You can be as sceptical as you like about your susceptibility to materialism's gleaming surface. I know I am, most of the time. I look at all those people in shopping centre car parks, blindly grasping at whatever happens to be on the bargain rack in a futile attempt to convince themselves that it's all important. I'm not like that. Advertising doesn't work on me.
And then one day, I get it into my mind that I absolutely must have a particular object or other, and I find out (again) that the impulse is shockingly close to the core of my soul. In this case, it was a TV -- and then, of course, all the magnificent and absolutely necessary accessories that go with it.
Being fully on board in this case -- looking at speaker package deals uncharacteristically late at night, in the interests of shaving off a hundred bucks or so off my coveted 5.1 dream system -- makes me think that the feelings many people get from shopping on a regular basis might be worth it after all.
What I mean is: a common criticism of consumerism as an ethos is that it is only fleetingly satisfying. After all, no sooner have you purchased the latest model of car, say, than you crave the next one. Chasing a concrete object is a doomed quest, because your disappointment is engineered into your lust.
Still. The chase, if it's prolonged in a productive way, can bring a lot of pleasure. I can understand the perils of being able to have anything and everything you want straight away -- King Midas and Co. taught us that pretty well when we were kids. Yet if there's a temporary barrier between you and your chosen object, then perhaps the pleasant time spent imagining its reality is valuable in itself.
Since purchasing the TV -- which I spent several months beforehand mentally placing in a corner of the lounge -- I am now engaged in the same activity with the speaker system. Drawing pictures of speakers in the air has amused me greatly, to the point where I have to remind myself to think of more pressing matters when absolutely necessary.
I understand that I'm channeling intentions and focusing my resources onto hypothetical lumps of wood and plastic. But I'm still letting my imagination roam happily among the always-open, fully-stocked 'On Sale' aisle of the mind.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
MYKI -- Cargo Cult?
I mentioned Cargo Cults on Facebook yesterday, and it got me thinking about the Myki ticketing system. I'm aware that this issue has done its dash as the water-cooler topic du jour, but please indulge me.
Myki could perhaps be usefully thought of as a cargo cult. For those who aren't familiar, the original Cargo Cults of the Melanesian Islands were instigated by people who wanted to spark a repeat of the massive influx of US supplies during WWII.
The people looked back at the circumstances in which supplies were last received, and tried to replicate them precisely. This involved painstakingly setting up 'airfields' -- complete with wooden aeroplanes and an air traffic controller -- which superficially resembled a US Air Force's base. Surely, if the physical circumstances of the original event were replayed, the desired bounty would return.
Everything was perfectly arranged, yet it didn't work. The Cargo Cultists had mistook the outward sign of a phenomenon for the phenomenon itself.
It seems that we're in a similar situation with Myki. Here's my guess: The people who decided to implement the system in the first place must have looked around the world, and saw many excellent public transport systems. Curiously, each of these amazing PT networks also boasted a brand-new, shiny, ticketing system.
It's now probably impossible to know whether someone held a meeting and said: 'If we change the tickets, perhaps the trains will run on time!' I'm sure nobody said it in such bald terms, because they would have been laughed out of the room.
Yet I'm not so sure that it wasn't a large factor. Consider: converting a battered, borderline-dysfunctional PT system into a substantially better one is punishingly hard and expensive. However, rejigging a single component of this system -- unfortunately, the one whose existence is predicated on all the other components functioning perfectly -- is much easier. It's still hard, but nowhere near as gruelling as making substantial improvements to trains, tracks, signals, and all that heavy infrastructure drudgery.
To see this more clearly, stop focusing on whether Myki does or doesn't work, and what you can do on it. It doesn't really matter, because even amazing ticketing systems can only provide marginal improvements to the complex, decaying system which support them. Even if Myki had worked as promised, it would still have represented a massive misallocation of resources -- the equivalent of repainting your house when its foundations have been eaten through by termites.
Thinking back, it's strange that more people didn't find the initial claims made for the system fishier. The information that would be collected, remember, was going to help the operators run things more efficiently. This is a category error, though. Fine-grained information, such as the frequency of passengers at certain times of day, is next to useless if there aren't enough resources (read: rolling stock) to redistribute in the first place.
So next time you're cursing Myki for not reading your ticket properly, don't. Instead, curse it for having been conceived at all.
Myki could perhaps be usefully thought of as a cargo cult. For those who aren't familiar, the original Cargo Cults of the Melanesian Islands were instigated by people who wanted to spark a repeat of the massive influx of US supplies during WWII.
The people looked back at the circumstances in which supplies were last received, and tried to replicate them precisely. This involved painstakingly setting up 'airfields' -- complete with wooden aeroplanes and an air traffic controller -- which superficially resembled a US Air Force's base. Surely, if the physical circumstances of the original event were replayed, the desired bounty would return.
Everything was perfectly arranged, yet it didn't work. The Cargo Cultists had mistook the outward sign of a phenomenon for the phenomenon itself.
It seems that we're in a similar situation with Myki. Here's my guess: The people who decided to implement the system in the first place must have looked around the world, and saw many excellent public transport systems. Curiously, each of these amazing PT networks also boasted a brand-new, shiny, ticketing system.
It's now probably impossible to know whether someone held a meeting and said: 'If we change the tickets, perhaps the trains will run on time!' I'm sure nobody said it in such bald terms, because they would have been laughed out of the room.
Yet I'm not so sure that it wasn't a large factor. Consider: converting a battered, borderline-dysfunctional PT system into a substantially better one is punishingly hard and expensive. However, rejigging a single component of this system -- unfortunately, the one whose existence is predicated on all the other components functioning perfectly -- is much easier. It's still hard, but nowhere near as gruelling as making substantial improvements to trains, tracks, signals, and all that heavy infrastructure drudgery.
To see this more clearly, stop focusing on whether Myki does or doesn't work, and what you can do on it. It doesn't really matter, because even amazing ticketing systems can only provide marginal improvements to the complex, decaying system which support them. Even if Myki had worked as promised, it would still have represented a massive misallocation of resources -- the equivalent of repainting your house when its foundations have been eaten through by termites.
Thinking back, it's strange that more people didn't find the initial claims made for the system fishier. The information that would be collected, remember, was going to help the operators run things more efficiently. This is a category error, though. Fine-grained information, such as the frequency of passengers at certain times of day, is next to useless if there aren't enough resources (read: rolling stock) to redistribute in the first place.
So next time you're cursing Myki for not reading your ticket properly, don't. Instead, curse it for having been conceived at all.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Enforced patting
It's been a long time -- so long, in fact, that I'm not sure whether this blog actually functions anymore. We will see.
I'm starting this sucker up again to encourage me to write stuff down. With luck, the ideas that I'm going to throw around on here will be good fodder for articles eventually, probably published in obscure journals if I'm lucky. However, that should be no obstacle for a writer.
Anyway. Since I last wrote on here several years ago, I've lost one dog (my first) and gained another couple. This piece is based on my thoughts about one of these dogs, named Marlon.
Marlon, like all dogs, enjoys being patted. He's a dog of the 'gently roughing up' school -- nothing too precious. Yet one quirk of his behaviour got me thinking about an important difference between their consciousness and ours.
When I stop patting Marlon, he tries to force his head into the gap between my arm and my body. In other words, he will try and instigate a pat by force. In once sense, this is perfectly understandable: pats are pleasant, and all animals seek to maximise pleasure.
If this action were performed by one human to another, though, it would be profoundly odd. This, of course, is because an affectionate touch between humans only has meaning due to its voluntary nature. The sensation itself is not the point -- a hug, for example, is special not because of the physical sensation it engenders, but because of the feeling behind it.
In order to take pleasure from a hug, one must understand that one is being shown affection by another person. The gesture of a hug represents the recognition of another person as a 'being in itself', rather than a 'being for others'. (I am rusty on Satrean terminology -- if I've got this backwards, I'm sure my non-existent readers will correct me.)
The dog, on the other hand, does not seem to experience me as a self-contained being. True, he understands that I don't always do what he wants me to. To Marlon, I have more autonomy than a plastic toy or a slipper.
But I'm still not fully autonomous for him. The strange feeling that we get when we suddenly think about all the self-contained perspectives that exist in the world doesn't occur for a dog. Judged on Marlon's behaviour, I guess that I don't really exist for Marlon when I'm not standing directly in front of him. From a dog's perspective, humans resemble the radical sceptics' idea of objects: they only really exist when you look at them. After that, you cease to be a part of the dog's universe.
The enforced pat brings this home vividly, because the willingness of me to pat Marlon clearly doesn't enter the equation. It's a strange disjunction. From my perspective, I'm patting Marlon because I'm fond of him. Yet from his perspective, a pat from a patting machine that shared my physical characteristics would do just as well.
When I'm doing the patting, the illusion of two perspectives that recognise and respond to each other is inescapable. Yet as the enforced pat suggests, this may just be a human way of projecting more agency onto the dog than he actually possesses.
I'm starting this sucker up again to encourage me to write stuff down. With luck, the ideas that I'm going to throw around on here will be good fodder for articles eventually, probably published in obscure journals if I'm lucky. However, that should be no obstacle for a writer.
Anyway. Since I last wrote on here several years ago, I've lost one dog (my first) and gained another couple. This piece is based on my thoughts about one of these dogs, named Marlon.
Marlon, like all dogs, enjoys being patted. He's a dog of the 'gently roughing up' school -- nothing too precious. Yet one quirk of his behaviour got me thinking about an important difference between their consciousness and ours.
When I stop patting Marlon, he tries to force his head into the gap between my arm and my body. In other words, he will try and instigate a pat by force. In once sense, this is perfectly understandable: pats are pleasant, and all animals seek to maximise pleasure.
If this action were performed by one human to another, though, it would be profoundly odd. This, of course, is because an affectionate touch between humans only has meaning due to its voluntary nature. The sensation itself is not the point -- a hug, for example, is special not because of the physical sensation it engenders, but because of the feeling behind it.
In order to take pleasure from a hug, one must understand that one is being shown affection by another person. The gesture of a hug represents the recognition of another person as a 'being in itself', rather than a 'being for others'. (I am rusty on Satrean terminology -- if I've got this backwards, I'm sure my non-existent readers will correct me.)
The dog, on the other hand, does not seem to experience me as a self-contained being. True, he understands that I don't always do what he wants me to. To Marlon, I have more autonomy than a plastic toy or a slipper.
But I'm still not fully autonomous for him. The strange feeling that we get when we suddenly think about all the self-contained perspectives that exist in the world doesn't occur for a dog. Judged on Marlon's behaviour, I guess that I don't really exist for Marlon when I'm not standing directly in front of him. From a dog's perspective, humans resemble the radical sceptics' idea of objects: they only really exist when you look at them. After that, you cease to be a part of the dog's universe.
The enforced pat brings this home vividly, because the willingness of me to pat Marlon clearly doesn't enter the equation. It's a strange disjunction. From my perspective, I'm patting Marlon because I'm fond of him. Yet from his perspective, a pat from a patting machine that shared my physical characteristics would do just as well.
When I'm doing the patting, the illusion of two perspectives that recognise and respond to each other is inescapable. Yet as the enforced pat suggests, this may just be a human way of projecting more agency onto the dog than he actually possesses.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Richard Dawkins vs. The Magnificent Robyn Williams Extravaganza!
Dawkins couldn’t get a word in at his own talk, and everything devolved from there.
Robyn Williams is the world’s foremost expert on evolution. Or that’s what it seemed like at Friday night’s discussion, when an uncharacteristically meek Richard Dawkins was swamped by the motor-mouthed, name-dropping, painfully star-struck Radio National host.
The audience – naively under the impression that they were attending a Richard Dawkins lecture – soon realised that the Oxford Don was merely an entree to the main event: Williams, Williams, Williams! In over an hour of 100% structure-free rambling, Williams managed to sabotage all potentially interesting avenues by waxing lyrical about anything – absolutely anything – inhabiting his brain at that moment. Williams on his “mate” Andrew Denton. Williams on how Christians made him mad. Williams on... well, any old crap. There was the odd little chirp from Dawkins, but this was Williams’ night and he wasn’t about to let anyone forget it – least of all an audience who paid to see someone else.
This might not have been a problem if Williams possessed any interviewing skills. However, he proved to be not only appallingly egotistical, but also incapable of asking questions that made sense. They twisted. They turned. They collapsed inward like black holes with self-esteem issues. To make things worse, RW was clueless about most of the audience’s level of background knowledge. Those who expected to hear Dawkins explain evolution’s magnificence with the aid of illuminating examples were instead treated to RW’s screeds about the origins of “messenger RNA” and other esoterica. It was needlessly arcane, but who cared? That awfully clever Robyn Williams chap understood it all perfectly!
To quote a typically incisive RW question: “How did you get through last year, Darwin’s year? Did you get through that alright?” (Subtext: “ol’ buddy ol’ pal?”) RW became so toxically unbearable after a while that I started wondering about totally irrelevant stuff: what’s “self-replicating molecule” in sign language? Where did Dawkins get that snappy suit (Saville Row, surely)? How long did it take to build that kick-arse pipe organ? And (most urgently): when, oh when, will RW shut up for five bloody seconds?
What Dawkins did manage to say was very entertaining, especially when unfairly taken out of context (which he fortunately didn’t have time to provide): “When you cross a male with a female, you don’t get a hermaphrodite”; “If you wanted to breed champion high jumpers, you could do it”; “There might come a time where you can cross a Labradoodle and a Labradoodle and get another Labradoodle”; “God made the venomous eastern groin groper”; “If you had 100 St. Bernards and 100 Chihuahuas, I don’t think you’d see any interbreeding”. Glorious as all this was, I was hoping that Dawkins would get the chance to become more than a surrealist quote generator. But nope.
The closest the night came to a real discussion was when Dawkins tried to come up with an evolutionary explanation for homosexuality. According to Dawkins, homosexuality might have come about because cavemen might have needed some guys who were really crap at hunting to guard the women without wanting to shag them. (This was about as plausible on the stage as it is on the page.)
It was left to question time to salvage the night’s entertainment value, and there were a couple of doozies. My favourite preamble was: “I’m going to ask you a question that I don’t want you to take the wrong way. The question is about giraffes.” The man then asked what we’ve all been dying to know, namely: Why are some giraffes’ necks longer than others? Doesn’t that mean that the cute little giraffes can’t reach the treetops? And doesn’t that therefore disprove evolution? (Ha! Checkmate!) Dawkins despatched the hapless guy by lobbing the following grenade: “There will always be some height of tree that, if you were a little bit taller, you could reach; and if you were a little bit shorter, you couldn’t.”
Damn straight, Richard. That’s what we pay you for!
Robyn Williams is the world’s foremost expert on evolution. Or that’s what it seemed like at Friday night’s discussion, when an uncharacteristically meek Richard Dawkins was swamped by the motor-mouthed, name-dropping, painfully star-struck Radio National host.
The audience – naively under the impression that they were attending a Richard Dawkins lecture – soon realised that the Oxford Don was merely an entree to the main event: Williams, Williams, Williams! In over an hour of 100% structure-free rambling, Williams managed to sabotage all potentially interesting avenues by waxing lyrical about anything – absolutely anything – inhabiting his brain at that moment. Williams on his “mate” Andrew Denton. Williams on how Christians made him mad. Williams on... well, any old crap. There was the odd little chirp from Dawkins, but this was Williams’ night and he wasn’t about to let anyone forget it – least of all an audience who paid to see someone else.
This might not have been a problem if Williams possessed any interviewing skills. However, he proved to be not only appallingly egotistical, but also incapable of asking questions that made sense. They twisted. They turned. They collapsed inward like black holes with self-esteem issues. To make things worse, RW was clueless about most of the audience’s level of background knowledge. Those who expected to hear Dawkins explain evolution’s magnificence with the aid of illuminating examples were instead treated to RW’s screeds about the origins of “messenger RNA” and other esoterica. It was needlessly arcane, but who cared? That awfully clever Robyn Williams chap understood it all perfectly!
To quote a typically incisive RW question: “How did you get through last year, Darwin’s year? Did you get through that alright?” (Subtext: “ol’ buddy ol’ pal?”) RW became so toxically unbearable after a while that I started wondering about totally irrelevant stuff: what’s “self-replicating molecule” in sign language? Where did Dawkins get that snappy suit (Saville Row, surely)? How long did it take to build that kick-arse pipe organ? And (most urgently): when, oh when, will RW shut up for five bloody seconds?
What Dawkins did manage to say was very entertaining, especially when unfairly taken out of context (which he fortunately didn’t have time to provide): “When you cross a male with a female, you don’t get a hermaphrodite”; “If you wanted to breed champion high jumpers, you could do it”; “There might come a time where you can cross a Labradoodle and a Labradoodle and get another Labradoodle”; “God made the venomous eastern groin groper”; “If you had 100 St. Bernards and 100 Chihuahuas, I don’t think you’d see any interbreeding”. Glorious as all this was, I was hoping that Dawkins would get the chance to become more than a surrealist quote generator. But nope.
The closest the night came to a real discussion was when Dawkins tried to come up with an evolutionary explanation for homosexuality. According to Dawkins, homosexuality might have come about because cavemen might have needed some guys who were really crap at hunting to guard the women without wanting to shag them. (This was about as plausible on the stage as it is on the page.)
It was left to question time to salvage the night’s entertainment value, and there were a couple of doozies. My favourite preamble was: “I’m going to ask you a question that I don’t want you to take the wrong way. The question is about giraffes.” The man then asked what we’ve all been dying to know, namely: Why are some giraffes’ necks longer than others? Doesn’t that mean that the cute little giraffes can’t reach the treetops? And doesn’t that therefore disprove evolution? (Ha! Checkmate!) Dawkins despatched the hapless guy by lobbing the following grenade: “There will always be some height of tree that, if you were a little bit taller, you could reach; and if you were a little bit shorter, you couldn’t.”
Damn straight, Richard. That’s what we pay you for!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Mossad Little Story
Scene: Deep inside a top-secret Mossad training camp, a LEADER is talking to two SOLDIERS.
SOLDIER #1: ...it’s just not working anymore. People recognise me when I go down the street. I buy a litre of milk and the guy at the counter’s, like ‘hey, did ya whack Mohammed whatsisname yet?’
SOLDIER #2: Yeah – I thought we were meant to be, you know, a secret assassination service.
SOLDIER #1: And whose idea was that nude Mossad calendar, anyway? I can’t face my mother-in-law after that. She keeps glancing at my –
LEADER: Sorry, sorry. We were running low on funds and –
SOLDIER #2: It’s the principle of the thing. I shot a guy in an elevator last week and he made kissy-faces at me before he hit the floor in a pool of his own blood. It was embarrassing for both of us. And my daughter only sold ten packets in the Mossad lamington drive. Who thinks of this stuff?
SOLDIER #1: Yeah. We’re just not as secret as we used to be. I was out with my wife in Tel Aviv last month seeing Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Mossad!, and –
SOLDIER #2: Oh, cool – how was it?
SOLDER #1: Great. Steve Martin did an awesome Netanyahu. But Omar Sharif as Arafat? Ham. Anyway, the whole cast clapped me at the end. I was stage-whispering: “secret service! secret service, remember?” – but they just weren’t listening. I’m telling ya: fame’s a double-edged –
LEADER: Ok, ok, point taken. We’ve got a whole raft of new tactics to implement, and –
SOLDIER #2: Don’t give me that management talk. I thought the whole deal was going to be, like, all exciting espionage-type stuff, with grappling hooks and all. This is nothing like that Spielberg movie: there were no porta-loos in that. This is the worst training camp ever.
LEADER: Just listen. This is the next generation of disguises. How would you feel about becoming a citizen of a country so utterly insignificant that most of the world is utterly unaware of its existence?
SOLDIER #1: Canada?
LEADER: Better, much better. Somewhere a million miles from bugger-all. [He upends a cardboard box on the desk. The contents spill out, including two Akubras, two Driza-bones and two pairs of R M Williams boots. The two soldiers gaze in awe.]
SOLDIER #2: That is just –
SOLIDER #1: Brilliant. Utter brilliance. Where did you get all this stuff?
LEADER: Someone left them in the storeroom of their Parliament House for some reason. [Shrugs]. Here are your passports.
SOLDIER #1: Awesome, that’s – wait. You stole me a woman’s passport? Oh, for f**k’s sake.
LEADER: Look, it’s not like we can go in to the airport cafe and say “Oh hello, I’m a Mossad agent, can I please have a soy latte and some passports, please?” Always such ungratefulness!
[Soldiers look at each other in utter disgust.]
LEADER: We can change the photos later, or you could grow your hair a bit
SOLDIER #2: I always thought you’d look good with tits anyway. [Sniggers. SOLDIER #1 punches him.]
LEADER: We thought very carefully about this. It’s a country with worldwide cultural invisibility: the perfect crime. It’s incredible, actually – their Minister for the Arts used to be a rock star! [All laugh]
SOLDIER #1: But that’s impossible. Surely they have, you know, a national cuisine or something?
LEADER: Nup. They ripped it off...wait for it...the English! [LEADER and SOLDIERS erupt into laughter for 5-10 minutes.] No, quieten down, boys, I’m serious. It took them one hundred and fifty years to realise how badly English food sucked.
SOLDIER #2: So what did they do then?
LEADER: They ripped it off everyone else – including us.
SOLDIER #1: The bastards. So how do they talk? Do we need to learn how to speak like them, too?
LEADER: I have taken the liberty of learning their, um, ‘dialect’. [Looks at sheet] Please listen to the following sample sentence and repeat. “Daryl went to a B&S in his lowered Torana. Met a sheila and got a root. Drank shitloads of tinnies and had a prang. Pigs went ballistic. It was a total balls-up.”
SOLDIER #2: And that refers to – ?
LEADER: Mating, gustatory and legal mores.
SOLDIER #1: Wow. I really don’t think I could learn that much in such a short –
SOLDIER #2 [looking at the sheet]: Belt up, mate. Cop it on the chin.
LEADER: That’s the spirit! Soldier #1, why can’t you be more like soldier #2?
SOLDIER #1: There’s something that bugs me about this.
LEADER: Yes?
SOLDIER #1: Aren’t they sort of our...allies? I mean, don’t they just say ‘go for it!’, whatever we do?
LEADER: Yeah, so?
SOLDIER #1: So, why are we stealing their passports and all? Isn’t that, well, mean?
LEADER: Don’t worry: their Government won’t do anything about it.
SOLDIER #1 Ok. [Looking at sheet, speaking hesitantly]: Blood-y...rip-per?
LEADER: That’s the spirit!
SOLDIER #1: ...it’s just not working anymore. People recognise me when I go down the street. I buy a litre of milk and the guy at the counter’s, like ‘hey, did ya whack Mohammed whatsisname yet?’
SOLDIER #2: Yeah – I thought we were meant to be, you know, a secret assassination service.
SOLDIER #1: And whose idea was that nude Mossad calendar, anyway? I can’t face my mother-in-law after that. She keeps glancing at my –
LEADER: Sorry, sorry. We were running low on funds and –
SOLDIER #2: It’s the principle of the thing. I shot a guy in an elevator last week and he made kissy-faces at me before he hit the floor in a pool of his own blood. It was embarrassing for both of us. And my daughter only sold ten packets in the Mossad lamington drive. Who thinks of this stuff?
SOLDIER #1: Yeah. We’re just not as secret as we used to be. I was out with my wife in Tel Aviv last month seeing Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Mossad!, and –
SOLDIER #2: Oh, cool – how was it?
SOLDER #1: Great. Steve Martin did an awesome Netanyahu. But Omar Sharif as Arafat? Ham. Anyway, the whole cast clapped me at the end. I was stage-whispering: “secret service! secret service, remember?” – but they just weren’t listening. I’m telling ya: fame’s a double-edged –
LEADER: Ok, ok, point taken. We’ve got a whole raft of new tactics to implement, and –
SOLDIER #2: Don’t give me that management talk. I thought the whole deal was going to be, like, all exciting espionage-type stuff, with grappling hooks and all. This is nothing like that Spielberg movie: there were no porta-loos in that. This is the worst training camp ever.
LEADER: Just listen. This is the next generation of disguises. How would you feel about becoming a citizen of a country so utterly insignificant that most of the world is utterly unaware of its existence?
SOLDIER #1: Canada?
LEADER: Better, much better. Somewhere a million miles from bugger-all. [He upends a cardboard box on the desk. The contents spill out, including two Akubras, two Driza-bones and two pairs of R M Williams boots. The two soldiers gaze in awe.]
SOLDIER #2: That is just –
SOLIDER #1: Brilliant. Utter brilliance. Where did you get all this stuff?
LEADER: Someone left them in the storeroom of their Parliament House for some reason. [Shrugs]. Here are your passports.
SOLDIER #1: Awesome, that’s – wait. You stole me a woman’s passport? Oh, for f**k’s sake.
LEADER: Look, it’s not like we can go in to the airport cafe and say “Oh hello, I’m a Mossad agent, can I please have a soy latte and some passports, please?” Always such ungratefulness!
[Soldiers look at each other in utter disgust.]
LEADER: We can change the photos later, or you could grow your hair a bit
SOLDIER #2: I always thought you’d look good with tits anyway. [Sniggers. SOLDIER #1 punches him.]
LEADER: We thought very carefully about this. It’s a country with worldwide cultural invisibility: the perfect crime. It’s incredible, actually – their Minister for the Arts used to be a rock star! [All laugh]
SOLDIER #1: But that’s impossible. Surely they have, you know, a national cuisine or something?
LEADER: Nup. They ripped it off...wait for it...the English! [LEADER and SOLDIERS erupt into laughter for 5-10 minutes.] No, quieten down, boys, I’m serious. It took them one hundred and fifty years to realise how badly English food sucked.
SOLDIER #2: So what did they do then?
LEADER: They ripped it off everyone else – including us.
SOLDIER #1: The bastards. So how do they talk? Do we need to learn how to speak like them, too?
LEADER: I have taken the liberty of learning their, um, ‘dialect’. [Looks at sheet] Please listen to the following sample sentence and repeat. “Daryl went to a B&S in his lowered Torana. Met a sheila and got a root. Drank shitloads of tinnies and had a prang. Pigs went ballistic. It was a total balls-up.”
SOLDIER #2: And that refers to – ?
LEADER: Mating, gustatory and legal mores.
SOLDIER #1: Wow. I really don’t think I could learn that much in such a short –
SOLDIER #2 [looking at the sheet]: Belt up, mate. Cop it on the chin.
LEADER: That’s the spirit! Soldier #1, why can’t you be more like soldier #2?
SOLDIER #1: There’s something that bugs me about this.
LEADER: Yes?
SOLDIER #1: Aren’t they sort of our...allies? I mean, don’t they just say ‘go for it!’, whatever we do?
LEADER: Yeah, so?
SOLDIER #1: So, why are we stealing their passports and all? Isn’t that, well, mean?
LEADER: Don’t worry: their Government won’t do anything about it.
SOLDIER #1 Ok. [Looking at sheet, speaking hesitantly]: Blood-y...rip-per?
LEADER: That’s the spirit!
The ASIO Connection
Scene: KEVIN RUDD is delivering a press release about the new refugee measures.
RUDD: ...and so it’s ‘no more Mr. Nice Guy’. These imposters don’t stand a chance. We’ll throw the book at them. This is our finest hour. [Pause] Alrighty then, folks! [Cheerfully] Any questions?
REPORTER 1: Mr Rudd, do you really think it’s appropriate sending ASIO crack forces to spy on defenceless people who desperately need our help?
RUDD: More than appropriate. It’s fantastic.
REPORTER 1: What do you mean, ‘fantastic’?
RUDD: For the economy. This will cost the taxpayer an absolute bucketload.
REPORTER 1: But...isn’t that a bad thing?
RUDD: No: it’s all part of the stimulus.
REPORTER 1: How does that work, exactly?
RUDD: We throw stacks of your money at useless stuff. The more useless the better!
REPORTER 1: Yes, but...
RUDD: And that gives us stacks more money to buy lots more useless stuff from other countries. And then they buy even more useless stuff from us. Round we go! It’s a great system – have you not read Keynes? [Pause] Oh, you simply must. Hilarious guy! [Chuckles, then quickly assumes sober face] For further details, I refer you to my essay in –
REPORTER 1: Uh, that’s ok, thanks.
RUDD: Anyone else?
REPORTER 2: But isn’t the whole motion highly unethical?
RUDD: Everything that we do is ethical. [Smiles benevolently while interlocking fingers together in ‘joining’ motion.] Absolutely everything. We’re the ALP: the party of the people. Of you and me. Us.
REPORTER 2: The more cynical among us would say that you’re trying to repeat Howard’s trick of demonising refugees for your own political gain.
RUDD: Well, that simply isn’t true. I don’t even like cricket.
REPORTER 2: Does the phrase, “We decide the people who come into this country and the circumstances in which we come” ring a bell?
RUDD: This is totally different. Gee whiz, folks!
REPORTER 2: So why ASIO?
RUDD: They are among our greatest Australians. [Under breath]: Those reffos should be grateful. [Aloud]: We look forward to a co-synergetic relationship evolving between these two valuable communities.
REPORTER 2: Are you worried about the fact that ASIO are notoriously inept?
RUDD: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
[The meeting is interrupted by an ASIO operative descending from the ceiling on a rope. He is wearing a burglar’s mask and a black-and-white striped shirt.]
ASIO OPERATIVE: K-man! [Attempts complicated secret handshake, which is rebuffed by a frostily unreceptive RUDD.] Whaddaya think of the new uniform? [Modestly] Designed by moi, natch.
RUDD: Roger, this is not an appropriate time.
ASIO OPERATIVE: Sorry. Could you offer your advice on a...certain departmental matter?
RUDD: Well, I suppose this might be a good opportunity to discuss this complex new policy at a valuable public forum.
ASIO OPERATIVE: Totally. I have, uh, several alternative policy outcomes I would like you to examine.
RUDD: Well, ok. As long as it’s strictly related.
ASIO OPERATIVE: [Excitedly opening a packet of false moustaches]. Oh, I love this. This is awesome.
RUDD: I don’t see how this is –
ASIO OPERATIVE: Ok. Ok. Which one do you like the best? [Rapidly puts on each moustache in turn.] Curly? Bushy? Straight? Hitler? Strongman? Walrus?
RUDD: You’re wearing fake moustaches on board refugee boats?
ASIO OPERATIVE [nervously]: Yeah. [Long pause.] Uh, isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing? [Pause.] Does that mean we have to ditch the tea-towels as well?
RUDD [hurriedly]: What have you found out?
ASIO OPERATIVE: So far, our reconnaissance missions have revealed lots and lots of important facts.
RUDD: Facts? What facts?
ASIO OPERATIVE [changing subject]: Hey, look: my pen turns into a flick-knife. Cool, eh?
RUDD: Please. Discuss your findings to the gallery.
ASIO OPERATIVE: OK. All on the QT, mind.
RUDD: Of course.
ASIO OPERATIVE: Well – for starters, they’re pretty skinny.
RUDD: Whom?
ASIO OPERATIVE: The terrorists, of course!
RUDD: Refugees. Call them refugees, Steven.
ASIO OPERATIVE: You said that they would blow the place sky-high if we let ‘em off the boat.
RUDD: That’s enough. What else?
ASIO OPERATIVE: A lot have scary beards. And a high proportion of them seem to come from...
RUDD [eagerly]: Yes?
ASIO OPERATIVE: Overseas.
RUDD: ‘Most’?
ASIO OPERATIVE: Well, some of them were from Australia. [Long pause] Actually, now I think about it, all the ones from Australia were ASIO operatives.
RUDD: Anything else?
ASIO OPERATIVE: Yes. Something very important. There’s a serious problem at Christmas Island.
RUDD: A riot?
ASIO OPERATIVE: Worse. Much worse.
RUDD: How could it be worse?
ASIO OPERATIVE [in stage whisper]: Santa’s gone missing. [Long silence]. There is a Santa, isn’t there? [Longer silence].
RUDD: Well...
ASIO OPERATIVE [crestfallen]: Worst. Day. Ever. [He shimmies up the rope and disappears into ceiling cavity, leaving RUDD alone on stage.]
RUDD: ...and so it’s ‘no more Mr. Nice Guy’. These imposters don’t stand a chance. We’ll throw the book at them. This is our finest hour. [Pause] Alrighty then, folks! [Cheerfully] Any questions?
REPORTER 1: Mr Rudd, do you really think it’s appropriate sending ASIO crack forces to spy on defenceless people who desperately need our help?
RUDD: More than appropriate. It’s fantastic.
REPORTER 1: What do you mean, ‘fantastic’?
RUDD: For the economy. This will cost the taxpayer an absolute bucketload.
REPORTER 1: But...isn’t that a bad thing?
RUDD: No: it’s all part of the stimulus.
REPORTER 1: How does that work, exactly?
RUDD: We throw stacks of your money at useless stuff. The more useless the better!
REPORTER 1: Yes, but...
RUDD: And that gives us stacks more money to buy lots more useless stuff from other countries. And then they buy even more useless stuff from us. Round we go! It’s a great system – have you not read Keynes? [Pause] Oh, you simply must. Hilarious guy! [Chuckles, then quickly assumes sober face] For further details, I refer you to my essay in –
REPORTER 1: Uh, that’s ok, thanks.
RUDD: Anyone else?
REPORTER 2: But isn’t the whole motion highly unethical?
RUDD: Everything that we do is ethical. [Smiles benevolently while interlocking fingers together in ‘joining’ motion.] Absolutely everything. We’re the ALP: the party of the people. Of you and me. Us.
REPORTER 2: The more cynical among us would say that you’re trying to repeat Howard’s trick of demonising refugees for your own political gain.
RUDD: Well, that simply isn’t true. I don’t even like cricket.
REPORTER 2: Does the phrase, “We decide the people who come into this country and the circumstances in which we come” ring a bell?
RUDD: This is totally different. Gee whiz, folks!
REPORTER 2: So why ASIO?
RUDD: They are among our greatest Australians. [Under breath]: Those reffos should be grateful. [Aloud]: We look forward to a co-synergetic relationship evolving between these two valuable communities.
REPORTER 2: Are you worried about the fact that ASIO are notoriously inept?
RUDD: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
[The meeting is interrupted by an ASIO operative descending from the ceiling on a rope. He is wearing a burglar’s mask and a black-and-white striped shirt.]
ASIO OPERATIVE: K-man! [Attempts complicated secret handshake, which is rebuffed by a frostily unreceptive RUDD.] Whaddaya think of the new uniform? [Modestly] Designed by moi, natch.
RUDD: Roger, this is not an appropriate time.
ASIO OPERATIVE: Sorry. Could you offer your advice on a...certain departmental matter?
RUDD: Well, I suppose this might be a good opportunity to discuss this complex new policy at a valuable public forum.
ASIO OPERATIVE: Totally. I have, uh, several alternative policy outcomes I would like you to examine.
RUDD: Well, ok. As long as it’s strictly related.
ASIO OPERATIVE: [Excitedly opening a packet of false moustaches]. Oh, I love this. This is awesome.
RUDD: I don’t see how this is –
ASIO OPERATIVE: Ok. Ok. Which one do you like the best? [Rapidly puts on each moustache in turn.] Curly? Bushy? Straight? Hitler? Strongman? Walrus?
RUDD: You’re wearing fake moustaches on board refugee boats?
ASIO OPERATIVE [nervously]: Yeah. [Long pause.] Uh, isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing? [Pause.] Does that mean we have to ditch the tea-towels as well?
RUDD [hurriedly]: What have you found out?
ASIO OPERATIVE: So far, our reconnaissance missions have revealed lots and lots of important facts.
RUDD: Facts? What facts?
ASIO OPERATIVE [changing subject]: Hey, look: my pen turns into a flick-knife. Cool, eh?
RUDD: Please. Discuss your findings to the gallery.
ASIO OPERATIVE: OK. All on the QT, mind.
RUDD: Of course.
ASIO OPERATIVE: Well – for starters, they’re pretty skinny.
RUDD: Whom?
ASIO OPERATIVE: The terrorists, of course!
RUDD: Refugees. Call them refugees, Steven.
ASIO OPERATIVE: You said that they would blow the place sky-high if we let ‘em off the boat.
RUDD: That’s enough. What else?
ASIO OPERATIVE: A lot have scary beards. And a high proportion of them seem to come from...
RUDD [eagerly]: Yes?
ASIO OPERATIVE: Overseas.
RUDD: ‘Most’?
ASIO OPERATIVE: Well, some of them were from Australia. [Long pause] Actually, now I think about it, all the ones from Australia were ASIO operatives.
RUDD: Anything else?
ASIO OPERATIVE: Yes. Something very important. There’s a serious problem at Christmas Island.
RUDD: A riot?
ASIO OPERATIVE: Worse. Much worse.
RUDD: How could it be worse?
ASIO OPERATIVE [in stage whisper]: Santa’s gone missing. [Long silence]. There is a Santa, isn’t there? [Longer silence].
RUDD: Well...
ASIO OPERATIVE [crestfallen]: Worst. Day. Ever. [He shimmies up the rope and disappears into ceiling cavity, leaving RUDD alone on stage.]
Cabinet Reshuffle
Scene: A Liberal Party ‘cabinet reshuffle’ meeting. In attendance are ABBOT, BISHOP and JOYCE.
ABBOTT: Now, we’re all here to talk openly. This isn’t the Labor Party, you know, where the leader –
JOYCE: – Shut up, Tony.
ABBOTT: Sorry, Barnaby.
JOYCE: This meeting is eye-poppingly redundant, a point which I will demonstrate by popping my eyes out of their sockets and subsequently reinserting them. I am – quite literally – gobsmacked that such a ridiculous meeting is occurring right now.
ABBOTT: I don’t think you mean literally –
JOYCE: – Enough, college boy. Not all our mummies were flush enough to send us to Ye Olde Oxford Towne. [Sniggers bitterly].
ABBOTT: Barnaby, Julie has something important she wants to say. First, though, Julie, could you be a dear and iron this –
BISHOP: No, Tony. [Glares at him with utterly inhuman coldness and ferocious intensity.] I. Wish. To. Speak.
ABBOTT [wincing]: Meee-owww!
BISHOP: What has recently occurred is deeply unfair.
ABBOTT [in a professional tone]: Now we’re making progress. Why, Julia?
BISHOP: Because Barnaby gets to be Finance spokesman and I don’t.
ABBOTT [patronisingly, soothingly]: But you’re Deputy Leader, Julia. That’s the second most important position in the whole wide world. What more do you want? You’d get to be leader of the party if I ever went under a....truck.
[There is total silence. Abbott’s face turns ashen as he contemplates this possible future.] Of course, you could choose a more, well, ‘traditional’ portfolio.
BISHOP [sulkily]: Like what, Tony?
ABBOTT: Well, you could be minister for whaling prohibition, for example.
BISHOP: We don’t have a minister for whaling prohibition.
ABBOTT: We can make one! [Quietly]: That’d stop the sun from shining out of Bob Brown’s –
JOYCE [seething]: – The only proper place for a whale is in a fucking tuna can.
ABBOTT [agitated]: Barnaby, please. At least try to cooperate.
JOYCE [muttering]: Chowing down on those giant useless grey water-loving bastards is pretty much the only thing the Japs’ve done right since WWII.
ABBOTT: That’s enough. You just can’t say things like that anymore.
JOYCE: You thought it was piss-funny before –
ABBOTT: – I became leader. Julie?
BISHOP: Barnaby doesn’t know the first thing about economics.
JOYCE: I was an accountant before I came to this dump, Julie. You might not have heard of us: we eff about with bloody complicated numbers all day and make ‘em add up, whether they like it or not.
BISHOP: Running a country’s economy isn’t like running a household budget, Barnaby.
JOYCE: Too right it is! When my kids waste their pocket money on crap, I send ‘em to their rooms. So when Kev pisses my money away on total crap, I –
ABBOTT: Not total crap, Barnaby: climate change is total crap, remember. Except when we’re speaking in public. Then it’s –
JOYCE [mockingly]: – ‘the greatest human challenge of our time’, yeah. I read your brown paper about it.
ABBOTT [incensed]: It was a white paper, Barnaby.
JOYCE: Not after I wiped my arse on it. [Laughs uproariously while vigorously nudging Abbott.] Your Uncle Kevvie won’t let you say stuff like that anymore, Tony Boy, will ‘e? That mongrel’s got yer balls pickled in a jar beside his –
BISHOP: – I really don’t appreciate that kind of hyper-masculine language, Barnaby. And besides, we’ve both seen plenty of Tony’s –
ABBOTT [flustered]: – That’s quite enough from both of you. Julie, Barnaby knows plenty about economics: watch this. Now, Barnaby, if you have 5 oranges and I take 3 oranges, how many oranges do you have?
JOYCE: Hands off my fucking oranges, you grasping Bolshevik bastard.
ABBOTT [wearily]: It’s only a theoretical problem, Barnaby. We discussed this, remember? Nobody’s going to take your oranges.
JOYCE: You’re just like the other mob. Bleeding me white. Sucking me dry. Taking my oranges and giving them to Japanese refugees.
ABBOTT: Our refugees don’t come from –
JOYCE: Whose side are you on, anyway? All I know is my oranges are gone and now I’m bloody hungry. I know the other mob are saying that I can’t tell my squillions from my zillions. Fine. The important thing is, they’re both bloody big numbers, and there’s one thing I do know.
ABBOTT: Oh? What’s that?
JOYCE: Ten hap’orth farthings’ worth of bloody oranges won’t cover more than three pissteenths of a bushel of twice-fathomed acreage. Not within a bee’s franger – especially when the barometer’s dropped clean under threescore bars!
[ABBOTT and BISHOP glance at each other worriedly].
JOYCE: That’s real maths. For real men. Bloody metric system made everyone soft in the head. Kids don’t know how to count without taking their electric arithmicators out of their baggy pockets. Pants down round their arses of course. As usual.
BISHOP: This is what I’m talking about, Tony. Barnaby clearly presents us with a PR liability.
ABBOTT [grave]: Julia.
BISHOP: Yes, Tony?
ABBOTT: Do you remember when you were finance minister?
BISHOP: Oh, yes. I learned...so much that week.
ABBOTT: Yes. But what did you actually achieve?
BISHOP [fishing crumpled diagram out of pocket]: I educated the public about the fiscal benefits of the Laffer Curve.
JOYCE: Pointy-headed crap –
ABBOTT: Give it a chance, Barnaby. [Hesitantly]. Ah yes, the ‘Laffer Curve’. Remind me, Julia?
BISHOP [increasingly confident]: Well, the ‘Laffer Curve’ is a mathematical formulation that dictates the inverse relation between taxation and revenue.
ABBOTT [intrigued, despite himself]: The inverse relation?
BISHOP [in schoolmarmish tone]: Yes. You see, Tony, if you tax rich people, they get angry.
ABBOTT: Ah.
BISHOP: And if you give all the rich people’s money to lazy poor people, they get even lazier!
ABBOTT: Right-oh. [To self]: All single mothers, no doubt.
BISHOP: The rich get too angry to make the money. The poor get too lazy to do the work. And we get –
JOYCE: – screwed, I’ll bet. Bloody poor can’t get lazier than they are already, if you ask me. Sponging little parasite Whitlamites sitting in their raggedy jackets drinking Chai Teas off scummy little saucers –
ABBOTT: Shhh, Barnaby. Go on, Julie. What’s the alternative to taxing the rich?
BISHOP [beaming]: We must let the magnificent businesspeople of this nation replenish the coffers of plenty with their overflowing bounty of beneficent public generosity and charity.
ABBOTT: So we stop taxing them?
BISHOP: Yes.
ABBOTT: And we’ll get lots of money out of this?
BISHOP: Oh, lots. It’s all been worked out by people in America!
ABBOTT: What about the poor?
BISHOP: The Laffer Curve will instil them with the cleansing desire to be absolutely all that they can be!
ABBOTT: By taking away their food stamps?
BISHOP: Of course, Tony. The Laffer Curve therefore increases State revenue as well as delivering the priceless gifts of spiritual and moral victory to the less ‘achievement-inclined’ among us.
ABBOTT: Now that’s the kind of Christian charity I can relate to. You’re re-hired, Julie. [Long pause.] Barnaby?
JOYCE [awkwardly]: Yes?
ABBOTT: Give me back my wallet.
ABBOTT: Now, we’re all here to talk openly. This isn’t the Labor Party, you know, where the leader –
JOYCE: – Shut up, Tony.
ABBOTT: Sorry, Barnaby.
JOYCE: This meeting is eye-poppingly redundant, a point which I will demonstrate by popping my eyes out of their sockets and subsequently reinserting them. I am – quite literally – gobsmacked that such a ridiculous meeting is occurring right now.
ABBOTT: I don’t think you mean literally –
JOYCE: – Enough, college boy. Not all our mummies were flush enough to send us to Ye Olde Oxford Towne. [Sniggers bitterly].
ABBOTT: Barnaby, Julie has something important she wants to say. First, though, Julie, could you be a dear and iron this –
BISHOP: No, Tony. [Glares at him with utterly inhuman coldness and ferocious intensity.] I. Wish. To. Speak.
ABBOTT [wincing]: Meee-owww!
BISHOP: What has recently occurred is deeply unfair.
ABBOTT [in a professional tone]: Now we’re making progress. Why, Julia?
BISHOP: Because Barnaby gets to be Finance spokesman and I don’t.
ABBOTT [patronisingly, soothingly]: But you’re Deputy Leader, Julia. That’s the second most important position in the whole wide world. What more do you want? You’d get to be leader of the party if I ever went under a....truck.
[There is total silence. Abbott’s face turns ashen as he contemplates this possible future.] Of course, you could choose a more, well, ‘traditional’ portfolio.
BISHOP [sulkily]: Like what, Tony?
ABBOTT: Well, you could be minister for whaling prohibition, for example.
BISHOP: We don’t have a minister for whaling prohibition.
ABBOTT: We can make one! [Quietly]: That’d stop the sun from shining out of Bob Brown’s –
JOYCE [seething]: – The only proper place for a whale is in a fucking tuna can.
ABBOTT [agitated]: Barnaby, please. At least try to cooperate.
JOYCE [muttering]: Chowing down on those giant useless grey water-loving bastards is pretty much the only thing the Japs’ve done right since WWII.
ABBOTT: That’s enough. You just can’t say things like that anymore.
JOYCE: You thought it was piss-funny before –
ABBOTT: – I became leader. Julie?
BISHOP: Barnaby doesn’t know the first thing about economics.
JOYCE: I was an accountant before I came to this dump, Julie. You might not have heard of us: we eff about with bloody complicated numbers all day and make ‘em add up, whether they like it or not.
BISHOP: Running a country’s economy isn’t like running a household budget, Barnaby.
JOYCE: Too right it is! When my kids waste their pocket money on crap, I send ‘em to their rooms. So when Kev pisses my money away on total crap, I –
ABBOTT: Not total crap, Barnaby: climate change is total crap, remember. Except when we’re speaking in public. Then it’s –
JOYCE [mockingly]: – ‘the greatest human challenge of our time’, yeah. I read your brown paper about it.
ABBOTT [incensed]: It was a white paper, Barnaby.
JOYCE: Not after I wiped my arse on it. [Laughs uproariously while vigorously nudging Abbott.] Your Uncle Kevvie won’t let you say stuff like that anymore, Tony Boy, will ‘e? That mongrel’s got yer balls pickled in a jar beside his –
BISHOP: – I really don’t appreciate that kind of hyper-masculine language, Barnaby. And besides, we’ve both seen plenty of Tony’s –
ABBOTT [flustered]: – That’s quite enough from both of you. Julie, Barnaby knows plenty about economics: watch this. Now, Barnaby, if you have 5 oranges and I take 3 oranges, how many oranges do you have?
JOYCE: Hands off my fucking oranges, you grasping Bolshevik bastard.
ABBOTT [wearily]: It’s only a theoretical problem, Barnaby. We discussed this, remember? Nobody’s going to take your oranges.
JOYCE: You’re just like the other mob. Bleeding me white. Sucking me dry. Taking my oranges and giving them to Japanese refugees.
ABBOTT: Our refugees don’t come from –
JOYCE: Whose side are you on, anyway? All I know is my oranges are gone and now I’m bloody hungry. I know the other mob are saying that I can’t tell my squillions from my zillions. Fine. The important thing is, they’re both bloody big numbers, and there’s one thing I do know.
ABBOTT: Oh? What’s that?
JOYCE: Ten hap’orth farthings’ worth of bloody oranges won’t cover more than three pissteenths of a bushel of twice-fathomed acreage. Not within a bee’s franger – especially when the barometer’s dropped clean under threescore bars!
[ABBOTT and BISHOP glance at each other worriedly].
JOYCE: That’s real maths. For real men. Bloody metric system made everyone soft in the head. Kids don’t know how to count without taking their electric arithmicators out of their baggy pockets. Pants down round their arses of course. As usual.
BISHOP: This is what I’m talking about, Tony. Barnaby clearly presents us with a PR liability.
ABBOTT [grave]: Julia.
BISHOP: Yes, Tony?
ABBOTT: Do you remember when you were finance minister?
BISHOP: Oh, yes. I learned...so much that week.
ABBOTT: Yes. But what did you actually achieve?
BISHOP [fishing crumpled diagram out of pocket]: I educated the public about the fiscal benefits of the Laffer Curve.
JOYCE: Pointy-headed crap –
ABBOTT: Give it a chance, Barnaby. [Hesitantly]. Ah yes, the ‘Laffer Curve’. Remind me, Julia?
BISHOP [increasingly confident]: Well, the ‘Laffer Curve’ is a mathematical formulation that dictates the inverse relation between taxation and revenue.
ABBOTT [intrigued, despite himself]: The inverse relation?
BISHOP [in schoolmarmish tone]: Yes. You see, Tony, if you tax rich people, they get angry.
ABBOTT: Ah.
BISHOP: And if you give all the rich people’s money to lazy poor people, they get even lazier!
ABBOTT: Right-oh. [To self]: All single mothers, no doubt.
BISHOP: The rich get too angry to make the money. The poor get too lazy to do the work. And we get –
JOYCE: – screwed, I’ll bet. Bloody poor can’t get lazier than they are already, if you ask me. Sponging little parasite Whitlamites sitting in their raggedy jackets drinking Chai Teas off scummy little saucers –
ABBOTT: Shhh, Barnaby. Go on, Julie. What’s the alternative to taxing the rich?
BISHOP [beaming]: We must let the magnificent businesspeople of this nation replenish the coffers of plenty with their overflowing bounty of beneficent public generosity and charity.
ABBOTT: So we stop taxing them?
BISHOP: Yes.
ABBOTT: And we’ll get lots of money out of this?
BISHOP: Oh, lots. It’s all been worked out by people in America!
ABBOTT: What about the poor?
BISHOP: The Laffer Curve will instil them with the cleansing desire to be absolutely all that they can be!
ABBOTT: By taking away their food stamps?
BISHOP: Of course, Tony. The Laffer Curve therefore increases State revenue as well as delivering the priceless gifts of spiritual and moral victory to the less ‘achievement-inclined’ among us.
ABBOTT: Now that’s the kind of Christian charity I can relate to. You’re re-hired, Julie. [Long pause.] Barnaby?
JOYCE [awkwardly]: Yes?
ABBOTT: Give me back my wallet.
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