Minister fights for Fawad and everything Australian

From: Pongo MacGregor, Australian Minister for Sports, Mateship and Fooling around in the Sheep Dip
Subject: Proposed (Baggy) Green Paper on Getting this Pakistan bloke into the cricket side in time to stick it up the Pommies
To: All Members of Parliament apart from the sheilas obviously

Right, you blokes. A time comes in every public servant's life when he has the chance to shape the destiny of his nation in the most profound and important way imaginable. For me, that opportunity has already come along once, much earlier in my career, when I sponsored a bill to make the wearing of moustaches for fast bowlers an enshrined constitutional right - in the face of savage opposition from so-called progressive types and the powerful razor-blade lobby.

Now Australia has called upon me once again in her hour of need and by God I am not going to let her down. With the Ashes coming up, it is absolutely vital that we get this Fawad Ahmed guy in the baggy green sharpish. The thought of our blokes having to go over there with nothing but Nathan Lyon in the locker is a prospect that makes the blood of every red-blooded Australian male run cold. We must act fast.

Is this Fawad bloke perfect? No, of course not. I have heard it said he had to flee Pakistan because he got himself involved with some yahoos who wanted to teach girls how to play cricket. That is a very serious allegation on Fawad and it would be naïve not to be aware of the risks. By opening up our glorious country's borders to this man, we may be inviting a feminist - or possibly even a metrosexual - into our home.

But this is the risk we must take. With the Ashes spin-bowling resources as they are, we face the biggest crisis ever known in Australian history - no offence to Lyono, who is a terrific bloke and a hell of a competitor - and if we have to legislate our way out of this hell then so be it.

Some of those on the other side of the House have questioned whether drafting legislation just to get a sportsman into a sports team is a right and proper use of parliamentary time, what with all the other issues on the table such as the economy and the environment and Melissa George still living abroad to make movies when she could be giving it a red hot crack back home in Oz. To them I have just two things to say. Firstly, "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie". And secondly, that they ought to be ashamed of themselves, for what is the Australian body politic if not an apparatus for making ourselves the most competitive nation we can be? I have referred some of the more prominent dissenters to the House Committee for un-Australian activities. I'm not saying we want a McCarthy-type situation, where elected representatives are drummed out of their constituencies and disgraced for not liking sport in a properly patriotic way. But it is a thought worth thinking. In the meantime, I urge you: Choose Fawad. Choose inclusion. Choose Australia.

Cheers,

Pongo