The Ambulance Chaser
Page 36
I’ve got together with a few former colleagues and founded a new political party. It’s called the ‘Torts’ Lawyers Make the Planet Safer Party’. We have three policies at the moment. The first is for the abolition of the tort of defamation for public figures. I am sick to death of politicians and sportsmen in this country masquerading as gay when they’re straight. We should be able to in these people without fear of legal retribution. And if I feel the need to express the opinion that the minister for such and such has an IQ equal to the one the average cockroach has in its second brain – which, an entomologist will tell you, is kept in its anus – I should be able to do so without fearing that the Right Honourable Minister will be able to sue me for damages because he can prove he has an IQ of an exceptionally clever cockroach – or, at least, a slow rat’s. And if I have a comment to make that isn’t constructive and literally true, I should be able to freely do that too.
The second policy is for the introduction of two new torts called Misleading Parliament and Knowingly Lying to the Australian People While in Political Office. For the first, the remedies range from fines to loss of superannuation, up to, in aggravated cases, loss of office and public flogging. A guilty verdict on the Lying tort means jail. Hard time. Maximum security. No parole. Politicians are always calling for longer jail sentences. I’m just getting on the bandwagon with them.
The Lying tort will be made retrospective. The third policy of our party is to build another jail.
I’m also working part time at the Randwick South Legal Centre, which suits me for a number of reasons, not least of which is being near Gabby.
The sparks are really starting to fly between us now. Something has to give with the amount of electricity we’re exchanging. I’m certainly working on it. I enjoy our talks over dinner. She still hasn’t convinced me that we’ll ever be ready for a socialist world government. Too many greedy, corrupt bastards for it to work, if you ask me. After all, it only took one five-foot-nothing psychopath from Georgia and a few yes-men to bugger up the Russian experiment. You have to query whether Karl and Fred’s plan is all that Vlad and Leon thought it was cracked up to be. Then again, it only took one illiterate, draft-dodging, execution-crazy Texan and a few warmongering oil men to almost end democracy in America, so maybe capitalism needs some tinkering with too.
It’s all too difficult for me, and besides, my favourite topic when Gabby and I get together isn’t politics. It’s sex. I especially like it when we discuss how many women we’ve each had. She’s a long way in front at the moment, but I don’t want to make it a competition.
From what she’s been describing to me, a simple merger would be fine.
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