101 Uses for a John Howard

Sydney’s hosting APEC, and in honour of some of the more repressive regimes in attendance, we’ve given our police the chance to show them how it’s done with new and exciting powers to keep unruly citizens in line.

However, the centrepiece of our APEC celebrations is a gigantic concrete and steel fence around the centre of Sydney, symbolising Australia’s open and welcoming attitude to those attempting to escape countries with more permanent and enthusiastic systems of keeping their people safe from such dangers as being able to move freely through their own cities or express political views.

But while the fence is ostensibly in place to keep the riffraff at a safe distance from their mostly democratically elected overlords, it’s also the jewel in the crown of John Howard’s climate change policy. While the latte-sipping tree-huggers who signed up to the Kyoto protocol vainly try to hold back the tide, John’s embraced global warming and is looking to the future.

Climate scientists have calculated that during APEC, the volume of hot air emitted on the topic of climate change will be sufficient to entirely melt the polar icecaps, causing the sea levels to rise dramatically. Fortunately, John will be busily gathering two of every different type of bureaucrat into the Opera House early in the week.

At around 2.8 metres high, the fence will keep out the flood and with the air conditioning cranked up to maximum and snacks available in the foyer, they will ride out the apocalypse in the manner of Noah and emerge triumphantly to create a perfect society based on the Australian Workplace Agreement.

The only hole in the plan is that the fence is made of steel lattice which may not prove to be as waterproof as hoped. Nonetheless, you can worry too much about the details when it comes to the environment and as long as it looks like you’re doing something, that’s generally considered good enough.