Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the November 24 Good News Week Election Day Special. Please imagine for one last time that John Howard is the Prime Minister, and that the election results had not yet come through. These jokes were all told hours out from that beautiful, sweet moment of victory on November 24, and some of these jokes went out of date as soon as the election results came in.
It’s been a big last week of the campaign with all the candidates making their last pleas to voters. Natalie announcing her version of “Here I Am”, and in a classic case of me-tooism, Matt also pledging to do the exact same song if he is elected Australian Idol.
The campaign kicked off with the Leaders Debate controversy. John Howard said he didn’t like the worm and wanted it banned. I think the worm is great. I love the worm. I think the worm should be Prime Minister. Oh wait…he already is.
The campaign started out nasty with the Liberals’ ad revealing that 70% of Labor’s front bench are former Union workers, and another Labor ad revealing that 70% of the Liberals’ front bench are current day f**kwits. In addition to revelaing Labor’s Union links, the Liberals put out equally surprising revelations that kevin Rudd wears glasses and that Peter garret is a sellout. As well as revealing the 70% scary ex-Unionists, the Libs revealed that the remaining 30% of Labor are made up of vampires, bogeymen and bunyips.
On day 2 of the campaign Deputy PM Mark Vaille went pig trapping.. the question is how many politicians did he catch?
The campaign trail has been the Road to Damascus for both sides of politics. John Howard announced he’s in favour of reconciliation, of treating global warming, and Kevin Rudd even announcing that Labor now agrees with keeping budgets in surplus. He said they intend to do this by keeping the best people working around him...but Peter Costello said he wouldn’t work for a Labor Government.
But the big vision from the political parties for Australia’s long term future? Tax cuts in next year’s budget! Let’s have a look at the various tax policies:
The Coalition are aiming towards a no tax society, except for the tax that goes to essential things for running a society, like politicians’ salaries, politicians’ cars and payouts for CEOs.
Labor announced tax cuts for anyone who buys a laptop with the Liberals’ tax policy and a copy paste function.
The Democrats announced tax cuts for any journalist who’s prepared to mention them in an article.
In local news, Jindalee State School newsletter reports that the Student Representative Council has failed to raise enough money from its recent lamington drive. The Howard Government announced it would intervene and take over the student body’s lamington drives from then on.
After revelations of a heart transplant for Kevin Rudd, it was revealed that he also had a transplant for the part of his brain responsible for policy. The donor remains anonymous, but they do know that the donor is 67 years old, has big bushy eyebrows, wears glasses and lives in Bennelong.
John Howard announced that if he wins the next election, he will retire during the next term. I’ve never voted Liberal before, but that’s the best reason I’ve had to start yet. Howard’s promise has meant that all those voters who want a younger, less conservative Prime Minister than John Howard are going to have to vote Liberal.
Tony Abbott had the week from Hell mid-election, swearing at Nicola Roxon, running late to a debate and accusing asbestos victim Bernie Bantum of just making a media stunt. Abbott said he thinks James Hardie are on the right track. We will get our $34 billion of tax cuts, he’s just going to wait til we die first.
Over the course of the campaign we’ve seen many promises.
Rudd announced his new health policy featuring a much bigger budget for cotton buds and ear cleaning fluid to be placed on the PBS.
Both parties announced policies for old age pensioners that will see them earning $1.69 a week more..just enough to buy half a pack of haemarrhoid cream each.
Kevin Rudd called on John Howard to save money by not holding an election, and just use whatever results Newspoll happens to come up with.
Kevin Andrews denied that the Liberals’ sudden panicced rush of refugee policies had anything to do with the polls....it has far more to do with the Norwegians and the Sudanese.
After being accused of being thin on policy, Kevin Rudd released a single policy on a variety of areas from the economy to the environment and industrial relations. In all cases he promises to do whatever the polls say will make him most popular.
Kevin Rudd spent much of the campaign tapping into younger voters with videos on Youtube, a myspace and a facebook profile, even abandoning the traditional campaign launch to instead hand out lots of giveaways from his Triple M Red Thunders, pledging no more than 2 serious political comments in a row. Many younger voters are turning against Howard saying Howard is just like so far behind the times I mean he doesn’t have a virtual life avatar or even a Nokia 5700.
In the final week, Rudd appeared on Rove and said that he believes it’s important during an election campaign to just get your own message out to voters and not to worry too much about what the other mob are doing...except when you’re copying word for word from their tax cuts of course. Rudd commented on the Kyle and Jacki O that he has a guard dog who he’s never heard bark at anything. John Howard must have the same sort of dog, because it didn’t notice Kevin Rudd sneaking in to steal all John’s policies.
Left wing political satirists, if you’ll forgive the tautology, have gone into panic mode with the threat of an end to the Howard Bush era. Many are having to rework themselves into right wingers with a whole series of racist, sexist, homophobic jokes in order to take the mickey out of the new Government. So in other words, Fatty Vautin and the Footy Show are the new Chaser.
On the eve of the campaign, the Liberal Party gave John Howard their wish lists for the campaign. Top of Peter Costello’s list: come on Johnny, please do your Harold Holt impression. Here’s some rope to help you out.
Australia lost its first casualty in Afghanistan, with one digger being killed in battle. Tony Abbott dismissed it as a media stunt to make the war look bad.
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Kevin Rudd had to ask all journalists to begin interviews with Peter garrett by telling him that he had the right to remain silent but that anything he did say would be taken down and used against him in a Liberal smear ad campaign.
Labor immigration spokesperson Tony Burke called for an end to the death penalty in Asia. The Government responded that it opposes the death penalty except for terrorists, mass murderers and African refugees. Fortunately the Government has found a way to make sure Sudanese get the death penalty: we just cut the number of refugees allowed to leave the Sudan. Kevin Andrews announced we would no longer be accepting African refugees. He said the African population have been slow to integrate...which surprises me, because, as they’re used to slavery, I would have thought they shouldn’t have a problem with WorkChoices. And although some have conformed to John Howard’s idea of how Australians should live, many of them have painted their white picket fences black and many continue to refuse to accept the Australian tradition of black children being raised by white Christian missionaries.
Taking the lead from the PM’s morning powerwalks, a number of politicians have been taking JH’s lead of getting fit this election. Tony Abbott has taken up Vatican roulette again, which he says he likes because this is a game where it’s OK if he comes late. Kevin Rudd took after his favourite entertainers and enrolled for pole dancing classes. while John Howard got yelled at by a rower on his morning walk along Lake Burley Griffin, being called “arsehole”. So yes, Peter Costello has taken up rowing.
Reconciliation got put back on the agenda with John Howard expressing his desire to have the Constitution officially recognise Aborigines’ right to live in poverty. John Howard also offered to mention Aborigines in the preamble to his own biography so that they’d be mentioned in 2 books that no one’s ever read.
Mal Brough said “University students might want it, but the people I speak to on the ground don’t want an apology”…. but what they do want passionately out at Mutijulu is to be mentioned in the preamble to the Constitution.
“We want to do this with carrots, not the stick” - Peter Costello
After business groups called on the Government to raise the retirement age to 67, Peter Costello commented “we want to do this with carrots, not the stick”. So, The Liberals’ new super plan includes carrots to help old people see and free milk to stop their breaking bones. Costello commented he thinks 67 is an excellent age for Prime Ministers to retire at. John Howard said this explained why Peter had asked him to play Easter Bunny while Peter placed a trail of carrots leading from the House of Representatives to the local Blue Care home.
“We want to make sure every Australian kid has the opportunity to get wired” - Kevin Rudd
Rudd promised low income families free computers so they could look up the myspace pages of people who can afford to get a decent education. Rudd said he doesn’t want low income families to miss out on Wikipedia’s misinformation revolution.
And so we leave you with the message to please remember to vote early, vote often, and for f##k's sake don't vote Liberal.