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This song was my only attempt at doing over ACT politics. The Chief Minister at the time was Kate Carnell, by profession a pharmacist. At the only performance by the Shiny Bums, verse 1 was omitted as in bad taste (a spectator was killed in the hospital implosion), verse 2 because south Canberra residents didn't know what it was about (a road scheme on the north side), and verse 9 for reasons I don't remember.
Once in Chemist Katie's city
Hospitals stood on the ground,
Then they tried to make one airborne,
Falling with a splashing sound.
So when the gap means ops cost more,
It's the air you're paying for.
In years gone by our mountain tops
Were made nature's sole preserve
Now they're used to slaughter wildlife
Wandering on the road reserve.
When it rains the cars collide,
Speading scrap from side to side.
Once in chemist Katie's city,
Drugs had quite a lethal boom,
Now it will be safe to shoot up
In the new injecting room -
Except Rome says "Not today,
Abstinence the only way."
Once in family planning clinics
Doctors gave their own advice,
Now they have to hand out pamphlets
Full of pictures not quite nice.
Jesus was a little child
With father elsewhere domiciled.
It came first in Katie's city,
Battery hens were to be banned,
But in guise of competition,
Hens stay caged throught the land,
In the end its money counts
Though the proof of cruelty mounts.
Years ago before our freedom,
Football used an oval ground,
Now to serve Olympic soccer,
Bruce is square instead of round.
Brand new seats are very nice
But they come at twice the price.
Once in Canberra city's gardens,
Flowers grew out of the soil,
But Floriade it has no home,
Grown from bulbs with endless toil.
Tourists are supposed to pay,
That's why they all stay away.
Once in every Canberra suburb
Houses stood just one per block.
Now they're piled twenty high
Giving neighbours quite a shock.
Is it true our planners holy
Have sold out to mammon lowly?
Now in Chemist Katie's city
Media come a every call
One day they'll decide she's boring
And will never come at all.
As the party shows her the door
Canberra's not Katie's any more.
Copyright © D.W. Walker, 1999