Holy shit. This is a decade of Howard and Hanson coming home to roost. There is a sense that this is building up to worse, as well--all that angry testosterone with nowhere to go.

I live in the most progressive city in Australia: in my circle of middle class multicoloured Mums and Dads, nothing like this ever happens, thank God. It's too easy to be insulated here from what is going on in the rest of the country. This is probably the most well padded city in the world, everything is nice, there's no crime, everyone is well off and well educated and there's plenty of work. I've always likened it to West Berlin, surrounded as it is by New South Wales, but with totally different laws, a charter of Human Rights, much more progressive and with one of the few decent water supplies in the region.

So, when riots flare in Macquarie Fields, or lunatic vigilante thugs take over Cronulla Beach, it's feels like it has come from nowhere. But of course, it hasn't, it has come from John Howard stoking the fires of racism for his own benefit. And if saying that is sedition, you know where I am.