This short story is an *IA Writing Competition (fiction category) entry.
The Morning Show
Channel 1
1 January 2101
Well, viewers, here we are finally, the first official day of the 22nd Century! Looking back now, what a Century it has been!
Who could ever forget Australia achieving 100% renewable energy production by 2033?
Now, as we view space photography from the first starship of The Australian-New Zealand Astro Core, isn’t it amazing how the 4 X 4 policy for the navy has changed this Island?
Just looking at some of these headlines from the usual suspects at the time and all of the whinging and the bleating when it was first announced, is it any wonder we have been governed by a parliament with a Left, Centre Left, Centre-Right, Right and a Central presidency, presenting its programs and every case being assessed on individual merits, ever since that stupid idea of eight nuclear power plants was presented?
Of course, if four oceans for four kinds of ship – defence, merchant, scientific research and aerospace – put a smile on Western Australia’s face,
the circumnavigating railway with a complete cross-island connection, delivering one million square kilometres of terra-form, made the whole United Nations sing!
The lowering of the surface temperature eventually brought those clouds down and the interior was finally a living reality!
Doomsday prophet after doomsday prophet kicked their signs in as the idiotic idea of urban coastal compact gave way to “comingled national ecotecture” and people started to enjoy life itself again.
Isn’t it great to live in a land where education is a privilege of your citizenship? And just to think, it all started by taking marine engineering and marine science off that abhorrent (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) HECS program!
The Creation of Australian Commonwealth Engineering Science and its sister company, Australian Commonwealth Environmental Science, literally annulled any arguments as we converged the two most important sciences on the job and protected Australian inventors with The National Patent Scheme.
The American means of production breathed a big sigh of relief when they realised we didn’t expect them to build our navy and we made marine engineers on the job as we did it!
That, and of course, the re-embracing of our sister nation – New Zealand – really did it, as the Treaty of Waitangi was studied. The Commonwealth of Australian Local Government Areas became the foundation of both The Treaty and the Republic as 750 paired peers of one local government, one local country, giving 1,500 members in the body. Of course, with its own governor-general, we finally had two governors-general as they did in Westminster itself.
This insurance of checks and balances against tyranny was an incredible and exciting challenge for the ACs and the KCs, as the wording of the legislation earned them the Nobel Peace Prize for Constitutional Law!
Then, of course, economics, as the land of 888 produced Mensa after Mensa genius and Employee Share Operated Companies got the whole stock market buzzing.
Of course, what really did it globally was the Union of Australian Bee Farmers and its sister, the Union of Australian Dairy Farmers, teaming up and making Jordan the sole distributor of Australian milk and honey products in the Middle East. This gave the nation that was lumbered with administering the peace in Jerusalem a 365 economy for the first time in its existence — people were shocked to find they had been operating on a seasonal economy for all those years!
Regionally, of course, when The Commonwealth of the Sovereign Territorial Australian Republic presented the idea of the Democratic Community of South Pacific Islands to its neighbours as a Global Village of the Global Villages plural of The United Nations, other regions started to get the message and global trade became regional trade with shared resources via treaties written to benefit people, planet and wildlife worldwide.
Of course, the real deal breaker was the treaty with China enabling them to trade in the area without having to have a military presence, and the reciprocal Treaty enabling passage and trade in the China Sea for Australia and its allies, as nation after nation began to re-embrace the idea of...
... the United Nations.
Yes, it’s been a fantastic Century and here we are looking at Alpha Centauri up close and personal as the ANZACs close in on the twin star system that gave birth to the idea of a centaur all those millennia ago in Ancient Greece. Speaking of which, let's switch to the Parthenon and see what our Greek correspondent is up to over there.
Well, greetings from the Parthenon, Mick and Davida!
As you can see, it's still one of the wonders of the world and people are still coming to view it. Speaking of world wonders, how are things at the Twin Archway Monument to 888 and who's your favourite in this year's Tour de Australia and its second leg in Tour de France? Aren’t we lucky someone thought of that? Just look at the eco-tourism!
Well, yes, it is fantastic, isn’t it?
So, here we are on the official first day of the 22nd Century and things are buzzing. Do we look forward to what’s next or look backwards over that fantastic Century that, fair enough, took 25 years to kick off, but, once it did, kicked off big time? Who would have ever thought that taking the "Rats" out of Tobruk, turning the anagram backwards and making the Sovereign Territorial Australian Republic out of it could have produced this much?
Perhaps it was the re-founding of education based on the five talents of sport, art, science, humanities and commerce that really enabled people to seek such incredible diversity of occupation. I mean, sport was always big in Australia, but when the other four got equally big, the world’s largest island was inhabited by the world’s largest psyche and possibility became probability, and probability became a reality.
For instance, the National Residential Solar Panel Program cut everybody’s electricity bill in half overnight! Then, when they'd repaid the loan, electricity was as cheap as chips! I mean, how obvious did it have to be viewers; we had the world’s highest UV rating, so why not employ it?
So employ it we did — and here we are!
Yes, it’s a wonderful day today here at the dawn of the 22nd Century, so raise your glass and remember:
They do not grow old as we grow old,
They do not grow weary, nor do the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun,
And here this morning,
We remember them,
Lest we forget.
Kaijin Solo is a general engineer by trade who holds a BA in Ancient Cultures and Creative Arts and Certificate IV in Training and Assessment. He was also a candidate in the 2001 Federal Election. You can follow Kaijin on Twitter/X @KaijinSolo.
* Full IA Writing Competition details HERE.
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