Based on highly reliable international contacts, leaked documents and horoscopes from several TV magazines, Nostradamus' Media Watch presents a highly accurate forecast of political events across the globe. Government job creation scheme uncovered
The government is embarrassed by a leaked policy paper on its plan to reduce unemployment to 2% by the March federal election. In a set of government papers, inadvertently addressed to the ABC children's program
Play School and sealed in a thermos flask, there is a document outlining the controversial jobs creation scheme. According to the document, the scheme entails employing as many of the nation's unemployed as is possible, for the duration of election day, staffing polling booths. Paul Keating responds to the leak by stating in an interview on
Agro's Cartoon Connection, "But you aren't concentrating on the quality of the work — you're getting distracted by the length of contract".
Mysterious source of Liberal policies
The Liberal Party is also embarrassed by the revelation of the source of its late notified policies. According to a report first run in the prestigious investigative reporting journal
Australian Home and Garden Digest Monthly, the policies were unearthed in a private bank vault in Switzerland, where they had been placed by Sir Robert Menzies in 1969. The discovery is credited to an Interpol team which had been looking for the lost Marcos millions at the time and did not realise the rarity and worth of what they had discovered.
Real election issues come to the fore
and as the federal election gets closer, opinion polls reveal that the Australian electorate begins concentrating on the real issues that divide the parties — who looks best on TV. Knowing that this is the all-important test of political credibility, both major party leaders begin positioning themselves to be the most photogenic. John Howard, who has a plastic surgeon work on his eyebrows, complains that he is not being fairly portrayed, and in fact he looks a lot more like Mel Gibson than the media are giving him credit for. Paul Keating likewise complains that he looks a lot less like Lurch, the Adams Family butler, than the media are giving him credit for. In the final week before the election, in an all out effort to win crucial votes, both leaders employ stand-ins during photo shoots. The Liberal Party employs Pierce Brosnan, breaching Actors' Equity regulations, and the Labor Party employs several of the stars of the TV program
Gladiators — both male and females, dressed in Italian suits or skin-tight leotards, depending on the ratings of that day.