The new broom in Canberra. Keefy brings along a lump of uranium ore to show and tell, (Parliament)

Dear reader, we return to the vexed question of trust and International affairs from the perspective of our two captive heroes Ces and Quent, who find themselves, luckless and subterranean at the behest of Australia’powerfullest, most powerful woman and Fair Work Commissioner, Sophie Mirabella.  Has the luck run out?  Or is there time yet to arrest their decline. ‘Decline and Fall’, as Gibbon said. ‘Who the fuck’s he’? Scomo said. ‘It’s irrelevant’ Barnaby insists, ‘cos at the end of the day, the electorate is apathetic and no one really gives a toss’… toss on…

‘Don’t even open yer mouths’, Sophie was furiously insistent.. 

We waited, her outline in the pallid light a picture of porcine pulchritude. 

We waited. 

We could see Sophie peering into the gloom, she had a arrived at another junction, and faintly, almost imperceptibly, we could feel a soft breeze. Ces noticed the change and whispered, ‘there must be a way out, can you feel it’? And sure enough, the breeze, fresh and arid, promised us a hope, eternal and remote, of escape.

Keefy is fucken serious about coal and urianium and other shit wot the lobbyists pay him to care about.

We waited 

“Now’, Sophie whispered; ‘I want you to come towards me, and Benny-Boy, have a couple of grenades at the ready, for if we have to use em I don’t want there to be any doubt. 

Get me’?

Benny grunted acknowledgement, and the three of us shimmied along the side of the corridor until we arrived on a platform of sorts. 

‘It’s along here, I left it last time, but I’m not sure if ‘they’ have discovered it yet. 

‘They’? We enquired, ‘none of your business’!!

Sure keefy aint Arty Caldwell?

‘I’ll tell you when it’s safe to do so. 

Now give me a hand, and Benny, can you shone your combat ready illuminatory hand piece in this direction’? Benny quick as lightning, shone a torch below. Why it wasn’t just referred to as a ‘torch’ was beyond us but we knew as the former head of the senate committee on military procurement Sophie was up to date on all the latest military terminology and knew to the nearest cent how much a triple A battery would cost. That’s why it’s sensible not to question military procurement, as it’s beyond most ordinary folks comprehension, and besides it’s secret and to do so would compromise the national interest. ‘Just like witness K’! Ces mused, ‘we have to imprison citizens who tell us our government throws away the rule book to screw an impoverished raped over country to preserve our integrity at the negotiation table at Glasgow and beyond. If we’re bent, people know we have diplomatic clout and ruthlessness to join the table.  Without that sort of duplicity we’re’, he paused for additional effect… “a global nobody”. 

Ces was right, that’s the spirit that had assisted our PM in eschewing the niceties of Glasgow and a universal accord via the ‘Australian way’. Scomo had shown to all tin-pot potentates and French speaking people that Australia would not be trifled with. And in doing so our nation, and the people he represented had won ‘International Respect”. 

Scomo and Barnaby seem to think so, they bought along a lump of coal to show and tell and it caused OUTRAGE

The light from the torch indicated that just two feet below us a track, two thin ribbons of metal going in either direction, and sensing the breeze blowing from the starboard quarter we all knew instinctively which direction to take. ‘This way’ Sophie pointed, ‘and help me down’! With one hand Benny-boy lifted our exalted Fair Work Commissioner and put her down. 

‘Then, ‘follow me’. Quietly we trudged, hoping against all hope that we would soon be in broad daylight.  Away from Angus’ and Xi’s cronies and once freed we would find out just who it was who defiled our Tea-lady Ms Culthorpe in the Nation’s Parliament, and perhaps from the P.M himself, get to the truth. 

Truth or no truth we had to ask Sophie, how the rail line in the middle of nowhere was built for what purpose and to what end? Is there an end? And what could it possibly mean? Find out in our next testimential episode; ‘a clock ticks to a timelesss beat some-times’  or  ‘not even synchopated rhythm can help you find the groove when your wearing corduroy underpants’.