Satire
Things to do on Australia Day
Here is your definitive list of Australia Day must-dos. Any one of these makes you a thoughtful Aussie. Do all 22 and you’ll end up with an Order of Australia.
1.Start the day with Vegemite on damper and Weet Bix;
2.Wear eucalypt silvery-green and deep gold clothing. Make an effort with the hues; lime-green and canary yellow just won’t cut it;
3.Fly a large Australian flag at home so your neighbours can see it. Bonus points for a huge flag flown proudly atop a permanent flagpole in your front yard;
4.Host an Australia Day BBQ at your place;
5.Wear a sprig of wattle on your lapel;
6.Give someone you love a bouquet of native flowers;
7.Sizzle all-Aussie beef steaks and burgers with a native bush tomato and mountain pepper berry rub;
8.Serve burgers with beetroot and an oversized Queensland pineapple ring. Bonus points for onion and a BBQ poached egg;
9.Make an Australian dessert like pavlova, lamingtons, Iced Vovo tart, vanilla slice or fairy bread;
10.Recite Mackellar’s My Country aloud before the family. Bonus points for Banjo Paterson’s The Geebung Polo Club done with rhythm and build-up;
11.Play a hotly-contested, raucous game of backyard cricket. Bonus points for loud, speculative appealing and protestations when turned down;
12.Do anything at the beach. Absolutely anything!
13.Tweet your unreserved appreciation and love for Australia;
14.Recite the Oath of Allegiance even as a lifelong citizen;
15.Share with family and friends what you love about Australia;
16.Play Slim Dusty, Nelly Melba or Percy Grainger, as your taste dictates. Just make sure the music is Australian;
17.Self-consciously use old Australian dialect words. Bonus points for: “You’re bonzer, cobber. It’s the Pom who’s gone troppo, a fair dinkum drongo. What a galah!”
18.Fly the flag from your car and drive around your neighbourhood;
19.Photograph a beautiful Australian scene and share on social media;
20.Sing loudly and without any hint of self-consciousness any of the following: I Am Australian, I Still Call Australia Home, Waltzing Matilda or Advance Australia Fair. Bonus points for including the second verse or for leading a group to sing all of them with you;
21.Debate who is Australia’s greatest author; and
22.Prepare and deliver a short summary of the life and adventures of an Australian explorer.
I love Australia, its freedoms, its opportunities, its outdoorsmen. I love our individual flair, our explorers, our flinty pioneers and adventurers. That a mere 26 million in a mere 236 years have, with sweat, turned this wide, brown land into a beacon, a free and liberal home for all.
Understanding The Australian Greens
How do the Australian Greens typically campaign for seats?
A. “For a caring society” and “people before profits”
B. “Higher wages and short hours” and “Ban the Melbourne Cup”
C. “Make landlords freeze rents” and “Force slumlords to make housing
liveable”
D. “AUKUS puts a target on our back with China” and “Lets downgrade ADF
to peacekeeper status”
E. All of the above
How do the Australian Greens typically reply to a budget?
A. “What’s a budget”?
B. “There’s not enough spending to save the Leadbeaters possum”
C. “This whole budget is just for the ABC, correct?”
D. “Lift progressive tax rates on the rich to 100%”
E. All of the above
How do the Greens govern in the Australian Capital Territory?
A. Covets the Ministry for Gaming but wants horseracing banned
B. Hoards the Ministry for Consumer Affairs but doesn’t believe in consumer
choice or capitalism
C. Clutches the Attorney-General role but encourages trespass.
D. Demands the Ministry for Water and Energy but has never built a dam or a
power station
E. All of the above
Short Imagined Conversation with a Voice To Parliament Advocate
A Citizen (C) and a Voice To Parliament advocate (VtP) bump into each other. A conversation ensues …
C: Hi there. What’s news?
VtP: We’re going to have a Voice to Parliament.
C: What’s that?
VtP: An advisory body for First Nations people.
C: The Sumerians?
VtP: Who?
C: Oh, you mean Aboriginal people.
VtP: We don’t use that word anymore. It’s not inclusive.
C: Sorry. Indigenous people.
VtP: We don’t use that word anymore either.
C: Sorry. I’m finding it hard to keep up.
VtP: That’s another reason why we need a Voice to Parliament.
C: Which is an advisory body unique to the “First Nations” people?
VtP: Exactly.
C: Like The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies?
VtP: Yes
C: and The Lowitja Institute?
VtP: Yes
C: and Australian Indigenous HealthNetInfo?
VtP: Right…
C: and The Closing the Gap Report?
VtP: What’s your point …
C: and The National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee, the National Native Title Tribunal, the Indigenous Land Corporation, the Registrar of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporations, the National Indigenous Australians Agency, the National Indigenous Council, the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, all the Aboriginal Land Councils, all the State and Territory Departments of Indigenous Affairs …
VtP: What are you trying to say?
C: and The National Native Title Tribunal?
VtP: Stop!
C: Don’t you think our fellow citizens of Indigenous descent have a huge amount of special representation already?
VtP: More can be done.
C: Eleven in the House of Representatives and Senate. Pretty good already, right?
VtP: You don’t understand. The Voice to Parliament will have all legislation affecting First Nations people referred to it for review.
C: Oh, I see. So since Indigenous people are Australian and subject to every law in the country, every bill will go through the Voice, yes?
VtP: I guess so.
C: So, we’ll have the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Voice to Parliament, three bodies or chambers of the Commonwealth Parliament, right?
VtP: It’s an idea whose time has come.
C: Brilliant. Fantastic. So, we have a House of Representatives with 151 elected members, and 76 elected senators, and … sorry, how will members of the Voice to Parliament be elected?
VtP: They’ll be appointed.
C: Not elected?
VtP: Appointed, elected, these are just details. Does it really matter?
C: Not really. Liberal democracy: highly overrated, right? And who’ll do the appointing? Who’ll qualify to sit in the Voice to Parliament?
VtP: First Nations people, of course.
C: Just one ethnicity?
VtP: Of course, that’s the whole point.
C: Sensational. I see the vision now. An all-Aboriginal chamber of parliament. Perfect. A race-based ethno-chamber of the legislature. The 1970s Afrikaans would have loved this.
VtP: Who?
C: And what about the Cornish Australians? They could have a Pirate to Parliament. They need representation too. And the Italian Australians? They’d have the Piazza to Parliament, Greeks’ the Parthenon to Parliament and Chinese Australians would have the CCP to Parliament. Everyone needs their own special dictatorial ethno-chamber, right? I’m all in.
VtP: No. No. Just the Aboriginal people.
C: We don’t use that word anymore. It’s not inclusive!
Just Another Day Battling A Government Agency
I live on a farm.
I’m water self-sufficient.
Call me libertarian.
So I wasn’t happy when I discovered that some sparrows had been flushed through my water catchment pipes to the top hatch of a rainwater tank. The overflow on this tank is set too high so that, when the water level is highest, the water laps through the hatch. Bottom-line? My dead sparrows were sitting in the lapping water at the top of a full tank and potentially turning my water supply toxic.
Now I’m a rural pretender, a city slicker just trying to live and let live with some figs trees and a hammock.
I needed advice quickly about this water situation, perhaps a water test of some description.
Now I can’t for the life of me remember what I was thinking at the time but, for some reason, I had a brain snafu and did something 100% counter-intuitive for me: I contacted the government for help!
(I know. I know. Idiot!)
First the South Australian Department of Health. They had a rainwater hotline. I dialled. Got a voicemail. Left a message. No returned-call after two days. I called again, left a voicemail. No reply.
Hmmm.
So I called SA Water. Got a voicemail. Left a message. No returned-call after two days. I called again and, bingo, a person named Andrew.
I explained that I wanted to have my rainwater tested. He explained that they couldn’t help with water testing but they could refer me to the specialist agency which does this. They’re called the Australian Water Quality Centre. “Great. I’ll call them.”, I said. He added worryingly, “And if you need any help interpreting their reports, we’re the people to speak with.”
Feeling relieved at least I had finally found the correct organisation, I started reading the Australian Water Quality Centre website, which describes itself as “an independent business unit within SA Water, a South Australian Government enterprise.” My confidence grew when I read “We provide our customers with world-class, NATA accredited sampling, testing and analysis” including biology testing, which I imagined might be appropriate given that the problem was dead sparrows. There were extensive instructions on how to take water samples.
I took the samples, gave them to my wife to drop in to the AWQC, but needed to call them because some of the website information was unclear.
Nigel answered and the following conversation ensued …
Nigel: AWQC
Kenelm: Hi. I’ve got a water problem and you’re the man to fix it for me. (I was in a good mood!)
Nigel: What do you want? (He said briskly)
Kenelm: I just need to know where my wife should drop-off the water samples I’ve taken.
Nigel: What?
Kenelm: I read your site. It says if the rainwater from your domestic tank needs a lab test, drop the samples at the dispatch window. I can’t see your address. Where is the dispatch window, please?
Nigel: No.
Kenelm: Sorry. What?
Nigel: You can’t do that.
Kenelm: But it says on your …
Nigel: No.
Kenelm: Well, I followed the instructions to the letter and took the time to take the water samples from both from the top and bottom of the tank. And I thought if my wife could …
Nigel: That’s all wrong.
Kenelm: Pardon?
Nigel: What did you put the water samples in?
Kenelm: Separate, small containers as per the instructions on the website.
Nigel: What containers?
Kenelm: Like plastic kitchen containers?
Nigel: No. You’ve contaminated the samples.
Kenelm: Well, I followed the instructions to …
Nigel: The website is wrong. Disregard it!
Kenelm: Let’s start again. I have dead sparrows in my rainwater. I want the water tested.
Nigel: What type of test do you want?
Kenelm: I want to test the purity of the water for drinking purposes?
Nigel: No.
Kenelm: Sorry?
Nigel: Do you want a chemistry, microbiology, biology or ecology test, or a combination of these, or all of these?
Kenelm: How do I know which is most appropriate?
Nigel: SA Water can help with that.
Kenelm: (Starting to sense what I was up against) But if I said to you, I just want to test whether the water in the tank is potable given that there are dead sparrows in the lapping water at the top hatch, which test would you say is appropriate?
Nigel: I cannot give that advice.
Kenelm: (Back-peddling now. Treading carefully) Of course not. Not advice. What test would you ask for if you were in my situation?
Nigel: This is not advice, you understand. And this call is being recorded to confirm we don’t advise on what test to order. It is completely at your risk to select a biology test. It will test for impurities caused by biological matter.
Kenelm: OK. At my own risk, I’d like to order a biology water purity test. Could you give me the link on your website where I can order it please?
Nigel: No.
Kenelm: What?
Nigel: You need a contract first.
Kenelm: That’s what I’m saying. I’d like to order a water test. Where do I go on your site to make the selection, punch in my credit card and tick your terms and conditions box?
Nigel: No. We have to send you the contract.
Kenelm: What do you mean?
Nigel: Would you like me to send you the contract? You sign it and we can perform the test for you.
Kenelm: I can’t do that online?
Nigel: No.
Kenelm: OK. Send the contract.
Nigel: What’s your address please?
Kenelm: (I give my email address)
Nigel: No.
Kenelm: Sorry, what?
Nigel: I need your residential address.
Kenelm: To come out and take the sample yourself?
Nigel: No. So I can mail the contract to you.
Kenelm: (In disbelief, I snap) Is this a joke?
Nigel: No.
Kenelm: You can’t at least email the contract?
Nigel: It’s not normal practice.
Kenelm: No. Normal practice is a page on your website where you can pay and tick a box to agree with your contract. You want to post the contract?
Nigel: Would email be easier?
Kenelm: Yes. Easier than a physically mailed contract!
Nigel: I’ll email the contract within three days.
Kenelm: (The ‘three days reacquainted me with public service timeframes) How much is the test?
Nigel: That depends.
Kenelm: On what?
Nigel: Your exact location
Kenelm: If I bring in the samples to you, what does it matter where the water is from?
Nigel: In that case, $372.85. We accept bank cheques.
Kenelm: (Silently fuming now) So, let me get this straight. You post or email a contract. I sign it. I post it back to you with a bank cheque for $372.85. Then you send a kit out to me. I take the samples in your containers. And then my wife delivers the samples to the dispatch window. Is that correct?
Nigel: The contract must be notarised if you opt for a mailed copy.
Kenelm: (Laughing now. It can’t be true!)
Nigel: If you opt for a physically mailed contract, it must be notarised. If emailed, that requirement is dropped.
Kenelm: Email, please. Email.
Nigel: I will email the contract within the next three business days.
Kenelm: SA Water mentioned your reports are complex and require interpretation which they could help with. Could you tell me what output I’m getting if I go to all this effort? Is the report highly technical? Would a layman like me understand it?
Nigel: The report will give you a score out of 2,000. 2,000 means your water quality is very bad. I’ve never seen a score that high before.
Kenelm: What’s the lowest score, the score which means the water is pure?
Nigel: 0.
Kenelm: So, if the score comes back, say, 1,000, that’s average and acceptable?
Nigel: No.
Kenelm: Well, how does it work then?
Nigel: If you get 0, we will certify that your tank water is suitable for human consumption. If you get any score other than 0, we will certify that your tank water is unsuitable for human consumption.
Kenelm: But wait. What if the score is 1 or 7 out of 2,000? That’s pretty good, right? Water quality will be at near pure on that scale, yes?
Nigel: No. If you score 1 or 7, or any score other than 0, out of 2,000, we will quarantine your water tank and have a contractor come and empty the water. We’ll then require testing of the tank itself.
Kenelm: (Nervously changing the topic) One final question. Where is the dispatch window where we deliver the samples?
Nigel: Do you know where SA Water is?
Kenelm: Off-hand, no.
Nigel: Well, if you use that as your starting point and walk down that road about 50-100 metres, turn left and you’ll see a cream-coloured building with a jacaranda tree out the front. Two doors past that is a driveway which slopes downwards. If you walk down that driveway, around the back is a window with a sign “Receiving/Dispatch”.
Kenelm: *silence*
Nigel: Hello?
Kenelm: I was just after the address so my wife can drop off the samples. Could I have the address please?
Nigel: Start at SA Water and walk down that road about 50-100 metres, turn left and you’ll see a cream-coloured building with a jacaranda tree out the front ….
The contract was emailed 8 days later. It was 72 pages long. And yes, the AWQC still uses an Anglo-Saxon era address system!
If ever there were a government agency undeserving of taxpayer funding, this would be it.
In the end, I did what I should have done. I walked over the road to my neighbour, a flinty, old farmer who knew his stuff.
I told him my adventure with the Australian Water Quality Centre.
His laconic reply, “Streuth!”
He had a look at my tank. His solution, remove the sparrows and continue using the water. Seeing my city-slicker yearning for safety and security, he left and came back with some peroxide. As he added it to my tank, he said with a twinkle in his eyes, “Nothing more pure to drink than the tears of God with a little magic lovingly stirred in.”
Total time taken on this solution: 23 minutes.
Government is rarely the answer. Far better to stick with flinty, practical people who love and value their freedom and liberty.
Lesson learned, again.
What lessons have you learned?
Great Moments In Unintended Consequences
Friday Funny is here and I simply had to share this from Reason Magazine.
Too good.
What would the Australian version say? Let me know in the comments …
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/1WRDwCep25k?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
Annastacia Palaszczuk’s “Stay Safe” Checklist for Nanny State Devotees
Stay safe, Queensland – tie your shoelaces with a double clove-hitch knot just to be certain
Stay safe, Queensland – it’s set to rain today so bring your high-viz, rubber-shaft-and-handle umbrella
Stay safe, Queensland – only kiss your wife if she’s wearing two N95 covid masks
Stay safe, Queensland – lock your house when you leave in the morning and double-check the spare keys under the doormat and pot-plant
- Stay safe, Queensland – walk only on the designated footpath, stepping on cracks permitted but not recommended
- Stay safe, Queensland – blow your nose in private with a government-certified 4-ply disposable tissue
- Stay safe, Queensland – lift heavy objects from a squatting position
- Stay safe, Queensland – only cross the road at a designated pedestrian crossingShare Liberty Itch
- Stay safe, Queensland – avoid reading Dr. Seuss to your child
- Stay safe, Queensland – wear your seat-belt when towing your boat up the ramp from the water or face a $365 on-the-spot fine
- Stay safe, Queensland – no sex with your husband unless he unpacks the dishwasher and wears a condom, in that order but not simultaneously
- Stay safe, Queensland – last drinks are at 2am!
Government: protecting you more and more each day. Your safety guaranteed.
Freedom? We’ll get back to you.
Poet: 1. Dystopian AI: 0.
Kurt Mahlburg, avid Liberty Itch reader and man of Faith, was testing AI app ChatGPT for political bias and posted the results yesterday …
Readers of Liberty Itch will know that I try to reserve Fridays for levity and satire as we head into the weekend. And the result of this test is anything but that.
Well done to Kurt, for alerting us to the threat.
As Friday Funnies loomed though, a response in Kurt’s comment section caught my eye, a response which proves – among other lessons – that you simply can’t crush the indomitable human instinct for freedom.
A limerick from Mike Bull …
Poet: 1.
Dystopian AI: 0.
JUST IN: Job Application for Chief Economic Advisor to the Australian Greens
Dear Comrade,
I take great pleasure in applying for the role of Chief Economic Advisorto the Australian Greens.
First, I graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Arts where I studied post-colonial free verse poets from the sub-Saharan former British Empire.
With that lower-second Honours degree, I was fast-tracked into a full-time Masters for Gender Studies at La Trobe University, completing the program in near record time over six years.
After pursuing a range of micro-credentials in permaculture heat-dung power generation, discrediting Keynesian radicalism, and fourth-wave feminist sexology, I’m proud to say I was and continue to be the first PhD candidate at the University of the Sunshine Coast where I’m immersed in much-needed research on “The socio-cultural impact of changing gender roles, polyamory and gender stereotyping within the cis men patriarchy.”
Wishing to apply this experience into other disciplines, I combined a recent backpacking holiday in Central Java with online course study at nights through Oxford … that’s Oxford Secretarial and Business Community College in Baturaden, Indonesia where I did an Advanced Business Certificate in bookkeeping and barista.
Returning to Australia, I launched my career as a social entrepreneur, opening a transgender vegan café in Brunswick, Melbourne. There I implemented pioneering social policies including the introduction of a white male $5 levy for which I generated much publicity in The Age and employing an all-queer, all-trans-people-of-colour staff. Further, I secured eye-opening, urgent experience with external professionals appointed to my company, including an in-depth, unexpected study of Australia’s insolvency regime.
With these credentials, as well as my subsequent quota-appointed role with Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, my love for Mother Earth, and a further micro-credential in kafkatrapping, I believe I am well-placed to be the Chief Economic Advisor for the Australian Greens.
In particular, my skills could be advantageously shared to refocus attention from simplistic and now discredited Western economic concepts like supply, demand, and budgets, to high-priority areas like “Redistribution Policy for Pandemics, Pollution and Puppies” and transitioning Australia to a net-zero economy, meaning everything is ‘free’.
I commend my application to you.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Taloulah O’Toole Ph.D (Candidate Emeritus), MA, BA, Advanced Business Certificate (Oxon)
P.S. Oh, yes! If the position is offered to a comrade higher on the victimhood ladder, I’d also be available to make the tie-dyed T-shirts, hemp belts, and vegan coffees.
12 Visionary Reasons To Just Embrace The Postmodernists, Damn It!
Welcome to your very own, brand-new Commonwealth of Postmodernism. The early stages of Idiocracy. Coming to you right now …
- World’s first postmodern capitalism, Chalmers edition. Praised by WEF for phasing-out that pesky private property anomoly.
- Tax feels less like a lean social contract for essentials and more like big fat cannula in the vein draining away your life. Oh jooooy!
- Local councils scrapped. 576 land councils replace them. Oh wait, don’t we already have both …
- 576 languages taught in schools. English scrapped. We’re all co-parents of your children now. One big Mummy state. Come to Daddy!
- We’re going to demolish the Sydney Opera House. Opera is elitist afterall. Instead of a Big Banana or Big Pineapple in its place, we’ll install a Big Mehreen Faruqi bathed in warm dung-powered eco-green light. Lit. Coooool!
- Lord’s Prayer out. Drag Show in, which can follow the Smoking Ceremony. Parliament never began so dignified. And family-friendly. All good. We’ll turn off the fire sprinklers.
- Prayers and repeated incantations still allowed. Not so much “Our Father …”. Patriarchies are sooooo yesterday. No, more like “We acknowledge the traditional owners …”. Say it once. Say it twice. Say it thrice. Who needs God? It’s a new take on theocracy, vested-interest version. You’ll love it. Apply for your government grants now.
- Change of job title. Prime Minister becomes Club Med Tour Guide for washed-up former US Presidents.
- Marcia Langton is sent to the Coronation. The Debarkle Markle suggests she make her new Voice heard louder by rushing Charles’ Throne and proclaim Westminster Abbey Yiman and Bidjara sovereign land. No Magna Carta to King John. No. More like a minerals royalty contract. Marcia The Magnificent. Winter is coming.
- Renters become owners. Owners become renters. New owners pay government-run banks $20 million mortgage repayments until they are 117 years old. New renters are evicted.
- Recently evicted renters are then evicted from the country and, under 576 treaties, sent to Nauru for diversity and inclusion re-education.
- China finishes the job of quarrying iron ore and coal deposits at Marxist rates.
Welcome to Postmodernist Australiaaaaa!
