The New South Africa?

SECOND AVENUE: While sitting in a net cafe in Moscow and reading about the Cronulla riots still remains my nadir, the way the news of the neglect of Delmae Barton at a Brisbane bus stop has found its way around the world just ensures the shame persists. It would seem that our international reputation as racists continues to grow. And so it does. As long as our neglect of a proper dialogue with the Indigenouse community persists, as lond as we struggle to come to terms with Islamic Australia and as long as we lock those lucky enough to survive our treacherous ocean fence behind razor wire, our critics will have quivers full of arrows.

We weren't always like this. As a nation, at least as best I remember it, used to talk about these things. What's more, we took pride in our multiculturalism and saw in it the personification of a better world. But the reign of the Suburban Solicitor has robbed us off all of that.