A departure from my usual post today. Craig Emerson is a Facebook friend and posted this last week. A witty piece of satire indeed. Hope you enjoy.

A Biblical, satirical piece of mine about the capturing of the tax reform debate by vested interests – the money changers. For those brethren who prefer to cut to the proverbial chase, go straight to the final two verses of the reading.

The second coming…

As commentators attack Prime Minister Turnbull for squibbing bold tax reform and he attacks Bill Shorten for proposing a sensible reform of his own, the public discourse on tax policy has fallen apart. The centre cannot hold against the anarchy being loosed upon the world by the worst – the money changers – full, as they are, of passionate intensity. Everywhere the endeavour of the innocents who offer dispassionate analysis is drowned in a blood-dimmed tide.

While comparing the corruption of the tax reform debate by vested interests with the end of civilisation prophesised by Yeats after the Great War might be slightly melodramatic, it is true that a barrage has been loosed against innocents who simply ask what is best for our country. Defenders of privilege load up their economic models as they would huge howitzers – Big Berthas – bombarding defenseless reformers with explosive findings: it is the working poor who will suffer from closing down tax shelters, not the privileged.

During the apocalyptic second coming of tax reform after the Abbott government’s failure, our freshly anointed leader was confronted by a vast image appearing in the sky out of Spiritus Mundi – a spirit world of images and symbols available only to the most perceptive, such as poets and highly intelligent prime ministers. It was the GST. And it was endowed with mystical qualities: it could pay for cuts in income taxes that would transform the nation into a land of milk and honey, free of famine, pestilence, earthquakes and even locusts.

But the image in the sky troubled the prime minister – and more so his predecessor’s loyal foot soldiers – so he instructed the high priests of the Treasury to inquire further into these mystical powers. With the patience of Job, the prime minister awaited the high priests’ findings. He need not have done so. Half a year ago the high priests of the Treasury had released a scripture titled Understanding the economy-wide efficiency and incidence of major Australian taxes (Isaiah 61:1 “The Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor”). The high priests estimated that the fabled tax-mix switch would produce one litre of milk, no honey and a plague of locusts.

Be-plagued by locusts, the prime minister was handed the scripture 31 days after the most recent celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. He promptly declared the mystical being the shadow of death into whose valley he had no intention of walking. Every money changer in the land and the media scribes and Pharisees attacked the prime minister for this wise decision to dismiss the mystical being in the sky. In his anger, the prime minister expelled the money changers from the temple and enunciated the seven woes of the scribes and Pharisees.

Having been led once into the valley of the shadow of death by the scribes, Pharisees and money changers, the prime minister appears to have become spooked by them. He has turned to attacking his rival, Brother Shorten, who wants to use the proceeds of lower subsidies on the rental incomes the money changers receive on their holdings of houses, apartments and temples to improve the life chances of the meek. Behold, it is the meek who will suffer at the hands of Brother Bill, warns the prime minister.

Yet frightening those who hunger and thirst for righteousness is not in the prime minister’s nature. When the anointed one succeeded his predecessor, his flock looked to him as their shepherd, willing him to lead them and trusting in him to know the way and, ideally, the truth and the light. But now, as the anointed one seeks to fend off his predecessor’s efforts at a second coming, the prime minister risks remaking himself in his predecessor’s own image and likeness.

If ours is to be the land of opportunity where the poor in spirit are given a chance, we must fund their education. If we are to comfort those who mourn, we must support them through hard times. If we are to end domestic violence and persecution, if we are to make peace on earth, then we must pay taxes to finance these noble endeavours. Caring for the sick, the frail and the elderly obliges us to be merciful, to be pure of heart. The people of our great nation are merciful, they are good-hearted and they are willing to pay their fair share in taxes to support those who need a helping hand. So let’s appeal to the better angels of the Australian people instead of promising them tax cuts to be handed down by the spirit in the sky.

Craig Emerson.