Sunday morning television work ethic back-pats. Nobody likes a leaner so just Be grateful, work hard, stay down. Be grateful, work hard, stay down. And if you never get full, Well you were never meant to be full. It's the lucky country. You gotta be lucky, Or you're nothing here. If you were here too early, well, tough luck. And if you came too late, tough luck. This place is girt by churning sea, We've boundless plains for you to till. And if you never feel safe, Well you were never meant to be safe. It's the lucky country. You gotta be lucky, Or you're nothing here.

Got a closet full of moths, Got a coat full of holes, Got a funding cut coming down the pipe again. Gotta hustle, man, I can't be getting down again. Gotta struggle for attention From the ministry Of infrastructure, transport, comms and regional development. Can't compete with copper wire and bitumen. This place is run by Skeksis. My people run on hoping anyway. Chin up, but I really gotta tell ya, Well I ain't dead yet, but I been better. Got a town full of cowards crooks and gamblers Getting silly off the wages They were meant to be paying you. They got a fine, don't worry, you'll be paying that too. Got a generation traitor on the telly Tryna tell me that by working smart, I can be just like him. Fifteen properties and twenty mil in private debt. This place is run by Skeksis. My people run on hoping anyway. Chin up, but I really gotta tell ya, Well I ain't dead yet, but I been better. I been better. Jeannie Cigarillo likes to sit at King and Collins With a wink she calls the brokers over, Just so they can hear her say, Sharp suit, but the guillotine's sharper. Sharp suit, but the guillotine's sharper.

I saw the headlines in the Herald Sun. Rowan Dean did a big report on Sky. Farewell to the quintessential cheeky bastard. Vale, sweet laughing Jack. See the droop of the mournful half-masthead, Wilting lilies on a dusty track. Old mate fell out the back of the house he Built on stilts of ancient bone. No more wry smiles and common cunning, And no more homespun toughs. They're shaking in their Reggie Williams now the change is coming, And it couldn't come quick enough. So the larrikin is dead, good riddance, fuck him. Maybe we'll get some peace now he's kicked the bucket. Sing the bastard down. He won't be missed. Get the box in the ground and let's be done with this. A real hero for the cooked true bluegeoisie, Every shitforbrains Gerry Harvey wannabe, Every HR rap sheet motherfucker, Every wage thief piece of shit, Every thin-skinned skill-shy bloodsucker, Every humourless bully in the pit. Well, old mate's apostles spit acid at the thought That the rest of us might just be sick of them. How's a man supposed to get the laughs he's owed, When the world's so politically correct? It's the only way of life he's ever known. Too bad, suck shit, get wrecked. So the larrikin is dead, good riddance, fuck him. We can all sleep easy now he's kicked the bucket. Sing the bastard down. He won't be missed. Get the box in the ground and let's be done with this. So you're original, A-U-S. So you're made of harder stuff. Are you gonna take it out on everybody? Are you gonna be a homespun tough? I know you wanna take it out on everbody. Do you really think you're hard enough? So the larrikin is dead, good riddance, fuck him. Maybe we'll get some peace now he's kicked the bucket. Sing the bastard down. He won't be missed. Get the box in the ground and let's be done with this.

She gets the call From outta nowhere and she Don't know what to do or think or say. The job is open. The old boy's gone and went himself Right out the window, and she thinks, she thinks, well I I deserve this. I work harder than- And I I am worth this. I'm worth more than- The porter leads her to a lift which rockets right up to the penthouse where the board have all assembled for the contract signing ceremony. The tech director's wrapped in sigils like a psychopomp and Jenny from HR has donned a diadem of bone. In the chamber there's a quartet of homonculi in morbid raiments representing sales, legal, finance and PR. And she's blinded by the light reflecting off the CEO's veneers, which sparkle, hyper-vivid, as he grins and shakes her trembling hand. Small talk and booze, Taut smiles and canapés. Somebody asks her if she's pleased. She clears her throat, And says she used to wanna be a vet. She's kinda shocked to hear the words out loud. But now, There's no time left, No room to hesitate. Now, The sanctum's waiting, It's swinging open. And the sacrificial altar is a rental from a startup that was made to take our transcendental energies and atomise them, delivered by some harried bastard on ten bucks commission paid for each delivery. Now work you fucker, work. There's a new and gleaming body, built in Northrop Grumman's basement, decked in clothing stitched by women's bleeding fingers in the East. And there's a recess in the stone just big enough to put her heart in. Will she miss the way it beats or is the taste of iron sweet enough? With a steeple at the summit, And a lever in her hand, Cutting swaths through untapped markets All across the blasted land, She's the Herald and the Hunger Of a dim and baleful star. Now she knows her destination And a beating heart can only go so far. And you were kinder once.

The first arrived on the Tranmere As a VDLC man In 1827 Come to work the virgin land. He lived up near Cape Grim On a green and knotted spur. He worked a flock of strong Merino sheep Under Agent Edward Curr. The Peerapper boys were spitting wild When the shepherds took some native girls. They killed a hundred English sheep, And the shepherds swore to act in turn. The first went up the cliffs. Four others went as well. They made sure the locals knew the score When the ruined bodies fell. * When the second first drew breath He didn't fuss or cry. His mother bled like a bursting dam; He was quiet as she died. He was a brutal thing, wicked cruel, With eyes like oil, black and dull. It was said he was a dead man moved By some devil in his skull. He ran a sugar farm way up north, And waged spite, thick and sour, On the coolies and the blackbirds Who cut his cane for a shake of flour. Those working men, All numb and tough, Took the devil's own work 'Til they'd took enough And called strike. People swore they saw him, silhouetted, as the labour quarters caught alight. * The third never stood a chance. He was shaken from the start. His father, drunk and raging, Had put a tremor in his heart. He went year on year, for twenty two, Every day more fearful and worn. He hanged himself in the weaning light On the day his son was born. The fourth grew up in New South Wales And did work for the BPA. He threw his whole self in, a devotee, Washing savagery away. He had a servant girl, a wilding Black. He couldn't get his teeth around her name, So the family called her Mabel And made her call herself the same. She knew the game, she kept her peace, Suffered every task without a sound, And the advances of the teenaged fifth Who sniffed about like a dwelling hound. And she had a son, and she didn't cry When they sent him off, they didn't tell her where. 'Cause if she fussed they'd ship her to the mission nearby And she'd heard the tales of the horrors there. And she tried to make herself still as wood, But the fifth kept coming, kept coming all the time. It was a frigid day in April when she hit him back, And he coiled like a snake 'til her legs went slack. And it didn't take much to make the sin go away, Just a letter from the fourth and an unmarked grave. And he left to the ground what the ground still holds, Never said another word about the body in the autumn cold. He had a son of his own, who had a son of his own. He lives in the city now. * What's it like living high in the city? Like a pig in shit, things are looking up. Bought a house using Mabel's money. Sixty thousand years beneath that slab. And we'll sell Juukan iron And cut down the trees 'Til we're burning in place And numb to our fucking bones. Whatcha carry that name for, Adam? How's the family spirit? Oh I know, It comes and it comes and it goes. And we eat and we shit and we grow. And we dig and we burn and we grow. What's the fucking point?