LATE BRAKING NEWS

The government today assured everyone that everything was all right. A spokesperson for the government said that earlier reports to the effect that everything was not all right were wrong.

"These things happen in today's fast-changing political landscape", said the unfortunate and sweating minor public official. Apparently things were in fact really bad but the government has now decided the most effective solution is to look at it all in a much more positive light. And besides, it was all the fault of the previous government.

Minister for Looking Like A Spiv, Christopher Pyne, declared that while his Higher Education Reform Bill had theoretically been defeated in the Senate, the reforms would still be effected because of secret "I've Fixed It" legislation which guarantees that if Mr Pyne says "I've fixed it" three times in a row accompanied by a nervous high-pitched giggle then it's fixed. This legislation was passed in a late night combined sitting of both houses attended by Mr Pyne, Clive Palmer, three off-duty parliamentary cleaners, and a necromancer called Jayden.

Embattled treasurer Joe "Damages" Hockey insists that brilliant progress is being made to slash the deficit and bring the country back into surplus within a quite reasonable time frame what do you want you unreasonable whining bastards. Exciting new strategies include converting the country's entire debt to bitcoin, putting it all on black 23 down at Crown Casino, and mate we're laughing. He is still considering selling New Zealand to the Chinese while they're not looking, but says he's abandoned plans to sell licences to the Japanese to hunt Clive Palmer for scientific purposes.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop continues to blame the previous Labour government for the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28 1914, the Wall St crash of 1929, the Korean War, and the selection of Guy Sebastian as our representative in the Eurovision Song Quest.

And in overseas news, ArchdukeFuhrer Vladimir Putin has had himself abducted, killed, and then brought back to life using cutting edge DNA Recombinant technology. He said he was bored just hanging around being a billionaire bear-wrestling tyrant, and was looking for fresh challenges.

In Italy Pope Francis has spent the week tooling up and down various autostrada on a Ducati telling everyone to just like chill.

And finally, back home, Prime Minister Tony Abbott makes the mistake of listening to his own speech.