Silly Baggery

The Australian government has taken another great leap forward in fulfilling its apparent ambition to be a caricature of the American and British governments. A national Doomsday Fridge Magnet campaign four years ago has been complemented, if not surpassed, by a Doomsday Receptacle campaign aimed at the fortunate residents of Sydney. The Doomsday Receptacles are called Go Bags, a term which, at least to this native of the Poodle Archipelago, carries unfortunate colostomic connotations, and are being urged upon people as the latest necessity in the War on the Abstract Noun. A Go Bag should contain "items such as maps, running shoes, sunscreen and toilet paper", but pet cats can be left out and carried in a pillowcase instead. Persons fleeing the coming holocaust are reminded to turn off the gas and to check on neighbours, presumably to ensure that they have remembered to pack their own Go Bag.

A spokesbeing for John Howard's government denied accusations of a fear campaign in the run-up to the general election. Apparently the campaign, which has cost over eighty thousand pounds, has been planned for the last two years; so it is quite possible that it was conceived at a time when John Howard wasn't sure the civilised world could afford to risk losing him.