News Flash!

NZPA 27/04/98 — Country to be divided.

Prime Minister Jenny Shipley has announced the secession of the North Island from the South & the establishment of two new sovereign states in place of the Dominion of New Zealand. Speaking at an emergency press conference at the Beehive, Mrs Shipley said that tensions between two conflicting value systems had grown insurmountable, & the only solution appeared to be to give both systems their heads — smoked, in one case.

The North Island would accordingly become the People's Republic of Aotearoa. Mordi would be not only its official language, but its only language. Its inaugural President would be the current Minister in charge of Treaty Capitulations, Lord Montrose of Drury. Its inaugural Prime Minister would be Sir Twopenny O'Really, in his capacity as chief kaumatua of the only party that would be permitted in the People's Republic of Aotearoa, the Collectivist Party.

Mrs Shipley explained that the Collectivist Party's membership would be drawn heavily, but not exclusively, from the ranks of the existing Alliance & Labour Parties. Prominent cabinet posts were expected to go to Mr Neanderton, Ms Corkery, Mr Morgan, Mr Henare, Dr Cullen, Ms Simone d'Uptart, the Auckland University Economics Department & all Page 2 columnists for the NZ Herald. The excessive size of the cabinet would be trimmed by attrition, Mrs Shipley said, as it was confidently expected that half its members would have eaten the other half within six months.

Private radio, television & newspapers in the People's Republic of Aotearoa would be abolished — all media would be run by Aotearoa on Air & its new adjunct, Aotearoa in Print, which would impose a compulsory levy of $110 a year on all citizens who possessed books, in order to fund state-produced newspapers, magazines & books. Tax rates would be raised to 98 cents in the dollar. All imports would be banned & all exports subsidised. Immigration would be abolished, so as to keep dirty foreigners from stealing indigenous jobs. Any dirty foreigners attempting to enter the People's Republic of Aotearoa would be scared off by statues erected at Auckland & Wellington airports — statues of Waikato University feminist geography lecturers. No one would be permitted to leave the People's Republic of Aotearoa — a giant wall of concrete & barbed wire would be erected ... er, constructed ... around the entire coastline by a slave army of white, formerly middle class males, as penance for centuries of oppression of wimmin & tangata whenua. Tobacco & alcohol would be banned, as would all activities deemed by a new Ministry of Selflessness to be subversively pleasurable. All citizens would eat the same food — tofu & mung beans, produced & distributed by the government — three times a day. Tangata whenua who demanded KFC instead would be sent to "education camps." All citizens would wear the same clothing — grass skirts, produced by the government — and counselling would be available for those who unexpectedly encountered the Rt Hon David Lange in this attire.

Mrs Shipley then announced that the South Island would become the Republic of New Freeland. Its citizens would be free to do what they wanted as long as they didn't violate any other citizen's right to do the same. That, said Mrs Shipley, was all she really needed & wanted to say about the Republic of New Freeland; she & all her parliamentary colleagues would of course be residing in the People's Republic of Aotearoa.

Mrs Shipley was then hurriedly called away to be briefed on reports that the South Island had just sunk under the weight of a sudden mass influx from the North.

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