Juliar Gillard was visiting a Sydney primary school and the class was in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings.

The teacher asked Ms Gillard if she would like to lead the discussion on the word 'Tragedy'.

So our illustrious leader asked the class for an example of a 'Tragedy'.

A little boy stood up and offered: 'If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playin' in the field  and a tractor runs over him and kills him, that would be a tragedy.'

'Incorrect,' said Gillard. 'That would be an accident.'

A little girl raised her hand: 'If a school bus carrying fifty children drove over a cliff, killing everybody inside, that would be a tragedy.'

'I'm afraid not',explained Gillard, 'that's what we would refer to as a great loss'.

The room went silent. No other children volunteered. Gillard searched the room.

'Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?'

Finally, at the back of the room, little Johnny raised his hand and said:

'If a plane carrying you and Mr. Rudd and Mr. Swan and Mr. Garrett was struck by a 'friendly fire' missile & blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy.'

'Fantastic' exclaimed Gillard, 'and can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?'

'Well', said Johnny, 'it has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn't be a great loss, and it probably wouldn't be a f**king accident either!'

First heard it told about George Bush.

Surely we can do better than recycling American humour.

Is there such a thing as a political joke that isn't recycled?

freediver wrote on Apr 21^st, 2012 at 11:23pm:


Apparently not, Bob Carr's back...

This has got to be a uniquely Australian joke. I found this on a pub table several years ago, back when John Howard was PM and not long after Tampa. It had been photocopied and put on just about every table throughout the pub.

A massive earthquake and mudslide today killed 350,000 Lebanese?

The United States has despatched 5 MASH units from Saudi Arabia, Canada has despatched a dozen Red Cross crews, the Brits are sending teams of engineers to rebuild vital infrastructure and John Howard is sending 350,000 replacement Lebanese.

It's clever and has a double edge.