Trump, Dutton, ABC: Mike O’Connor’s predictions for 2025

Forecasting the future can be a perilous pursuit, but herewith is my take on the events that will shape the year ahead, writes Mike O’Connor.

Mike O’Connor predicts Peter Dutton will be elected prime minister. Picture: David Geraghty/NCA NewsWire

Forecasting the future can be a perilous pursuit, as all those people who said Donald Trump would never occupy the White House have discovered.

But herewith is my take on the events that will shape the year ahead.

JANUARY: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese discovers the Bruce Highway and says he knows it needs upgrading because he has driven along it dozens of times. A fact check reveals that this could not be true because no one has driven along it that many times and lived to tell the tale.

FEBRUARY: R.M. Williams announces a temporary shortage of riding boots and Akubra hats as every federal politician in the country ditches their suits, ties and designer frocks and prepares to take to the campaign trail in their true-blue fair dinkum Aussie costumes.

MARCH: Treasurer Jim Chalmers announces that 50 per cent of the workforce is now employed by the government. “Our plan is to do away with unemployment and low incomes by having everyone in the country working for the government – good pay, superannuation, sick leave, work from home and it’s impossible to get sacked – it’s a great gig,” he said.

APRIL: Campaigning for the federal election intensifies, with Labor claiming that the Coalition plans to shut down Medicare, abolish social security payments for everyone except pensioners who agree to work in salt mines and make parents take care of their own preschool children by abolishing childcare subsidies, thus threatening the viability of the legions of gyms and coffee shops reliant on latte sipping young mothers.

MAY: The election is held and Peter Dutton becomes prime minister. Post-election polling reveals that more than half of the electorate had not listened to anything Anthony Albanese, Jim Chalmers or Energy Minister Chris Bowen had said for the past six months.

JUNE: Australia’s United States ambassador Kevin Rudd is caught trying to sneak into a White House dinner disguised as a drink waiter in a failed attempt to meet President Trump.

“I just wanted to chat,” he cried as he was driven off in a large black van by Secret Service agents.

After tilts at Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada, will Donald Trump make a play for Aussie states? Picture: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

JULY: Victoria declares bankruptcy and is put up for sale. Donald Trump says he’s interested in buying it if he can get a two-for-one package with Tasmania thrown in as part of the deal, thus making them the 51st and 52nd states of the US.

AUGUST: Premier Crisafulli announces the formation of a committee to look into the committee formed to look into the committee which was formed to organise a committee to look at Olympic Games venues. President Trump says he is interested in expanding the United States’ presence in Australia and making Queensland its 53rd state. Mr Crisafulli says that if he promises to fund the Olympic venues, it’s a deal.

SEPTEMBER: Newly released statistics show a disproportionate number of males in south east Queensland being named Bruce due to the number of children being born in cars on the Bruce Highway while their parents wait in traffic jams with anecdotal evidence suggesting that an increasing number of children are being conceived on the Bruce. Average drive time between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast is now three days.

OCTOBER: The ABC announces that in the wake of complaints by staff that its title of Australian Broadcasting Corporation lacked inclusivity, it would undertake a national renaming. Henceforth it would be called The Broadcasting Corporation for Australians And All Those People Who Don’t Identify As Australians But Like Living Here Because It’s So Much Better Than Where They Came From.

NOVEMBER: The state government reveals a further blowout in the cost of the Cross River Rail project. “Due to an oversight by the previous government the trains don’t fit in the tunnel so were going to have to make the tunnel bigger or get smaller trains” the Department of Transport announces.

DECEMBER: Donald Trump announces that he will spend Christmas in Australia. “I’m going to stay in this place called Kirribilli House I’ve just bought. I’m renaming it the Downunder White House. They tell me it has great views of the harbour,” the President says.

Whatever the year holds, it won’t be dull.

Mike O’Connor suggests the ABC adopt a more appropriate name.

Originally published as Trump, Dutton, ABC: Mike O’Connor’s predictions for 2025