I love rupiah
Department spokesperson: Some person who has the time should set about making a collection of the many pronouncements made about our near neighbour to the north by professional scribes of one kind or another. I do not suppose that there is a decent man or woman within the four walls of Australia who has not been annoyed by the scurrilous muckraking that has recently got about which seems to have found a ready home in the nation's multitudinous media outlets.
Self-respecting Australians (wherever they may be) must now be wondering what has been happening over there since last they placed a naked foot upon a beach in Bali. The gentle breeze that once wafted through the palm trees, we are now told, wafts no more.
Do you know, it frightens me to think that such a near and dear neighbour like the one we've got next door should so quickly ... well, go. Go off the boil. Go to the dogs, so to speak.
It came upon me as quite a shock.
Do not for a singular interval think that I have not been caught up in this unfolding tragedy. When money loses its value, as it has recently done so dramatically in Indonesia, the consequences can be terrible indeed.
Why, even the whole of Jakarta could go up in flames because, as you no doubt realise, those Indonesians now have money to burn (since they can't do anything else with it).
With the rupiah plunging to as low as 16,750 to the US dollar I believe it's time all decent Australians clubbed together to do their bit for a mate. I want you all to dig deep into your pockets, and with any small change you find there, go out and buy rupiah. Buy as many as you can carry. Use a wheelbarrow if you have to. Buy them to line the bottom of the budgie cage; use them as table napkins or drink coasters. Hell! Even wipe your bum with them.
Show the world how much we Australians can love the rupiah. Because if we don't do our bit by our mates in Jakarta, our mates in Jakarta may not be around much longer.
By Dave Riley