It’s just past 10:00am in rural Queensland, the sun already baking the tin roof of the Rusty Pickaxe Pub. The “policy meeting” is set to kick off once the schooners arrive and someone locates the agenda – a VB coaster with “coal” scrawled in Texta, underlined twice for emphasis.
Deputy Leader Kevin Hogan opens with a solemn acknowledgement of country, followed by an even more solemn ode to fossil fuels: “To the coal that powers our nation and the diesel that fuels our 4WDs – may they never be replaced by batteries.” The barman, polishing a glass, rolls his eyes. He’s heard this one before.
Matt Canavan commandeers the floor (and the jukebox, now stuck on John Williamson’s “True Blue”) to deliver a sermon about “jobs, energy security, and how the sun can’t be trusted to shine when it’s dark.” He brands solar panels “urban sorcery” and declares the mine behind the pub “the beating heart of Australia,” conveniently ignoring that it’s been idle since 2014 and now hosts a thriving colony of feral goats.
Barnaby Joyce roars in late, his restored FJ Holden kicking up dust in the car park, tape deck blaring Johnny O’Keefe’s “She’s My Baby.” He stumbles through the door, Akubra askew, mumbling about trains, cattle, and “woke city councils trying to ban emu pies.” He hasn’t read the briefing notes but quotes a Facebook comment from “Dazza in Dalby” as gospel: “If we run outta coal, the whole country’s stuffed, and we’ll all be eating alfalfa.” The room erupts in applause, though no one’s sure why.
A young staffer suggests diversifying into renewables. He is politely escorted to the car park and told to “take that Canberra thinking back to the city.” Any city. Preferably one the other side of the continent. Any continent.
Lunch is served – steak, chips, and a round of nostalgia for the 1950s. David Littleproud makes a rare appearance, cautiously suggesting they try to appeal to younger voters. Barnaby tells him to “loosen his tie and grab a beer. Make that two beers – and grab one for yourself.”
Mid-afternoon, the talk shifts to water policy. The room agrees it’s a mess, but “someone else should fix it – preferably upstream, in New South Wales, so Queensland can keep the lot.” Barnaby proposes building “a bloody big dam, maybe two,” to solve the Murray-Darling crisis, then admits he’s not sure where the river actually is. Mayor Gary “Gazza” Turnbull, sporting a bolo tie and a “Save Our Sheep” badge, chimes in: “Water’s for farmers, not fish. And don’t get me started on those city enviro-nuts who think rivers need to flow.” The room nods sagely.
The agenda briefly pivots to regional infrastructure. Canavan pitches “more copper wire for the NBN – fibre’s too fancy,” while Hogan insists the local rail line should only carry coal, not passengers. “Trains are for freight, not ferrying hippies to their yoga retreats,” he declares. The barman, now wiping down the counter, mutters, “Good luck getting a signal out here to even complain about it.”
By 4:00pm, a press release is drafted but not sent, mostly because it’s scrawled on a napkin and accidentally used to clean up spilled beer (not Barnaby’s – he has never been known to spill his beer). It had read: “Fair Dinkum Power for a Fair Dinkum Australia,” in three different fonts, with a footnote about “latte-sipping Greens who think you can charge your ute with a ray of sunshine.” Instead, they agree to vent their outrage on Sky After Dark, where Barnaby plans to slam “inner-city elites who’ve never seen a coal seam.” Hours later, someone from The AIMN tweets a leaked snippet of the meeting, prompting a flustered Nationals MP to deny they called renewables “hippie nonsense.” Twitter erupts with #CoalIsCool memes.
The meeting wraps with a rousing rendition of Slim Dusty’s “Looking Forward, Looking Back” – heavy emphasis on looking back. As the sun sets behind the goat-infested mine, Mayor Gazza raises a final toast: “To coal, country, and the National Party – fighting tomorrow’s problems with yesterday’s solutions.”
Disclaimer: No policies were developed in the making of this meeting. Any resemblance to actual forward planning is purely coincidental.
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Great piece Roswell, some of the better satire I’ve read recently. I particularly like the line about Barnaby arriving in his FJ Holden. I’m guessing that refers to the infamous interview with Leigh Sales on 7.30 where he was rambling on about upgrading coal-fired power stations & she made the point that it was like upgrading an FJ instead of buying a Tesla & he started ranting about how valuable FJs are & how he’d like to have one followed by other fever-dream nonsense. Sales eventually giggled & said let’s forget about FJs & move on. Nothing’s changed.
Thank you, Tib. I’m glad you liked it.
The FJ reference was purely coincidental, so I’m chuffed to hear there was actually a story behind it.
Btw, I’ll have another piece similar to this one out sometime this week: A day in the life of a Liberal Party think tank that forgot to think.
I hope Barnaby found a nice comfortable patch of concrete to collapse on while raving to someone on his mobile before dropping off to sleep.
There’s an unsubstantiated rumour that boofhead Joyce, whilst staggering out of a country pub, carrying a dozen loose long necks, tripped on the doorstep, falling on his face, but managed to save every bottle from breakage.Of course he did.
Harry Lime, your comment reminds me of the time many years ago when I witnessed two cops pull up at a pub in Tara, go inside, exit, each with a six pack of glass stubbies, the first cop tossing his through the open window onto the passenger’s seat, the second cop doing the same, the sound of breaking glass accompanied by much swearing, the door then being opened and the broken stubbies swept out into the gutter and the cops then driving off.
Queensland’s finest just doing what they do, in full view of a member of the public. That was in 1970… expect things may have improved since then.
This nation should be better, going on, but here is a sniff of why it is not. The old country party idea became the irrational national bend over touchy toes for foreign multinational corporation donor’s party. Fargonel.
I’ve just discovered that PHON doesn’t mean Putrid Horrible Obnoxious and Nasty. Sadly it means Pauline Hanson One Nation. Think I’ll stick with the former, it’s much closer to what they stand for.
Now Roswell ….”forward planning in the NOtional$ is as rare as rocking horse manure and considerably less useful. In New England it means insuring all local councils are used as sheltered workshops for the ill-educated and large honoraria for potential future politicians who demonstrate sufficiently subservient & uncaring for their communities by religiously kow-towing to the unelected political hacks who control party pre-selection.
Indeed, it is whispered around the yards that now Beetrooter has been made a MILLIONAIRE on the public purse and has two Pilliga Scrub ”grazing properties” reportedly over CSG deposits, that he is retiring to the joys of family life, choose one of two, and practicing ”NOtional$ Family Values” of adultery, alcoholism, bigotry, corruption, deceit, egoism, fornication, misogyny and sexual harassment while training to become a counselling member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Having suppressed economic & social development in New England since his (unfortunate) election in 2013, he has to date (2025) even failed to return the Tenterfield CBD By Pass Project to feral funding after Toxic RAbbott slashed it from the 2013 Budget when he learned that Tony Windsor INDEPENDENT had retired.
The postal votes are being organised for the next feral elections likely to be contested for the NOtional$ by the leader of the NO NAME NOtional$ Group and Mayor of Armidale Regional Council who has suitable family connections. Nothing like calling in about 50 years of favours for the family.
Did you notice that Adani has just been granted a ‘royalty deferral’ for its Carmichael coal mine in Queensland. This agreement allows the company to defer royalty payments to the Queensland government effectively giving them a “royalties holiday”.
The Queensland government agreed to allow Adani to defer royalty payments on coal exports from the Carmichael mine on a highly controversial project that was supposed to inject multi-millions into the Queensland economy but is proving already to be economically marginal and environmentally damaging.
The Qld LNP government has defended the agreement as ‘necessary to support regional jobs and the Queensland economy, while also emphasizing that Adani will still pay all royalties owed’, at sometime in the future provided the project generates the requisite revenue.
We got stitched up again !