THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN HOLE
© Will Moody, 2010
Winner, 2010 Hunter Bush Poets – Humorous Section, Morisset, NSW.
This country needs a ‘gee-up’…an inspiring common cause.
A project like The Snowy Scheme that won so much applause.
Some challenge to unite us all to work toward some goal…
and since you ask, well I suggest …‘The Great Australian Hole’.
Now, BHP and Fortescue have made a damned good start,
but now it’s time the rest of us pitched in and did our part.
We’ll simply dig the whole lot out and auction off the best,
then build a causeway down to the Antarctic with the rest.
We’re worried by the changes that this ‘Climate Change’ will bring.
"How can our big hole help with that?" you ask…well, here’s the thing
We build a great big pipeline where our causeway bridge will be,
then pump the melting ice-cap, and create an inland sea!
This fabled Inland Sea all those explorers failed to find
will lie resplendent in the hole from all the ore we’ve mined.
All round the rim we’ll leave a bit of decent high, dry land
and lots of islands in the sea with fringing reefs and sand.
Resorts and swish marinas will spring up round Uluru…
(we’ll plant a lot of palm trees there and call it ‘Hula-Roo’).
Big regattas will be sailing right across the One Tree Plain
( but four-wheel drives will never cross the Nullabor again! )
"But what about the landscape round the Corner Country pegs?"
Well, if you want an omelette mate, you have to break some eggs.
"And what about the wombats? What about the Kangaroos?"
Well, that’s the price you have to pay for homes with water views.
This Inland Archipelago will be a wondrous thing ;
what’s lost upon the roundabout, we’ll pick up on the swing.
The Treasury will benefit, of that there is no doubt,
no longer will they subsidise poor farmers hit by drought.
The farmers and the graziers will have to be re-trained
to gather in the harvest from the fishing grounds we’ve gained.
All the billions that it cost will seem a piffling amount
when the flood of tourist dollars fill up every bank account.
And Canberra? It’s just the place for all the watery graves
for all those politicians who have sunk beneath the waves.
And all who love Australia will be thankful to a man.
The Great Hole Of Australia ! What a bold and brilliant plan.
Return to 2010 Award-Winning Poetry.
Terms of Use
All rights reserved.
The entire contents of the poetry in the collection on this site
is copyright. Copyright for each individual poem remains with
the poet. Therefore no poem or poems in this collection may be
reproduced, performed, read aloud to any audience at any time,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise without prior written permission of the individual
poet.
Return to 2010 Award-Winning Poetry.