The normal population
Has been evacuated from the South Island, which has been given over to the tourist industry for purposes of hunting, shooting, boozing, mountaineering, fishing and fornication.

Rugby football having been discarded as much too tame,
Fighting with spring-knives has become the national game,
Carried on by a small class of specially-bred gladiators,
The rest of the public being bubble-gum-blowing spectators.

Votes for cows was carried some years ago by a show of feet;
Totalitarian democracy is now complete,
And the present Prime Minister, known to everybody as Jackie,
Is a ten-year-old steer from Taranaki.

His authority, and that of Bullamy's, is only nominal, all power being vested (along with the right of self-perpetuation)
In General Oecumenical Development (Inc.), a world with headquarters in Monte Carlo and branches throughout the Creation.

A complete monopoly of Radio, Television, News and Information page 142Services, Education and Entertainment, including six selected sub-varieties of religious practice
Is operated on behalf of G.O.D. (Inc.) by the New Zealand Broad-serving Cactus,
Which is situated on the Desert Road, plumb in the middle
Of the North Island, where the major administrative fiddle
Of the nation is conducted
In an ant-hill suitably constructed.

Poets and artists are heavily subsidised by the State, on strict condition that their work shall be totally incomprehensible,
Because that which is incomprehensible cannot possibly be subversive, a working assumption that is eminently sensible.
The defence of the country is in the hands of G.O.D. (Inc.) and (for decorative effect) a standing army of 100,000 marching girls ('Don't shoot until you see the whites
Of their eyes,' counsels the Ministry of Tourism), along with (not to be out-done) 50,000 marching bodgies in gents' Hawaiian floral shirtings and shocking-pink tights.

Now therefore, although everything worth buying has become progressively scarcer and dearer,
Lift up your voices in joyous celebration of the Second Millennium of the Christian Era.