Originally published at Time Out Sydney, 14 February 2014. Art by Robert Polmear.

Dear the Internet,

If there’s one thing that our nation learned last Sunday with success of rating smashers INXS: Never Tear Us Apart and the Schapelle Corby biopic Schapelle, it’s that we Australians love nothing more than seeing our own stories ineptly reflected back at us.

This hasn’t gone unnoticed by our Federal government, who recognise that the best way to win hearts and minds in support of their political agenda is by telling our culture’s greatest stories on the small screen.

That’s why the following three blockbuster television events are currently being rushed into production – so here’s a preview of what will, unless Labor and the Greens block it in the upper house, be 2014’s federally-mandated Must-See TV!

Sophie’s WorkChoices
Australia’s sweetheart Lisa McCune is Sophie Everywoman, a single mum struggling to balance her work and personal life under the yoke of protectionist unions forcing her to accept award wages, OH&S standards in the workplace and crippling obligations like employer superannuation contributions and paid leave.

However, a chance meeting with dashing Howard-era employment minister Kevin Andrews (Julian McMahon) makes her realise that she really can have it all simply by outlawing collective bargaining and allowing her to negotiate as equals with her employers, who promptly make her position casual. Now freed of all her uncompetitive protections, can she finally achieve her dream of seven day a week working poverty? Find out in this heartwarming story of hope, love, and unaffordable child care!

Cli-Fi
An edge of the seat thriller where the first casualty of the truth… is profitable industry. Mild mannered environment minister Greg Hunt (David Wenham) uncovers a shadowy well-supported and peer-reviewed global conspiracy of scientists and researchers attempting to ensnare international governments in fiendishly urgent and united action to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Can he and his rag-tag gang of powerful industrialists, international media magnates, discredited scientists and highly-paid lobby groups stop this insidious cabal of under-resourced academics and keep industry safe from their dastardly fact-based agenda? Also stars Claudia Karvan as Gina Rinehart, Hugh Jackman as Clive Palmer, Daniel Craig as Lord Monckton and Cornelia “Morag from Home & Away” Francis as CSIRO Chief Executive Officer Megan Clark.

Oh, Tampa!
A knockabout musical farce about the 2001 Children Overboard affair, where goofy prime minster John Howard finds a simple, politically-motivated fib claiming that evil refugees threatening to drown their own children spirals out of control and wackily becomes the basis for Australia’s federal immigration policy for the subsequent decade.

With Anthony Warlow as Howard, David Campbell as immigration minister Philip Ruddock and Phil Scott as wandering minstrel The Children Over-Bard, Oh, Tampa! features towback-tapping numbers like ‘The Only Good Ship (Is Citizenship)’, ‘Political Wedge Issue Blues’ and ‘I’m Not A Racist, But… (…Obviously, I Am)’.

Set your VCRs now, Australia.

Yours ever,

APS