Satire

The Government Is Trying To Kill Us

By New Matilda

June 05, 2013

It is disturbing to find out that workers installing the National Broadband Network have discovered asbestos in the Telstra pits being used. For one thing, it’s a bit creepy that “pits” are involved at all. We were given to believe that the NBN was a project consisting mainly of advanced technology and cutting-edge fibre and the hopes and dreams of bright-eyed children: I for one didn’t expect it to take on this dark medieval torture vibe. Was Stephen Conroy aware that his job was to send innocent hard-working men and women down into pits?

But the pits aren’t the point, really. The point is that the hapless serfs that the power-mad minister has cast into the pits have stumbled upon a dark and deadly secret.

Of course, asbestos has been a wonderful servant of mankind. That old slogan “Building it asbestos we can” wasn’t just an idle boast: asbestos has been a vital part of the industrial world and enabled enormous advances in the field of whatever it is that you do with asbestos. And it still is a valuable tool, in the right hands: it’s just that the right hands happen to be those that avoid using it or handling it in any way.

Yes, asbestos kills, which really does raise the question: why did this Government put it there? Why would the Australian Labor Party, a supposedly respectable political organisation, have planted loads of asbestos in pits and ducts all around the country decades in advance, just so it could be dug up in 2013? The sheer amount of planning that must have gone into this long game boggles the mind. What on earth is their aim?

Friends and countrymen, there is only one answer to this question: the Government is trying to kill us.

And when I say “the Government is trying to kill us”, I don’t just mean in that casual way that governments occasionally try to kill their citizens, through drunk driving or boredom. I mean there is a systematic and lethally efficient plan by the Australian Labor Party to exterminate the citizens of this nation.

And when you make this realisation, all the pieces fall into place. Think about it: Labor knew that by 2007 people would be sick of John Howard; I mean just look at him. But they also knew that by 2013, people would be sick of THEM, because of their commitment to being an unruly rabble of greedy grasping halfwits more concerned with their delusions of control over their pathetic little internal fiefdoms than with the welfare of either their party or their state – there was really no way to avoid this. And so, years and years ago, the wheels were set in motion for the Great Plan to be put into action.

The first stage of the plan was the insulation rebate scheme, or as many people now call it due to radio interference with the plates in their heads, “pink batts”. This was what might be called “a show across the bows”. At the time we thought it was simple homicidal mania that caused Peter Garrett to set fire to all those houses, but we now know that the wider Labor movement was simply taking advantage of the minister’s propensity for arson to send a warning to the populace: cross us and bad things happen. But we didn’t listen to that warning, and so, the ALP has gone to the mattresses, activating the asbestos they buried back in the distant past just in case the polls ever turned against them.

Suddenly, it all seems horribly clear, doesn’t it? Suddenly all those promises of lightning-fast internet connections sound like dark, perverse threats. Suddenly the Facebook group “Tony Abbott Will Never Be Prime Minister Of Australia” seems a lot more sinister than just a group of gentle simpletons with a rich fantasy life. Julia Gillard is playing for keeps, and she’s made her position very clear: if I can’t have you, Australia, nobody will. And so Newspoll has sealed our doom.

But wait a minute, I hear you bray. Surely this is not so dire? Sure, the pits and ducts are full of deadly asbestos, but we can avoid the consequences if we’re careful, can we not? We simply have to make sure the offending material is treated with utmost care and professionalism, using all appropriate precautions and protective clothing, and also make sure we don’t accidentally trip and fall into one of the pits on a dark night or when we are drunk. And so the government’s plan will be foiled and the hard work of those farsighted assassins of yore will have been in vain. We can safely vote for Tony Abbott, and the reign of terror will be over.

Really? You think it’s that easy? You think that we can, like The Princess Bride’s Westley and Buttercup in the fire swamp, simply learn to dodge the pitfalls and come through this election unscathed? You think it will end?

Don’t be naïve. Julia “Prince Humperdinck” Gillard is not simply going to let us go. With the help of six-fingered Wayne Swan, she will hunt us down, strap us to the machine, and suck the life from us. We escaped her insulation trap and she unleashed the asbestos. Try to evade the asbestos and she will simply deploy another of her traps. We’ll find out she’s been secretly diverting Gonski funds to napalm squads, or it’ll be revealed that Disability Care is poisonous.

No, when you’re dealing with a machinery of death as sophisticated and efficient as the Australian Labor Party, it’s no use trying to get away: you will be ground to dust beneath their wheels sooner or later. There’s only one way out of this horrific mess, Australia:

We’re going to have to vote Labor.

I know, I know. You swore you’d never vote Labor again. You denounced their freedom-destroying policies. You decried their waste. You screwed up your funny little faces and you demanded an end to the shameful things you were fairly sure you’d read somewhere that Labor was doing to someone probably.

But this is life and death guys. They burnt down our houses. They put carcinogens in our telephone pits, before we were even born. Don’t think they won’t climb through your bedroom window and smother you in your sleep if they have to. If we want to save our lives, we need to take a deep breath, and keep them in government. There is just no other option, apart from a nation of orphaned children.

Of course, this will mean Tony Abbott won’t get to be PM. But you know, life is all about sacrifices.