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Satire.Fed up with being blamed for your state's lack of electricity? Tired of being ridiculed for your reliance on advanced windmill technology? Sick of having your name blackened every every time there's a blackout? Help is at hand, with the AFR Weekend's South Australian Blackout Excuses Guide.
"The dog ate my interconnector" excuse. South Australia's senator Simon Birmingham has always been quick with the knife, particularly when it came to planting it in the back of his leader, but nowadays he's even quicker with his one-liners. "It was a dog act", snarled Mr Birmingham on live TV this week, in comments mistakenly attributed to the defection of his colleague Cory. Mr Birmingham was actually referring to the unfortunate incident in which a pack of starving dingoes chewed through the SA Interconnector; thus depriving the state of all electricity.
The Bernardi excuse: It is no coincidence that the entire South Australian energy grid collapsed only hours after the announcement of the defection of South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi. This is due to the unprecedented high volume of South Australian conservatives simultaneously firing up their computers and signing on to his new party all at once. The grid, much like the Liberal party, simply couldn't cope.
The excuses
The sinking submarine contract excuse: The latest blackout was clearly caused by unknown foreign entities operating from a mysterious coral reef in the middle of the South China Sea who hacked into South Australia's highly advanced defence procurement network and then clogged up the entire system for hours on end while they were harmlessly downloading $50 billion worth of submarine military blueprints and strategic weapons data.
The Maggie Beers excuse: As South Australia's most successful and important manufacturing exporter by a country mile, every time Maggie wanders into her kitchen to rustle up a quick cup of soup the entire state's energy supply collapses.
The Nick Xenophon excuse: As South Australia's second most successful exporter and manufacturer – specialising in the manufacturing of silly publicity stunts and smug self-promotional material – every time Nick comes back home the entire state's energy level sinks to unimaginable new lows.
The transgender excuse: The only reason our entire state's electricity supply was abruptly cut off yesterday is nothing to do with our state's proud reliance on renewables, but rather, due to an entirely random and unforeseeable confluence of events. As it happens, one of our new diverse, gender-neutral employees who we hired recently in line with our Compassionate Workplace Inclusion Policy and whose job it is to man, sorry, wrong word, we mean whose job it is to operate the main power supply unit was confronted in his workplace by a highly offensive transphobic label on the main power switchboard that read "AC/DC". So deeply traumatised was he, er she, er we mean ze, that ze immediately took a hammer to the unit with unfortunate but entirely understandable consequences.
Don't be offensive
There is no such thing as a blackout: The word "blackout" is highly offensive, insulting and degrading to the indigenous peoples of South Australia. With reference to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, the South Australian government has henceforth banned the term "blackout" from being used or referred to in any way whatsoever in all official government documents, school teaching aids, media releases, workplace manuals, historical reports and so on as a sign of respect for the traditional custodians of the Banggarla and Wirangu lands, who, incidentally, refer to this natural state of affairs by the far more appropriate and non-discriminatory word "night".
The fake news excuse: Blackouts? What blackouts?
The Sarah Hanson Young excuse: I don't know what all the fuss is about. These blackouts are exactly the same as Earth Hour, only they go on for way longer, which makes them even heaps more fun and exciting coz we all go and sit around in our favourite restaurant by candlelight eating raw tofu and warm sushi discussing ways we can raise awareness of the insidious dangers of catastrophic climate change which threatens to wipe out the entire planet by 2030 unless we immediately open the detention centres and bring in all the refugees from Syria who I would eagerly welcome to come and stay at my place except for some strange reason I don't seem to have any hot water or air-conditioning at the moment and I'd hate to see them suffer any more than they already have.
Jay and Tom's bad weatherill excuse: Well of course what we're seeing here are these extreme once-in-a-millennium weather events such as no wind whatsoever during the entire day followed by no sun whatsoever during the entire night which of course no government could ever be prepared for and (line cut).
Rowan Dean's 2nd AFR collection, Way Beyond Satire, is out now www.wilkinsonpublishing.com.au
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