The week that was
By Kevin Healy
This morning, listeners, we can't really say what we'd like to say, because there's this injunction put on us by the Worst Pack Bank, which has laid a complaint about the anti-working-class bias of this segment. I mean, if someone can't stand up for the poor beleaguered employing classes, what's wrong with this country?
The Worst Pack injunction says the bank is totally committed to the public interest, but feels that in that public interest, certain things can't be said. So I'll tread warily.
I must say the socialist government in Canberra got away with murder this week, asking itself questions and making statements attacking the very foundations of our economic structures just because there was no opposition voice in the chamber — the speaker, Leo McLay-them-out, had ordered them out. "It certainly makes for a much more reasonable and responsible debating atmosphere", our great and beloved prime minister Nuclear Hawke commented.
However, the government was upset, quite properly, by the ABC inquiry into alleged bias over its Insane-is-hitler-raq war coverage. The inquiry found the coverage had been "of a very high standard".
"We will not accept such outrageously biased whitewashing of our allegations of bias. Why can't the ABC be like the Lord Rupert of Wopping Sin-hairoiled in Melbourne, or my media unit, and give a balanced, responsible coverage of this wonderful technological war?", Nuke said.
As a result, the minister for Lord Rupert, Lord Kerry and major media owners, Kim Sleazy, said a new watchdog would be placed over the old watchdog. "It will be an independent, unbiased body appointed by us and responsible to us", Sleazy explained.
And in a week when we celebrated the fulfilment of Nuke's election promise to create the "clever country" here in good old true blue Aussie with the big red heart by turning back 5000 eligible applicants for Victorian universities; in a week when unemployment remained at levels higher than when this government was elected with unemployment as its major priority; in a week when there was a need to cut back on health care, public housing, public transport and those morally decadent welfare bludgers; in that sort of week, we got our priorities right yet again and found an extra $80 trillion or thereabouts to pay for the positive, socially useful exercise of slaughtering the population and the environment of the Gulf.
A week when the minister-for-going-overseas-all-the-time-when-it's-safe-again-and-being-a-perfectly-good-little-prefect, Goode Evans, boasted that sanctions on South Apartheid had worked so well they could now be lifted. "They worked a lot better there than they worked in Kuwait", Goode explained.
Meanwhile, US President Georgie Bashed rejected the Soviet peace initiative on the Gulf. "That's silly", Georgie said. "It's inadequate. It doesn't allow for a ground war."
Replying to reports that the Soviet plan consisted of the iet foreign minister Bestworstnik and US secretary of state and CIA James Baked-them a few weeks earlier, Bashed replied, "Look, we might have said that to the Soviets, who seem to want peace, but how can we explain it to our responsible friends in Zion?". Bashed added that he wanted to thank Zion for bombing the proverbial out of Palestinian refugee camps again this week. "Every little effort helps our peace initiative", he said.
Back home, the "why resurrect an old sore" condemnation must go to whoever resurrected the idea of an Aboriginal treaty, suggesting that it had disappeared somewhat since the euphoric days of the bicentenary. "This is the height, or the depth, of irresponsibility", an irate Nuclear Hawke exploded. He denied that his government had backed away from the concept of a treaty. "Let me assure my fellow Australians, including my black fellow Australians whom I respect and admire so much, that we are as committed to a treaty as we ever were", Nuke said sincerely.
In Victoria, the state government vigorously pursued its policy of decentralising departments. "Health is moving to Queensland, Transport to New Zealand, Housing to the Northern Territory, Education to Tasmania, and Treasury is still being negotiated", Premier Joannie Learner announced.