Weekend Australian, Sunday Times 616

A few of the usual puddings this week, including the dreaded wrong-part-of-speech error and the horrible loose literal.

Across
1. CONSIGNMENT. "Fraudsters" = CONMEN; "evidence" = SIGN + T ("time"). "Handing over" is just about OK as the literal as "consignment" can refer to the act of delivering something or other.
10. LEASE. "Student" = L; "relax" = EASE. Bit obvious. Though, as with 28 below, I'm a bit iffy about student being L. It's OK in the driving context, but that needs to be signalled ... perhaps?
11. ORRIS ROOT. "Gold, sir to" gives us OR("gold")RIS + OT. The RO from the beginning of ROOT has gone AWOL. Typical Dorothean crap.
12. BLACK SWAN. Attempt at an &lit that doesn't come off. The "when swimming" bit is both part of the pseudo-literal and the anagind. So we're supposed to think that a black swan "claws bank when swimming"? Last time I looked at one, I failed to notice any claws.
13. IDOLA. For some strange reason, we're supposed to get IDO (I do) from "Vows of fidelity". But that's just to make the surface of the clue fit the plural of the solution. The word "idolum" is rather obscure. In formal logic it is indeed a fallacy; by extension from its more usual reference to a mental image, from the Greek eidolon, a phantom.
14. TUTORS. Anagram of "to rust". Also pretty obvious.
16. ADORNING. Anagram of "Dingo ran". Zzzzz.
18. OPPOSITE. "Mates" are OPPOS. "Tie knot" is supposed to indicate an anagram of "tie". It doesn't.
20. THREAT. Anagram of "hatter" (lot of anagrams in here today). The loose literal is "writing on the wall" which, far as I know, is simply a portent of doom. So, just possibly, a threat. מנא ,מנא, תקל, ופרסין, Daniel 5:1–31.
23. THORA. Included in "Perth or Adelaide". The loose lit. is "She".
24. CATTLEMAN. Attempt at a double literal. "Lower tender" (one who tends beasts that low) + "rancher". The "needed by" bit is superfluous padding to get a nice surface reading.
26. ROCK MELON. Now this one is a real pudding! It's an anagram of R ("Right"), "mock" and "Leon". The "to" is doing nothing and "fruit cocktail" is supposed to give us the lit and the anagind in that order. Primary rule: unless there's a really good (and indicated) reason, the literal should be up front or at the end of the clue.
27. ALIGN. Very rough indeed. To dress is to come into line (of soldiers) on parade.
28. INCREDULITY. Several problems here. Incredulity is not "doubt". It's being unwilling or unable to believe. The anagind ("with massage") is gonads. And the so-called "anagram fodder" is just wrong. "I cure tiny" + L (student again) is one D short. Thanks again Orothy.

Down
2. OMAHA. "A radio buff" is A HAM. "To(?) ring" is O. All up; i.e., reversed.
3. SPEAKER. Anagram of "park see". Lousy anagind is "Jogging around". Literal is "someone at the corner [Speaker's Corner in London -- though there is also one in the Domain in Sydney] sounding off".
4. GOOLWA. "Nesting in" tells us, apparently, that an anagram ("unusual") of "owl" is to go inside an Indian state: Goa. The "now" is, again, just padding. Goolwa is the nearest bit of mainland SA to Hindmarsh Island.
5. MARINADE. Anagram of "in a dream". Anagind = "recipe".
6. NASTIER. Anagram of "in tears". Anagind = "breaks down".
7. GLOBE-TROTTERS. Part anagram of "goblets". Anagind = "smashed" + ROTTERS ("absolute cads").
8. COLONISE. The "internal piping" = COLON + IS + E ("initially expected"). Literal = "to settle".
9. STRAIGHTENING. Anagram of "ring this agent". Anagind = "possible supplier". Not exactly 15.
15. TOP-NOTCH. "Surpass" = TOP. "Score" = NOTCH? The verb "to score" is roughly equivalent to "to notch up".
17. STICKLER. "On" means something comes after S ("second"). What comes after it is TICKER ("watch"). "First lieutenant" is the first letter of "lieutenant", L. Then the literal has to be "over-punctilious" which is an adjective. The wrong-part-of-speech problem again.
19. SWAGMAN. The river is the SWAN. Plunge AGM ("yearly get-together") into that and you get the solution, the literal for which is "Worker who travels to"??
21. HOLDALL. "Hang on to" = HOLD; "every" = ALL.
22. ATONED. "[Having] been in full agreement" = AT ONE. Part of speech?
25. MOIST. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz