Government looks after us, Roomba has it

What to do when household items become spy gadgets.

Ever feel like someone is watching you? Might be they have hacked into home devices - just watch that internet-driven fridge. Picture: KeremYucel

IT'S A bit much when Peter Dutton turns up on my phone, my tablet and my fridge all at once. I think so, Dutto obviously doesn't. And since his super agency hacked my internet of things-equipped home, I don't have a choice.

Last night I went to clean my teeth and the electric toothbrush dispensed soap to wash my mouth out because I had said the F word too many times. I must have had a tougher day than I thought, there was enough soap to do my laundry.

It's not just Dutto popping up on my internetted life. It's everybody in the federal and state governments telling me what to do, questioning what I think and wanting to know why it takes me so long to provide answers to their dumb questions. Why did I eat that unhealthy thing? Have I forgotten how much the health budget has blown out? Why haven't I been to church on Sunday? How can I doubt the existence of the God of the Liberal Party, the one who won't let me marry my boyfriend?

They got Labor's backing for the new laws by guaranteeing Bill Shorten equal time. Bill's equal time is on the internetted electric toilet paper dispenser. I get lectured by it every time I go to the dunny. And when I tell it I want paper, it dispenses two lousy sheets then tells me I now hold the Liberal policy on caring for the downtrodden.

Not only do we have an internet of things, we now have a voting populace that consists of things. We no longer exist as human beings, voters or even members of the public. No, we have become a set of digits, stored on a computer in the government somewhere. And kept safe by the people who managed a Census, umpteen Tax Office fiascos and a whole bunch of data leaks. They've had the training. So by now they must have made our data safe. Surely.

The great vote winner used to be law and order, but with crime rates falling John Howard turned the fear factor around effectively with campaigns against dreaded boat people.

But, as concern about boat people faded, we needed a new source of fear. Behold, terror. Despite having one of the lowest rates of terror in the world, Australia lives in deep fear of it.

This suits Government and Opposition, because it gives them a chance to rattle our cage and disturb us from our binge-watching of sex and violence long enough to vote for them.

So we need to be alert and alarmed, because that Howard-era fridge magnet has been replaced with one that's also connected to the internet. Queensland Police want the power to hack our homes for security, so they'll be into fridge magnets too.

And Amazon has just patented a drone that conveys info about your home as it delivers your latest book. And sends you offers of people who will fix that leaking roof, mow that long grass ... You get the picture.

We found out this week that your Roomba robot vacuum cleaner has mapped your house, reported it to the company that manufactures them and then they want to sell it. Cute little Roomba. But I guess it's good because it means when they come to arrest me for writing something that satirises holy government policy, they'll know where to find me. Roomba has it I'm under the bed, Dutto.

Pollie Tickled is a satirical column.

Originally published as Government looks after us, Roomba has it