Overseas Affairs Minister, Robin “Boy” Wonder, was today mistaken for a bucket of vomit while explaining his government’s policy on David Hicks’s proposed “trial”, the fairness and robustness of the “system” and the absolute iniquity of the clearly guilty Hicks.

It’s a tribute to the degree of influence that the Australian government has in Washington and the strength of the relationship that of all the people held in Guantánamo Bay the one Australian there is the first person to be tried.

Observers were confused as to why the Minister thought this statement could possibly make sense and what he believed the prize might be for being the first country to so utterly and callously abandon one of its citizens for party political motives and, as rougher people than Values Australia might say, “take it up the arse” for Dick and George.

Wonder seemed uncertain whether the charges against Hicks would be difficult to prove. Apparently the more serious the charge, the more guilty the accused must be.

Material support for terrorism is an immensely difficu…um … an immensely serious charge.

Is the charge retrospective?

That’s a matter for the … um … for the lawyers; that’s not a matter for us.

^{(It is true that Wonder is not a lawyer. He has a BA(Hons) and an honorary doctorate (a freebie for being a politician). His biography deceitfully implies he was educated at Oxford University. He was not. The “Radley College, Oxford” which he names in his official biography is in fact a boarding school in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. So much for the vaunted “integrity” of the Howard government and its Ministers.)}

Was Hicks tortured?

People from Al Qa’ida when they’re captured always claim to be tortured…um…always…um…now…um…

…and going on to repeat his implication of Hicks’s guilt, and asserting an entirely unproven and untested membership of Al Qa’ida. As always.

Mr Wonder then went on to breath exciting new life into the meaning of “non sequituur”.

The reason that we feel strongly about the charges being heard is that we……..um…saw 88 Australians killed in Bali by terrorists. That was a very tough experience, above all for the families but a tough experience for all Australians and we have been absolutely determined to do everything we can to stop terrorists and to stop terrorism and to fight terrorism.

Observers assumed that Mr Wonder was “playing the Bali card”, using the 88 Bali victims and the real distress of Australians over the Bali bombings as mere pawns in a political gambit in order to bolster coalition chances in the next election by associating Mr Hicks with the bombings and the real loss and upset that Australians feel.

In light of all this, observers thought the case of mistaken identity was understandable. “It was only a matter of time,” they said.

However, in an extraordinary coincidental development an almost identical mistake was made when Petty Cash Monitor, and next Leader of the Opposition, Peter Out, was mistaken for a bucket of snot while discussing the moral character of the opposition leader he will replace.

Comparing the two images, observers found the resemblance to be quite striking.

Values Australia is not clairvoyant but suspects that the next polls will deal a crushing blow to the government when Steel Rudd’s, and the Labor Party’s, popularity will have been barely dented. The betting is 6 to 4 that the most commonly heard phrase in Parliament House will then be, “What the fuck do you have to do to dent this guy?”

UPDATE: Betting has firmed to 6 to 4 on, following revelations that a government minister had recent discussions with “colourful business identity”, Brian Burke.

^{* Drawings by Tony King (©1969). Tony where are you? I miss you.}

[tags]downer, costello, rudd, hicks, bali, iraq, terroism, terror, terrorists, guantanamo, trial, military commission[/tags]