brightly hued attire and accessories. However, much of this support was predicated on the notion that the bogan would not have to do anything in particular to remedy the climate change problem.
When confronted with the entirely unwelcome idea that an increased cost of pollution was the price of solving the climate problem, the bogan’s throbbing cognitive dissonance gland turned as red as a Greek balance sheet. The bogan now stood against a heinous tax. Not because it was lying earlier about its willingness to pay for change, but that it had reconsidered the science, and now believed the science to be incorrect. With decades of experience studying the climatic data, and a daily dose of News Limited’s stable of climatologists’ input, the bogan was now a font of scepticism. Possibly Times New Roman. Definitely not Comic Sans.
When this started becoming apparent in polling, and the appearance of Tony Abbott at various factories and mines across the country spouting the phrase ‘toxic tax’ to anyone willing to point a camera at him, the nefarious beardist cabal of climate change activists sprang into, well, action.
‘What is it that bogans love most… something that we can use to convince them of the importance of action on this issue?’ said Simon Sheikh, sipping daintily on his latte. ‘Surely we can isolate something more powerful than the bogan aversion to all kinds of tax.’
As the sun set on another day of plotting a fierce redistribution of bogan incomes, one of the evil cohort sprang to his feet with an ecstatic ‘Eureka!’.
‘Celebrities! It’s celebrities!’
‘Of course!’ chanted Beards #3-#7 in unison. ‘But which ones?’
‘Well, obviously, we need that guy who was in The Castle. The only person bogans impersonate more than him is that guy who impersonates Eric Bana impersonating Chopper Read. And besides, he’s on Packed to the Rafters. Bogans love that show. But we need someone bigger. Someone that will get real media attention…’
Weeks later, Cate Blanchett appeared in a commercial attempting to convince the bogan to do the right thing by the planet. The poor, misguided fool. Firstly, the financial pyro-technicians at News Limited lambasted ‘Carbon Cate’ for having the gumption to ask the doing-it-tough Aussie battlers to fork out more money just because she’s loaded. This confused the bogan to the point of madness, as it was unable to reconcile the fact that its celebrity deity was asking it act against its own interests. Because Cate Blanchett has starred in upwards of 700 Hollywood period dramas set in England, she has been a key bogan gateway to cultural smugness. A palid, violin-less Andre Rieu. It was like Jesus asking his followers to actively engage in homosexual acts with the neighbour’s husband. Pure, (un)adulterated blasphemy. Several bogan heads exploded, some converted to Scientology, and a few sought refuge in the dulcet tones of Delta Goodrem.
Of course, the bogan is not to blame for any of this. Only a few months ago, it was informed by the country’s two richest people that it should indeed act as it wants and pay no heed to the nonsense being spouted by the ‘scientists’ in the their climate controlled ivory towers. It was happy. Now, the very same newspapers are telling it to ignore the opinions of wealthy people and listen to a wealthy celebrity that wants it to pay more money for its god-given right to own nine cars, and open the windows at home when the central heating gets too hot during January and February. The bogan’s typically uncomplicated life was now impossibly fraught with conflict. To add insult to injury, the bogan has recently been informed that Twiggy is now not our second richest person – it’s actually an African that nobody has ever heard of. Between a sneaky African and a dishonest movie star, the bogan has nowhere left to turn.
By now, the bogan was furious about all of the lies and confusion, so it retreated from the sumptuous neon nourishment of its 138 inch LCD television, and applied itself to something it knew was definitely real and good: a four hour session of doughnuts on its Jet Ski. Climate change would have to wait until another day.