An Open Letter To Ambassador Joe Hockey: Please Dack The President On Behalf Of Australia

To:

His Excellency The Honourable Joe Hockey
1601 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington, DC 20036
USA

Dear Joe,

First off, let me say this: things are not as bad as they seem.

Sure, the new President of the United States just yelled at our Prime Minister on the phone like your disappointed grandma guilting you for not calling more often. Yes, Australia’s longstanding alliance with the world’s foremost superpower now means less than the expired buy-ten-get-one-free Guzman y Gomez loyalty card buried in your wallet for the past six years. True, relying on the goodwill of a sentient used nappy full of racist peach fuzz to solve Australia’s refugee crisis somehow blew up in the government’s face. And, yes, amazingly, responsibility for cleaning up this giant, incandescent mess falls to you.

Right now you are probably profoundly regretting having the job you have. This is understandable. The US ambassador gig is the great participation trophy of Australian politics, awarded to the guy who couldn’t bat or bowl or field or put together a decent budget but showed up every week and gave it a red-hot go anyway. No reasonable person could have expected it would ever involve anything more strenuous than going to hockey games, posing for the occasional photo with Hugh Jackman and a jar of Vegemite, and smiling through gritted teeth whenever some Harvard-educated dipstick yells “gud-day mate!” upon finding out you are Australian. You did not sign up for this.

The 2016 NBA Champions trophy won by #ClevelandCavaliers including Aussies @matthewdelly and @KyrieIrving #RNCinCLE pic.twitter.com/EgMxIb5YXd

— Joe Hockey (@JoeHockey) July 20, 2016

Chances are you’re extremely agitated, a little bit scared and completely at a loss for what to do. Before anything else, you need to take a deep breath and remember who you are. You’ve come through tough times before. This is not as bad as the time you said poor people don’t drive cars. Or the time you dressed up like a fairy on Talkin’ ’bout your Generation. It’s nowhere near as bad as the time you said you really, really like Nickelback. You’ve got this, Joe. Keep your head on.

In the spirit of civic-mindedness, and also because you’re getting paid $360,000 a year to bum around and play cricket in Philadelphia, I would like to offer some friendly advice on what to do next. Every crisis is an opportunity in disguise, and now you have the opportunity of a lifetime. Before you lies a chance at fame, honour and redemption: a single bold move that would turn the political narrative on its head, reassert Australian sovereignty in the eyes of the world and pave the way for your triumphant return to public life.

Your Excellency. Mister Ambassador. Joe. In this hour of your country’s greatest need, your way forward is simple. Your duty is clear.

You need to dack the president.

No doubt you have some reservations. This is fair enough. I understand if you are privately reluctant to lay hands on the sitting President of the United States and pull his pants down to the floor in a firm yet fluid motion. I sympathise if the near-certain prospect of taking several bullets from the most highly-trained and protective force of bodyguards on Earth makes you hesitant. I accept the extreme risk that, given the high-pressure nature of this mission and your track record of bungling simple tasks, you may accidentally perform the dreaded and forbidden double-dacking, inadvertently exposing Donald Trump’s large, malformed ass to a horrified public.

But you must put these human doubts and frailties aside. In this moment, you are not Joe Hockey, sad-eyed plush toy trapped in a man’s body. You are the Australian Ambassador to the United States. When you took that high and sacred office, you placed your hand on the Constitution and a VHS copy of The Castle and swore a solemn vow to defend Australia’s interests by any means necessary.

Now the time has come to live up to that oath. Our international reputation has been besmirched. Australia needs a champion, and Chris Hemsworth is busy filming the new Thor movie. Harsh words and traditional diplomatic means will not be enough to undo this injustice. Even military intervention cannot restore our pride. Only a swift, public and devastating dacking, the ultimate tool of restorative justice in playgrounds the nation over, can right this wrong.

If you accept this awesome burden, and successfully dack President Donald Trump in front of the world’s media so that he has to waddle around with his pants around his ankles like a penguin, and maybe falls over when he bends down and tries to pick his pants back up, and also steps on his pants by mistake and rips his pants so that when he finally gets his pants back on there’s a big hole in his pants and everyone laughs, then you will live on as so much more than the guy whose solution to the housing crisis was “get a good job that pays good money”.

No. If you pull this off (“this”, in this case, meaning Donald Trump’s pants), you will join the pantheon of heroic Aussie dackers who came before you. Jack Lang dacked the English bankers who demanded New South Wales pay back its debt while Depression-era workers were starving. John Curtin dacked Winston Churchill when he brought Australian troops home from North Africa to defend us from the Japanese. Bob Hawke just dacked everybody. Your name will live on, alongside theirs, forever.

Seize the moment, Mr. Ambassador. But mainly, seize Donald Trump’s weird oversized suit pants, and pull them down. Dack Trump, Joe. The nation wills it.

–

Alex McKinnon is a freelance writer based in Sydney, and a former editor of Junkee and the Star Observer.