The Saga of the Sad Little White Clown

Once upon a time a pallid nonentity decided to start a political party. He gathered around him a small group of pale angry people. They were never quite sure what they were angry about, but it had something to do with Christmas lights and how migrants and refugees took their jobs, even though at least two of them were prosperous self-employed businessmen living in affluent suburbs. Nevertheless they were still angry. They were also really angry about white babies getting the bonus, Sudanese taxi drivers and women who wore head-scarves. Their anger turned to pale white-hot rage at the thought of millions of armed to the teeth Tamil Tigers invading Australia in leaky smelly boats which tended to sink.

The angriest of them all was their pale leader. Lacking the soaring intellect of a Keating, the appeal to the common people of a Hawke, the distinguished presence of a Whitlam or a Turnbull, the rat cunning of a Howard, the ample budgie of an Abbott or the diplomatic skills of a Rudd he was destined to forever loiter around the extremities of the body politic like a white fungus that never quite takes hold but which annoys anyway.

So on a hot Sunday in April the Auguste of Anger took his tiny band of doughty pale race warriors to show Australia once and for all what they were made of. They would make a stand for Australia and against Rudd outside the Villawood Detention Centre, nestled in a sleepy neighbourhood in the heart of working-class South Western Sydney. They’d show those Marxist leftie hippies!

So accompanied by at least fifteen of Sydney’s finest from two Local Area Commands, and watched by a few spectators representing bemused and amused Working Class Australia, the warriors proceeded to loudly state their case. Since no one watching could actually hear what was going on one must assume that the locals were being treated to a lecture on such topics as how millionaire immigrants undertook the dangerous sea voyage so they could then seize the fabulous El Dorado of the Pacific – Centrelink benefits, how people like Tim Flannery had said [insert out-of-context self-serving quote] and that somehow our “way of life” was being something or othered.

And of course there was lots of focus on Kevin Rudd, even though Kev was as white as snow and had only just announced he was stopping these vile non-pale insurgents from entering Australia and taking everyone’s jobs and Christmas lights. No matter, it still gave them a villain to focus on and made up for that boring train trip and having to rub shoulders with *gasp*.

All was not lost. A group of anti-racist protestors were there, two of them arguing near the entrance to the Centre, one taking the fight to some of the clown crusaders who were in turn arguing with him and Working Class Australia, all of whom had heard bullshit before and had decided that this latest variety was just all about “politicians”. And one of the locals wryly observed that she doubted any of the anti-Rudd crowd had refused the $900 stimulus tax benefit, much as they loudly heaped scorn on their benefactor. But unfortunately for the Chief Clown no violence, no martyred race warriors were to be carted away in waiting paddy wagons. And Villawood, like the nation, slept on, oblivious.

Josh A