Australia's misuse of the rich has intensified. News just in from Manus Island confirms the incarceration of fleeing tycoons is continuing apace. Sources at the Billionaires Processing Centre on Manus have revealed Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer have sown their lips shut in protest at the collapse in the price of coal and iron ore. This is a massive problem for Transfield. Ships are at anchor offshore, unable to deliver cargoes of lobster and venison due to the mountains of dockside comestibles the two would normally have ingested.

A spokesman for the company said, "When insatiable behemoths go off their tucker it's bad for everyone. Gina and Clive could eat their way through the backlog in a matter of days if they were just given hope. For the love of humanity, Prime Minister Shorten needs to show some heart and halve the minimum wage in Australia to let the billionaires know we care."

Opposition Leader redux Tony Abbott declared, "From the moment Mr  Shorten and his cohort of snivelling reds accused Gina of throwing her children overboard it became clear to us they would use the billionaires for their own political gain in the most cynical fashion. Their hounding of yachtsmen and whoremongers was always going to lead to a waddling diaspora of plutocrats. And now comes the worrying news of Singo's brave stand. Our thoughts are with his family."

Mr Abbott was referring to the rumour started by a whistleblower inside Manus that has vintners up and down the Hunter Valley ripping vines – the rumour that says John Singleton is refusing to take fluids.

Prime Minister Shorten will not confirm reports that Warren Buffett (currently on his $10,000-a-head How to Sell Shovels During a Gold Rush lecture tour of Oz) has been detained and sent to Manus. "This government does not comment on operational matters, particularly to a media owned by the billionaires themselves. But we will decide who leaves this country and under what circumstances they go. Suffice to say, at the rate Border Force is impounding Lear jets we'll soon be able to spank the Sultan of Brunei in a dogfight."

On being asked what he thought of President Trump's comment that Australia, once a wellspring of compassion towards plutocrats, had become a pinko death cult, Prime Minister Shorten responded, "Look, these billionaires take other people's jobs – offshore. They're worse queue-jumpers than Mary Poppins. They pay no tax and have a secret allegiance to far-flung tax havens above and beyond any they've ever shown to this country. And many of them can hardly speak English. Have you listened to Frank Lowy lately? Harry Triguboff​? Where's the assimilation, cobber?"

Mr Abbott responded by saying, "This is beyond outrageous. The Prime Minister is trying to demonise billionaires by comparing them to refugees."

Incoming reports from the island suggest the Institute of Public Affairs has smuggled in bags of US dollars so the billionaires can bribe locals to riot for them. It is said Lindsay Fox sits in a canvas director's chair looking like Peter Jackson run through a sheep dip filled with Nair, shouting through a bullhorn, ordering waves of locals to charge Border Force operatives. "Riot, you mothers. Hurl yourselves on the wire. For three bucks an hour I want kidneys."

All of this, if true, is sad, inhumane … fleeing billionaires incarcerated and held indefinitely. And no one encapsulates the sadness better than lapsed Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch, who has tweeted his support for the martyred moneybags of Manus. "So glad I got out of Oz. Unimaginable suffering. Min wage $20  an hour!! Inhumane to b-aires!! Top tax rate 47%!! Persecution of b-aires!! Thank God for sanctuary of Trumpland. Manus=Pinko Gitmo!!"

We can't help but agree with Mr Murdoch. Being hyper-rich (even though a known side-effect of being ultra-shifty) is not a crime in this country. And the indefinite incarceration of billionaires and their trust-fund toddlers for the mere accusation they are barnacles on the ship of state is an injustice that will make sun kings and sultans everywhere leery of punting on the ASX.

Proponents of the scheme to process billionaires offshore point to its success in stemming the flow of tycoons and their capital from the country. Since Rupert nary a one has got away, they say. As Bill Shorten never tires of repeating, "We have stopped the mega-yachts." But at what cost to our humanity? Alas, Gina sits like Buddha in a 10-foot cell, an innocent gal in a living hell.