Midnight Oil to re-release protest songs

CANBERRA: Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett is tonight denying that he has backflipped on his personal beliefs by approving a new uranium mine in South Australia.

Mr Garret said his well known opposition to uranium mines as the lead singer of Midnight Oil was a non-core value.

The former rock star said that he has re-evaluated many of his beliefs since arriving in Federal Parliament, and this has led to speculation that Midnight Oil will re-release versions of several well known protest songs.

Mr Garrett is now questioning whether the apology to the Stolen Generation was really appropriate, and said he believes that James Hardie has done more than enough for asbestos victims.

"It's clear to me now that the US-Australia alliance is an important part to getting Labor re-elected, and as such I now love it," said Mr Garrett.

"It's also clear to me that the executives at Exxon are really quite a nice bunch of chaps, especially since they've donated heavily to the Labor Party."

Mr Garrett will push for a re-release of Midnight Oil's hit song US Forces, opening with the line 'US Forces give the nod / it's really quite a nice thing'.

The song Beds Are Burning, cited by former Primer Minister John Howard as his favourite Midnight Oil song, is also tipped to be re-released with the lines 'we can sleep very well while our beds are burning'.

Students fight for something to protest

CANBERRA: Students from around the nation are gathering in Canberra today to protest the lack of problems being generated by the Labor government.

With Australian troops withdrawn from Iraq, Voluntary Student Unionism repealed, and a federal apology to the stolen generation, students are finding fewer and fewer policies to protest by the day.

While students are pleased that the government has moved to remove same-sex couple discrimination from Commonwealth laws and introduce an Emissions Trading Scheme, it has left many student unions wondering what to do with their new found time.

President of the National Union of Students, David Barrow, said “They’re even looking at the rate of Youth Allowance in their tax review. What the hell are we supposed to do? Attend classes? Next they’ll be expecting us to show up sober.”

“We’re here today to demand a return to the Howard era that gave us so much good protest material,” said Barrow.

The lack of protest-worthy policy areas has led to campaigns such as the ill-fated ‘Fight for Your Right to Access Facebook from the Library’ campaign, and the lesser known ‘Students Demand Working Whiteboard Markers’ campaign.

“While I wouldn’t say these campaigns have failed, they do lack a certain pizzazz,” conceded Barrow.

Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has called on the government to tackle the students’ demands in a bipartisan manner, namely by adopting several of the Liberal Party’s policies.

“If the government were to lock up some refugee children and build a few nuclear power plants, this would almost certainly placate the protesters,” he said.

“That the Government is not doing this shows that it is out of touch with the wants of ordinary Australians.”

The Prime Minister responded by immediately organising a summit for next week to discuss the possibility of ordering an inquiry into the issue.

Shock change in cricket tour announced

CARDIFF, WALES: Cricket Australia and the English Cricket Board have stunned the cricket community today by announcing that the first Ashes test will be played between Australia and a Cardiff under 12s side, the Cardiff Cowboys.

Australian captain Ricky Ponting said he was glad to be playing against a team he felt he and his men could match.

“It is a bit of an insult, but it will be a good experience for the boys. It might mean Nathan Hauritz will finally take some wickets,” said Ponting.

The move comes after an extremely early exit from the Twenty 20 World Cup by the Australian side.

“I think over confidence is what has messed us up in the World Cup,” Ponting said.

“I haven’t seen a lot of the Cowboys, but we won’t be taking anything for granted. They look like a very competitive side, and they’ve certainly got a better spin attack than we do.”

Craig Dixon, a Brisbane man who travelled to the UK with a group of Australians for the World Cup and the Ashes, said he will be glad to see some good, competitive cricket.

“Yeh, it’s been pretty shithouse so far,” he said. “The Aussies just keep getting bowled out and stuff, and it’s not very interesting. Me and the boys have to get really pissed and yell out funny shit to the players, lol [sic] ‘cause it’s heaps boring.”

Airbus shares, planes drop like stones

TOULOUSE, FRANCE: Airbus shares have dropped almost as quickly as their planes after a series of midair incidents has raised questions about safety standards.

The European plane manufacturer has had its record tarnished by the general inability of their planes to stay in the air.

A spokesperson for the manufacturer said that it is a PR problem for an company to have planes that don’t fly, but they believed Airbus will reclaim it’s good reputation after the series of embarrassing events.

The midair dramas are affecting passenger confidence too. Shane Johnson recently returned from a Mad Monday trip to Bali with his local rugby league team and says he was most disappointed with the Airbus A330 he was on.

“The air hostesses weren’t really hot, and there were some blokes there too. It’s not right. Plus they cut me off after only eight VBs.”

The Airbus spokesperson would not comment on Mr Johnson’s complaints.

Obama presidency bad news for arms suppliers

WASHINGTON: The share price of nearly every arms manufacturer world wide has taken a sharp dive since Barrack Obama was elected President of the United States of America.

The arms industry has suffered a severe downturn now the Democratic President has pledged to stop invading oil rich countries.

One senior executive of a well known arms manufacturer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said his company had experienced a massive drop in profits.

“We’ve just developed a new automatic rifle designed to kill over a hundred Muslims per minute. What the hell are we supposed to do now that diplomacy has re-entered our foreign policy strategy?” the unnamed executive said.

“Christ, I’ve got a wife and three kids to feed.”

The industry had donated generously to the McCain campaign, and even hired someone to follow Sarah Palin on the campaign trail and impersonate the voice of God, telling her which country He wanted invaded next.

Most arms manufacturers were also betting on a McCain administration reinvading Vietnam.

Since George Bush was elected in 2000, the share price of most arms manufacturers has risen a staggering 300 per cent. But now it seems the firearm bubble is about to burst.

However some in the industry hold hope that since that Barrack Obama has been elected, the number of white supremacists upgrading their old firearms has increased.

One executive told The Bugler of plans to develop a cross-industry television, radio and print advertising campaign by changing the popular Beatles’ tune Happiness is a Warm Gun to the slogan ‘Democracy is a Warm Gun.’

The big winner out of Obama’s victory are companies that own abortion clinics, who were fearing for their lives should Sarah Palin get anywhere near the White House.

“There were genuinely grave fears there for a while,” said one industry observer.

“It’s true that Democrats have more liberal attitudes to abortion than Republicans. And if Obama is anything like Clinton or Kennedy, we’re seriously thinking about setting up an clinic on Pennsylvania Avenue for White House interns,” said the industry observer.

I am not Paul Kelly: Paul Kelly

THREE Paul Kellys have held a joint press conference today to clarify to the public who is who.

Acclaimed musician Paul Kelly says he is sick of being told of the amazing influence he had on the Sydney Swans during his time as captain.

“I live in St. Kilda,” said Kelly said. “I hate the bloody swans.”

Political commentator and editor-at-large of The Australian, Paul Kelly said that like his two namesakes, he was tired of being mistaken for another Paul Kelly.

“Just the other day I was on Insiders and Glen Milne asked me to sing Dumb Things. Although, he was probably just pissed. He rushed the stage and challenged me to a fist fight afterwards.”

Former Sydney Swans captain Paul Kelly said he doesn’t know the first thing about politics and people should stop asking.

“I always thought MP stood for Massive Penis. That’s what me and the boys said when we were having a shower together after a big match. ‘Cause you see it on the tele, Kevin Rudd MP. I thought he was bragging.”

The Kellys have vowed to ignore poorly addressed questions or fan comments in the future.

Jackson a racist: Mr Squiggle

IN A further controversy following the death of Michael Jackson, the Australian TV icon Mr Squiggle has accused the King of Pop of having racist sentiments.

Mr Squiggle used his 50th birthday celebrations to accuse Jackson of stereotyping people from the moon with his famous moonwalk.

"The fact is that not all people on the moon walk that way," said Squiggle.

"I found it quite offensive. Imagine the outrage that would have been caused if I started doing a 'weird black-turned-white accused pedophile walk?'"

"You just can't make such brash generalisations about a group of people."

Mr Squiggle suggested that Jackson was also a self-hating black person, and that this may have been part of the reason he changed the pigment of his skin.

The well known TV personality turned 50 today, and used a press conference to make the attacks on the dead pop star.

Rudd blames media for Gategate

PRIME MINISTER Kevin Rudd has blamed the media for hyping up the so-called Utegate affair.

"How can newspapers today, for example, run stories based on forged emails and assume that they are simply accurate as The Courier-Mail has done in Brisbane?" Mr Rudd said on Brisbane radio.

"The media have totally hyped this up," he said.

"And what's with adding 'gate' to any sort of scandal? That's the real gate. Where is the coverage on Gategate?"