Tag: Clarke and Dawe

One Careful Owner

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The interview never happened. It should have. John Clarke died in 2017, and the genre died with him: the po-faced minister, the patient interrogator, the absurdity delivered in the flat tones of a man explaining a routine procurement. So here is the sketch he might have written, had he lived to watch us buy three used submarines and call it a defence strategy.

The set is two chairs and a desk. We join them mid-interview.

DAWE: Minister, under the original deal Australia was to receive three submarines. Two second-hand, one brand new.

CLARKE: The new one was the exciting one.

DAWE: And now?

CLARKE: Three submarines, Bryan. The number remains unchanged.

DAWE: But the new one has gone.

CLARKE: The new one has been streamlined.

DAWE: Into what?

CLARKE: Into an older one.

DAWE: So all three are now second-hand.

CLARKE: All three are proven. We’ve placed a premium on simplicity. The brand-new one had never been to sea. We didn’t know it. These, we know everything about. We even know how old they are.

DAWE: How old are they?

CLARKE: Between six and fifteen years.

DAWE: The design life is thirty-three.

CLARKE: So someone’s taken care of the difficult early years. We’ve outsourced the running-in. The Americans have very kindly absorbed the depreciation.

DAWE: The country is paying an extraordinary amount of money.

CLARKE: You could buy a great many doughnuts, Bryan.

DAWE: We’re not buying doughnuts.

CLARKE: No, but it gives you a sense of scale. Warehouses of them. Fresh daily.

DAWE: For three used submarines.

CLARKE: One careful owner. Full service history.

DAWE: When do they arrive?

CLARKE: The first in 2032. And in the meantime, the jobs. That’s what nobody mentions.

DAWE: What jobs?

CLARKE: We have two hundred Australian tradespeople at Pearl Harbor. Skilled people. Working on the submarines.

DAWE: Our submarines.

CLARKE: The American ones.

DAWE: We’ve sent Australian workers to fix the US Navy’s submarines.

CLARKE: To increase their sea days. They’re behind, the poor beggars. Can’t build them fast enough. So we’re helping out.

DAWE: While we wait for ours.

CLARKE: While we wait. It’s the alliance, Bryan. You give a little.

DAWE: We’re paying an enormous sum and supplying labour to build the boats the seller hasn’t finished.

CLARKE: When you put it like that it sounds transactional. This is a friendship. You don’t keep score.

DAWE: Minister, are we any safer?

CLARKE: They’re perfectly safe, Bryan.

DAWE: Safe from what?

CLARKE: From the threat.

DAWE: Which threat?

CLARKE: The one we don’t name. You don’t name it. That’s the whole point of it.

DAWE: But you’ve costed it. You’ve sent two hundred tradesmen to Hawaii over it.

CLARKE: We’ve had to be prudent.

DAWE: About a country you won’t name.

CLARKE: Our largest trading partner, Bryan. You don’t insult a customer.

DAWE: So we’re defending ourselves against the people we sell the iron ore to.

CLARKE: We sell them the iron ore. They sell us the anxiety. It’s a very balanced relationship.

DAWE: And the submarines arrive when?

CLARKE: The first in 2032. The Australian-built ones in the 2040s.

DAWE: Until then?

CLARKE: You’ll always know where they are.

DAWE: Thank you for your time.

A note to readers: this, invented interview is a tribute to the comic genius of John Clarke and Bryan Dawe, their remarkable craft and timing and an act of homage to a tradition of satire that is razor-sharp and yet utterly minimalist. Pared to the essentials. Two chairs, a desk, rather than any set and the truth said plainly enough to be unbearable. There is no greater compliment.

A very close cousin to this text also currently appears in The AIMN under, “Underwater Matters: AUKUS and the Art of the Used Submarine.”

Satirical Farrer election scene with oversized ballot box

The Front Fell Off The Coalition

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Written in tribute to the late great John Clarke and his long-suffering straight man Bryan Dawe, whose two chairs and a clipboard remain the gold standard of Australian political satire. The occasion: One Nation’s historic first win in the House of Representatives, the Coalition’s nine-point-eight per cent primary vote in a seat held since 1949, and an exit strategy that turns out to be no exit at all. Going forward.

Two figures in a sparse television studio: one in a dark suit, comfortable and evasive; the other with a notepad, politely relentless.

Phillip Lowe in a Frock

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The RBA has raised the cash rate for the third time in a row. The board voted 8-1. The dissenting member cannot be identified. Someone had a conscience. We just can’t send them a fruit basket. Urban Wronski channels Clarke and Dawe.

A Clarke and Dawe style television interview set. A suited interviewer sits in a grey armchair facing a second chair occupied by a figure whose head has been replaced by a framed oil painting of an LNG tanker labelled AUS-INC. and LIQUEFIED SOVEREIGNTY. Small plastic figurines of cheering people stand at the bottom of the frame.

Clarke and Dawe tribute: The PM Explains Gas

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Shell’s Australian chair fronted a Senate inquiry into gas taxation and couldn’t say how much revenue Shell makes from selling Australian gas. She was, however, very clear on the ill-advised part. Urban Wronski channels Clarke and Dawe to interview the Prime Minister about the gas we own, the tax we don’t collect, and the modelling that takes time.

Two figures in a satirical theatrical setting -- one in a suit holding a Bible and military briefing document with a lanyard reading "Office of Sacred Communications," the other a composed interviewer with a clipboard -- lit by a single spotlight, with St Peter's Basilica and a naval carrier group suggested in the background shadows.

The Holy War on the Holy See

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Pete Hegseth has a muscular theology. The Pope has Augustine on his side and refugees on his schedule. The Vice President has been explaining Just War theory to an Augustinian. Clarke and Dawe have two chairs, a lanyard marked “Office of Sacred Communications,” and the truth hiding in plain sight. Urban Wronski referees.

Raccoon in a suit sitting between two men at an interview table with a microphone

VANCE DROPS IN

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JD Vance has just returned from negotiations with Iran. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed. Two C-130s are still on a dirt strip outside Isfahan. And the Vice President would like to explain, in his own words, why this is going tremendously. Urban Wronski channels Clarke and Dawe. Stand by.

Sparse television interview set in the style of Clarke and Dawe: interviewer at desk, suited figure rising to leave, clutching a shopping bag labelled ALBO, Pine Gap radomes faintly visible through studio window behind him.

A Man of His Word

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Bryan Dawe is seated. John Clarke enters in a suit, slightly harried, carrying a reusable shopping bag with “ALBO” written on it in texta.
Australia sent troops to a war it hasn’t declared, through a base it won’t discuss, after a school massacre it can’t explain, while the Prime Minister assures us that transparency is everything. Clarke and Dawe, imagined for the age of Operation Epic Fury.

Are we at War with Iran?

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INTERVIEWER: Are we at war with Iran?
ALBANESE: No.
INTERVIEWER: Then why did they bomb our base?
ALBANESE: Because they’re Iran.
One interviewer. One Prime Minister. Forty-five satellite dishes, three submariners, one Wedgetail aircraft, a peace negotiation bombed flat, a hundred and seventy schoolgirls, and a pocket square without a mark on it. A political interview in the tradition of Clarke and Dawe.