dressed as strategy.
The brutal fact is that the Liberal Party’s direction is being determined by Princess Pauline’s abbreviated policy of all she stands for: monoculture.
Taylor’s understanding of ‘culture’ seems limited by him being a farmer. That is, to lactobacillus delbrueckii bulgaricus, the bacterial culture used in making yoghurt. Hence, he cannot articulate his view on whatever culture will poll best: mono or multi.
What’s worse for him, Quislings are emerging like frogs from a swamp: shadow minister Melissa McIntosh noisily suggested the party needs a “rebrand,” which colleagues swiftly dismissed as a packaging problem, not the meltdown Grim Jim diagnosed it as.
Meanwhile Andrew Hastie, last year’s rising populist political maverick, has rebranded himself an “unembarrassed multiculturalist,” a pivot smooth enough to win Murdoch column inches even as it leaves Taylor’s actual position more mysterious than ever.
A leader who can’t decide in what his party believes is now watching his own MPs decide for him – in opposite directions, simultaneously. Hence Princess Pauline.
8. Greens have red faces
Readers will be aware that Uncle Albo and Grim Jim changed their mind, after saying they wouldn’t. And will remove the so-called ‘widow’s tax’ from their budget legislation. The Greens support the removal of the tax.
But the Greens voted for the tax originally, without knowing it. “The government certainly didn’t point it [i.e. the widow’s tax] out,” Greens leader Larissa Waters admitted, without realising the self-incrimination.
The Greens have no clothes (a troublesome thought), it seems. They vote on legislation without reading it.
9. Trumpster not the worst
There have been 45 presidents of the US. Who was the best? The Economist surveyed 1,500 of they-the-people. And narrowed its survey list to 20 of the better-known leaders and ranked them by subtracting their unfavourable ratings from their favourable.
On that basis, Trumpster was not the worst. His net rating was probably bolstered by a MAGA cohort who rated him as ‘outstanding’. But, hey, what an accolade, to finish ahead of Sleepy Joe Biden (and Richard Nixon)!
However, looking at just the unfavourable votes, Trumpster comfortably took the prize as the worst president. Not quite a Nobel Prize.
Chart source: The Economist 2 July-26
10. Last words
Tsar Vlad has conceded that Russia is experiencing “problems” with its war in Ukraine, a word choice so spectacularly understated it deserves its own museum wing. Over a million casualties, a basket-case economy held together by Chinese credit and Indian oil buyers, petrol rationing, Moscow’s main oil refinery in flames, and 81% of Russians telling pollsters they’d like the war to end tomorrow.
“Problems,” he says. One imagines the Titanic’s captain filing a report about “moisture.”
The speech, delivered to United Russia’s congress, was reportedly attended by Dmitry Medvedev, who was observed falling asleep. A man of sound judgment, in the circumstances.
Where to now? Withdrawal is beneath Putin’s ego and beyond his political survival. Turning Kyiv into a smouldering car park requires resources of which Russia is visibly running short. And would cause an extra ordinary backlash, both outside and inside Russia today. What remains is the stalemate: grinding, costly, increasingly embarrassing and dressed up each week in fresh Kremlin language about “inviolability” and “overcoming challenges.”
Tsar Vlad entered this war to remake Europe’s map. He has, to be fair, succeeded: he has mapped his, and Russia’s, own decline with unusual precision.
Snippets from all over
Qatar’s gift to Trumpster
President Trump on Wednesday took his maiden flight on his long-awaited new Air Force One, a Boeing 747-8 luxury jet that was given to the U.S. by the Qatari government. (Wall Street Journal 2 July)
Wry & Dry comments: The only channel available on the televisions on its maiden flight: Fox News.
Oil prices drop to pre-war levels
Oil prices have fallen to the pre-war level of $72 a barrel on hopes that the United States and Iran are finalising the ceasefire terms of a joint memorandum of understanding, reducing pressure on central banks to increase interest rates to tame inflation. (The Times 3 July)
Wry & Dry comments: “…too early to say.”
Trumpster shutters US-Mexico-Canada Agreement
The Trump administration will not renew its 2020 trade deal with Canada and Mexico, casting new doubt on the future of an agreement that had been a bedrock of commerce between the US and its neighbours. (Financial Times 2 July)
Wry & Dry comments: He struck the deal in his first term.
Reform leader in disclosure row
[UK Reform party leader] Nigel Farage has come under pressure to clarify his housing arrangement after it emerged he only declared two of his five properties to Parliament. (UK Telegraph 2 July)
Wry & Dry comments: Al Capone was jailed for tax evasion.
Rare copy of Declaration of Independence found, in London
A volunteer cataloguing naval letters in the UK National Archives came across a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence, printed 250 years ago in New Hampshire. (New York Times 3 July)
Wry & Dry comments: Trumpster will want it in the US, in his home in Mar a Lago.
It figures
- 4.2: US. Unemployment in June, down from 4.3%. Perhaps US rates will not rise this year.
- 11%: Brazil. Percent of all Chinese direct foreign investment, the largest recipient. US was second with 7%. Then Guyana, Indonesia, Kazakhstan. Join the dots.
- 6.2%: Eurozone. Unemployment rate in June, a record low.
And to soothe your troubled mind…
“There was violence, intimidation and organised criminal behaviour. This is shocking and unacceptable.”
Jacinta Allan, Premier of Victoria, in not-quite a mea culpa, published in this morning’s Melbourne Age.
Wry & Dry comments: If ‘violence, intimidation and organised criminal behaviour’ were unacceptable, why did she accept it?
Disclaimer
The comments in Wry & Dry do not necessarily reflect those of First Samuel, its Directors or Associates.
Cheers!