Call For Our Porkie Pollies To Lose Weight

There was a report on the radio a couple of days ago calling for our fat politicians to lose weight. Not only because it is bad for their health to be obese but for the fact that they are in the public eye and should be setting a good example. I'm not expecting them to join Jenny Craig in a hurry. I'm sure they'll have their excuses such as, "I work long hours" and "the job is so stressful" and "there's no time to prepare food properly".

I don't think it is just about the food. One thing that can be done to skinny-up our pollies would be to stop offering taxpayer-funded concessions on meals. I believe that the meals of politicians are subsidised whilst they are in Canberra. When I worked on a mining site and the food was free I ate an unbelievable amount. I remember going away for four days once and putting on two kilograms which, subsequently, fell off in the next week or two when my eating habits returned to normal.

Another partial solution would be to make the politicians pay for their own petrol. There certainly wouldn't be that much driving around done. Seriously, how much meaningful work can you do while you are being driven around anyway? I can't stand seeing people on their mobile phones conducting business while they're driving. You can cram too much into your day. The cost of petrol would shock the fat cats if it was paid out of their own pockets.

I would suggest taking away the chauffer-driven cars of our politicians also and making them ride bicycles, but, you know what happened a few years ago. One of our pollies, I can't quite remember his name (shows how important he was - Mclay, was it?), had a government-provided bicycle which he fell off and hurt his arm. He claimed compensation and received in the vicinity of $50-60k. These bikes are obviously too much of a health risk to our pollies and are not the answer to helping them lose weight.

Let's just make the politicians pay their own way and see if they have the consumption ability to become obese.

It was interesting to hear Wilson Tuckey call Kim Beazley a "fat so-and-so" the other day. I would have been much more descriptive and colourful in comments. And it would have involved a couple less letters.