The Commonwealth of New Lakemba is a gargantuan, safe nation, ruled by The Committee with a fair hand, and remarkable for its complete lack of prisons, compulsory military service, and devotion to social welfare. The compassionate, democratic population of 12.77 billion New Lakembans are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The enormous, liberal, outspoken government prioritizes Education, although Environment, Healthcare, and Welfare are also considered important, while Spirituality isn't funded at all. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of New Canberra. The income tax rate is 100%.

The frighteningly efficient New Lakemban economy, worth a remarkable 3,635 trillion New Lakembian Standard Kebabs a year, is highly specialized and mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Tourism and Book Publishing. State-owned companies are common. Average income is an amazing 284,728 New Lakembian Standard Kebabs, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Battlefield gains are quickly lost when enemies don't respect a time-out, Max Barry is this year's Miss New Lakemba, vital intelligence-gathering activities are put on hold as agents return home for seduction training and advanced poker instruction, and cars speed down national highways while drivers sleep at the wheel. Crime is totally unknown. New Lakemba's national animal is the Animal Kingdom, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

New Lakemba is ranked 146,139^th in the world and 3,285^th in The North Pacific for Largest Black Market, with 149 billion Standard Monetary Units.