The ‘Whale-Being Budget’

A bit of quiet, please, a bit of quiet…settle down!

Gidday, and thanks for coming along on this auspicacious, ah…auspicionous, ah…on this bloody great occasion; the unveiling of the first, the inaugural, ‘Whale-Being Budget’.

I won’t deny there’s been a shadow of argument and a few threats too, dare I say, about the naming of the Whale-Being Budget, certain editorial staffers preferring the ‘Well-Bong Budget’ given that some of our superiors, those currently holding office, have determined if the economy is indeed going to Hell in a Handcart then we might as well get stoned and enjoy our ride through the destruction.

Now, the priorities of the Whale-Being Budget are to address anything important, that is to say; anything that’s picked up and could be repeated by the 8-15yrs demographics’ news and current affairs sources, Twitcom and Farcebook, in a negative way.

Amongst our priorities is ending the tales of wail and Desdemona we fed the geese when we were in opposition. For instance, our multiple stories of the sad mothers of eleven children each with ten-point-five different fathers forced to move crack-house due to entirely unforeseen and purely temporary discrepancies between wall surfaces and safe methamphetamine precursor-saturation levels, which was all terribly unfair and unjust.

This is going to stop. As one of our initiatives in the Whale-Being Budget we are going to insist on meth-resistant wall coverings in all privately-owned rental accommodation, retrospectively applied. State-owned properties will get an extra twenty years to come up to speed, so to speak.

From this ground-breaking point onwards Aotearoa New-Zilland Inc will be only a fair society, this is not to disparage the less-than-fair, we are in no way racist, or homophiliac.

We have determined five priority areas for the bonfires of taxpayer dollars, meaning the five items least likely to be reported back to our voting bloc in any meaningful or decipherable way. They also, by unhappy coincidence, closely align in a parallel but inverse relationship to achieving anything useful at all. They are

1. “Creating opportunities for productive businesses, regions, iwi and others to transition to a sustainable and low-emissions economy.”

2. “Supporting a thriving nation in the digital age through innovation, social and economic opportunities.”

3. “Reducing child poverty and improving child wellbeing, including addressing family violence.”

4. “Supporting mental wellbeing for all New Zealanders, with a special focus on under 24-year-olds.”

5. “Lifting Maori and Pacific incomes, skills and opportunities.”

Item number 1 describes how we want productive businesses to ‘transition’ to something else: probably to unproductive businesses, we don’t really know. This is a clear Labour Party platform, well-signalled, and should be no surprise. We believe we have a mandate for this.

The second clearly spells out our thriving nation’s need for support – which is a thriving paradox. Is that clear to you all?

Item the third signals our intention to introduce compulsory contraception: to wit, we intend that every person in New Zealand will be supplied with posters of the coalition members, which we will encourage, if necessary by compulsion, citizens to affix to the walls and ceilings of every space where child-poverty could be initiated, including every bedroom, sleep-out, public-house, tinny-house, WINZ branch, office store-room and KFC outlet, as well as on all public transport. This should have the flaccidatory effect of rendering happy-endings all but impossible among the target cohort in these places and see the birth rates of poverty-children decline over time.

The fourth speaks of the mental wellness or otherwise of our citizens, especially the younger – so, leading by example, we will from this point on never, ever, speak of planetary doom measured by nth-degree increments in temperature anomalies again, or of the dominant and unbreakable glass ceiling of patriarchy, covert racism, misogyny, the gender pay-gap, homography, or fluid sexuality to any under-24yr-olds, nor will we drone on and on in tones of unending gloom for the future, depressing as we are, and as it sounds. We will speak only of the immeasurable treasure youth bestows and the wonderful opportunities it affords the young in this modern and connected world.

Nah; jokes, you didn’t believe that did you? Encouraging misery is our thing, it’s trademarked, ‘Socialism: making everybody equally unhappy’, it’s got a ring to it, don’t you think?

Point 5 unfortunately emphasises our inherent racism but it, importantly, plays to our existing audience of snivellers and academic types who are determined to see those folk fail that it might keep them in PhD’s till the cows come home, or the philosophical blinkers come off, whichever is the last.

And that about wraps it up; ladies, gents, in-betweens and in-determinate’s. The Whale-Being Budget – ending the hell years of awful prosperity in breath-taking ideological farce, and puerile piffle. We certainly hope you buy into, or get sucked into, our ideas, they’re paid for with your very own dollars!

Thank you for listening. Sorry, no questions.