Dominic Cadden
Up until recently, you may have thought that Australia's global influence has only ever extended to the speed of service in London bars. Now, as we emerge from the cold of the financial crisis, it’s springtime for Australia and it’s march to world domination.
Let’s check the signs. First there’s been the massive program of public spending, a government throwing money at citizens to breed and buy homes and business assets. This is all backed by a nationalistic fervour that promises to raise the nation Phoenix-like as the new power in the region, even if we have to invade Nauru (oh, hang on, already done that). Is it 1930s Germany? No, it’s present-day Australia. Add the carefully cultivated relationships with Japan and the USA, with a carefully laid-out plan to invade Britain and the picture begins to form. The groundwork, however, was laid out well before the failed Andrew Symonds Beer Hall Putsch, Chairman Rudd’s November Revolution and even the Howard Reich.
Look closely and you’ll see that Australia has had a strong hand in much of the Realpolitik of the post-WWII era. Although not a nuclear power, Australia holds approximately 30 per cent of the world’s uranium stores, and Britain’s own nuclear capability came about in no small part due to extensive nuclear testing in the deserts and islands of South Australia and Western Australia through the 1950s and 60s. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was largely repelled by Afghan mujahideen fighters who, acting on radio instructions from Australians serving on military satellite relay stations in remote areas of Western Australia, pulled hand-held SA-7 surface-to-air missiles out of their goats to bring down Soviet planes. Although more overt imperialism didn’t come until the rise of the Howard Reich, it’s little known that since 1933 Australia has administered more of Antarctica than any other nation – a vast chunk that takes up nearly half the land mass of the continent. Worried about rising sea levels? Just you wait until the Mawson’s Hut Annual BBQ and Fireworks gets out of hand. Only Australians could manage to start a bushfire in Antarctica.
New Zealand, of course, sits awkwardly between the Fatherland and the Antarctic territories, the perfect location for some Australian Lebensraum. Bloodshed could be avoided, since the Australian Constitution very generously allows for New Zealand to be incorporated into Australia as an seventh state, something like the Anschluss Nazi Germany formed with/imposed on Austria. The catch is that New Zealand has to agree, or lose the Bledisloe Cup three years in a row. With neither looking likely, there have been TV campaigns to take over New Zealand by military force, capitalising on the groundwork laid out by that nation’s own tourism marketing with slogans such as ‘New Zealand – 100% there for the taking’. A second ad preys upon national values, promoting the invasion of New Zealand as an excuse to mark the victory with a new public holiday in the back half of the year. (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=RenRILqwhJs)
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves (much like Australia). Such ambition has its roots in zealous nationalism that has been borne from belittlement, much like Germany’s humiliation after the Great War made the Nazi Party a viable option. In Australia’s case, the country was until the 1970s beset with a Cultural Cringe – the prevalent belief that any work done by Australians would inevitably be inferior to that of British and American people, and that we needed them to teach us how to be "world class". Now Australia has gone in the opposite direction and created the Cultural Strut, the ideology that we have nothing to learn from other countries because Australians are the best at sport, acting, directing, winemaking, modelling and even reiki. Far too often in any media you’ll see ‘Australia’ next to words such as ‘world’s best’, ‘takes on the world’ and ‘number one’. If nations, like men, measured their own penises, Australia could be accused of starting the ruler from its anus.
From the 1970s onwards, the Fatherland began preparing its people physically and psychologically for world domination through staged competitions that pitted Australia against ‘The Rest of the World’. Obviously, such competitions were geared towards activities that Australia were able to dominate on home soil, such as cricket, bull riding, speedway racing and dwarf throwing. Australia sought to thrust itself onto the world stage by turning up at every global and Pan-Pacific meeting, every minor international skirmish and every peacekeeping operation. In the last 10 years Australia has conveniently had cause to take up a military presence in neighbouring territories such as East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. The Australian infantry’s focus is kept ‘in the killing zone’ by rounding up as many as 6000 kangaroos at a time at the Majura army base near Canberra for Skippy’s version of Charge of the Light Brigade.
As an exercise in grand nation-building, Australia has spent the last 15 years smashing and grabbing at every international event of any significance – Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings, G20 summits, the World Cups of rugby, cricket and even football (yeah, right!), the Olympics and World Youth Day. Tell Australians that the Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling Competition will now have “World” as a prefix and you can be sure that both the Federal and State government will campaign and schmooze their way to move the event to Perth’s Kings Park.
Confidence in the nation built through the Howard Reich, seemingly justified by the continuing growth of international tourism. This of course culminated with the arrogance of the infamous ‘Where the bloody hell are ya?’ adverts, which were eventually banned in the UK for the use of the rude word (just as well the Brits never saw the draft version, which emphasized its point with the word “cunting”). At the same time, Australians hang on to the pain of Anzac Day to stoke the fires of rabid nationalism and anti-British sentiment, just as Hitler used the humiliation of The Treaty of Versailles to provoke a nation to vengeance. Sure the Brits used Aussies as cannon fodder, but after more than 90 years, Aussies still won’t let it rest. And it’s not just ANZAC Day – if any Aussie friend watches Gallipoli or Breaker Morant again, you’d best just stay out of their life for the next month.
Close to home, Australia enforced itself on the region through Reichstag Leader Howard who, like Hitler, reigned supreme as Fuhrer for 11 years. While Hitler had The Final Solution, Howard had the Pacific Solution. Both policies aimed to preserve the purity of the Fatherland. Under The Pacific Solution, Australian forces intercepted refugee boats at sea to keep them from the Fatherland. They then transported the asylum seekers (mostly from Afghanistan Iraq, Iran, China and Vietnam) to detention centres on nearby Pacific islands annexed by the Howard Reichstag. Like Hitler, Howard’s henchmen built up a paranoia about a chosen group to consolidate their own power base. In fact, the Reich largely survived the 2001 election on the basis that only a strong Fuhrer could protect the Fatherland from these heartless refugees who would chuck their kids overboard into the ocean as a ploy to secure rescue and passage to Australia.
These were glory years, but the Master race could not take on the world with a birth rate surpassed by that of a Methodist Aged Pensioner village. So the Fuhrer offered a cash bonus to couples for every child they bred, which resulted in a spike in the birth rate and jump in the sale of big-screen plasma and LCD TVs. Nationalist fervour grew to such heights that one of the most derogatory adjectives that could possibly be used to describe an action, object or person was “unAustralian”. Soon der Fuhrer deigned that before any immigrant could become full card-carrying members of the master race and have access to breeding bonuses and other benefits, they had to prove their “Australianess”. Today, they continue to do this through a citizenship test that is partly based on a written exam about Australian values, history and socio-political structure. The remainder is based on an assessment of conduct at the barbie and piss-up that follows.
While the Howard Reichstag strengthened the home fronts of the Fatherland, advance parties had also been sent out to the rest of the world in preparation for the next move. For example, vast volumes of wine and beer have been exported to lull enemies into a false sense of security. Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Murdoch achieved remarkable success in the UK and USA, while the Australian cricket SS (Sledging Stormtroopers) spread intimidation and fear through their merciless actions and verbal assassinations.
Australians have invaded British and American television and cinema, exceeding a passable impersonation of normal people, just like the aliens did in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. It seems innocent enough, but each time an Australian takes a lead role in a Hollywood film, or directs the latest blockbuster, or stars in a West End play, they’re taking power away from the further cultural development of Britain or America. That’s right, they’re bringing the culture of other Western nations down to their level, so when the moment is ripe they can strike back with some atrocity such as Home & Away, Kath & Kim and even Australia. Let’s face it, Kylie Minogue’s Locomotion was just a goosestep away from the Nuremburg Rally as a call to arms for Australia’s cultural invasion of the UK. Germaine Greer, Geoffrey Robertson and Clive James had infiltrated earlier to deliver the speeches and take the minds, then Jonathon Coleman, Peter Andre, Ritchie Benaud, Danni Minogue moved in for the kill. But it’s not just about culture. It’s estimated that at any one time, around 400,000 Australians are in the UK. All it takes is one message secretly conducted through Vegimite (as opposed to Tim Tams, which act as a homing device) and Earl’s Court, Kensington, Hammersmith, Fulham and Shepherds Bush will all be taken. It’s an enormous latent force that Vice-Marshall Dame Edna could mobilise into action should Chairman Rudd, the first Prime Minister to make no mention of the Queen in his oath of office, fail to make Australia a republic at the next referendum.
Just as the end of Hitler marked the beginning of the rise of a new, even more dominant power in Europe, so too the fall of Fuhrer Howard marked the start of a new era in Australia. Comrade Rudd rode the populist front on a doctrine of ‘similar difference’ and made glorious the November Revolution of 2007 when he purged Howard and formed his own politburo. One of his first acts was to denounce Howard and his cult of anti-Reconciliation and declared his manifesto for an Education Revolution with all lessons taught in Ruddspeak. Rudd, a cunning linguist, then wrapped his tongue around Mandarin and declared allegiance with China.
Unlike Howard, who operated under the glowing misconception that American Presidents give a flying firetruck what Australian leaders say, Comrade Rudd denounced the crotch-sniffing of Imperialist dogs of the USA and Britain and pulled Australian troops out of Iraq. Now, instead of ingratiating himself to world leaders like his predecessor, Rudd sought to impose himself and Australia on the world stage through the intellectual superiority of Ruddspeak. In July, Citizen Rudd cut a swathe through Europe with his Bountiful Efficiencies of Unmeaning during meeting with leaders. Linguistic scholars around the world swooned as they measured his speeches with the Flesch-Kincaid grade level formula. After they cleaned themselves up, they were able to reveal that the formula ascertained that it often required 19 years of formal education to understand The Great Leader’s speeches.
“I'll reverse engineer and start at the third and move back to the first," he said, introducing his economic take on climate change policy. He went on to say that in the absence of multilateral security mechanisms he would seek conceptual synthesis and natural complementarity as sub-terms of reference on any progress on climate change to emerge by way of detailed programmatic specificity… or something – most media present suffered a brain aneurism halfway through each address. Translators strangled themselves and many of Europe’s biggest brains in economics and politics were left feeling like readers of The Daily Sport.
The writing is on the wall, even if grammatically challenged. As a new world order forms, Australia is seeking a place in the sun that will make the nation more than just, erm, a nice place in the sun. Don’t forget that America was also once just a remote English colony of no political significance, and look what happened there. Like Americans, Australians too can rise up and be brash, obnoxious and overbearing. If you can’t beat them, join them.
WHEN AUSTRALIA RULES THE WORLD…
… The Ashes urn will be moved from the MCC to the MCG
… French grapes will be used to make Australian wine and all starring roles slated for Gerard Depardieu in French art cinema will revert to Russell Crowe
… Spain will become The North-West Territories Bull Riding Stadium and Steakhouse
… Chairman Rudd will declare “Fair shake of the sauce bottle” a valid legal defence
… Australian immigration will require a ‘Hotness’ test
… Australia will stop exporting uranium…just in case we need it for weapons
… the Olympic Ideal will be upheld so that every four years, all nations can gather peacefully in a different Australian city
… all Americans will be forced to take a remedial English test (oral, aural and written)
… violent criminals and child molesters will be shipped off to the Colony of England
… Every day will be Sorry Day…in the UK
