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")
