comucat

I caught this grub munching his way through a young old man banksia serata.

Look at his face. He's inscrutable. He must be foreign.

He could be a terrorist or a serious threat to Australia, our way of life our social mores. Maybe he arrived by boat as opposed to Boeing 747.

Perhaps as a true blue Australian, a mate, through and through, like the song says, I should report him to the Government.

But the Attorney General will keep him awake for days on end then jail him without trial on the basis of uttering gibberish and subject him to cruelties.  And the Little General John Howard dress himself in hero's battle gear and go on T.V and deny to the Australian people that sleep deprivation is torture. Huh?

The Minister for Immigration will contract him on rations, to an internment camp on an inaccessible island faraway and out of sight while her department processes his case. And the well fed minister will say to the Australian people: " He came to Australia illegally. He can't be authenticated. And what's more I understand that he is a threat to our heritage, eating it or something, so this is no more than he deserves. So stuff him, he's gonna get what he deserves. And stuff you too."

The Prime Minister of Australia will say that "I saw nothing, heard nothing, did and will do nothing. In all probability it did not and will not happen. There is always more than one side to a story. It's most likely a soft left beat up. Who reported this? Was it the ABC?" Then he'll use the idea for his next oration on the threats which evolution poses to the Australia way of life : mate-ship, boozing, footy, cricket at the SCG.

The fatuous Minister for Foreign Affairs will cry " Um. We just can't have this sort of thing going on. I mean what next? Um, if we show compassion to this individual Australia will be swamped by hordes of grubs from overseas in search of nothing more than a chance at life. Um, look here, I'm the Minister for Affairs Overseas and I deserve a little more respect. We haven't done anything wrong, he has. Um, by the way, has anyone seen my fish net stocking? Now where was I? Um."

And the Minister for Health, boxing too clever by half, will think " This ah, lends itself ah, to ah, theocratic argument. Another opportunity to show ah, ah, my leadership skills and position myself for the ah, ah, leadership." And then he'll plaster more diarrhoea across the opinion pages of the Sydney Morning Herald. But unfortunately for the Minister, that wont be all that noticeable because not many people read it anyway and because it's here, there, every where in Sydney these days.

And the Australian security agencies are likely to out-source the problem. The grub can be rendered anywhere from the United States to Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia. They hand out death sentences in those places. Australia outlawed the death penalty long ago. But our government has learned how to use the sub-human laws of other countries.

So on second thoughts, I think I'll just keep quiet about this grub. Put him back in the old man banksia. What the hell, its just a few leaves after all and the tree is big enough. And besides there is a least a good chance that he will become a beautiful butterfly.

25/10/2006