(Satire)
Penny Wong: Welcome all, please give your attention to the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese.
Anthony Albanese: Morning everyone, and I pay my respects to Labour leaders, past, present but not emerging.
Richard Marles: How did your trip to Perth go?
Anthony Albanese: Had to pay for my own upgrade, but the frequent flyer points balance is looking good.
Patrick Gorman: Did you pick up a few votes for me?
Anthony Albanese: Cut the ribbon on some over-budget public transport infrastructure, handed back some money for a beach sculpture festival that we apparently took away from them, and upped our rare earths and minerals subsidies to $1.7 trillion.
Jim Chalmers: Oh, I’ll need to chat to you about that one.
Anthony Albanese: My advisors also made me go to a Synagogue for some optics on anti-Semitism and made it seem like I was invited. Of course had it been a mosque that had been attacked I would have flown straight back to Melbourne. But visiting the Perth Synagogue was the next best option. It was a bit awkward. There was no mic, no teleprompter and I didn’t even get a photo op. Didn’t really know what to say. Also turns out that I gate-crashed some poor kid’s Bar Mitzvah.
Mark Dreyfus: Did you stay for kiddish?
Anthony Albanese: No, but I did give them a bit of a word salad (laughs audibly at his own joke). Told them a few times that there is no place for anti-Semitism in Australia and that we love them.
Tony Burke: Might not go down too well with my electorate.
Jason Clare: I can make a statement tomorrow to balance that out a bit.
Anthony Albanese: I’ll make a few statements, one for each audience so that they all hear what they want to hear.
Ed Husic: I heard you had a quiet word to Fatima?
Anthony Albanese: Yeah, looks like we will need her vote in the Senate after the next election, so I’m positioning to concede on a couple of matters. For example, we may need to compromise by winding back our statements that there is no tolerance for anti-Semitism on the streets of Australia (everybody laughs)
Image: Anti-Semitism on the streets of Australia
Anthony Albanese: So what else do we have on the agenda today?
Richard Marles: We’ve had some defence intelligence reports in about the situation in northern Syria. Seems that the ceasefire in Lebanon has pushed Hizbollah back towards the Sunni Jihadists and in the meantime they have taken the opportunity to secure Aleppo and Homs. There is a bit of a stand-off and between Turkey, Iran and Russia that may trigger WWIII.
Anthony Albanese: Anything else?
Richard Marles: A few thousand dead kids. Neo colonial military forces will attack whole cities and thousands of civilians will be slaughtered. Wholesale breaches of the rules of war will no doubt take place, probably chemical weapons and thousands of civilians including women and children risk being butchered.
Penny Wong: Nothing to concern the UN, unless we can blame Israel?
Jason Clare: Can we expect a few Tentifada’s on University campuses, some street marches, targeting of businesses, doxxing, vandalising war memorials, and a few firebombings of religious institutions?
Anthony Albanese: No, they can’t pin this one on the Jews. Damn, I wish Bill Shorten was still here, he would know what to do. Does anybody have any ideas about how we can diffuse the situation in Syria?
Patrick Gorman: How about sending them some live sheep?
Murray Watt: Um…..
Anthony Albanese: Oh yeah, forgot about that. Maybe some Tasmanian Salmon?
Tanya Plibersek: Um….
Anthony Albanese: We could always appoint a special envoy for the Kurds, and then just ignore their advice, just like we did for the special envoy on anti-Semitism.
Mark Dreyfus: Which reminds me, I need to have a chat to you about that later.
Jim Chalmers: Penny, how’s your application to be the next UN Secretary General coming along?
Penny Wong: Moving in the right direction, but we still need to do more to punish Israel.
Tony Burke: Let’s start arresting Israelis who land at the airport if they have served in the IDF
Jason Clare: Let’s give another $20 million to UNWRA
Ed Husic: Let’s sponsor a display of the Palestinian nativity in the Myer windows
Chris Bowen: When Penny gets her UN junket, can I take over foreign affairs?
Tanya Plibersek: No
Jim Chalmers: Actually, not a bad idea, come and chat to me later.
Anthony Albanese: Alright we’ve covered a bit of ground today. Didn’t get to cost of living, economic downturn, union driven employment disputes, or energy blackouts, but let’s put that on the agenda when we next meet in February. I’m running late for my next flight. Have a great Christmas everyone, and don’t even think of trying to depose me as leader while I’m on holiday.