Our mutual friend
Pray cast your eye across the street. Our mutual friend with the cap. Going down to lay a little something on the TAB unless I'm very much mistaken. I have often seen you chatting with him. And I'll bet you a dollar he talks about the government because there's nothing else he can talk about. Is he a personal friend?
No. I would call him an acquaintance.
Well, I am real glad to hear that, because I'd advise you to make it your business to be on the other side of the street whenever you see him approaching.
Is that so?
Why, yes. He's not the simple man he makes himself out to be. Not on your nelly, mate. That acquaintance of yours is a One Nation supporter!
He's not, is he?
Don't stare, he's looking this way.
Well, I'll be ...
It's true. Handing out how-to-votes, he was. For Hanson's party.
So he's a racist then?
That's not the way he tells it. The way he tells it is a lot different. You should hear him. Goes on and on about the major parties and how some get a better deal than others.
Like the Aborigines and migrants.
Exactly. Just like the Aborigines and migrants. But that's not racist, he says. "I'm no racist", he tells me, "just an ordinary bloke trying to make his way in the world".
He's coming over.
Ah, shit! I told you not to stare. Ignore him and he may go away.
Come over to gloat, have you? You neo-fascist pig. (Now goose-stepping and raising arm in Nazi salute.) Oink! Oink! Fascist pig! SIEG HEIL! SIEG HEIL! SIEG HEIL! Hey, everyone! Look at that dog run! Run, racist dog, run! That shut him up. That's the only way to deal with scum like that. Off he goes, scurrying back to his cubby hole.
Oh, that was so embarrassing. Couldn't you have simply ignored him, like I asked you to?
No way. You gotta shut those types up. As soon as they open their mouths: Wham! Straight in the kisser.
Maybe he just wanted to say hello. Did you stop to think that? And maybe, just maybe, we could have appealed to his kinder and gentler side rather than bring up this hateful Hanson business.
Hateful is right. People like that should be sent packing back to Ipswich or wherever they come from.
So what's he doing here?
Being a racist.
Yeah, that may be all fine and dandy, but aren't you forgetting one thing?
What's that?
He's our racist.
By Dave Riley