AS WE WERE:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

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AS WE ARE TODAY:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. Today-Tonight, ACA and the 7:30 Report show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. Kermit the Frog is in Sydney on a promotional tour and appears on Rove with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green." Fred Nile stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the TV stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome." Fred then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

Kevin Rudd & Peter Garrett exclaim in an interview with Derryn Hinch that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations drafts the "Work Choices Equity for Grasshopper Act", retrospective to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his fines, his home is confiscated by the Government.

Julia Gillard gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of high court judges that Paul Keating appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the Housing Commission house he is in (which just happens to be the ant's old house), crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.

The ant has perished in the cold. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighbourhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote.