The original story of the ant and the grasshopper
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter,the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
Come winter,the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
The modern New Zealand version.
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. 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 less fortunate like him are cold and starving. TV1 and TV3 show up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table filled with food.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. 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 less fortunate like him are cold and starving. TV1 and TV3 show up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table filled with food.
Kiwis are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty. LABOUR supporters, the Greens and the Maori Party demonstrate in front of the ant's house. TV1, interrupting a Maori cultural festival special from the Waikato with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome."
Helen Clark and Ruth Dyson rant in an interview with Paul Holmes that the ant has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."
In response to polls, the Labour Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retrospective to the beginning of the summer. It is quickly passed through Parliament.
The ant's taxes are reassessed and he is also fined for failing to hire grass hoppers as helpers. Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed retrospective taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government.
The ant moves to Australia, and starts a successful agribiz company.
The TV stations later show the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food though Spring is still months away, while the government owned house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house crumbles around him because he hadn't maintained it. Inadequate government funding is blamed, retired Prime Minister Dame Helen Clark (also known as Sir Helen) travels back from the UN and is appointed to head a commission of inquiry that will ultimately cost $10,000,000.
Meanwhile the abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching New Zealand's multicultural diversity, who promptly terrorize the community. The grasshopper is found dead of a drug overdose. The New Zealand Herald blames it on an obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity.
The Spiders await a Legal Aide cheque to assist them to bring their 20,000 brothers and sisters to New Zealand, and to sue Social Welfare and Family Support citing the $2,000 weekly benefit as being inadequate.
Hat-tip: Tom and Lisa (who have moved to Australia)
Helen Clark and Ruth Dyson rant in an interview with Paul Holmes that the ant has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."
In response to polls, the Labour Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retrospective to the beginning of the summer. It is quickly passed through Parliament.
The ant's taxes are reassessed and he is also fined for failing to hire grass hoppers as helpers. Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed retrospective taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government.
The ant moves to Australia, and starts a successful agribiz company.
The TV stations later show the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food though Spring is still months away, while the government owned house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house crumbles around him because he hadn't maintained it. Inadequate government funding is blamed, retired Prime Minister Dame Helen Clark (also known as Sir Helen) travels back from the UN and is appointed to head a commission of inquiry that will ultimately cost $10,000,000.
Meanwhile the abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching New Zealand's multicultural diversity, who promptly terrorize the community. The grasshopper is found dead of a drug overdose. The New Zealand Herald blames it on an obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity.
The Spiders await a Legal Aide cheque to assist them to bring their 20,000 brothers and sisters to New Zealand, and to sue Social Welfare and Family Support citing the $2,000 weekly benefit as being inadequate.
Hat-tip: Tom and Lisa (who have moved to Australia)
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