After stuffing up vaccine supplies, PM (Pleased Minister) Scotty and his merry band have taken to imploring the US government, through diplomatic and other channels, to send us some of America’s massive, unused and soon-to-expire Pfizer vaccine stockpiles. To help their little Aussie battler mates, who have months to wait for their reinforcement vaccine orders to arrive, during this war-like pandemic.
Our entreaties have been resoundingly rejected, so clearly we need to ramp it up by invoking the ANZUS treaty, which is meant to protect us against armed attack. Scotty could use his vaunted marketing talent to produce a dramatic appeal, using military metaphors, to our chief ally: playing with the idea of arms, as in receiving jabs, thereby getting armed, treat(y) like vaccinate, and so on. I would help but I’m busy with the cryptic crossword right now.
If we can’t get some satisfaction by begging for close-to-use-by-date vaccine stocks in our time of dire need and existential threat to our way of life, what bloody chance do we have of getting some nuclear subs over here next time China ups the ante by sending their patrol boats to teach us a lesson! The answer is Buckley’s.
Australian governments have deluded themselves about our bestie ANZUS alliance for decades, ignoring that NZ exited the pact decades ago after their exclusion of US warships. If you then take out say half of NZ you end up with the ANUS treaty, which sounds about right.
Just another roll of toilet paper. But hey that’s a precious commodity these days, in the era of supermarket shelf penury. Oh, the metaphors are loaded with mixed messages, just like Scotty! Maybe he could just get Joe on the telephone, like Malcolm did with Donald?
Beam me up. Nuff said. Back to the crossword. And a second shot of AZ soon, sigh.
KOOKYNIE COURIER 