We do not have a policy on AI because we don’t quite know what it is yet. We know it can be used to harm the planet, like when someone in the office – I’m not naming names – used AI to make that picture of me that we all agreed afterwards was inappropriate.
I want to respond to the Murdoch gutter press’s claim that Max Chandler-Mather was caught fiddling about on his phone at an Anzac Day service. He was really just checking his speech for any glaring errors. Just imagine if he got World War I and World War II confused. He denied playing Call of Duty Mobile but, if he was, he would have been killing Nazis or whatever those skull-faced creatures are called in COD. Hyphen No 6 fights for freedom every day. The Anzacs would’ve been proud.
FRIDAY: I’m a 53-year-old nondescript white male from inner-city Melbourne. Put me in the middle of a crowd at a game of footy at the ’G on a Saturday afternoon and I bet you wouldn’t be able to find me. That’s because I wouldn’t be there. I find working-class tribalism a little creepy, to be honest.
Anonymity has its advantages. I tend to blend in. If you saw me at the supermarket, you might come up and ask me where the Toilet Duck is. That’s when I pounce and recite our policy to break up the big two supermarkets and turn them into a chain of certified organic farmers markets, the length and breadth of the nation, open every Tuesday. The Toilet Duck is in aisle 12.
SATURDAY: As Albo has rudely ignored the Australian Greens’ list of non-negotiable, take-it-or-leave-it demands, I sent him an email telling him that if he doesn’t care for those I can ask AI to find other non-negotiable, take-it-or-leave it demands he might like.
Only a Labor-Greens government will stand up to the bully in the White House. We just haven’t figured out which one of us will do the standing up. I have already made it quite clear I wouldn’t meet Donald Trump on general principle. Hyphen No 6 might be ballsy enough to mouth off in the Oval Office, but Trump would rip his thyroid gland straight out of his throat with his bare hands and eat it in front of him.
And when I mentioned meeting Trump to Stephen Bates, he made a funny face and then – well, I always keep a spare pair of trousers on hand in the office. I told Stephen to get them dry-cleaned before he got them back to me. I wonder if Lidia Thorpe would be available on a fee-for-appearance basis.
SUNDAY: Hyphen No 1 rang with bad news. According to a poll in the Murdoch gutter press, only 25 per cent of Australians know who I am. I urged calm. That means there are 75 per cent of Australians who need to know who I am. I lead a great team. Hyphens 1 through 7 are doing great work.
As the leader, I couldn’t be more pleased with them. And what can I say about Mehreen Faruqi that hasn’t already been said about Burkina Faso?
MONDAY: Nothing much happened today except I was on television. I wonder if the 75 per cent of Australians who don’t know who I am ever go on television. I am on television all the time.
I decided to eschew the cardigan for my appearance on the ABC’s Q+A. I wore a T-shirt with a slogan on it, just to look edgy. Hyphen No 3 gave me the choice of “Medicare into Dental” or “Let’s bring back death duties”.
If only more people wore T-shirts with slogans on them, I think we would have a better body politic. The 75 per cent of Australians who don’t know who I am will start to see me as a political figure of consequence when I turn up to a polling booth with a T-shirt with words on it and a gigantic prop toothbrush in my hand.
TUESDAY: Currently working with AI on a new list of demands that includes 50 cent public transport. It’s the kind of can-do work from a federal party that will never see the light of day because the states run public transport, but it looks great on a T-shirt. Obviously, it is non-negotiable.
Senator Nick McKim’s relentless effort to look more and more like Bob Brown every day is starting to pay off. I introduced Nick as Bob out on a whistlestop in Lyons last week. No one noticed, or if they did, they didn’t say anything. This could be a real winner for us in Tasmania.
I just had a thought. The Maugean skate are people, too. Get Hyphen No 4 on the line. We need to get some T-shirts printed.
Jack the Insider is a highly placed dedicated servant of the nation and a weekly columnist at The Australian.
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THURSDAY: I’ve been working with artificial intelligence to put together a list of demands to Labor, demands that are not negotiable under any circumstances. I have sent them to the Prime Minister by email with a red star, so he can’t ignore it.