Barnaby: the National Hangover

Part One – Government By Group Chat

Australia had not intended to elect Barnaby Joyce prime minister.

Like many national catastrophes, it began as a joke that wandered too far unattended.

At first people said:

“Wouldn’t it be funny?”

Then:

“At least he says what he thinks.”

Then:

“The experts have ruined everything.”

Then suddenly the Governor-General was standing beside a visibly hungover Barnaby Joyce while a malfunctioning PA system repeatedly blasted Cold Chisel through Parliament House.

Historians would later identify this as: “the point where the adults lost the remote.”

The penguin sighed.

The humans had mistaken confidence for competence again.

Election Night at Dubbo RSL

The victory party itself quickly descended into what emergency services later described as “an aggressively Australian situation.”

Three supporters attempted to ride an inflatable emu through the buffet area.

Someone set off fireworks indoors.

A man wearing two Akubras and a “COAL KEEPS YA WARM” singlet cried tears of patriotic gravy into a tray of cocktail frankfurts.

Meanwhile Barnaby emerged onto stage holding:

• half a shiraz,
• a microphone sticky with Great Northern,
• and what appeared to be an upside-down policy document.

Behind him:

• Pauline Hanson glared suspiciously at a halal spring roll,
• Gina Rinehart smiled like a casino owner watching drunks discover the ATM,
• and Malcolm Roberts was attempting to connect his phone to the national broadcast feed.

This proved unfortunate. Because instead of the national anthem, millions of Australians were suddenly subjected to:

• a conspiracy podcast,
• a YouTube ad for colloidal silver,
• and a man screaming “THE WIND TURBINES KNOW WHAT YOU DID.”

The transmission lasted six minutes.

ASIO briefly considered intervention.

Unfortunately nobody could locate Malcolm because he had accidentally locked himself inside the audiovisual cupboard while trying to “access the deep state frequencies.”

The First Speech

Barnaby approached the microphone. The room quietened.

Somewhere in the distance:

“BUUUUURP.”

Barnaby nodded solemnly.

“Australians are sick of bein’ told what to do by experts.”

Thunderous applause.

“Scientists. Economists. Doctors. Public servants. Engineers. People with graphs.”

Wild cheering.

One mining executive briefly lost consciousness from excitement.

Barnaby continued:

“Under my government, ordinary Australians will once again have the freedom to believe absolutely any bloody thing they want.”

The crowd erupted.

The ASX fell 9% overnight.

Sky After Dark called the speech “economically refreshing.”

The Cabinet

The first cabinet announcement caused several senior public servants to begin stress-eating dry SAOs in dimly lit office kitchens.

Prime Minister

Barnaby Joyce

Responsibilities:

• national leadership,
• emergency diplomacy,
• and occasionally locating his own trousers.

Deputy Prime Minister & Minister for National Grievances

Pauline Hanson

Responsibilities included:

• immigration panic,
• cultural outrage,
• and investigations into “suspiciously woke vegetables.”

Her first press conference announced:

• an inquiry into oat milk,
• a senate review of bike lanes,
• and a taskforce examining whether Welcome to Country ceremonies were interfering with mobile reception.

No evidence was provided. None was requested.

Minister for Resources, Freedom & Common Sense

Gina Rinehart

Officially: “Special adviser.”

Unofficially: The entire economic policy.

Her recovery plan consisted of:

1. Dig up more stuff.
2. Sell more stuff.
3. Blame environmentalists if anything catches fire.

Treasury economists were later discovered wandering Canberra muttering: “That’s not how inflation works…”

Minister for Research, Freedom & Things They Don’t Want You To Know

Malcolm Roberts

No department admitted employing him.

He simply appeared, like mould in a damp rental property.

Malcolm’s office contained:

• seventeen extension cords,
• three broken printers,
• a whiteboard connecting wind turbines to the fall of Rome,
• and a laminated chart titled: “THE GREAT SOY CONSPIRACY.”

The penguin observed: “The humans had finally achieved government by Facebook comment section.”

Malcolm’s First Crisis

On Day Three, Malcolm accidentally emailed all Australians a document titled: “URGENT QUESTIONS ABOUT CLOUDS”

The attachment included:

• screenshots from Facebook,
• a blurry photograph of a pigeon,
• and a graph with no labelled axes whatsoever.

Sky After Dark described it as “raising legitimate concerns.”

CSIRO staff immediately applied for stress leave.

The Common Sense Australia Bill

The government’s first legislation included:

Energy Reform

• Solar panels taxed for “using too much sunlight.”
• Coal reclassified as “traditional energy.”
• Wind farms required to stop spinning after 8pm to reduce “woke noise pollution.”

Transport Reform

Public transport funding cut because “Real Australians drive.”

Unfortunately, fuel shortages began approximately eleven minutes later.

Education Reform

Science classes replaced with “Healthy Skepticism Studies.”

Students were encouraged to:

• question evolution,
• distrust climate science,
• and “do their own research” using websites designed sometime around 2004.

International Diplomacy

Foreign leaders struggled.

New Zealand requested clarification after Barnaby described them as: “Tasmania with vowels.”

China issued a diplomatic statement expressing: “deep concern and moderate confusion.”

France simply sighed and lit another cigarette.

At one G7 summit Barnaby accidentally spent twenty minutes talking to a decorative fern while Malcolm Roberts attempted to hand NATO leaders a USB stick labelled: “THE TRUTH ABOUT BATTERIES.”

Security intervened shortly afterwards.

The fern declined comment.

The Media Ecosystem

The outrage machine adapted quickly. Every morning:

• breakfast television screamed about migrants,
• lunch radio screamed about bicycles,
• afternoon panels screamed about pronouns,
• and evening television screamed about screaming.

Meanwhile:

• rents soared,
• hospitals buckled,
• aged care collapsed further, and infrastructure crumbled quietly in the background like a stale Sao biscuit left in the rain.

But those stories generated poor engagement metrics. One producer reportedly asked: “Can the housing crisis somehow be blamed on bike lanes?”

The trolls arrived carrying the usual ingredients: Reheated spam, rotten eggs, and enough projection to power a small city.

Closing Passage

And still many humans cheered.

Because outrage is addictive.

Because simple answers feel comforting.

Because a man yelling confidently beside a barbecue can briefly sound more convincing than an exhausted scientist holding evidence.

The penguin had seen this before.

Civilisations rarely collapsed dramatically.

Usually they wandered slowly downhill while insisting everything was:

• strong,
• traditional,
• common sense,
• and “what ordinary Australians want.”

Then one day the supermarkets ran out of lettuce and somebody blamed renewable energy.

Somewhere deep inside Parliament House a microphone crackled.

Then:

“BUUUUUURP.”