Dear reader, hot on the heels of Matt Canavan and the member for Higgins Katie Allen’s superb proposal during the Covid catastrophe to investigate going nuclear, (proof that even in the height of the Covid crisis lobbyists are hard at work) we find our heroes in the middle of nowhere surrounded by ancient nukes, ‘a gift from HM Government to the Commonwealth of Australia’. Ces and Quent believing they’re inactive have bided their time by following the ‘Big S’, Sophie Mirabella on a final tour of the underground labyrinth. Unbeknown to them the nukes are far from inactive, but primed and ready to go! 

Will they go off faster than the Coalition’s carbon policy? Or will they, (like the Prime Ministership of Malcolm Turnbull) be a fizzer? 

Find out in the next radioactively inclined episode, ‘a switch in time’, or five minutes for a short stroll in midnights garden’.

 read on…

 

That’s when Sophie led us to another antechamber and along a slowly declining tunnel. (geologists and mining enthusiasts refer to as a de-cline)  We trudged behind her.  Behind the lot of us loomed as ever, Big Benny Boy. 

She led us past the trove of unexploded Atomic Bombs, all labelled ‘a Gift to the Australian Government. From H.M Government Great Britain’. 

Having recovered from the realisation that it was not Gina there to light the fuse but her hand maiden in terror Sophie, we knew that our time had run out. This walk will be our last, and it was comforting in the very least that Australia’s bravest and most decorated soldier ‘Benny-boy’ Roberts-Smith would be there with us to the end. “Who dares wins”, as they say in the classics… though we didn’t feel much like winners. 

 

We paused in front of the middle nuke, deftly stencilled ‘6’, and couldn’t help notice some wires sticking out of an half open inspection plate, the wires led to a solitary car battery. The car battery was wired to a generator.  The generator looked decrepit, covered in dust, and the nameplate was indecipherable. Out of curiosity Ces wiped it, and revealed the name that had symbolised everything that ‘WAS’ Australian manufacturing in the GOLDEN AGE of tariff protection and the Country Party, “Austral Villiers”,

Ces enthused; ’Jeez that’d have to be an early fifties model at the very latest, you can tell by the Amal carburettor. Dad had one on the ‘Sunbeam Little Wonder Junior’ portable shearing stand. It was an unreliable little bugger at  the best of times. You had to practically stand over it just to keep the revs up. I remember one hot summer, we were herding ewes into the top race and the shearer started yelling as the hand piece flew away with the revs going mental as the governor has frozen at full speed, and the next thing he’s screaming blue-murder as the hand-piece had driven into his groin, and….….Ces Stopped. 

He stood dead in his tracks, ‘What the’ , he ghasped, ‘I say Sophie’.. 

‘I say what’s with these warheads, and the car batteries? 

Why are they all wired up? 

And why are the generators not working? 

I mean do these batteries have anything to do with the detonating devices? Surely you’d keep em seperate If they, (he hesitated for effect) if they were important in not letting the warheads get…. how shall I put it?… wouldn’t that make them unstable’? 

Sophie turned insouciantly to Ces and looked with disgust, “ You figure it out?. We had em wired to keep em live, as we couldn’t afford to separate the detonators as a departmental cost cutting measures. A fully qualified bomb-disposal team and A Grade electrician cost big bucks! 

It was either funding for  Sports Pavilions for Coalition seats pre-election of keeping the detonators charged.  I spose the sports funding won out. Shouldn’t be a problem. I had the top brass in the ADF certify they’re safe’. 

‘Ahh’, Ces trembled, ‘Were they the same ADF top brass who said Kabul wouldn’t fall for another three months’?. 

‘Yep’! Sophie matter of factly replied, 

‘The SAME’!

Ces was changing colour; “What then, shouldn’t be a problem?  Are you stark raving mad’? 

Or are you just so blithe about minor technical details, you’d turn a blind eye to blowing up a chunk of central Australia bout the size of Canberra”?. 

Ces said “Canberra” for effect, hoping to trigger her gang-land conscience. But no answer, he tried again, perhaps a more analytical approach would help? 

‘What type of detonators have you got’? 

Sophie pretended to be interested,  ‘dunno ask Ben’?

‘And besides, ( she took another drag of her Sobrani),  if they went off who’d be the wiser? No-one of any influence lives out here anyway’!

‘People of influence’? Ces was staggered, and just stood there. His jaw dropped and gaping incredulity at the callous indifference, At the heart of it, a politician without heart. 

Will Ben know what type of detonators have been used? Are they still active? Will the whole thing go off?  Will Sophie go off with it? 

Find out in our next positronically nuclear episode; ‘Nukes of the never never’, if you aint got a carbon policy, just count to ten and close your eyes’!