The Right Honourable Prime Minister ScoMo addresses the nation to assuage fears over budgetary allocations during the pandemic.
I WANT to start by congratulating you, the people of Australia, for doing so well. The positive feedback I’m receiving – and boost in the polls – is very gratifying. Mind you, there’s only one poll which matters: when you meet your maker and whether it’s up to the penthouse, or down to the basement. Sorry — of course, I mean the Election Day poll.
Every pandemic has a silver lining and for me, it’s the fact I won’t look bad now when people refuse to shake my hand.
But I digress.
Now is an opportune moment to assuage some of your fears.
I am aware my Government has been criticised for not extending help to certain sections of our society. Students and workers on visas, among others.
It is with great pleasure I announce we have designed a program to catch these people who, until now, have fallen through the net.
We have created a simple 42,000-page questionnaire, with a maximum of five questions to answer per page, for our foreign visa holders to then qualify for free public transport vouchers to the nearest soup kitchen from their place of domicile. How good is that?!
Unfortunately, due to the current crippling budget deficit — through no fault of my Government, but because of the vulgar eating habits of some grub in Wuhan, China... I’ll say that again. Wuhan, China. We have not been able to find the funds to have our 42,000-page questionnaire translated into any language other than English. I am sure our foreign visa holders will be able to find someone to translate the document for them.
And there’s more!
Our magnificent Minister for Health Greg Hunt – and fair dinkum, what a top job he’s doing – has allowed visa holders access to our health system for all things related to this current virus. Other issues, such as broken legs, broken noses and so on, the status quo remains — which is, of course, no treatment and please go back and die where you came from.
Back to the topic of China. I reconfirm my Government’s desire to see a thorough and exhaustive investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and the subsequent cover-up by the Chinese Government is carried out. To expedite the reality of such an international investigation I have suggested our own Angus Taylor, Energy Minister, to lead the inquiry. There is no greater champion for truth and transparency in our Parliament than Angus.
I can assure the arts community we are not deaf to your bleatings — err ... imploration for help. Rest assured we are working on ways to get our vital live music scene up and running again, at all levels. I met my beautiful wife, Jennifer – and how good a wife and mother is she? – at a Cliff Richard concert. Wonderful singer. And an even better Christian. We haven’t finalised the details but I can announce, with great pleasure, our thriving pub, club, bar and festival live music scene shall be under the stewardship of that fabulous Senator from Tasmania, Eric Abetz. An inspired choice if ever there was one. Between you and me, Eric has been known to dance up a storm in his lederhosen, jigging away to a polka or two.
There will be even more support on its way to our wonderful arts community. Each member of that community who now find themselves with no work – and let’s face it, that will be pretty much all of you – can apply for JobSeeker. And the really good news… each one of you will receive a lovely, laminated certificate stating you are unemployed through no fault of your own. Unlike the lazy, lousy, leaners who were on unemployment benefits prior to this pandemic.
The final issue I address today is casual workers and the qualification timeframe of 12 months. I am aware this has proved problematic for many people and things will be clearer once I explain.
My faith, my belief in Christ and the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman are well known, despite there being no evidence of the Lord Christ having trodden down the aisle, arm in arm with a woman.
I have shifted the concept of casual, from the workplace to the realm of relationships. The casualisation of relationships within our populace is weakening us as a nation. I believe 12 months is long enough for people to be able to decide to commit to a meaningful, long term relationship, between a man and a woman, or part ways.
People who work for 12 months or longer for an employer deserve to be rewarded for their fidelity. Hence they receive the higher JobKeeper payment, as opposed to the lesser JobSeeker allowance.
That’s it for now. I wish you all well. Now get on back to work. I’m off to lunch with Alan Jones and friends to celebrate Alan’s wonderful career and service to his country.
Rocky Dabscheck is a musician/songwriter and front person for Rocky and The Two Bob Millionaires. He is also the author of 'Stoney Broke and the Hi-Spenders'.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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