Reacting swiftly to nationwide protests, federal lawmakers have heroically committed to transforming a profound systemic failure into a beautifully bound stack of non-binding recommendations.
ALICE SPRINGS, Australia — The red dust of the MacDonnell Ranges hung thick in the morning heat as a chartered government jet idled on the tarmac, its engines whining over the cicadas. Inside the air-conditioned municipal terminal, federal lawmakers gathered around a tray of lukewarm party pies to announce a sweeping, $15 million Royal Commission into exactly why the Australian public has reacted so negatively to the entirely preventable death of an Indigenous child.
The tragedy of Kumanjayi Little Baby has sparked unprecedented outrage across the country, a phenomenon that has left veteran policymakers deeply confused. Striking a solemn tone before a bank of local news cameras, officials assured the press that top legislative experts would be immediately flown in to analyze the strange public expectation that state healthcare and child protection services should function.
It is utterly baffling to us why the electorate is treating a routine, decades-long collapse of basic human services as some sort of urgent crisis, but we are prepared to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to find out.
Vance noted that the inquiry's findings will eventually be compiled into a 600-page PDF, which will then be formally tabled in parliament before being archived in a subterranean Canberra vault alongside the preceding four decades of identical reports.
As the press conference concluded, aides carefully packed away the ceremonial microphones, wiping the condensation from their iced waters. The delegation then returned to the idling jet, satisfied that the profound national grief had been successfully managed into the next fiscal year.