Tony Burke

“I may be the Minister for Immigration, and sure, that means I get to lock up children and babies in detention. But that doesn’t mean I also can’t be the Minister for Fun in the hearts and minds of the Australian people, Mr Speaker. I hope that any future human and/or legal rights tribunals can remember that.”
– Tony Burke, Hansard, April 1, 2013

Tony Burke is the Member for Watson, and a cabinet minister for various Labor Prime Ministers since 2007.

Briefly a Minister for Immigration in the dying days of the second Rudd government, Burke is reported to have “enjoyed immensely” the process of indefinitely jailing vulnerable men, women and children seeking asylum in Australia. And if not “enjoyed immensely”, then at least “wasn’t perturbed enough to not do it”.

One of parliament’s more experienced campaigners, Burke is primarily known for his ability to diddle his travel expenses in innocuous ways that almost look accidental, and his willingness to laugh on cue if he thinks it will make him more popular with ‘the youth of today’.

Burke is currently pretending to care about workers while he serves as Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations in the Albanese government, however he balances out his natural propensity for indifference to suffering by also serving as Minister for the Arts, thereby directly funding the suffering of countless Australians forced to attend local theatre groups, art gallery openings and performances by Japanese snare drum abuser Ryosuke Kiyasu.

Tony’s listed hobbies include “smiling and being sincere, making children who are not in immigration detention laugh by pretending to steal their noses, and receiving a This Is Not A Greeting Card! from New Matilda readers”.

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