A vessel at the mercy of unpredictable seas
ONCE upon a time, a great steamship was launched to ply the seas, spreading conservative values around the world. It was the SS Parliament with an improved upper deck access that excluded ratty little parties from infesting the staterooms.
The titanic ship was launched at Double Dissolution Shipyards and was guaranteed to be unsinkable, its heroic master Captain Malcolm Bligh Turnbull assured us. Able to power through oceans of doubt, defeat seachanges that would sink a lesser ship. Immune to any change of climate or the fears thereof.
As is the norm on ships of the line, the captain was a legitimate celebrant of marriages, able to wed any man to any woman and vice versa. And never would he join two men or two women in an unholy matrimony.
But as the mighty ship sailed the seas, it hit some storms and as the ocean temperature rose and more icebergs calved off and drifted towards its home port of Lake Burley Griffin, the captain had to lash himself to the mast lest he be washed o’erboard by a wave from Manly or other treach’rous parts of the Coalition Ocean.
Thus tied, he managed to endure the howl of winds – hot air from the Christensen dust storm in Queensland; the frosty Abetz blast from Tasmania; and the constant moan of the Nationals breeze from the heartland.
Still our captain persevered, knowing his faithful crew would do their jobs well and bring the ship through Re-election Passage and into the still waters in the shelter of the small section of the sparkling white Great Barrier Reef that had survived.
He watched and gloated as one Green iceberg appeared, then another, each nearly sinking the Greens’ handwoven bamboo coracle. As a red-topped wave seemed ready to capsize the coracle, a small iceberg called Roberts of Britain seemed to break the force of that wave, saving the Greens from further woes even as other icebergs appeared in shipping lanes to the left and the right.
Roberts of Britain continued its meandering and unpredictable path, drifting through shipping lanes and risking the safety of the One Nation shipping line with its pure white funnels. That iceberg almost led to a change in the company name – to Two Nations shipping line.
Still our Captain Bligh stood, resolute despite the Nationals helmsman keeping the ship on a steady course to the right (starboard to those in the know). From my vantage point on the shore, it appears our captain was leaning to the left (port, ditto). But maybe it was the other way around – it’s hard to tell with him.
This was the unsinkable doing the unthinkable, the ship launched to solve all problems caused by those dreadful Angry Voter Penguins who popped up all over the place.
Unfortunately, as our captain steered his resolute course, a few of his own pet penguins began to hatch a plan as a massive ice shelf calved itself off from Antarctica and then calved off multiple icebergs. Each turned out to be carrying multiple Rainbow Penguins. And each floated into the path of our titanic SS Parliament.
Will it survive? Can it make safe passage to the calmer waters of Re-elected Harbour?
Stay tuned. It could get tricky because I just heard the sound of a lifeboat hitting the water and through the fog of fake news I can just see our ship of state listing to starboard as Barnaby’s Brass Band plays that catchy old-time favourite, We’re happy in De Nile.