After the meal, I gingerly headed for the gate. On my way I noticed an airport security guard sporting a black Sikh turban matching with his uniform. A lady in a headscarf was working at the nearby counter of an international bank.

I eventually found somewhere to sit and use my laptop. My Facebook wall was abuzz with animated comment about some interview on the Sunrise program. Sadly, trashy Australian breakfast TV is never too far away, even at midnight Singapore time.

"Check out what this idiot had to say about the Australia Day billboard." OK, I admit the language was a bit more colourful than that.

I clicked on the video. From memory, the panel included some woman named "Prue" complaining about how she felt excluded by a billboard promoting Australia Day and featuring two young girls in hijabs and ultra-sweet smiles. And Prue's complaint was?

She felt excluded because there were too few Aussies in advertisements and too many Asians and Muslims, so much so that it has almost become a "spot-the-Anglo-Aussie". She spoke about how Australia Day was all about inclusion, and that propaganda was being "rammed down our throats" about how we need to "bend over backwards to include Muslims". She concluded by reminding us of the need to never exclude "dinkum Aussies" or to make them feel excluded.

Speaking of females and headgear, I also noticed that West Australian Premier Colin Barnett is feeling the heat with Pauline Hanson's arrival. To make things easier, Barnett has requested women refrain from wearing burqas in public. I asked a friend from Perth whether such headgear was common. Her response? "The last time I wore one was around 10 years ago." It's OK, Colin, your leadership is safe for now.

Finally, I discovered a story about "dinkum Aussies" complaining about non-dinkum headgear. The perpetrator of the offending behaviour is a boy aged five whose parents decided to send him to a local independent Christian school. But this boy's religious headgear, in the form of a Sikh turban, was deemed outside the school's uniform policy and the boy was told to either remove it or find some other school.

It's extraordinary just how little power dinkum Anglo-Australians are feeling. So much so that they must now engage in identity politics of their own.

We've been hearing a lot about this term "identity politics". It gets bandied about a lot by people on the right, the alt-right, the lunar-right and just about everyone who opposes groups they consider "the left". Basically the problem is that the left and/or minorities and/or blacks and/or Muslims and/or whoever are playing a nasty game in which they separate themselves from the rest of us based upon some aspect of their identity. It's as if they are imposing their identity on us and oppressing us notwithstanding the fact that we are the majority and can make their existence a living hell.

It seems identity politics is so effective that even some Anglo/white/European/Christian Aussies are using it to increase their bargaining power. They want to make minorities feel left out while accusing those same minorities of pushing dinkum Aussies to the margins.

White Anglo politicians (who, as we know, are totally powerless in this country) often exercise their identity politics by offering gratuitous advice about burqa. Their suggestions would only make sense if women were lining up to wear the burqa. This whole emphasis on burqas reflects less on the women who (almost never) wear them and more on the politicians who are fixated with this non-issue.

Seriously, why should anyone care if a bunch of girls in hijabs or boys in Sikh turbans wish to participate in mainstream society? I mean, isn't that what these kids are constantly told to do? Why do we constantly have to play these stupid racialised games? How is it benefiting our nation? Our economy? Our politics?

Seriously, if the likes of Prue feel excluded by their majority status, why don't they sit on the beach and start paddling? If they paddle hard enough, the continent may end up somewhere near mother England.

Actually it won't. At best, it may float a centimetre towards wealthy Singapore, a tiny nation which sees diversity as an asset and not as an excuse to complain.

Anyway, I'll be enjoying my Australia Day regardless of how it makes the identity politicians feel.

Irfan Yusuf is a PhD candidate at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University.