The Mocker’s predictions for 2022:
January:
Former Sydney Morning Herald columnist Elizabeth Farrelly gives her first public speech as Labor candidate, calling on the party to reconnect with blue collar workers. “The best way to obviate erroneous proletarian animadversions is to elucidate in simpatico fashion on a hebdomadal basis that our collective is one of facticity and deserves to gubernate,” she tells the audience. The reaction is as expected. “Playing James Reyne at 78rpm would make more sense than this,” says a bemused local resident.
February:
WA Premier Mark McGowan says the Morrison government is autocratic, dictatorial, and has no respect for the rule of law. “The Prime Minister is hellbent on centralising power and ruling by decree. Like most eastern staters, he wants to punish West Australians for being successful and take away our freedoms,” he says. “Moving to other business now, and just a reminder that tomorrow I’ll be leaving for my reconnection tour with China to pay my respects to that great humanitarian, visionary and lawmaker, President Xi Jinping, praise be his name.”
March:
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces a ‘super-spreader’ international traveller has infected potentially thousands of people in Christchurch. She refuses to state whether this was due to a breach in hotel quarantine or if the person concerned is a New Zealand citizen. “I can, however, reveal the traveller’s second cousin’s aunt’s sister-in-law’s first husband is an Australian,” she says.
April:
ABC chair Ita Buttrose responds to a review which finds systemic failures in the national broadcaster’s complaints system. “From now on, an independent panel will review all decisions where the ABC deems the complaint to be unsubstantiated, and it will have the authority to overturn that decision,” she says. “I am delighted to announce this panel will comprise Guardian Australia columnist and Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance vice-president Van Badham, human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, and former Insiders host Barrie Cassidy.”
May:
Prime Minster Scott Morrison concedes in the lead-up to the election that his government has run a lacklustre campaign. “We’ve made a lot of mistakes, and for us to retain office would take an absolute miracle. Pray as I have been, I reckon even the Almighty would struggle to turn this around,” he says forlornly. Appearing on ABC’s ‘The Drum’ the evening before the election, social commentator Jane Caro declares that if the Coalition wins, she will return to her place of birth in the UK and never set foot in Australia again. Labor suffers its biggest defeat in 50 years.
June:
Former PM Kevin Rudd says the election result has vindicated his demand for a royal commission into News Corp. “To be clear, I believe passionately in a free press,” he says. “But I also think it vital for democracy that a judicial inquiry compel that organisation’s editors, journalists, and presenters to account for why they did or didn’t run a story, what prominence they gave it, what sized font they used in the headlines, whether the adjectives used were reasonable in the circumstances, why they added exclamation marks for effect, why the cartoonist thought it necessary to exaggerate my features and most importantly, why they falsely characterised my government as chaotic, dysfunctional, and incompetent, and me as a vindictive and obsessed has-been.”
July:
chief health officer Paul Kelly announces authorities have detected a new variant of Covid in Australia. “From what we can determine, the few who have been infected develop a grandiose view of themselves and suffer from delusions they are the Nostradamus of epidemiologists,” he says. “They make alarmist predictions via the Twitter-sphere and serve only to irritate all but their deluded followers.” Confirming the World Health Organisation has not yet named the new variant, he says infectious diseases experts have christened it the ‘Swanicron’ virus.
August:
US President Joe Biden denies reports his mental health is rapidly declining. “Like my predecessors, I’m a fighter, and I won’t quit,” he says. “John F. Kennedy didn’t abandon his men at the Battle of Gettysburg. Ulysses S. Grant’s aim was true when he flew the Enola Gay. Harry Truman never so much as flinched when he crossed the Delaware. PT-109 was rammed by a Japanese destroyer, but how lucky were the crew to have Abraham Lincoln as their skipper? And besides, if anything should happen to me, you’ll be in the safe hands of Vice-President Whoopi Goldberg.”
September:
Queensland Governor and former chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young angrily denies she has politicised the federal government’s booster rollout in her new role. “You’ve got me quite upset,” she tells journalists. “Just because I instructed the gardeners to plant beautiful tulips en masse in letters to form the words YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!”
October:
Speaking a month before the election, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says it would not have been possible for his government to lead the state out of the pandemic without the health sector. “They are the unsung heroes, the men and women who have kept Victorians safe,” he says. “I’m so proud of them. Let’s put aside politics and give them the recognition they deserve. Today I announce the inaugural winners for the Daniel Andrews excellence in public administration award, the Daniel Andrews outstanding leadership award, the Daniel Andrews boldness and decisiveness award, and the Daniel Andrews healing hands award.”
November:
Announcing that no-one will be permitted to enter shops, restaurants, bars, and sports fixtures unless they provide evidence they have received their fourth jab, WA Premier Mark McGowan rejects criticism the measure is an abuse of health regulations. “All I’m doing is keeping West Australians safe, and I make no apology for that,” he says. “We’re making it as easy as possible for everyone to get this jab. My government is funding the tattooists, and it’s entirely up to the individual to decide where on their body they display my image.”
December:
“My next guest is so profound and knowledgeable that you will gasp in wonder at the great truths he reveals,” says ABC RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas. “Through reading his book you will discover how Indigenous peoples not only survived in the most inhospitable areas of the world, but also built a technologically advanced society built on democratic and social justice principles. A very big welcome to Inuit elder and professor Bruce Pascoe, author of ‘Dark Igloo’.”
Merry Christmas, everyone. See you in the New Year.
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