Now that we have officially transitioned back into an era of Lords and Ladies, Dames and Knights, here are some other great Medieval inventions that Prime Minister Tony Abbott should think about reviving.
The Black Death
The plague has a pretty bad rap, sure, but in an era of overpopulation and climate collapse, surely we should embrace anything that might actively cull the living, breathing, consuming human population. Less people = less energy = less CO2. The formula is simple. Hell, kill enough of the Australian population and the Coalition's Direct Action Plan might even work! See also: smallpox, polio and tuberculosis.
Reinstate a traditional model of Femininity
We can all admit that women have become pretty hard to deal with in the modern age, what with their demands for equal pay, sexual rights and willingness to wear dresses that end above the ankle. Reinstating a more, shall we say, traditional model of femininity would solve all these problems straight off the bat. As your resident domestic slaves, both wives and daughters have the twin advantage of not only having to accede to your every whim, but also being useful bargaining chips when negotiating for property or job promotion, or simply trying to convince your local council to let you build a modest overhang on the side of your house. Of more specific benefit to Tony and friends: they could finally get rid of that pesky Julie Bishop woman and let their Round Table become the proper, unabashed ______ forest it was always meant to be.
The horse-drawn carriage
This is an eco-wonder waiting to happen! Ban the car, breed the horse. Obviously when the combustion engine chugged into being we thought it was a miracle. And it was – but it came with a price. Now that the environment is just plain giving up due to the relentless burn of our precious petroleum things are starting to look a little different. So, why don't we just instate a wholesale ban on the humble automobile and require all transport to be done via horse-drawn carriage? This has the added benefit of putting horse ownership and maintenance outside of the reach of many people and thus allowing the rich to once again trot freeshod over the mud-strewn peasants as they plead piteously for a single piece of copper. Ah, aren't their wails just music to your lordly ears?Child labour and/or slaveryLet's face it: children today are spoiled little snots. Entitled and coddled from the outside world, there's no question we're insufficiently preparing them for the rigours of adult life. The solution: endless hours of backbreaking labour in the country's coal mines. Rather than spending their days singing "Kumbayah" and learning to hug it out in our needlessly progressive schools, why don't we just saddle them up with a pickaxe and a torch and tell them not to come back until they have enough fuel for winter. Sure, they'll resist at first, but as you make clear to them that they cannot eat until the family's coffers have been filled, well, just watch that resilience and independent spirit bloom.
Feudal property rights
You know, given the concentration of home ownership amongst a moneyed elite and the pricing out of the market being felt by many people right now, this is pretty much already happening.
