By Kevin Healy
Our newest academic, Professor Yellowcake, formerly our great and beloved prime minister Nuclear Hawke, was honoured this week for the brilliant performance of singlehandedly, almost without even trying, taking his party's near-safest seat from 70% to 29%.
Fabulous performance, Professor. Actually, it wasn't as bad as those figures might make you believe: on a two party preferred basis, the Lab-Lib vote was actually 34%.
But the spotlight was on Professor Yellowcake's successor, the world's greatest worst ex-treasurer Paul, with the nation anxious that he not offend his friendly hosts in Indo-nosia-in-other-people's-business. "Don't mention human rights or their invasion of East Timor", the nation pleaded with a determined Paul, and the oil companies were particularly concerned about the latter matter.
Paul thrilled us all by talking lots about close ties, lots about business deals and lots about aid, particularly lots of good sensible military cooperation. The oil companies were very nervous about this, for they thought Paul might say something dangerous and undiplomatic like "But we won't provide military assistance to shoot up the people in East Timor". But of course Paul wasn't silly enough to say anything that stupid.
And even though Paul didn't say it, his host General Shootharder said he didn't want to hear anything about human rights because, as we all know, he has a different cultural approach to these matters, and outsiders like Paul have no right to criticise other people's culture. Obviously there are some silly Indo-nosia-in-other-people's-business people who don't understand their own culture, because some of them wanted to have a pro-democracy, pro-human-rights rally while Paul was there. But the authorities soon fixed that up.
And while Indo-nosia-in-other-people's-business soldiers held cultural practice in Dili, the even more cultured United States of the World showed us just how to carry out a really cultured execution, even giving the product of the poverty that capitalism doesn't create a trial run, so that he'd feel more comfortable the second time around.
Back home, things were moving on the wages front, with the unions planning to go to court to argue that any wage rise be deferred. This was not quite enough for the company A Double Piss M, which is striving to stop its workers crippling it by sacking them all, wiping out wages and conditions, and generally showing who's the boss.
The ACTU is fighting its guts out for these workers. "It is our intention", Martin Cliché said, "at the end of the day, when the sun sets, after dinner and after supper, at this point in time, and again I warn the company so it knows that when it acts it risks the full fury of the trade union movement, it is our intention at this point in time and any other point in time, to do absolutely nothing".