Joyce vows to bring Emirates ‘down to our level’

Passengers to pay for oxygen as airline saves on depressurization

Sydney, 8 May 2013

RELATIONS BETWEEN QANTAS and its new international partner Emirates have soured after a series of cost-cutting measures proposed by CEO Alan Joyce triggered a fistfight between several board members in the duty free arcade at Dubai’s international airport.

No one was injured in the fracas and claims by Joyce that he required medical treatment after an Emirates board member threw sand in his eye could not be confirmed.

The mêlée raises doubts about the long-term viability of a partnership QANTAS hoped would revive the airline’s fading reputation among international travellers.

Sources close to the Emirates board have told VoteSmart that a particularly contentious decision was QANTAS's bid to save on depressurization costs by requiring passengers to purchase their own oxygen tanks and breathing apparatus.

After being contacted by VoteSmart a spokeswoman for Joyce confirmed the tanks would be available from special kiosks located within 600 metres of the check-in gates and accessed via a one-off ‘Anti-asphyxiation fee’ of $180.

She also confirmed rumours that an additional ‘Anti-asphyxiation tank recycling fee’ of $175 will be charged to economy class passengers when alighting the aircraft at the conclusion of the journey.

In addition, the 18kg tanks will henceforth count towards passengers’ carry-on luggage allowance with the fee charged for exceeding the 5kg hand luggage limit rising from $33 to $97 per gram.

The company spokeswoman insisted the airline 'would not force'  passengers to purchase oxygen but said that any one who failed to do so and subsequently asphyxiated in flight would have their estate charged a ‘deceased person removal fee’ of $764.

An additional impost would be incurred if the deceased passenger’s next of kin wished to have the body repatriated for a family funeral.

Under this plan any bodies not claimed after 14 days will be dispatched by QANTAS baggage handlers to land fill, a step that will incur an ‘organic waste offset fee’ of $817.

The new cost cutting measures follow similarly controversial initiatives announced last week for QANTAS’s domestic network.

Especially contentious was Joyce’s announcement that from June 1 a ‘new and highly innovative’ set of transit initiatives would be trialled on the Melbourne to Perth route.

The centrepiece of the plan, which Joyce claimed would make QANTAS a ‘world leader in mass aviation transit’, will see all economy class seats removed and replaced with handrails.

Joyce said that while ‘ordinary travellers’ where free to bring their own chairs on flights doing so would incur a $189.00 ‘inconvenience fee’.

Rejecting criticisms that the fee was unfair, Joyce explained the fee had been calculated to offset the inconvenience caused to politicians, major shareholders or board members seated in business class but disturbed by the rattling and scrapping of cheap seats in economy during take off and landing.

Coalition vows to bring back school jousting

Sydney 2 May 2013

OPPOSITION LEADER Tony Abbott has challenged the Gillard government’s attempts to seize the initiative on education reform by unveiling a controversial vision for the nation’s schools.

Speaking at yesterday’s annual meeting of the Greater Western Sydney Medieval Re-enactment Society, Abbott said that while some aspects of the Gonski Review were 'worth reading’ a major shortcoming was the report’s failure to focus on the teaching of traditional values, physical education and self-defence.

Abbott said that a future Coalition government would 'build on Gonski’ by implementing an education funding model linked to an individual school’s commitment to the teaching of ‘customary ideas of right and wrong, combat skills and martial arts.’

However in so doing the Opposition Leader said a future Coalition government would place special emphasis on the ‘lost art of jousting’.

‘Like most Australians I have watched in horror as sports like jousting, sword fighting and the use of a mace and shield have faded from the nation’s educational landscape’, said Abbott.

‘As a result an entire generation of Australians will grow up unable to defend themselves, their community and the nation from asylum seekers secreted into floating Trojan horses, trade unionists or an invading Saracen army.’

‘I also worry that an entire generation of Aussies will not be able to compete in Asia where the martial arts are a critical component to doing business,’ he said. 

Abbott vowed that a future Coalition government would move to rectify the enfeeblement of Australian youth by introducing an alternative funding model whereby the support received by individual school would be tied to its students’ mastery of combat skills.

According to the Shadow Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, a Coalition government would measure students’ proficiency in martial skills by revising the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) so that less emphasis is placed on reading, writing and mathematics.

Pyne, who told VoteSmart he had recently purchased an ‘Abmaster Pro’ and Zoomba DVD and had been ‘working out at home’, claimed the existing curriculum and education funding model had an ‘effeminising impact’ on Australian society and needed to be reversed if the nation was to prosper in the future.

‘Under a coalition government jousting will replace reading, spear and lance proficiency will replace writing, and archery and the manufacturing of lead shot will replace mathematics,’ said Pyne.

Pyne, who also repeated insisted our reporter feel his biceps, also revealed that under an Abbott administration the current emphasis on Asian languages would be replaced with compulsory martial arts, particularly Karate, Tae Kwon Do, and Kendo.

‘It is only by beating the Oriental at his own game that Australia will restore its reputation and tap into the regional economy,’ he said. 

Gillard pins electoral fortunes on finding Harold Holt

Beijing 3 April 2013

AN EMBATTLED JULIA GILLARD has touched down in Beijing and taken the first steps in a bold attempt to revive her flagging political fortunes by negotiating the release of former Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt.

With polls showing that Labor could hold fewer seats than independents at next September’s federal election, Gillard has gambled on winning back public trust by locating and releasing Holt who disappeared while swimming off Victoria’s rugged southern coast in December 1967.

Experts unanimously agree that any successful attempt by Gillard to locate Holt and negotiate his release from a Chinese prison camp would be a turning point in the campaign and see her emerge as a clear favourite to retain power.

However, it is a bold gamble with no tangible evidence that the Chinese were involved in Holt’s disappearance let alone are still holding him captive.

More ominously for Gillard is evidence that the Kevin Rudd camp is endeavouring to garner support for yet another leadership challenge – a move that could undermine her ability to influence newly installed Chinese President Xi Jinping.

VoteSmart has learned that several hours before Gillard’s arrival in Beijing a separate ALP delegation led by Kevin Rudd landed in Pyongyang in an attempt to solicit support from North Korean strong man Kim Jong-un for one final pre-election leadership spill.

According to Rudd supporter and former defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon, last month’s failed leadership contest was caused by a defective Ouija Board and was a mistake that would not be repeated.

‘We have replaced the upturned glass used to communicate with the spirits as we discovered the previous one had a chip on the lip and was therefore faulty,’ Fitzgibbon told VoteSmart.

‘The new glass works brilliantly! And it told us that the key to replacing Gillard with Kevin and winning the next election was to visit Pyongyang and meet the man widely regarded as the best political campaigner in all of Asia, President Kim.’

The delegation, which along with Rudd and Fitzgibbon includes Anthony Albanese, Kim Carr, Simon Crean and Martin Ferguson will meet Kim on Friday.

A meeting scheduled for later today was postponed after the 30-year-old demagogue sustained minor injuries after his double chin and scrotum became caught in a diesel-powered cabbage shredder.

With the question of leadership still unresolved Gillard might find the Chinese unwilling to enter into detailed discussions about what might have really happened to Holt, according Emeritus Professor Festus Scrötal, Head of the Deng Xiaoping School of Tobacco Research and Submarine Warfare at the VoteSmart Democracy Institute.

‘The Chinese know that the only pieces of evidence that could link them to Holt’s disappearance were the discovery of a torn cocktail umbrella and a chopstick on Cheviot Beach a few days after Holt’s disappearance,’ said Scrötal.

‘Although these are significant pieces in the puzzle, they don’t prove the popular theory that Holt was snatched by a Chinese submarine while performing backstroke and drinking a dry martini before being whisked back to Beijing where Chairman Mao wanted him to help decimalise China’s currency.’

‘There is no reason for China to confess when confronted with flimsy evidence and a flimsy government?’ he said.

However the founder and national convenor of the Harold Holt Disappearance Re-enactment Society, Dr Erstwhile Truthwright, does not share Scrötal’s scepticism.

ALP leadership crisis deepens with call to defrost dead heroes

Curtin and Hawke should be ‘thawed to save the party’ - Crean

Sydney, 22 March 2013

THE ALP IS AGAIN MIRED in a leadership crisis barely 24-hours after Prime Minister Gillard insisted that Thursday’s phantom leadership challenge by Kevin Rudd had ended leadership speculation ‘once and for all’.

Tensions resurfaced at 9.45pm yesterday evening when a band of around 50 Labor backbenchers marched into the Prime Minister’s office and demanded the keys to the ALP’s secret cryogenic bank.

It is believed the group planned to remove and defrost former leaders John Curtin and Bob Hawke, among others, as the first step before launching another leadership challenge.

According to sources another leadership spill could be forced on Gillard within weeks when the prime minister is expected to face a more potent contest headed by either the 128-year-old Curtin (leader from 1935-1945) or the 96-year-old Hawke (1983-1991).

Other names being mentioned include Ben Chifley (1945-1951), H.V. Evatt (1951-1960), and Arthur Calwell (1960-1967).

An agreement to keep James Scullin (1928-1935) cryogenically frozen no matter how dire the ALP's fortunes appear continues to attract near unanimous support with only Simon Crean voicing support for the only serving ALP leader to lose his seat in an election.

Last night’s 50-strong posse, many carrying flaming torches and garden implements, was headed by dumped Resources Minister Martin Ferguson but also included other former Cabinet members including Chris Bowen and Kim Carr.

According to eyewitnesses the group had been drinking at a popular ALP watering hole in the nearby Canberra suburb of Manuka when they became rowdy.  Police are investigating reports that the group overturned red cars and vandalising red flowered flora on their rampage towards parliament.

VoteSmart believes that along the way the group was joined by several News Limited journalists and a solitary Commonwealth car driver angry over new parking regulations on the parliament house ring road.

Although former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd did not join in the mêlée as it moved along Canberra Avenue and up Capital Hill, according to local residents he followed its progress from a motorised scooter travelling at no faster than 4kph a discrete distance behind the mob.

One eyewitness reported that, ‘Rudd swore loudly and shook his fists whenever the mob stopped to wait for Kim Carr, who struggled to keep up with the rest of the group and kept pausing to use his asthma puffer.’

Arriving at parliament house the crowd stormed past security staff and rushed the Prime Minister’s office where they interrupted Gillard and her staff during their regular Friday evening séance, which is used to determine policy for the coming week.

It is believed that paramedics treated Joel Fitzgibbon at the scene after he was struck on the temple by a Ouija board thrown by Gillard’s Chief of Staff. No other injuries were reported

New Pope confesses – ‘I’m not a Catholic’

Cardinals confused by ‘smoke and incense’

Rome, 19 March 2013

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH has been thrown into turmoil by claims that the newly elected Pope is a Protestant imposter with a long criminal record as a conman and petty thief.

The stunning allegations came after a keen eyed Argentinian police investigator noticed similarities between newly elected Pope Francis and convicted pickpocket and forger Jose ‘Pepe’ La Grande.

A subsequent analysis of fingerprints lifted from a communion wafer taken by Argentina’s ambassador in Rome confirmed initial suspicions and prompted authorities in Buenos Aires to seek the Pontiff’s extradition on charges including theft, assaulting a police officer and absconding from justice.

Although the Pontiff is yet to publicly confirm or deny the allegations, Vatican insiders concede he has confessed to the Church’s powerful Secretary of State, Cardinal Ernesto Borgnine, that he is a Lutheran.

The same sources suggest the Pope’s Easter Sunday service as the most likely venue for a public confession although it is not known how, or if, he can be forcibly removed from office.    

According to the Head of the Pope Benedict IX School of Roman Church Studies at the VoteSmart Democracy Institute, Brother Bruno Mussolini, the revelations were likely to turn most Catholics against the new Pontiff.

‘While the Council of Cardinals are likely to forgive crimes of pick pocketing and even the forgery of Eva Peron memorabilia, they will not forgive his Protestant faith. He simply has to go.’

However evicting the new Pontiff from his suite at the Vatican might prove harder than expected with top Vatican lawyers unable to find any precedent for disqualification based on either faith or past criminal behaviour.

‘If he were gay, or even worse a woman, then there wouldn’t be a problem and he could be removed and subjected to public ridicule immediately,’ conceded Mussolini.

‘Being a Protestant is not as bad as being a gay, a woman or even a Jew or Muslim, but within the pantheon of Catholic sins its still pretty bad.’

‘This is why the Church authorities will be keen to push him out, but I’m not sure they have a legal leg to stand on as there are no obvious canonical precedents which they can use to impeach him.’

‘Besides, getting rid of him means they will have to have another conclave and I’m not sure they are all that keen on having to deal with another George Pell campaign blitz so soon after the last one,’ said Mussolini.

During the last conclave Pell was widely criticised in the lead up to the vote for stalking the Vatican wearing a ‘Vote For George’ sandwich board and handing out ‘How to Vote cards’.

While Church lawyers debate how to respond to Argentina’s extradition request, attention has turned to how a 75-year-old convicted Lutheran pickpocket and conman could have been elected Pope in the first place.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, South African Cardinal Rasputin Codogo told VoteSmart that thick smoke from ‘too many incense burners’ had confused many of the elderly cardinals.

‘My eyes were already watering from Archbishop Berlusconi’s aftershave so when they lit the incense the smoke stung my eyes and made it almost impossible to read the bloody ballot paper,’ he said.

‘I thought I was voting for the Asian guy, and I don’t think I’m the only one who ticked the wrong box.’

Abbott commits to ‘national moat’

‘Siege warfare strategy can defeat asylum seekers’ - Abbott

Sydney, 13 March 2013

OPPOSITION LEADER Tony Abbott has placed national security at the forefront of this year’s election campaign by promising to eradicate the problem of illegal boat arrivals ‘once and for all’ through the construction of a national moat.

Speaking to a gathering of 800 voters huddled in the panic room of the Cronulla office of Opposition Immigration Spokesman Scott Morrison, Abbott said the as yet unfunded project would commence ‘the day after I am sworn in’ and involve teams of workers labouring ‘around the clock until we are safe.’

Abbott rejected tentative Treasury costings for the project, which estimate a total outlay in the vicinity of $900 billion, saying that ‘more objective internal Liberal Party estimates are both above and below those of Treasury.’

He also dismissed concerns that the cost would plunge the budget into a deficit that could encumber 17 successive generations.

Abbott told his audience the project would be fully funded through a series of targeted cuts to existing government expenditure and by the privatisation of the nation’s three remaining public assets – the National Library, the High Court, and the armed forces.

VoteSmart believes that Abbott’s office has already received an Expression of Interest for the sale of the army and air force from mining magnate Gina Rinehart who is keen to add lethal force to her bid to take control of Fairfax media.

Abbott also revealed the moat would be completed in two stages.

The first, to be finalised by December 2018, will involve a 36,000km trench excavated to 50 meters wide and 10 meters deep designed to provide the Australian mainland with what Abbott called ‘an impenetrable barrier against asset-poor Mohometan hordes’. 

Stage two, the construction of an additional 24,000km of trenches designed to protect Tasmania and all other off-shore territories from the threat of illegal boat arrivals, will be completed by 2021.

The trenches will be positioned two hundred meters inland - as measured from existing tidal high water marks - and filled with floodwaters redirected through a series of pipes constructed with funds sequestered from the Queensland Flood Levy.

Additional funds would be secured through the introduction of a tax on families without a boat.

VoteSmart believes the decision to fill the trenches with fresh water rather than seawater caused significant divisions within the shadow cabinet with tempers becoming so heated that at one stage Morrison attempted to throttle his Queensland counterpart Warren Entsch with the strap of a giant inflatable thong.

Entsch, a crocodile farmer, had expressed particular opposition to Morrison’s proposal to combine national security with a boost for tourism by turning the moat into the world’s longest trout farm. 

Under the Morrison plan, the annual cost of maintaining guard towers and drawbridges would be offset by stocking the moat with Brown Trout and establishing an extensive network of privately owned bait and tackle shops.

Licences to run one of the tackle shops would be allocated via competitive auction.

Former Pope opens Rooty Hill ALDI franchise

Baillieu to head fruit and vegie section

Sydney 7 March 2013

FORMER POPE Benedict XVI has dealt an embarrassing blow to Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s campaign to win back support in Labor’s Western Sydney heartland by refusing to serve her a sausage in bread.

The incident occurred after Gillard came across a barbecue organised to mark the grand opening of the former Pontiff’s post-Vatican business venture, an ALDI franchise located at the Rooty Hill shopping complex.

Gillard, who was accompanied by local member Ed Husic, several campaign workers and a troupe of multicultural minstrels playing Australian bush ballads on bagpipes, oud and a Chinese zither, expressed shock after the former Pope, who has since reverted to his birth name of Joe Ratzinger, refused to hand over a bratwurst sausage in a slice of white bread.

According to eye witnesses, Gillard engaged in a heated argument with the 85-year-old German-born cleric before making an obscene hand gesture and quick marching towards a Vietnamese bakery where staff gladly sold the Prime Minister a pork bun.

The incident underscores the degree to which Gillard has lost favour in what has traditionally been regarded as Labor heartland and is a measure of the difficulties she faces in stemming the tide of anti-Labor sentiment in Sydney’s outer west.

Her efforts will not have been helped by the scuffle that ensued between the former Pope and Husic with shopping centre security personnel forced to separate the two after the member for Chifley placed Ratzinger in a headlock and appeared to try to remove his lederhosen.

Ratzinger said he has no regrets over the incident and if the opportunity arose again he would repeat his snub.

Speaking exclusively to VoteSmart, the Pontiff Emeritus conceded that he had never liked Gillard even when he was in the Vatican.

‘Of course then I couldn’t say anything publicly. But the woman drove me mad over the Mary McKillop issue!’

‘If she wasn’t writing letters or emailing me she was sending me texts insisting that I add some one named Ita Buttrose to the list of Australian saints,’ he revealed.

‘George [Pell] warned me she was a pain in the arse. Apparently she’s not even a Catholic! And she’s living in sin! And then there’s the carbon tax! I’m a small businessman, it could break me!’

‘Why would I waste my bratwurst on a person like that?’

The former Pontiff also confirmed that the ex-Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu had agreed to join the management team at Sydney’s newest ALDI franchise.

Baillieu, who resigned as Victorian premier on Wednesday, will join as the head of the fresh produce section.

‘I am told Ted has wide experience with vegetables and can pick a spud from 100 meters.  I think he’ll make a great contribution to the overall running of the store,’ said Ratzinger.

Saturated fats tycoon and head of the Australian Independent Grocers Association, Dr. Erstwhile Truthwright, praised Ratzinger’s actions and wished the former leader of the world’s 2 billion Catholics – including the last remaining breeding pairs in Western Europe - well in his new business venture.

Gillard blames sports-related head injuries for poor performance

Abbott’s audible flatulence also ‘a warning sign’ - expert

Melbourne, 27 February 2013

PRIME MINISTER Julia Gillard has conceded that her political judgement might have been affected by brain damage caused by heavy concussions suffered during more than two decades as a member of the ALP.

Speaking to media following the release of yet another set of poor polling figures for Labor, Gillard revealed that since wresting the prime ministership from Kevin Rudd she has been suffering memory loss, mood swings and erratic behaviour.

Addressing the National Press Club wearing a large crash helmet, which she explained had been recommended by her physician, Minister for Health Dr. Tanya Plibersek, Gillard conceded that polls indicate that an election-losing number of voters are unhappy with her performance.

But she pleaded for understanding in light of the difficulties caused by repeated blows to the head and associated brain damage and expressed confidence that disillusioned Labor voters will swing back to the government after she completes a tour of marginal electorates in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.

The three week tour, which Gillard explained is to allow her to ‘reconnect with real people by acting like real people’, will see the prime minister and her partner Tim Mathieson living out of a 1996 Holden Commodore parked in shopping centre car parks.

‘People will be able to come up and chat to Tim and me about anything. They can ask me questions to test how bad my memory has become, place bets on how quickly my mood changes, and I’ll even let them feel the bumps on my head caused by all those ALP brawls,’ she said.

Gillard revealed that she suffered her first political concussion in 1984 during a Young Labor social football match when she was accidentally king hit by Bill Shorten and was rendered unconscious for several minutes.

‘Bill was angry – he had just been squirrel gripped by Stephen Conroy during a mêlée in the forward pocket – and he came out of the pack throwing haymakers. Unfortunately I copped it on the temple. It was an accident, just one of things in politics’, she explained.

Although reluctant to blame Shorten for the concussion, Gillard said she was angry that senior ALP officials had returned her to the playing field within 5 minutes of the blow.

'All they did after I regained consciousness was ask me to name two people in the first Whitlam ministry. The only two names that came to mind were Fidel Castro and Dawn Fraser.'

'The ALP doctor said 'close enough' and sent me back out onto the field.'

'I now know it was an irresponsible thing to do. Dawn Fraser was never a member of any Whitlam cabinet.' said Gillard.

'But in those days if you copped a blow to the head there was no duty of care – they just sent you straight back into the political fray.’

Gillard revealed that she had been knocked out at least 7 times since the ALP’s fractious 2001 National Conference but that the worst incident occurred during the 2004 Conference when a brawl erupted during debate over the party’s policy on uranium mining.

‘Someone hit me with a chair. I don’t have any proof who, although someone later told me it was a certain official from the Australian Workers Union.’

‘Regardless, I woke up three days later on top of a trestle table selling Mark Latham paraphernalia - nunchakus and stuff like that.’

Gillard said that since then she had no memory of promising not to introduce a carbon tax, could not recall ever being a republican or having supported gay marriage.

Gillard lags Phar Lap in Popularity Stakes

Goulburn’s Big Merino more popular than PM

Sydney 18 February 2013

Julia’s Gillard’s gamble on a long election campaign is continuing to founder after polls published in all major Australian newspapers show voter support for deceased sporting heroes and inanimate national icons continuing to surge.

Surveys conducted over the weekend show Gillard falling further behind Phar Lap, Rugby League great Clive Churchill, and AFL Hall of Fame member Roy Cazaly and trailing the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru and Goulburn’s Big Merino in terms of preferred Prime Minister.

Particularly worrying for the government will be the results of the latest Fairfax/Nielson poll which shows the Prime Minister running fourth behind Phar Lap, Tulloch and modern racing sensation Black Caviar in terms of preferred Prime Minister.

Published this morning in the Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne Age and Findus Foods Home Recipes Weekly, the poll of 1,200 adults living within a 4km radius of major racing tracks or with a valid breeders’ licence asked the following question:

‘Who would you support if the election scheduled for 14 September were to be run tomorrow as a thoroughbred handicap over 3,200 meters?’

The results show Phar Lap with 29 per cent approval, followed by Tulloch on 26 per cent, Black Caviar on 24 per cent while Gillard drew only 21 per cent support.

On a two party preferred basis this translates into deceased thoroughbred distance runners holding a 55 to 45 per cent lead over Gillard – who would in likelihood receive preferences from Black Caviar, a sprinter.

This is the lowest approval rating for a serving prime minister since 1914 when Andrew Fisher scored an approval rating of just 16 per cent when pitted against Sister Mary McKillop, German Kaiser Wilhelm and a prototype of Richard Bowyer-Smith’s stump jump plough.

In a further historical parallel that will worry some ALP strategists, like the other nominations in this morning’s poll neither McKillop (deceased), the plough (undischarged bankrupt) nor Kaiser Wilhelm (German) had signalled their intention to contest the election scheduled for later that year. 

However internal ALP disquiet at Fisher’s poll results saw him resign from office in favour of Billy Hughes, rumoured to be a personal hero of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Not surprisingly today’s poll results and eerie historical parallel have reignited media speculation that Rudd might mount yet another challenge to Gillard’s leadership.

Despite the former PM ruling out a contest prior to the September election, the polls have provided fresh ammunition for political commentators worried about how to fill newspaper columns during a week in which there are no scheduled parliamentary sittings and the Royal Commission into Sexual Abuse by Clergy has taken a recess until the election of a new Pope.

Pontiff wooed by ALP and Libs

Vatican rejects rumours of link to drugs in sport scandal

Canberra and Vatican City, 12 February 2013

POPE BENEDICT XVI’s shock resignation has reignited speculation that the 85-year-old leader of the world’s 1 billion Catholics is considering offers to stand in this year’s Australian federal election.

Senior ALP and Liberal Party officials this morning refused to deny rumours that both Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott have approached the Pontiff with offers of a safe seat and automatic entry into the ministry should they win the election.

Adding to speculation are sources in Rome who have told VoteSmart that the Pope, whose birth name is Fritz Ratzinger, has not ruled out a move to Australia and a future in federal parliament.

Speaking exclusively to VoteSmart, the Pope’s former Butler, Paolo Gabriele, described his former boss as ‘an Aussie politics freak!’

‘He literally can’t get enough of characters like Barnaby Joyce, Bob Katter and Laurie Ferguson. He thinks they are hilarious! Perhaps its his Germanic sense of humour, but he collapses into fits of laughter whenever he watches Question Time.’

Gabriele, who was recently pardoned by Pope Benedict after serving just a fraction of an 18-moth sentence imposed after he was convicted on the charge of lighting incense in a smoke free zone, said that in his opinion the Pontiff would ‘love to retire Down Under’.

‘At Christmas he requested a pair of Pius XI themed board shorts and made enquiries about converting the Pope Mobile into a ute, so perhaps he really is planning to head down there,’ he said.

Meanwhile, Liberal Party sources have told VoteSmart that encouraged by Vatican chatter former Prime Minister John Howard has put aside his long-standing distrust of Catholics and agreed to help lure the soon to be ‘Mr Ratzinger’ into Coalition ranks.

At Abbott’s request Howard contacted the Pope just hours after the surprise announcement of his resignation.

Howard told His Holiness that should he agree to run as a Liberal candidate he might also be able to secure a spot on Channel Nine’s cricket commentary team.  

The Pope is known to be especially interested in replacing the retiring Richie Benaud in time for next summer’s Ashes series.

Benaud, who recently announced he was retiring from all forms of cricket to take up the role of Grand Mufti in Cairo, praised the Pope as a worthy replacement. 

‘It is a little known fact that His Holiness has a very tricky googly and his understanding of spin bowling would make an excellent addition to the commentary team. Personally I hope he accepts,’ said Benaud.

It is widely believed that if the Pontiff does choose to spend his later years in public office he is more likely to gravitate towards the Liberals mainly because of his friendship with Cardinal George Pell, head of the party’s spiritual marketing arm, and Abbott’s long standing membership of the church’s secretive Illuminati.

Steroid and crime claims rattle Canberra

MP has 25-month erection after steroid-Viagra cocktail

Canberra, 8 February 2013

AUSTRALIAN politics has been rocked by allegations that organised crime cartels have flooded governments and councils with performance-enhancing drugs and manipulated the outcomes of debates on issues ranging from budgets to the placement of safety bollards at suburban shopping centres.

The claims stem from a joint 12-month investigation by the Australian Crime Commission and World Anti-Doping Agency and are contained in a 375-page report presented yesterday to the heads of all major political parties.

The report details extensive steroid abuse and a network of criminal connections involving individuals from all important political parties, and the Greens, represented at all three tiers of government.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her opponent Tony Abbott expressed their ‘shock’ and ‘alarm’ at the allegations and promised to work together to root out performance enhancing drugs and purge organised criminal influence from Australian politics.

However both were adamant in rejecting claims that members of their own parties were complicit in the problem.  

Yet despite Gillard and Abbott’s denials high level sources have told VoteSmart that the investigation, codenamed Project Hemlock, has triggered over 200 separate police investigations focusing on politicians, speechwriters, researchers, media and policy advisors from both sides of politics as well as among minor party and independent public officials spread across all three levels of government.

All of those under investigation are alleged to have either organised the supply of performance enhancing substances by elected officials or accepted financial inducements from Asian betting syndicates to fix the outcome of parliamentary or council votes.

According to one well-placed anonymous source, Senior Sergeant Frank Garibaldi, elected officials are believed to have consumed a range of substances designed to enhance their rhetorical and theatrical skills, boost their mastery of feigned social bonhomie, sharpen their ability to post-rationalise malfeasant behaviour, deliver even larger untruths more regularly and with greater conviction, better divine water and cure illnesses by the laying-on of hands and bolster their sexual prowess.

Substances concerned include peptides synthesised from absinthe and caviar as well as the blood-boosting hormone EPO2 – which is derived from emu urine.

In one case currently under investigation by Federal Police a member of the House of Representatives involved in a parliamentary inquiry into the sex industry used a super-charged mix of anabolic steroids and Viagra to maintain a 25-month erection.

Throughout this period he told constituents the fiction that he had been forced to wear a kaftan because of an acute case of genital ringworm contracted while investigating living conditions of diggers in Afghanistan. 

Pyne’s ‘Nazi’ comments rile key powerbrokers

‘Herr Hitler didn’t introduce a carbon tax’ – Abetz

Adelaide and Berlin, 4 February 2013

Opposition leader Tony Abbott is facing a damaging internal party rift just three days into the long federal election campaign.

Comments made by the Shadow Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, comparing recent tribulations of the Gillard government to the disintegration of Adolph Hitler’s Nazi regime have infuriated a secretive parliamentary club containing several high profile Liberal senators, some of whom are calling for Pyne to be ‘tried and court marshalled’.

The often controversial Member for Sturt’s comments were in response to a question asked by a correspondent for the German Weekly Der Spiegel concerning the sudden resignations of Labor frontbenchers Chris Evans and Nicola Roxon.

Asked for his views Pyne said the government is ‘starting to resemble a scene from that German film about the last days of Hitler. I think its called The Sound of Music.’

Pyne, who also holds the shadow education portfolio, then expounded on his views by comparing Gillard, ‘to the old German leader in the film – the guy in the submarine presiding over a divided and dysfunctional government.’

To the bewilderment of both local and foreign media Pyne then adhered a small piece of black tape to his top lip and goose stepped around his electorate office shouting, ‘I’m Frauline Gillard und mein official car iz a Volkswagon!’ and ‘Mein Gott! Zee storm troopers Evans und Roxon ‘ave dezerted me!’

According to Fritz Lude, Der Spiegel’s Adelaide correspondent, Pyne then climbed onto his desk and started singing ‘I am 16 going on 17’.

While Pyne’s theatrics drew a predictable response from the government with newly anointed Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus, calling the performance ‘insulting and out of key’, it was the reaction of several parliamentary colleagues that has most concerned Abbott and his campaign team.

Within minutes of news outlets reporting Pyne’s antics an enraged posse of Liberal heavyweights stormed into Abbott’s office demanding he take action.

VoteSmart can reveal the delegation comprised Senators Eric Abetz, Mathias Cormann, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and George Brandis – all members of the secretive Federal Parliament Holy Roman Empire Re-enactment Club.

Known in some opposition circles as ‘The Inquisition’, the delegation handed Abbott a confidential letter subsequently passed to one of the Liberal Party’s principal financial backers, Dr Erstwhile Truthwright – Commander-in-Chief of the VoteSmart Democracy Institute and publisher of this news service.

The letter calls Pyne’s comments ‘an ignorant and insulting stereotype of people of the Habsburg Empire and others whose cultures and beliefs were shaped by Western civilisation’s greatest political union.’

‘Yet again the Member for Sturt [Pyne] has put on public display her feeble grasp of history’.

The latter also urges Abbott to give Pyne an ultimatum – ‘to desist from her apparently uncontrollable urge to lapse into musical theatre or be court marshalled and removed from the shadow cabinet.’

The letter also calls on Abbott to force Pyne to, ‘publicly correct the gross historical errors that informed his simple-minded comparison between the Gillard government and the Third Reich.’

‘At no point did Herr Hitler ever introduce a carbon tax.  At no point did any member of the Reichstag face criminal charges on allegations of misusing union funds. At no point did Eva Braun make bad taste comments about female Asian doctors performing prostate examinations even though it was well known that Goebbels had a weak stream.’

Outbreak of bubonic plague latest setback for Labor

Boil-covered Rudd denies he is source of infections

Canberra, 2 February 2013

Julia Gillard’s election gamble has suffered another setback with an outbreak of bubonic plague incapacitating several high profile ministers and reviving speculation of another leadership challenge by Kevin Rudd.

The disease comes on top of internal party criticism of Gillard’s handling of the dumping of Northern Territory Senator Trish Crossin in favour of former Olympian Nova Peris and fistfights between government members over occupancy of parliamentary offices vacated by Chris Evans and Nicola Roxon.

Speaking from the isolation ward at Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital, Gillard conceded that the first week of the long election campaign was not going ‘according to script’ but added she was confident she would be fit enough to attend next Tuesday’s first sitting day of the new parliament after being diagnosed only a minor case of the plague.

Gillard was quarantined as a precaution after doctors treating her for cuts and abrasions - incurred after she intervened in a fistfight between new Attorney General Mark Dreyfus and new Cabinet Secretary Jason Clare over who would take Roxon’s old office - noticed several dark coloured lesions on her neck.

The PM refused to comment on an event earlier in the evening involving her partner, Tim Mathieson, who was allegedly ejected from the hospital by security personnel after wandering the corridors and asking Asian staff if they performed prostate examinations ‘the old fashioned way’.

Although Gillard is expected to be back at her desk early next week, the prognoses for other senior members of the government is not as benign.

Up to 33 Caucus members, including Treasurer Wayne Swan, Finance Minister Penny Wong and incoming Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor, are rumoured to be covered with large black boils and facing several months of medical treatment and enforced quarantine.

An attempt by a VoteSmart to interview Swan and confirm the diagnoses was rebuffed after the Deputy Prime Minister refused to appear at the plastic curtain of his hospital ward to speak to a reporter, saying only, ‘Go away! I’m hideous!’

Next week’s absence of plague-infected members from parliament is unlikely to impact the government’s tenuous hold on power with new procedural rules permitting members suffering from infectious diseases such as plague, Ebola, and gonorrhoea to vote electronically via interactive computer consoles.

The introduction of the consoles appears to have surprised former leader Kevin Rudd who earlier in the day had told a gathering of model train enthusiasts in his electorate of Griffith that he was ready to step into any void left by his colleagues’ incapacitation.

Rudd angrily denied rumours that he was the source of the plague currently sweeping through government ranks and laughed off claims that he had chosen to address the gathering in a bee keeper’s outfit – on the warmest Brisbane day in 27 years – to camouflage enormous black lesions in his armpits and groin.

The former PM, who delivered his 40-minute address with his arms outstretched and legs apart - also rebuffed allegations by a parliament house cleaner that she had discovered a series of flea and rat breeding devices concealed in a cupboard of his Canberra office.

Lance Armstrong rejects ALP Senate offer

127-year-old Lou Richards added to Victorian ticket

Canberra, 23 January 2013

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is set to follow up her shock announcement that former Olympian Nova Peris would head the ALP’s Senate ticket in the Northern Territory by revealing the party has secured even more celebrity candidates.

Official party documents leaked to VoteSmart reveal a long list of sporting and show business celebrities that the government believes will resuscitate its political fortunes in the lead up to federal elections due later this year.

The list includes sporting icons such as the 127-year-old Australian football legend Lou Richards, swimming great Dawn Fraser, former Australian cricket captain and Channel 9 commentator Mark ‘Tubby’ Taylor, popular Balinese prison inmate Schapelle Corby and horse racing sensation Black Caviar are all poised to enter federal parliament after accepting safe ALP seats.

Gillard is planning to announce the slew of celebrity candidates during a red carpet interview with Hugh Jackman at next month’s academy awards where she is hoping to add the likes of George Clooney, Haley Berry and teenage pop icon Taylor Swift.

However Gillard’s attempts to lure controversial cycling great Lance Armstrong appear to have floundered after the disgraced star refused to accept second spot behind Oprah Winfrey on the ALP’s NSW ticket.

Armstrong’s change of heart – just days earlier he had confessed to Winfrey that his admission to drug cheating and associated mea cupla was inspired by his ‘life-long desire to represent the great state of New South Wales in the Austrian (sic) Senate’ – has shocked ALP powerbrokers who are now searching for an alternative candidate.

VoteSmart has learned that the preferred candidate is punk rocker Joel Madden, the US-born Good Charlotte front man who built a strong rapport with voters through his appearance on last year’s TV hit reality show The Voice.

It is believed that Madden is keen to enter Australian politics but only if he can manage the demands of public office with his gruelling schedule of filming fast food commercials.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one senior ministerial source told VoteSmart that while it was true that the celebrity candidates would spark voter enthusiasm and all but guarantee the ALP’s re-election, a more important consequence was the ‘righting of past wrongs’.

‘No former AFL great over 100 years old has ever represented the ALP in the federal parliament. Nor has the party ever had the privilege of being represented by a confessed drug cheat, an inmate of an Indonesian prison or by a thoroughbred mare for that matter’, said Minister for Minerals Resources and Radioactivity Martin Ferguson. 

Abbott denies stuntman role is a stunt

Opposition leader to double for Mel Gibson in Pell movie

Sydney, 11 January 2013

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has rejected claims that his offer to work as Mel Gibson’s stunt double in a planned movie documenting the life of Cardinal George Pell is little more than a political gimmick.

The controversy comes days after Abbott’s role as a volunteer fire fighter was queried by the government and follows similar questions raised after he volunteered to join the hunt for terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, wrestle Russian President Vladimir Putin, and submitted his name for the 2013 AFL draft.

News that Abbott could star alongside Gibson in the $65 million blockbuster was leaked after a copy of a letter from his office to the controversial actor’s production company was found attached to the front of News Limited’s Sydney office.

Abbott says he has no idea how the letter, which had been blown up to A2 size and fixed to the front door with grey insulation tape, managed to find its way into the hands of the media.

‘It’s actually a bit embarrassing,’ conceded Abbott.

‘It’s true that my office did write to Mr Gibson offering my services as his stunt double. It’s true that I have had preliminary discussions with him towards this end. And it's also true that I have been in rehearsals involving myself smeared in baptismal oil jumping from a Tuk Tuk at high speed. But I never thought it would become public!’

Speaking to VoteSmart Abbott said he was attracted to Gibson’s plan for a movie documenting the life of Cardinal Pell because of his love of film, his friendship with Pell, and his admiration for Gibson and not because of his longer term political ambitions.

‘It is my view that Cardinal George Pell is one of the greatest men to ever wear silk slippers,' said Abbott.

'His rise from a Ballart convent school to that of spiritual leader and the struggles he has had to endure on this journey is an inspiration to all Australians.’

Abbott also said that he was also honoured to be working alongside Gibson, whom he described as ‘the best gladiator ever to grace our screens.’

‘Throughout their careers Cardinal Pell and Mel Gibson have overcome tremendous obstacles – feminists and homosexual terrorists among other things – to excel in sport and public life.’

‘It’s something that ordinary Aussies admire and I’m an ordinary Aussie’, said Abbott.