TRUE OPINION: Lying is the new truth in Scott Morrison’s Australia, writes satirist Kieran Butler.
When Scott Morrison arrived home from his whirlwind tour of telling lies all over the world, he was greeted by billboards that read: “#theAustraliar… Open for rorting.”
The billboards feature Morrison look-a-like and disgraced cosmetic surgeon, Daniel Lanzer, who is now a short-priced favourite for an Order of Australiar, due to his ability to bullshit his way through a crisis.
#theAustraliar issued a straight-faced response and ordered Lanzer to “stop looking like me and get a new face”. Everyone pissed themselves. Who wouldn’t? It was comedy gold.
Don’t believe me? Who cares? Lying is the new truth and #theAustraliar is now the gold standard in selling pork pies.
While Morrison was bullshitting internationally, Gladys Berejiklian (the woman who saved #theAustraliar, but struggled to save herself) was lying her head off to ICAC.
Gladys was given strict instructions to remember exactly why her government spent money to shore up votes after getting caned at a by-election, but to completely forget whether she was listening when her boyfriend told her about his latest scam.
Not be outdone, Victorian MP, Tim Smith, insisted a couple of glasses of wine were the reason he blew 0.131 after driving into a fence. Recidivist drink drivers everywhere blew up the switchboard at Smith’s electoral office asking what wine he’d been drinking, and demanding to know where could they get it.
These days, comedy billboards are now at the forefront of what passes for an effective opposition to Morrison’s carnival of stupidity; unless you neglect to include French president, Emmanuel Macron, and former PM, Malcolm Turnbull.
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This is the problem with having more Prime Minsters in the past decade than Christian Porter has been on debating trips. They have friends in high places, and remember clearly how often they were lied to in the process of being dispatched to the Prime Ministerial scrapheap.
Turnbull and Macron lined Morrison up from the top turnbuckle and sledged him like an Aussie wicketkeeper on Boxing Day, but Turnbull also pointed out that although #theAustraliar lying locally was par for the course, when playing internationally, it runs the risk of #theAustraliar making Australia look like, well, Australiar.
Let’s not beat around the natural bush. Australiar lies. For example, the national refrain of “We’re dead set larrikins. We’re laid back and anti-authoritarian” is the one of the biggest whoppers we tell ourselves. Australiar is the most uptight, locked down and over governed country in the world. Ask Joe Rogan.
Australiar lies about reducing carbon emissions by 20%. Australiar lies to its allies in “the national interest”. Australiar says shit like: “To save the lives of refugees, you have to lock them up indefinitely until they kill themselves”.
Before heading off on his Bullshit the World tour, #theaustraliar bullshitted to the locals about a plan – he calls it The Australian Way – for ‘net zero by 2050’. Sounding like Dr Lanzer on 4 Corners, experienced observers detected a mood in the room that Prime Minister Arthur Fonzarelli was revving his motorbike downwind from a shark tank.
This is because everyone in Australiar knows that The Australian Way is to lay it on thick with a trowel, tell the cops you only had a couple of beers, say you weren’t listening when your mate tells you he killed a hooker, use a so-called Blind Trust to hide who gave you the hush money and don’t tell those French bastards fuck all until we get #BloJo and the Yanks on board.
#theAustraliar had to go to COP26 in Glasgow to bullshit the rest of the world again because he has already broken every promise his government made in Paris six years ago. En route, he gallivanted about the G20. As he laid his grubby Pentecostal hands on a visibly annoyed French president, you couldn’t shake the cloying feeling that he might not make it over the shark tank.
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In 70’s US sitcom parlance; were #theAustraliar’s chickens about to come home to roost? Would the rest of the world seize an opportunity to make #theAustraliar a climate scapegoat for doing what he does best?
Waiting in Glasgow was Boris ‘#BloJo’ Johnson, Scomo’s bro from another mofo, the inveterate liar from a different shire. More raucous than an AUKUS, #BloJo can preside over one monumental fuck up after another and just keep on lying. He called #theAustraliar “heroic” for achieving the bare minimum, and #BloJo loves fighting the French. If anyone could provide cover for #theAustraliar, it’d be a coke addled, tousle haired chancer like #BloJo.
It wasn’t to be. #theAustraliar legged it home with no real love from #BloJo and his hard won reputation for being full of shit completely intact. Back in Australiar, there’s a French ambassador who is basking in the glow of a banger laden Eurotrash DJ set at the National Press club featuring his smash hit techno mashup #theAustraliar is a bit of Khunt.
No biggie. Just another day over the shark tank for #theAustraliar: “Now they’ve found that kid at Matt Canavan’s house, can’t we all just forget about the text message I leaked and get on with it?”
Of course we can. This is fucking Australiar!
Nice on Kieran – you summed it all up perfectly