By Kevin Healy
In a week when it was revealed that, since the socialist takeover of Canberra in 1983, the poor have become considerably poorer and the rich in True Blue Aussie With the Big Red Heart have become considerably richer, our great and beloved prime minister, Nuclear Hawke himself, was prompted to reflect on how much worse things would have been if it hadn't been for his socialist policies.
"Christ, when you look at those figures, the poor are bloody lucky we were around", he pondered. "Imagine, just imagine, how they'd be today if there'd been a conservative government." The poor began to imagine.
"It just shows", their prime minister went on, "that no matter what your social or economic position, you are always free to imagine. That's part of the great qualities of freedom and democracy which we all share. Actually, that's not a bad idea, is it! — I'll have a word to my treasurer, John Carin-for-them, about a new tax on imagination. I'm sure we can whip in enough loopholes that our dear, close, very good friends won't have to bother about it."
Nuke also attacked the conservatives' proposed consumption tax, which he declared was certain to give the poor consumption. "This is the most vicious attack on the working class, those people to whom I've devoted my entire life, since ... uh ... since ... uh ... well, for god's sake, since Accord Mark Six. Which was easily the worst attack since Accord Mark Five ... which was easily the worst attack since Accord Mark Four ...", he droned on, unaware that only the Canberra press gallery was hanging on every word as if it were a nugget of verbal gold, and therefore guaranteeing that not one voter was ever likely to hear or read it.
Meanwhile, somewhere off the West True Blue Aussie coast, the minister for uranium mining and oil slicks, who proved the theory that people resemble their dogs and their occupation by looking like one (an oil slick, that is), Senator Killins, was rowing his way through one, assuring us all that a few trillion tonnes of oil floating about the ocean were no threat to the environment whatever.
"It's as safe as a Northern True Blue Aussie Territory uranium mine", he told a relieved nation. "It's quite thin oil really, and if it doesn't wash onto the shore, it will stay out here in the middle of the ocean." Asked what that meant, Killins said it meant that if the thin oil didn't wash onto the shore, it would stay out there in the middle of the ocean.
Onshore, on the nation's vital roads network, the freight industry, some of whom are very, very good friends of our great and beloved prime minister, were up in arms at suggestions that road freight should actually pay its full costs to the public purse. "This is a vicious and unwarranted attack on one of this country's great industries", spokesperson Barry B Double yelled angrily. "If we have to pay full cost recovery, it will be simply tragic — why, lots and lots and lots of freight might even end up on the rail system.
"Look, we have the solution", B Double said more softly and reasonably. "Increase rail freight costs, build lots more national highways, lower taxes on our industry and lift those silly restrictions on speed, straight hours on the road and all those regulations which are supposed to stop us screwing the workers in the industry. That way we can screw them even more, and think what a major contribution that will make to the national economy.
"And, oh", B Double thought of an afterthought. "When the public railways collapse, we'll make a generous offer to take them over."