Shitsville Express: August 6

When Shitsville Express filmed the final sequence of its series, which airs tonight, it managed to snaffle former PM Kevin Rudd who had been to Shitsville and back…..

But 3 weeks is a long time politics and that’s all it took before he was back in the top job.

Now the show has a bit of a coup with a sitting PM during an election campaign as their footnote. This has required a little bit of creative post-production with Joe Hildebrand’s voice over.

In the final episode, Joe turns the table on the aspiring young politicians. Now it’s their turn to nominate an issue they think is sending us to Shitsville. Their challenge is to come up with a big idea to fix the issue. Who better to pitch it to than someone who’s held the nation’s top job and knows a thing or two about ‘the vision thing’? What will the former prime minister make of their left field ideas?

Labor man Francis is dismayed by how little he learnt at school about Indigenous culture. He thinks reconciliation with Australia’s Indigenous people is the greatest issue facing the country today.

Conservative Jai reckons the most pressing issue facing the nation is our political system. He wants the people to have more power to thwart bad governments.

Greens Party Maddi thinks most Australians are stressed, tired and overworked. But she’s got a simple solution to address our work/life balance and it would be a first for a Western country.

Libertarian Siobhan bemoans the amount of time and money spent fighting the war on drugs – which she claims is lost anyway. To add weight to her argument, Siobhan takes the others to meet a woman who has to break the law to relieve pain.

The Shitsville Express drops the four leaders of tomorrow in Canberra to pitch their big ideas to a leader of yesterday. The (then former) PM Kevin Rudd critiques each idea. A group of 75 high school students vote for their surprising favourite.

9:30pm Tuesday August 6 ABC2