The Best Australian Humorous Writing by Andrew O'Keefe Read Free Book Online

three, doesn’t it? Or, phwoarr, all of ’em!
    Kim Beazley won’t admit he’s a dirigible that’s snapped its moorings, full of warm air, pootling across the sky in increasingly elliptical parabolas of pointlessness. And if the ALP seriously can’t consider a new leader because he’s not from Sydney and he believes in slightly more social justice than Donald Trump and he’s a she, then they may as well tie themselves in a hessian sack and throw themselves in the Yarra right now.
    I don’t know much about Kevin Rudd, but he seems rather across the AWB business, and, frankly, somebody’s got to be. He’s keeping his head down and travels with his own testicles, so there’s much more chance of him suddenly strolling into the lead position,like that gold medal–winning Olympic skater did when everyone else in the race fell over.
    Please, Australian Labor Party, the country is begging you. Get a new leader. Choose Rudd or Gillard, or a compromise—Molly Meldrum’s a bloke with a girly name. Let the new leader pick their own team regardless of which stupid faction they belong to, then make like a rottweiler and go after that smirkfest they call the Liberal Party.
    For God’s sake, Tony Abbott’s in charge of women’s health. Somebody, do something.

GUY RUNDLE
The right wing
    Hidden in the NBC archives is a lost episode of the hit series
The West Wing
.
Scene one
    Late at night in the Lodge, the Prime Minister’s advisers gather.
    ADVISER 1: Two weeks after the invasion of the Northern Territory and we’re still flatlining. We invaded Afghanistan—score. We invaded Iraq—gold. The Solomons, Timor and in six weeks Iran—all great material. We invade our own country—and nothing. These polls are dead.
    ADVISER 2: What does Newspoll say?
    ADVISER 1: Don’t know. Don’t read much fiction.
    ADVISER 3: We’ve got to do something or we’re cactus. We need entirely new ideas; an entirely fresh team. We need a bunch of political geniuses the likes of which we’ve never experienced.
    ADVISER 2: Now you’re talking fiction.
    ADVISER 3: You speak truer than you know.
    There is a blinding flash of highly theatrical light and smoke and when it clears some of the advisers from
The West Wing
—Sam, Josh, Toby and Leo—are revealed, dazed and confused.
    TOBY: Vertigo. I’ve got vertigo.
    JOSH: You’re getting vertigo?
    TOBY: I said I’ve got vertigo from the shazam whatchammacallit meshuggenah.
    LEO: People …
    JOSH: Sam, Toby’s got vertigo.
    LEO: People.
    SAM: You’ve got vertigo?
    West Wing
adviser CJ enters, dazed, from another room.
    CJ: Hey, has anyone else got vertigo?
    TOBY (
shouting
): Yes, I’ve got vertigo.
    CJ: OK, you’ve got vertigo.
    LEO: People, can we forget the vertigo?
    JOSH: Easy for you, you don’t have vertigo.
    LEO: Is everyone all right?
    JOSH: Yeah, as far as I can tell our dialogue style remains unaffected.
    SAM: Where the hell are we—looks like the early 1950s.
    ADVISER 1: Welcome to Canberra. I’m senior political adviser to John Howard and at phenomenal expense to the management we’ve acquired your services for the duration of the election campaign.
    JOSH: Canberra? We’re in Canberra?
    SAM: Canberra we’re in.
    LEO: We’re in Canberra?
    CJ: What’s a Canberra?
    TOBY: Apparently, what we’re in—Canberra.
    ADVISER 2: Yes, um, do you always do that—only the election’s in three or four months and we’d quite like to crack on.
    ADVISER 3: Yes, we all admired the way you turned around Jed Bartlet’s re-election campaign through an application of stern principle and an appeal to the best that is in the population and we’d like you to help John Howard win an election exactly in that fashion, except in reverse.
    TOBY: Win their election.
    SAM: Their election they …
    ADVISER 1: Please, really