“Good morning, today in the studio we have the Minister for Hire Education, Mr Christopher Whyne. Mr Whine in August last year, you said that you wouldn’t be putting a cap on University Places, but today, we hear that you are?”

“Good morning, well, a lot’s changed since August of last year.”

“What exactly?”

“We’re in Government.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Well, you can’t make changes from Opposition. Don’t be ridiculous, but now the big boys are back in charge, we can do lots of things we could do last year?”

“Big boys?”

“Oh, sorry, I meant adults.”

“So, what you’re saying is that we can’t rely on anything you promised in Opposition?”

“No, of course not. We just said that we had no plans to make changes in a number of areas and, of course, we had no plans. Good heavens, we didn’t even have policies on most areas, so how can you accuse us of changing our plans.”

“So, what about Labor’s targets to ensure more people from disadvantaged backgrounds gain access to University.”

“Well, that sounds a little bit like class warfare to me. If people like that want to go to universities, why don’t they start their own?”

“Aren’t universities for everyone?”

“Well, yes, but we do want to ensure that there’s no drop in quality.”

“What about the changes to amenities fees? Many of the regional universities are opposed to this.”

“What you need to understand is we have a mandate. We were elected to run this country and that means we’re in charge, and if people don’t like it, well, they can always vote against us and elect a government like Labor who were just beholden to the faceless men and didn’t listen to the community.”

“But surely a mandate only applies to the policies you took to the election.”

“Our policies were a stronger economy, better government, stopping the boats from appearing on the front page and Tony’s daughters are really hot. I think this comes under one of those.”

“So basically you’re telling me that you have a mandate for anything?”

“Not anything. Just things that are good.”

“Has your party ever done anything that wasn’t ‘good’?”

“Never. We’re awesome. We ran surpluses, and Labor caused a Global Financial Crisis!”

“On that, when do you think you’ll have the budget back in surplus.”

“Certainly, not next year. Probably in the budget where sell off Medibank Private, and the rest of Telstra after giving them a fantastic deal on the NBN.”

“Isn’t Telstra now part of the Future Fund?”

“We’re in the future, aren’t we?”

“That’s debatable.”

“What?”

“I said, ‘thanks for your time’. That’s enough for today.”

“A pleasure.”