Newly-elected Jacqui Lambie Network MPs have reacted angrily to accusations they have sold themselves cheaply in their ‘confidence and stability’ agreement with Jeremy Rockliff.
“It’s not true at all that we’ve been duped,” said JLN spokesperson Andrew Spanner. “As part of the arrangement we have purchased the Tasman Bridge.”
“Originally we were interested in it to try to, uh, span the gap between Jacqui’s ego and Tammy Tyrell,” he explained.
“But now we need it to traverse the Gulf of Credibility that has just opened up between the leafy suburbs of WhatWeSaid and the casualty department of WhatWeAreActuallyDoing.”
Spanner, pausing to suck toffee through broken glass, said he had always thought of it as a nice bridge, because it reminded him of how relative unknowns can make a difference.
“I see your balance of power and raise you the SS Lake Illawarra,” he said.
Costs of the sale are unknown but are believed to include each JLN member’s entire worldly possessions, soul, and first-born child.
As part of the Rockliff-JLN Tasman Bridge deed of sale, the JLN MPs will be free to travel over the bridge any time they want as long as they are blindfolded, gagged, waterboarded with salmon slop from Macquarie Harbour, and advise their likely travel intentions 24 hours in advance.
Despite engineering reports that the bridge is nearing the end of its working life, the deed commits the government to ‘reviewing the structural condition of the bridge with an eye to doing sweet FA’.
With regard to control of traffic on the bridge, the existing traffic lights are to be changed from the traditional red/amber/green to blue/yellow/Coalition-of-Chaos-psychedelic-dizzywhizz.
Any vehicles heading for Bellerive Oval will be automatically redirected to Macquarie Point via a new express tollway, AFL Way (And Only the AFL Way), that will charge users whatever it goddamn well pleases haha thank you very much here’s a sticker.
In the interests of transparency, full details of the sale deed will be published on a fake JLN website administered by an anonymous board.
Meanwhile JLN MP for Bass Rebekah Publand would not be drawn on whether the controversially-named Batman Bridge should also have been part of the deal.
“I’ll have a look at that when I get my feet under the desk,” she said. “Maybe. Let’s drive off that bridge when we come to it.”
Featured image above courtesy Free Travel Stock Photos – Tourism images from everywhere around the World (photoeverywhere.co.uk).
Ted Mead
April 10, 2024 at 20:18
There seems to be an erratum here as Tasmanian Times has, maybe in error, placed this article in the satire section.
The contents here seem more like fact than fiction, and what’s purported to be fiction is seemingly destined to be fact anyway!
Duncan Mills
April 10, 2024 at 21:17
This could be on the mark, with the danger being that of a political group without agreed common values, policy goals, and also agreed open and transparent internal processes.
I hope we are wrong!
Disappointed
April 11, 2024 at 05:43
I think this publication may just be over-selling the competence and integrity of the JLN members.
Please stop presenting these “people” as anything more than the sycophantic Liberal bootlickers they have just proven themselves to be.
Greg Pullen
April 11, 2024 at 21:01
“I just hope and pray that I have picked the right people”, said Foghorn Lambast.
Along with her rock-solid sidekick Timidy Squirrel, they would be lending their parliamentary negotiating experience to the freshies. “That’s what we’re there for, to provide those answers .. and if we need to go looking elsewhere for them because I don’t have them, I’ll go find it for them.”
If the signing of the historic Tasman Bridge Accord is a shining example of the rigour which her innovative political mentoring can bring to a Tasmanian coalition government, then it’s not clear whether Foghorn should be checking the Premier’s posterior for signs of the MacPoint stadium, or whether she should examine her colleagues’ fundamental orifices for tightly-wedged pylons from the Bridge.