Who is ''middle Australia''? The elusive definition of this group shifts constantly in public debate. It depends on the politician speaking and whatever they happen to be discussing on the day in question.
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Former extreme nationalist parliamentarian Pauline Hanson, for example, might have argued that central coast woman Karen Bailey typified middle Australia. Bailey, an unemployed paralegal who later said she was ''under enormous stress'', sank to national infamy last month when footage of her tirade against train passengers was broadcast online. The 55-year-old abused children who would not vacate their seats, mocked an Asian woman's appearance and accent, repeatedly calling her ''gook'', and suggested that white men with Asian girlfriends must have small penises.
On that day, in that train carriage, ''middle Australia'' was more likely represented by the rest of the passengers, of varying ethnic backgrounds, many of whom reviled Ms Bailey. She was condemned publicly and almost universally; a sign, perhaps, that Australian society is less tolerant of the open bigotry that Ms Hanson once exemplified.
Yet dog-whistle politics have been part of this country's national debates for generations, and it would be naive to believe we have suddenly transcended xenophobia's appeal. Look to the past few years. When Labor's Julia Gillard deposed Kevin Rudd to assume the prime ministership in 2010, one of her first priorities was to tell voters she opposed ''political correctness'', saying they should ''feel free to say what they feel'' about asylum seekers. ''For people to say they're anxious about border security doesn't make them intolerant. It certainly doesn't make them a racist,'' she said.
The Coalition, meanwhile, transformed the peripheral policy issue of processing boat-borne refugees into the basis of last year's election campaign. It largely worked, as it had during the so-called ''Tampa'' election more than a decade earlier.
Yet it is comforting to know that governments can wade only so deep into the cesspit of race politics before they affront most Australians' sense of fair-mindedness. The federal government clearly misjudged the electorate when it began its push to change the Racial Discrimination Act. It wanted to water down section 18C, which makes it an offence to insult, humiliate or threaten a person on the basis of their race. Attorney-General George Brandis said the proposal was an ''important reform and a key part of the government’s freedom agenda''. Important to whom? The only calls had come from the fringe, libertarian right – such as commentator Andrew Bolt, whose attacks on Aborigines had made him one of the very few people to have fallen afoul of the legislation.
There was no obvious evidence that the act inhibited debate; indeed, section 18D provides strong protections for those whose comments may offend but are in the public interest. Nonetheless, Senator Brandis and the government ploughed on, apparently believing that, insofar as ''middle Australia'' was concerned, subtle slights against minorities would always prove popular.
''People do have a right to be bigots, you know,'' the Attorney-General told the Senate. ''In a free country, people do have rights to say things that other people find offensive, insulting or bigoted.'' Shortly afterwards, a Fairfax Media poll revealed that almost seven in eight Australians opposed the government's proposal. Instead, there was emphatic, nationwide support for existing laws that made it an offence to insult others based on their race.
And so to this week's humiliating concession. On Tuesday, the cabinet agreed unanimously to dump Senator Brandis' unnecessary ''important reform''. Yet Prime Minister Tony Abbott offered an entirely disingenuous reason for the backdown by coupling it with his ''Team Australia'' counter-terrorism laws: ''I don’t want to do anything that puts our national unity at risk at this time and so those proposals are now off the table.'' It was another transparent dog whistle, translated thus: ''Muslim Australians will only support a crackdown on terrorists if we don't let people offend them.''
Has the government learned anything?