Dear reader,
we return to our saga. Though the tectonic plates of the Australian political scene have moved ever so slightly, we know that for our heroes stuck beneath the desiccated and irradiated wastes of Central Australia, there is a slim chance that unlike the members for Kooyong, Chisholm, Higgins and Goldstein they may yet pull it off.
‘Pull it off? You might say,
Threatened by the spectre of Tudgey in the shadows with another personal parliamentary secretary? Or Christian with his blind truss?
Lest we forget, the sterling work performed by Warren Truss in crafting the INTERVENTION!
Truss? The architect of the Intervention? Before Barnaby was deputy PM, there was another, do you remember Warren Truss? ‘The quiet achiever’.
Could it be the same? Will a new government wind back the intervention and put in jeopardy thousands of white collar jobs in the Aboriginal Industry?
A truss, be it surgical or just cosmetic. Or nothing quite as bad as that, just freedom from the eternal pursuit by Australia’s most ambitious political duo, Peter, a copper who comes from Queensland and rolls along like a bent sixpence, (bribes of over $2.00 are tax deductible) Dutto. Or Sophie, (is that a public funded sinecure for my entire family for just being odious) Mirabella. Come hell or high water, though there is no water in the arid desert, and whatever might fall is already covered by Angus and his mates with the Cayman Island Tax haven. The destiny of this country is dependant upon their escape and escape they must.
Or worse, we return to our epic;
‘Can you open it?
Waren also gave the taxpayer good value for money, in some instances via ‘MATES RATES’ up to 30 mil would be paid for land valued at 3 mil.
‘Nup’, came the stern reply from Benny-Boy
‘Why not’? Terry asked, lighting his fifteenth Camel and passing round another pack for our enjoyment. Ces said; ‘Don’t worry Terry, you can keep em’. To whit Terry smiled, ‘but I think you might need em, we still aint dealt with Sophie and Dutto and we may still be here a long time’. Resignedly Ces, took the packet and lit one up. Quent followed suit but Benny-Boy being controlled and fit just said this; ‘Sorry youse blokes but I just cant see a way of opening this without another roll of torpex, a stick of gelignite or even a crowbar you see’…… He pointed to the hinges rusted over through time, ‘and these draw bars, and this crank and this wheel, I can’t move any of them, and even if I tried with explosive there’s no guarantee that the outside will be the outside. It could all be a ruse put there in the fifties to put off the Russians, the Chinese, whoever’.
‘But there must be a way’? Ces enthused,
Warren and another visionary Keith Pitt. Lest we forget.
‘Do you know anything about this Terry’?
Terry flicked the ash from his lab-coat and scratched his chin. ‘Well I’ve never really been topside since the late fifties, but I can tell you if I’d known of this door I’d have tried to use it years ago. It’s just that I’d signed up to do the job for my government and I’ve always felt it was my duty to do the right thing’. Terry then said to himself barely audible, but with some remorse, ‘And rot down here for eternity’.
‘I wouldn’t say rotting, it’s just that it’s been comforting not having to change after all these years, The older you get you don’t like change.
But what option did you have, surely you must have been curious’?
‘I dunno’ said Terry as he phlegmatically drew on the Camel, ‘I’ve never see it that way. Didn’t really talk-about it with all my responsibilities.
A Warren Truss bridge. That’s right folks, a ‘Warren Truss’ is also a name given by engineers for a specific type of bridge, who would’ve thought?
Well then, think man, surely there must be a key, a device, a lever, that can open this thing’?
Benny looked back at us and scratched his chin strap. ‘We did have a door like this at the Fat Lady’s Arms, but it just led to the Pool Hall and the gaming lounge, whereas I’ve got a fair hunch this’ll get us nowhere. I’m for turning back’.
Turning back!! We shrieked, to Dutto and Sophie??
Nup just at the last junction I reckon we should’ve turned left rather than right,
‘But’!!! Terry expired ‘left or right in Australia usually makes no difference’
‘Well it should’, Ces enthused, ‘it should make a helluva difference’, and with that impatient and flustered he nudged the door. And curiously, and incredibly, he must have just hit the right spot for with an imperceptible squeak it opened,
‘Bugger me’! said Benny
‘Jeez’! said Terry
Kev also kept the momentum of the intervention going. He not only helped homeless people as an act of immediate concern prior to becoming PM, but also was keen on punishing remote communities. Both noble causes seem to have slipped from his radar since then.
‘Christ’! said Quent,
For before them in the late afternoon light bathed in a warm sulphurous glow they looked out upon a desert landscape and in the distance, an abandoned building of sorts with the name still legible after years of scorching sun and desert sands the words stencilled ‘M A R A L I N G A’
Is the end nigh?
Have they escaped?
Good thing that the traditions of Warren are now in safe hands with Barnaby and the resurgent NATIONALS!
Find out in the next ‘doorish’ episode, ‘When is a door not a door when its not a -jar either’, and ‘What hinge squeaks noiselessly in the arid wastelands of a safe Nationals Seat’.