I don’t want to depress you, but pretty soon this election campaign will be over. Yes, in just over a week, the excitement and daily sense of danger and exhilaration that democracy in action brings us all will be gone, and we’ll be left only with the bitter ashes of the election bonfire, and a wistful yearning for something to make us feel alive again.
However, let’s not get too gloomy about the imminent termination of what may be our nation’s most thrilling and magical campaign ever.
With so little campaigning time left, it’s time to take a look at just what is going to happen on 7 September, and what the aftermath might be. Hence, in my last pre-election column, I will do what my colleagues in the so-called press gallery seem to lack the testicular fortitude to do, and lay out my Utterly Infallible 2013 Election Predictions.
First, what will happen on the day itself?
I foresee a tough, hard-fought election day, full of acts of derring-do and mad dashes for glory. I expect Prime Minister Rudd’s casting of his ballot to be particularly stylish, and his Senate paper to be folded in stunningly precise lines. Down in Warringah, Tony Abbott’s voting will be as flamboyant as ever, and I predict that he may hit on as many as 12 to 15 young women walking between the sausage sizzle and the booth.
Elsewhere, I expect massive brawls to break out at polling places across Queensland, where the pressure will finally tell on Clive Palmer, resulting in dozens of deaths. Meanwhile in Lindsay, Fiona Scott will astound voters with her erotic fan-dancing.
Later in the evening, as the results begin to come in, pundits from both sides will rush to judgment and be proven wrong repeatedly. Most notably, as results begin to turn the Coalition’s way, Nick Minchin will gain in power: by 8.45pm he will begin firing lightning from his hands at ABC staffers.
Meanwhile on Sky News, Graham Richardson, torn between despair at the downfall of the ALP and delight at being proven right about everyone else being wrong, will gradually lose structural integrity until the point at which his head sinks slowly into his neck and disappears from view. Michael Kroger will, as usual, create a powerful emetic effect in thousands of households.
Naturally, Tony Abbott will become prime minister. You knew that, right? I mean, spoiler alert. It won’t be a landslide, though. Kevin Rudd will retain his seat and announce his intention to both stay on as leader of the Labor Party and legally change his name to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
So, with PM Abbott in the hot seat, what will Australia look like?
Abbott will get to work quickly. As promised, on his first day he will repeal the carbon tax and institute his Direct Action policy. He will also meet with the Indonesian president to demand an end to the people-smuggling trade and an assurance that Indonesia and India are not the same country. On the first evening he will retire to bed, where he will amaze his wife with his grasp of feminist theory.
On the second day, Direct Action will step up, and within the first week over six billion trees will have been planted, necessitating mass demolitions of occupied residences. The temperature of the earth will plummet to dangerous new lows as a result, causing heating bills to soar and pensioners to switch to an all-jam diet, triggering a nationwide raspberry shortage. Raspberry farmers will become the new billionaire magnates, forcing Gina Rinehart to lobby the Coalition government for a special economic zone covering a 50 metre radius around her body wherever it goes, a request which the government will immediately acquiesce to.
Of course the government won’t be all about Abbott.
Joe Hockey will set to work bringing the budget back into surplus through a targeted campaign of tax cuts and increased spending. The economy will immediately receive a turbo boost from the policy to pay people to have jobs, as economists around the nation look shamefaced at their failure to realise that unemployment can easily be solved by providing a financial incentive to work. Consumer confidence likewise skyrockets as shoppers find themselves with increased disposable income thanks to the revolutionary concept of linking money to labour.
And it’s a lucky thing that the tax revenues will be flowing, as the government will need plenty of dough to buy all the fishing boats in Indonesia. Scott Morrison will find the pressure of the job getting to him as the space in his garage becomes increasingly limited by the growing pile of boats. He experiences a surge of popularity after the passage of his plan to excise the southern hemisphere from Australia’s migration zone, but doubts begin to circulate after he proposes making the ocean illegal, and institutes a policy of using the Dulux colour chart to determine Australia’s humanitarian intake.
Meanwhile Sophie Mirabella will encounter party-room pushback against her own proposal to jumpstart the Australian manufacturing industry by summoning the Antichrist.
This is all just early days, obviously. It’s more difficult to forecast with any accuracy over longer periods, but I think we can safely say that by the time the next election rolls around, the boats will have stopped, climate change will be exposed as a hoax, Australia will be in an unprecedented economic boom, Andrew Bolt will be governor-general, and the Labor Party will have confessed to its errors and been assimilated into the LNP.
Peace and prosperity will reign and women will be firing out babies left, right and centre without fear of economic insecurity. Julie Bishop will remain fairly inactive.
There is the future laid out for you, and may I become the sexual plaything of Bob Ellis if I’m wrong. But we still have a little time left before this all comes to pass, a few days to enjoy the razzle-dazzle of political combat, to revel in the dizzying heights of statesmanship that our body politic reaches when put to the test. And no matter what happens on the seventh, be grateful that in our marvellous freedom-loving system, in a few years we get to do this all again.
Truly, this is a paradise. Viva voting.
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