Tuesday 21 July 2009

Forget Swine Flu, Quarantine Aussies First


A man in Western Australia was engulfed in flames when police officers fired a Taser stun gun at him.

Police say they used the Taser on Ronald Mitchell, 36, when he ran at them carrying a container of petrol and a cigarette lighter.

They said that Mr Mitchell, who lives in a remote Aboriginal community, had been sniffing petrol.

Carrying petrol and a lighter, so they fired a massive spark plug at him. There's clever.

But what the fuck is this?

Mr Mitchell was charged with assault to prevent arrest and possession of a sniffing substance.

Possession of a sniffing substance? Petrol? Is that really a law for the upside-down people?

I've been worried about Australia for some time now. They used to be all 'fuck it, stick another shrimp on the baaarbie' whilst calling us whinging poms and laughing at our anally-retentive nature. It was the country whose PM greeted the 1983 Americas Cup victory on live TV thus.

"Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum."

So what happened? They have turned all Soviet Republic of Brighton.

They have banned smoking, natch, and in Tasmania, that includes cars. They don't want anyone climbing on Ayers Rock, so they've banned it. That's the big orange thing in the middle of the desert at the arse end of the world which has been around for millions of years without problems before. Chinese products are out - banned. No point putting Aussies through that stressful pain of competing for business.

They have also have banned, or are planning to ban, free bets on betting sites, Second Life, Wikileaks at pain of an $11,000 fine, Gay web-sites, anti-abortion web-sites, and BMW adverts.

So that's their libertarian credentials well and truly gone. Still, at least they can still drink us under the table though, eh? Not for long, actually.

Kevin Rudd has set aside $53-million to tackle what he says is a binge drinking "epidemic" among young Australians. He wants to launch a fear campaign to eradicate the drinking culture.

Federal Cabinet agreed to the new strategy today, but Mr Rudd is considering going further by changing laws on alcohol advertising and labelling.

"Frankly, scaring the living daylights out of young people about the health impact of binge drinking in terms of brain damage, I don't think it's going to do any harm and it might just do some good."

But you have been good, for decades, at taking the Castlemaine XXXX out of us when it comes to drinking. You were the world leader, yet still maintained a cool exterior. We were in your thrall (and hated ourselves for it) precisely because of such blithe arrogance. Why bin it?

Now they apparently have a law which they can trolley out to throw at someone who is carrying petrol, should they need to. It looks like they have all the bases covered over there.

We've had 3,000 new offences under Labour and we certainly don't need any more. This will only give them ideas.

Time to clear out Earls Court lest the Aussie disease is catching. Hole them up in a sterile leisure centre or something before they persuade some West London mung-muncher to push for a ban on bottled water for the sake of Gaia.

Give the bloody Aussie cricket team masks too, in case we get infected. They used to beat us hollow when they didn't give a shit.

As did their Olympians, but that all changed last year too.

Australian sports minister Kate Ellis has accepted the ultimate humiliation for an Aussie sports fan by agreeing to wear a Team GB shirt at Monday's Paralympic wheelchair basketball match between Britain and Australia after losing an Olympic bet with her British counterpart, Gerry Sutcliffe.

In fact, sod quarantine, just throw them all out, dangly cork hats and all. The risks to our future are too great.

(Alternative title. "That's not an authoritarian state, THIS is an authoritarian state")




7 comments:

Unknown said...

I bloody well knew it!!! Second hand binge drinking, it just had to catch on like swine flu, didn't it, (well we had to be good at exporting something, didn't we!) I blame the Ashes cricket shite myself, all those fans from barbie land, rubbing shoulders with the Flintoff maniacs in the boozer (non smoking of course) after the latest test/series or whatever and getting heartilly pissed and spewing up after a donner and chips. Then the daft aussies accept their kinsfolk back without checking if they'd picked up Brits disease, silly fuckers! Well fuck me sideways with a didgeridoo!

Antipholus Papps said...

He wants to launch a fear campaign

So he basically wants to terrorise people! What a appalling rudd he is (I was going to say 'cunt', but then I realised 'rudd' could become just as offensive).

Anonymous said...

I reckon it started with Kim Hughes blubbing in 1981. You forgot the sun cream obsession and the TV presenter being psychologically scarred by Gordon Ramsey.

Gawain Towler said...

Oi, I live in Earls Court, (admittedly there is an antipodean not far away)

Angry Exile said...

So that's their libertarian credentials well and truly gone.

Not entirely, but Australia can be fairly inconsistent. Most states have legalized prostitution in brothels, and amazingly the sky didn't fall in. On the other hand it sometimes seems you need a licence to fart in a westward direction... and three more licences for north, south and east. It is true that failure to win The Ashes will mean that Ricky Ponting must be smeared in Vegemite and staked out in the middle of Melbourne Cricket Ground for a week, though apparently it's not an actual law but a penalty clause in his contract.

Mostly it's low level and mildly annoying nannying, and while that's disappointing and shattered my illusions of a country of free spirited and independent minded Aussies I have to say it's not as bad as the UK was when I left (and of course more lunatic nannying has happened there since - we had a good laugh about the clown shoes).

The Uluru/Ayer's Rock thing is a bit of a red herring - the indigenous people of that area, the people who actually own it, get a bit pissed off when people walk on it. The usual analogy is to imagine people climbing on St Paul's or Stonehenge, possibly taking a dump while they're up there. Personally I think the government (NT or Federal) should keep out of it except perhaps to give the locals a few bob to remove the safety rail and put up a sign with a count of the number of deaths and injuries, and the advice that it's tough shit if you join them. Beyond that it's their rock and if they want people off they should be allowed to make life difficult for would be climbers.

Oh, and the Olympics? Check this out.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Love the link, AE.

Fair comment on Ayers Rock, perhaps the locals maybe just want to avoid another cock in a frock on a rock incident. ;-)

banned said...

Oz has led the world in instituting Town Bans on alcohol, just because a few Abbos go a bit crazy on the grog


Oz Booze Ban