We're Always In Front! (Except for Antarctica and New Zealand and . . .)

New Zealand's had it for a while. Tassie's had it for a month. NT doesn't have it. Queensland won't have it. WA is behind anyway. South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capitol Territory get it tonight! From 1300 we put our clocks forward. Daylight saving . . yeay. . . . no more noisy minors at 4:ooam and sunlight till late. I just have to remember who's behind and by how much. Estern USA now 14 hours behind, England and Ireland now 1o hours behind. South Africa 9 hours behind. Why we can't get our act together and live in the same timezone, I'll never know, something about cows needing milking . . . and then I found this:

"WE, the people of the broad brown Land of Oz, wish to be recognized as a free nation of blokes, and Sheilas .. We come from many lands (although a few too many of us come from New Zealand) and, although we live in the best country in the world, we reserve the right to bitch and moan about it whenever we bloody like.

We are One Nation but we're divided into many States.

First, there's Victoria, named after a queen who didn't believe in lesbians. Victoria is the realm of Mossimo turtlenecks, café latte, grand final day and big horse races. Its capital is Melbourne, whose chief marketing pitch is that it's "liveable". At least that's what they think. The rest of us think it is too bloody cold and wet.

Next, there's NSW, the realm of pastel shorts, macchiato with sugar, thin books read quickly and millions of dancing queens. Its capital Sydney has more queens than any other city in the world, and is proud of it. Its mascots are Bondi lifesavers who pull their Speedos up their cracks to keep the left and right sides of their brains separate.

Down south we have Tasmania, a State based on the notion that the family that bonks together stays together. In Tassie, everyone gets an extra chromosome at conception. Maps of the State bring smiles to the sternest faces. It holds the world record for a single mass shooting, which the Yanks can't seem to beat no matter how often they try.

South Australia is the province of half-decent reds, a festival of foreigners and bizarre axe murders. SA is the state of innovation, where else can you so effectively reuse country bank vaults and barrels as in Snowtown, just out of Adelaide (also named after a queen). They had the Grand Prix, but lost it when the views of Adelaide sent the Formula One drivers to sleep at the wheel.

Western Australia is too far from anywhere to be relevant in this document. Its main claim to fame is that it doesn't have daylight saving because if it did all the men would get erections on the bus on the way to work. WA was the last state to stop importing convicts, and many of them still work there in the government and business.

The Northern Territory is the red heart of our land. Outback plains, sheep stations the size of Europe, kangaroos, jackaroos, emus, Ulurus and dusty kids with big smiles. It also has the highest beer consumption of anywhere on the planet, and its creek beds have the highest aluminum content of anywhere too. Although the Territory is the centerpiece of our national culture, few of us live there and the rest prefer to fly over it on our way to Bali.

And there's Queensland. While any mention of God seems silly in a document defining a nation of half-arsed agnostics, it is worth noting that God probably made Queensland. Why he filled it with dickheads remains a mystery.

Oh yes, and there's the Australian Capital Territory (Canberra). The less said the better.....

We, the citizens of Oz, are united by the Pacific Highway, whose treacherous twists and turns kill more of us each year than die by murder.

We are united in our lust for international recognition, so desperate for praise we leap in joy when a ragtag gaggle of corrupt IOC officials tells us Sydney is better than Beijing.

We are united by a democracy so flawed that a political party, albeit a redneck gun-toting one, can get a million votes and still not win one seat in Federal Parliament.

Not that we're whingeing, we leave that to our Pommy immigrants.

We want to make "no worries mate" our national phrase, "she'll be right mate" our national attitude, and "Waltzing Matilda" our national anthem (so what if it's about a sheep-stealing crim who commits suicide).

We love sport so much our newsreaders can read the death toll from a sailing race and still tell us who's winning in the same breath. And we're the best in the world at all the sports that count, like cricket, netball, rugby, AFL, roo-shooting, two-up and horse racing.

We also have the biggest rock, the tastiest pies, the blackest aborigines and the worst-dressed Olympians in the known universe.

We shoot, we root, we vote. We are girt by sea and pissed by lunchtime.
And even though we might seem a racist, closed-minded, sports-obsessed little people, at least we're better than the Kiwis."

So there . . . all this from the only country in the world that eats the animals represented on its coat of arms. (mmmm rare Kangaroo in red wine jus . . .)