Police have fined a Penrith baby $1,269 for neglecting to comply with state chainsaw juggling safety laws.

Yesterday afternoon at 2:53pm, police were called the suburb of Penrith in Sydney’s West to investigate reports of negligent parenting made by concerned neighbours. Sergeant Peter Higgins was at the scene, and described the events he witnessed as “chillingly non-compliant”.

“Initially,” Higgins described, “we were expecting to see the usual signs of parental neglect – dirty clothing, lack of access to a PlayStation and the like.” But this was something completely different, as he went on to explain.

“What we discovered was that the parents were actually doing a fine job. The child looked well-fed, they stocked all his favourite brands of confectionary, and their meth lab equipment was stored high out of reach at all times.” The sergeant went as far as to label the couple “exemplary” parents.

But the infant did not receive the same level of praise. “The child was displaying a youthful disrespect the likes of which I haven’t seen since that Cory Worthington character.” The Cory Worthington to which Sergeant Higgins refers was of course the centre of controversy in 2008 when he threw a big party and wore some shit sunnies on live TV. “It just disgusts me to see unnecessary defiance against laws that are put in place to protect the citizens of this great country.”

But liberal activist Cloud Moonshine has a completely different perspective on this issue. “What kind of nanny state have we become where a baby can’t perform tricks with a powertool without having to navigate a wild maze of red tape?” he asked rhetorically. Playing with sharp tools was a great source of wholesome fun in Moonshine’s youth, and he recounted several anecdotes of games such as “hide the hatchet” and “backflip over the pit of knives”. “If we keep taking away our children’s rights at this rate, we’re going to create a world where they can’t even swallow drills without a permit.”

(Image: Rusty Stewart)