My vote on July 2 will go to the party whose leader can most satisfactorily answer the weightiest moral and economic question of our time. That question of course is

Have the birds got jobs?

Voters with a moral conscience will well remember the first raising of the matter in cinemas everywhere in Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”* back in 1979. It is surely a scandal of modern times that the question is yet to be answered or even taken seriously by politicians. Our avian friends deserve much better.I want Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten to tell the Australian people honestly just what it is that their parties have against the birds, that this defining question of our age could remain unanswered for so long.Let there be an end to all frivolous political rhetoric and commentary.

*
Woman in crowd: Consider the lilies?
Brian: Oh, well, the birds, then.
Man in crowd II: What birds?
Brian: Any birds.
Man in crowd II: Why?
Brian: Well, have they got jobs?
Man in crowd III: Who?
Brian: The birds.
Man in crowd II: Have the birds got jobs?!
Man passing by: What's the matter with him?
Man in crowd III: He says the birds are scrounging!
Brian: Oh, no, no, the point is: the birds, they do all right, don't they?
Man passing by: Well, and good luck to them!
Man in crowd II: Yeah, they're very pretty.
Brian: Okay. And you're much more important than they are, right? So what do you worry about? There you are! See?
Man in crowd II: I'm worrying about what you've got against birds.
Brian: I haven't got anything against the birds! Consider the lilies...
Man in crowd III: He's aiming at going at the flowers now!
Man in crowd II: Oh, give the flowers a chance!