“QANTAS is gearing up to axe 5000 jobs and sell its terminal at Melbourne Airport to prove to the Abbott Government it can make the tough business decisions required to obtain federal assistance.”
The Herald-Sun, February 25th 2014
Februrary 2016 – A News Conference.
In breaking news today, Squandus the last remaining manufacturing company in Australia announced plans to make it eligible for government assistance.
“We’ve had to make some pretty tough decisions to meet the guidelines, but I’m pleased to say that we’ve met with our workers today and explained the situation to them,” announced Mr Swiss Cayman, the CEO at a news conference.
“First off, we’ll be selling our plants and equipment. Our original thought was that we’d lease them back, but our accountants have pointed out that as one of the conditions our the Federal funding was that we sack all our workers not prepared to take a pay cut and make redundant all those who are, there’ll be nobody to use the machinery. That, combined with the government requirement that all workers sign a confidential agreement on the conditions of their redundancy – and by confidential we mean that they’re not allowed to read it before signing – means we can make the sort of savings that the government is demanding.”
“Added to the wages bottom line, the fact that we have completely eliminated our energy and running costs means that we’ve reduced our overheads by almost 100%. The only costs will be the board’s salary and a payment to an auditing firm to ensure that we’re spending our revenue wisely.”
When asked where the company was expecting revenue from, Mr Cayman pointed out that now that they’d met the conditions for government support that they were expecting government help to continue.
“Let’s face it, without government support going into the future we’d be earning literally nothing. But we fully expect to get what we’ve asked for because we’re exactly the sort of firm that they’ve been encouraging since they took office.”
A spokesmen for the Government issued a press release with the standard blank page, before announcing that the Minister for Industry would not be taking questions on this because of both the commercial in confidence arrangements and also the government’s practice of not commenting on anything that might affect any other thing in any way whatsoever.
A journalist who rang the PM’s office to enquire the name of the Minister for Industry was taken into custody for trying to breach security. A second journalist who rang to find out the whereabouts of the first journalist was found to be an illegal immigrant and sent straight to Manus Island.
Meanwhile, Mr Jockey announced that the work-for- the-dole scheme had now been expanded to include journalists, judges and teachers. He scoffed at rumours that doctors had also been considered for the expansion, declaring “Medicine is a highly specialised field. We’re just including jobs that anyone can pick up after a few days work in the area.”
When one ABC journalist asked why the list didn’t include politicians, Mr Jockey asked him if his visa was still up to date.
“I was born in Australia,” asserted the journalist.
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t come here illegally,” suggested Mr Jockey. “Anyone here without a visa is potentially a candidate for off-shore processing.”
Rossleigh is a writer, director and teacher. As a writer, his plays include “The Charles Manson Variety Hour”, “Pastiche”, “Snap!”, “That’s Me In The Distance”, “48 Hours (without Eddie Murphy)”, and “A King of Infinite Space”. His acting credits include “Pinor Noir Noir” for “Short and Sweet” and carrying the coffin in “The Slap”. His ten minutes play, “Y” won the 2013 Crash Test Drama Final.
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