Monday, December 20, 2010

Sloganism



Being Premier of Victoria is a tough job.

Particularly when there's been a change of government, and the new MP's and ministers swarm all over Parliament House, wired on espresso and urinating on everything to mark their territory. Our new Premier, Big Ted Baillieu, is just finding this out.

I mean, take a look at what he has on his plate at the moment.

There's 1400 new jails to build, so he can incarcerate the entire population of the State if necessary, and 14 000 new police to hire, to make sure there'll be enough arrests to fill them. He's got an ailing public transport system to ignore and he's got to be seen on the TV news every night answering questions about it with 'Well after 11 years of Labor neglect...' There's the troublesome 'cost of living' increases which he talked a lot about easing during the election, and which he has to be careful to never mention again now people actually expect him to do something about them. And of course, there are his responsibilities as Arts Minister. I mean all those opening night prawn balls and flutes of champagne don't consume themselves, do they?

So yeah, Big Ted is a man with a lot on.

And this is before we even consider his number one priority. The really, really big thing that's keeping him up at night, that's the absolute toppermost of the poppermost thing on his governmental to do list, that's the very reason that he got into politics in the first place. And that is...

... finding a new slogan for Victoria.

Now this may come as a bit of a surprise to a lot of voters. People who listened to Big Ted drone on and on about crime, traffic, crime, transport, crime, health, crime and cost of living pressures and thought that this meant that he intended to do something about them. At least some of them. Quite a few of the people who thought this probably voted for Big Ted based on this assumption. They may not have even realised that Victoria had a slogan and, even if they did, were probably unaware that it was now naff and out of date and in urgent need of replacement. For anyone in this situation, a brief aid de memory:



That's right, the numberplate thing!

Which is so out and out of date that the photo above will probably be deleted before this is even posted. So let me be among the first to confirm it to you, Victoria is no longer 'The Place To Be.'

So what are we then? While this is unknown at this stage - some time and the transfer of a massive pile of taxpayer funds from Government to advertising agency is required before we'll know the answer to that - you can bet that you won't be seeing 'The Place to Be' on the next letter the government sends to you (hordes of public servants are, even as we speak, working at destroying mountains of old stationary. Your taxpayer dollars in action!).

In the meantime, I can certainly offer Big Ted some suggestions as to what a good new license plate slogan might be:



Or:




Or:




Or:




Or even:




I might also suggest to Big Ted that political honeymoons are fleeting and that he might be better advised to spend his energies on something that isn't a completely ridiculous waste of time and money.

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