Labor Had A Birthday Party For Medicare & Fucking Hell What A Pack Of Nerds

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February 1, 2017

Cake day at work. We give it lip service, because being stuck at your desk on your birthday is some unjust bullshit that shouldn’t even befall that pain-in-the-arse Carol from HR; no matter how many times she points out your perfectly-fine ham salad sandwich is unhealthy because she started following Pete Evans on Facebook last month and thus now knows the word “paleo.”

Generally speaking, it’s smart to keep the celebrations anchored to actual people; store-bought cake, quick acknowledgement, minimal chit-chat. Drifting outside that circle is a slippery slope.

And, lord, is the Australian Labor Party ever sliding down that hill.

The party paused briefly to mark Medicare‘s 33rd birthday today, with the celebration featuring ministers cutting into a giant Medicare card cake like the uncut poindexters they truly are.

Look at this thing, for the love of dog.

The Labor party have literally baked a cake for Medicare’s 33rd birthday #auspol pic.twitter.com/bL8SyuzYsA

— Alice Workman (@workmanalice) February 1, 2017

I’m not a betting man, but I’d wager that any cake in the shape of a socialist health care card would come out tasting like tongue depressors and generic-brand penicillin.

Bill Shorten and shadow minister for health Catherine King held a press conference to mark the birthday – I repeat, the 33rd birthday, not a significant milestone – which somehow not only went beyond the phrase “it’s good,” but managed to last 22 whole minutes. The cliff notes of which they pared down into this sizzle reel:

What other Hawke-legacy policies does the ALP secretly celebrate with cake? The floating of the dollar? The fringe benefits tax? 87-year Bob Hawke sinking shedloads of piss at the cricket?

Actually that last one should definitely have a cake made of it.

‘Course all this is very much in-line with Labor-standard partying, as last election night revealed: