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Poetry: If I Were a Rich Man
Through a distortion in the time-space continuum, we have found a recording showing how people a few years into the future will deal with health care.
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The twentieth anniversary of the Hawke Government�s election provides an opportunity to ponder the Accord�s historical conundrum: how at the moment of the union movement�s greatest influence did it suffer its greatest loss of members?
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Poetry
If I Were a Rich Man
By David Peetz
- Resident Bard
Through a distortion in the time-space continuum, we have found a recording showing how people a few years into the future will deal with health care.
***********
When they looked back on how Australia ended up with an American-style overpriced and inefficient health system, the people of 2020 thought about the man who fiddled with Medicare while bulk-billing burned. And when they sang about it, it was only fitting that they chose a tune from Fiddler on the Roof (originally written by Jerry Bock & Sheldon Harnick), though the fiddler was actually in the House.
IF I WERE A RICH MAN
If I were a rich man,
Daidle deedle daidle
Daidle daidle deedle daidle dum
All day long I'd biddy-biddy-bum
If I were a wealthy man.
I wouldn't have to work hard,
Daidle deedle daidle
Daidle daidle deedle daidle dum
If I were a biddy-biddy rich,
Daidle deedle daidle daidle man...
I'd go and see a doctor down in his rooms
Right in the middle of the town,
A waiting room where all the rich men would go.
I'd say my temperature was just going up
My blood pressure it was coming down,
My hairy tongue I'd stick out just for show.
Oy!
But I'm not a rich man,
I've been diddle diddled,
Fiddle-diddle-diddled like I'm dumb
My health care was fiddle-diddled down
Just to help the wealthy men.
It wasn't hard to work out,
Not much of a riddle
How the fiddle diddle came about
Makes me sick like spittle coming out
Bulk billing was whittled down and out
Medicare was skittled bar a shout
By one little fiddle diddling man.
Oy!
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