Originally published in Time Out Sydney October 3, 2013. Art by Robert Polmear

Dear the Internet,

Your Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been in Indonesia assuring president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that he is “fair dinkum about doing what we can to help Indonesia in every way” in terms of their sovereignty, which is Abbott-speak for “protect our northern oceanic borders for us and we’ll continue to ignore your human rights atrocities in Papua New Guinea.”

And heck, you might see yourself as being a pretty dinkum sort of a cobber – but are yousufficiently dinkum to contribute in a proactively bonza manner in this brave new Abbottscape?

Fortunately, with the help of senior advisors to the Departments of Immigration and Foreign Affairs & Trade (and not Science, obviously, since we don’t have one of those anymore), we have constructed this quiz to establish quickly and definitively whether you are a patriot or a traitor.

Incidentally, this will also form the basis of our citizenship test just as soon as the new Senate takes power in 2014 (after Palmer United senators add the necessary extra questions like “Australia was specifically founded to be mined, the industry for which should therefore never be taxed or subject to environmental regulation: agree, strongly agree, violently agree, threateningly agree”).

Come let us rejoice, Australians All:

1. A neighbour’s child has run into your yard to escape a gang of bullies. Do you:

a) Tow the child into the yard of an entirely different neighbour and insist that the child is now their responsibility,

b) Forcibly hand the child back to the bullies while explaining that the child should have asked for help through more appropriate channels,

c) Lock the child in your shed, insisting all the while that the accommodation is, if anything, too luxurious and that the child should be more grateful about being trapped in there, or

d) All of the above.

2. The wall of your living room is growing increasingly warm and smoke seems to be filling the house. Your family speculate that you’ve left the oven on and now the kitchen is on fire. Do you:

a) Insist that the heat and smoke is part of the natural cycle of temperatures and airbourne particulate content within the house and that it’s premature to take action until further data has come in,

b) Point out that heat and smoke can have a number of entirely natural causes and that allocating resources exclusively toward extinguishing technologies would be both short-sighted and irresponsible,

c) Angrily accuse your family of pursuing some sort of anti-oven agenda which is typical of their attitude toward electrical goods and that you will no longer discuss whether or not the place is ablaze, or

d) All of the above.

3. Birds are occasionally landing in trees within the boundaries of your property. For no clear reason you have told your family that you will Stop the Birds, yet the number of birds landing seem entirely unaffected by your rhetoric. Do you:

a) Insist that it’s now your neighbours’ responsibility to prevent birds flying across their property and into yours,

b)  Keep insisting that there were more birds landing in the backyard during the lease of the previous tenants,

c) Make family discussions of birds punishable and insist that you will provide all necessary information about the number of bird arrivals as and when you deem it appropriate, or

d) All of the above.

4. Two men are hoping to move into a sharehouse across the street. Do you:

a) Accuse them of defiling the sanctity of leases,

b) Consider allowing them to move in, as long as they are called “non-commercial property co-inhabitants” rather than “tenants”,

c) Insist that while your own sibling has shared a house with a same-gendered friend, you feel that leases should be reserved only for people that can cause biological dependents, or

d) All of the above.

5. Respect for women means:

a) Having not killed your non-male offspring on principle,

b) Angrily accusing the previous tenant of not taking care of the place because she didn’t have a husband,

c) Permitting 5 per cent of your colleagues to be penis-free, or

d) All of the above.

6. Prior to having your application for your house accepted, you promised that you’d help one of your neighbours tidy up his yard during the first week of your lease. You’ve now been in the place for over a month and are avoiding this neighbour’s calls. Does this make you:

a) An excellent neighbour

b) A community leader

c) A man who sticks to his word, or

d) All of the above.

RESULTS: If you chose a-c for any answer, you are guilty of treason. ASIO are already making arrangements.

Yours ever,

APS