Tim Blair: The future is fully foretold
It is time again to gaze deeply into my crystal balls and discover what ordeals, wonders, controversies and delights await us in an election-loaded and wild 2019.
JANUARY
Good news for Bill Shorten as a Guardian poll finds 98 per cent support for the Labor leader. The exclusive poll is taken among thousands of Iranian men currently gathering on the Indonesian coast for future boating adventures.
In a change of policy from traditional Australia Day protests, opponents of the celebration indicate their displeasure by declining to accept a public holiday and instead choosing to go to work.
Unfortunately, because protesting is their full-time occupation, nobody notices any difference.
A Bunbury youth sues West Australian power suppliers for restraint of trade after receiving a $275,000 quarterly electricity bill to run his home hydroponics operation.
FEBRUARY
The Fox Sports graphics department is thrown into chaos when Australian batsman Joe Burns hits a century during the second Test against Sri Lanka.
“We’ve never had to cope before with an Australian triple-figure score,” a technician explains. The problem is quickly solved by using Australian bowling graphics.
Due to a presidential spelling error, the US builds a giant mall on the Mexican border.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announces a breakthrough energy plan that will see nuclear plants constructed in each mainland state.
The plan is revised following consultation with South Australian Liberal Christopher Pyne, who demands that all of the nuclear plants be retrofitted with 380-horsepower Caterpillar C13 six-cylinder diesel engines.
MARCH
Bill Shorten calls for an emergency summit to deal with the expected crisis caused by Labor’s election.
“Labor will not stand idly by as Labor raises taxes, reduces employment and slashes business confidence,” Shorten vows.
“Labor is committed to strong action on Labor’s typical blundering hopelessness in government.”
Following the spectacular success of her seamless Brexit negotiations, British Prime Minister Theresa May is appointed by the United Nations to finally bring a lasting peace to the Middle East.
The eyeballs of incoming NSW Labor premier Michael Daley and his Cabinet have to be surgically reinstalled after the new government is shown the full extent of the state’s available wealth.
APRIL
In a television first, the ABC’s Q&A presents six straight hours of Malcolm Turnbull and son Alex interviewing each other about how Australia should be run and why they should run it. On legal advice, the ABC screens the Lifeline number throughout the marathon broadcast.
Former Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard treasurer Wayne Swan disputes Coalition claims that the 2019 Budget delivers a surplus.
“Everybody knows that a genuine surplus always has a minus sign in front of it,” the confused Queenslander claims.
Nine’s ink expenses for printing former Fairfax newspapers is slashed by 40 per cent after columnist Peter FitzSimons successfully completes an English as second language course in punctuation use.
MAY
Bill Shorten’s election victory speech is soured when Labor’s factional bosses are observed in the room counting numbers for an Anthony Albanese leadership challenge.
“We just thought it would save time,” one of the operatives later explains.
The English alphabet is officially extended by the inclusion of several Cyrillic, Chinese and Arabic characters due to concerns from LGBTQIAPK enthusiasts that they will eventually run out of letters.
Due to what are described as “cultural differences”, “language barriers” and “unholy bloodshed on a level unknown since the Battle of the Somme”, Labor quietly discontinues its use of CFMEU members as Australian maritime border protection officers following one week of operation.
JUNE
A nationwide plastic ban is announced by environment minister Tony Burke on Nine’s Today show, which is immediately taken off air due to the illegal polymer content of its presenters.
African gangs take the Victorian government to the Australian Human Rights Commission following repeated government claims that such gangs do not exist.
“We are African gangs doing African gang things,” a spokesman declares. “This denial of our culture and heritage is an outrage.”
The number of factions within the Greens’ nine federal Senate members increases to 11 after two are diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
JULY
After splitting with One Nation, former Labor leader and ex-Liberal Democrat member Mark Latham joins and then quits the Liberal Party, the Nationals, the Greens, the Australian Democrats, Bob Katter’s Australia Party, the United Australia Party, the Australian Liberty Alliance, Socialist Alliance and Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party all during one frantic 48-hour period.
Huge reported increases in asylum-seeker arrivals are reduced following a Labor government decision to officially reclassify Middle Eastern boat people as minke whales.
NSW forfeits the third and deciding State of Origin NRL game when four Blues players nude up at halftime and run amok through several ANZ Stadium bars.
AUGUST
Congress passes US President Donald Trump’s controversial Don’t Say It Unless You Mean It bill, which will forcibly relocate any celebrities who announce they will leave the country if Trump is re-elected in 2020.
“Finally, an Australian team we can be proud of!” screams the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald after the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston.
Media commentators universally applaud the new-look Australian side as players warmly applaud their English opponents, serve cucumber and watercress sandwiches to umpires and run a childminding service at deep fine leg.
Australia loses the Test by an innings and 927 runs.
A dispute between the AFL and West Australian football officials over the location of the 2019 AFL grand final is resolved when both parties agree to host the match at a midway point between Melbourne and Perth.
It will be played in South Australia at the Ceduna Blues Football and Netball Club oval.
SEPTEMBER
ABC staff go on strike after reading their charter and discovering it requires them to be politically balanced.
Speaking in fluent whale, Labor’s immigration minister Shayne Neumann denies detention centres are full to capacity or that Labor has lost control of Australia’s borders.
According to a translation of the minister’s comments, the detention centres are merely “well-stocked aquariums” featuring “a healthy abundance of spectacular marine life. Most of whom are named Mohammed’’.
Tasmania’s population swells with sociology students, BuzzFeed writers and vegans when it is reopened as Australia’s official “safe space”.
OCTOBER
With the Sydney light rail system nearing completion, the NSW government reveals further plans to revive the inner city with a chain of stables to service a predicted return of horse-drawn carriages.
Despite being lapped 154 times during the event, Islamic activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied is declared winner of the Bathurst 1000 after race officials and rival drivers are jailed for sexism, Islamophobia and misogyny.
The Australian Republican Movement’s finances collapse due to the reckless purchase of two dozen Aldi sausages for the group’s annual barbecue.
NOVEMBER
Scientists are baffled by the discovery of a social justice warrior with a functioning sense of humour and no obvious issues with her parents.
The Japanese government reports a curiously undersized and oddly religiously observant minke whale harvest for 2019.
Parliament’s revised Question Time format is hailed as a triumph after five MPs are ejected by the chamber’s newly installed M109A6 Paladin Howitzer cannon.
DECEMBER
The #MeToo movement is accused of overreach following its furious online condemnation of multiple breastfeeding infants.
Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd’s Ultragenius Superfriend Alliance political party is ended after three weeks when the two former prime ministers cannot agree on a cape design.
Disoriented MPs Adam Bandt, Tim Wilson and Mark Dreyfus are located near their Albury landing site.
The whereabouts of fellow ejected MPs Andrew Wilkie and Ged Kearney is yet to be determined.
My parking fine is more than Belle Gibson ever paid for her crimes
As a Netflix series looms about cancer faker and fraudster Belle Gibson who scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars from desperate victims, the fact she hasn’t paid for her crimes — in either fines or jail time — should infuriate us all.
Banks for nothing, financial wokesters
If bankers want to play politics they should resign, join a party, and run for office – not use our money, mortgaged assets and businesses as a plaything for personal views, writes Vikki Campion.