Something I miss about back home – and this is gonna sound odd so bear with me – is good old fashioned Australian racism. I mean we’re just so charmingly, hilariously sincere in our bigotry, ’cause we’re completely earnest when we mean it’s nothing personal.

Honestly, you’ll see a big white Aussie sporting a Southern Cross tattoo on his bicep and an Australian flag displayed on his wife-beater with the caption “Respect it or get out!” underneath, and you’ll probably hear him have a go at the Lebanese. Fucking Lebs. Bloody wogs. Bunch of fucking crooks and terrorists, amirite? But at the very same time you say two words crosswise at his mate Bilal (whose family comes from Beirut) and Mr Southern Cross will fuck up your day.

I mean, Australians are still mean, ignorant bigots and racism is wrong at any level. But it’s bizarrely populated with exceptions. Like we’ll hate, fear and attack entire peoples, cultures and religions except for the individuals we know personally. It’s weird. But it means that when we declare we’re not actually racist towards Asians because one of our best mates is Korean and another is Vietnamese we actually mean it. We’re wrong, of course, we are most definitely wrong. It’s still very racist. It makes for some bloody hilarious moments though.

Like with elections. Now while we’ve got the three white men running the major parties standing up and acknowledging that things aren’t all that harmonious in the land of Oz (though even Dr Di Natale heading the Greens doesn’t seem to have a whole lotta workable solutions), we’ve got Pauline Hanson of One Nation getting up and chomping through the usual feedbag of Australian xenophobia in her big to get elected again. But it’s alright, she says. One Nation isn’t racist, she says. After all, some of the members have Asian wives and they’re totally cool with her. Reckon she’s doing a top job, keep it up. Someone needs to keep all those ugly, unsubmissive, not-married-to-white-Australian-men Asians out.

And you know that when Pauline Hanson says these things, she believes it. She really does. Isn’t that goddamn excellent?

Maybe being a white heterosexual male I can afford to laugh. I’m pretty safe through it all, aren’t I? A lot of people are a bit worried because it’s looking like she’s got a pretty solid chance of getting into the Senate again. But, bloody hell, I’m a firm believer that one of the best ways to fight the wrongs in this world is to point out how bloody ridiculous they often are. Point and laugh.

And Pauline Hanson is fucking hilarious.