Prime Minister ScoMo calls an impromptu media conference and proves he is no John Howard. IA has reproduced the speech here, in its entirety.
After my recent national apology, I feel the need to cleanse my own soul by apologising for several negative meaculpas.
My first personal apology is to the unfortunate refugees who attempted to gain entry to Australia via leaky boats. I bear none of you ill will, but you were making me look bad — really bad.
After the gross failure of my abysmal, "Where the bloody hell are you?" tourism promotion, the reality is, tourists stayed away in droves and boat arrival refugee numbers outstripped tourist numbers two to one. I had to do something to redress the situation — hence, "Stop the Boats".
To you refugees, I say sorry for my ill-conceived tourism promotion.
To the people of Wentworth, I apologise for saying the Australian Embassy in Israel should be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It created unnecessary controversy and was wrong on several levels. I meant to say the Australian Embassy in Israel was to be moved to within the electorate boundary of Wentworth in Sydney.
For that Jerusalem blunder, I say sorry.
To Malcolm Turnbull, I say sorry for taking your job away from you, only days after I said I was your man.
To Tony Abbott, Peter Dutton and Julie Bishop, I say sorry for taking the job you wanted.
To the principals and school councils of every school based on religious beliefs, I say sorry for making it harder for you to jettison your gay students. Pretty much, unless caught in the act on school grounds, you’re stuck with them. Exceptions will be made if they were caught with a member of the principal class, of course.
In advance, I apologise to many of my Government’s backbenchers – and several ministers – for the forthcoming loss of their seats in our Federal Parliament. Let’s face it, if my effort selling Australia as a desirable tourist destination is anything to go by, most of you are cactus, burnt toast, goners and dead men walking — except for the rare woman or two who made it into our Parliament as a Liberal. I ain’t great at selling an idea to people. I doubt they’ll rush the polling booths when I tell them why they should vote Liberal.
To all of you, I say sorry.
I especially apologise to my dear colleague, Josh Frydenberg, for destroying any hope he may have harboured of becoming our nation’s prime minister. The last deputy leader of the Liberal Party to ascend to the position of PM was John Howard in 1996 and he ceased being our deputy leader in 1985 — 33 long years ago. 33 years Josh! That’s nearly as long as Moses led his (and your) tribe through the desert. That’s one hell of a long time.
To you, Josh, I say sorry.
I save my final and most deeply heartfelt apology to the members of my Rooty Hill Wednesday night trivia team. If only I had been able to answer that one simple question, we would have won last Wednesday’s competition and the generous mixed meat pack that goes along with winning.
Alas, I couldn’t give an answer to this question: Why was Malcolm Turnbull turfed out as Prime Minister by the Liberal Party?
To each member of my trivia team, I say sorry. I hope one day I will be able to earn your respect and share a tinnie or two with you in my backyard, barbequing all the meat we’ll win.
That’s it for now. I’m off to have my photo taken with Meghan and Harry. Sorry — I mean Harry and Meghan. After all, he’s the one with the royal blood.
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'.
You can purchase Rocky's book, 'Stoney Broke and the High Spenders' from the IA store here. The CD '42/68' by Rocky and the Two Bob Millionaires is also available from the IA store here.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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