The Ant & The Grasshopper

The names might be foreign to you but I am sure you will understand the situation



The Ant & The Grasshopper

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building

his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays

the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper

has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE MODERN AUSTRALIAN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building

his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays

the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to

know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others

less fortunate like him are cold and starving.

The ABC and Channel 9 show up to provide live coverage of the

shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his

comfortable warm home with a table filled with food.

Australians are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor

grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.

The Democrats, the Greens and the Coalition Against Poverty

demonstrate in front of the ant's house.

The ABC, interrupting an Aboriginal cultural festival special from

North Queensland with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We

Shall Overcome."

Bob Brown rants in an interview with Ray Martin that the ant has

got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax

hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."

In response to polls, the Liberal Government drafts the Economic

Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retrospective to

the beginning of the summer.

It is quickly passed through the Senate.

The ant's taxes are reassessed and he is also fined for failing

to hire grass hoppers as helpers.

Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed

retrospective taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

The ant moves to Asia, and starts a successful agribiz company.

The TV stations later show the now fat grasshopper finishing up

the last of the ant's food though Spring is still months away, while

the government owned house he is in, which just happens to be the

ant's old house crumbles around him because he hadn't maintained it.

Inadequate government funding is blamed, Kim Beasley now is appointed to

head a commission of inquiry that will cost $10,000,000.

The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the Sydney

Morning Herald blames it on obvious failure of government to address the

root causes of despair arising from social inequity.

The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders,

praised by the government for enriching Australia's multicultural

diversity, who promptly terrorize the community

 

Hmm, sounds like Australia and the USA have alot in common.