Heckling the Heckler, Insights, and One That Should Have Been

You may have noticed by now a certain bitterness that the inner journalist inside me feeds on. It is fertilised by petty jealousy and envy and all revolves around the innate desire to be published, fawned upon and recognised in the street. Don't give me for an instant that celebrities (even of the Dancing with the Stars variety) don't love it. Take it away and they would be, well, me.

Anyway, I share this desire to write (or perhaps cajole, bicker and whinge is more accurate) with a number of friends. One of them penned this for a Sydney Morning Herald Heckler a few years ago. It should have been picked up of course but wasn't because Fairfax are taking over the world (unless News limited take them over first) and there's just no place left for witty sarcasm and dry senses of humour.

Take it away....

Finally - A Sensible Immigration Policy

I like backpackers.

I was a backpacker once, as were many of my friends. And while my backpacking days are now behind me, I fully support the whole backpacking ethos.

If not for backpackers who would work in our cafes and bars? Who would pick our fruit? Who would be the backbone of our ailing tourism sector?

That said, there is a class of backpackers who should either be refused entry into this country or, if already here, deported. I’m talking about the Soccer Shirt Wearers. You know, those mainly British males who insist on wearing soccer shirts in public.

On the whole I can live with backpacker fashion – the beads in the hair from Bali, the woolly yak hats from Nepal, the lobster red skin from Bondi. But the soccer shirt (or as they call it, football), symbol of mindless enslavement to the sport marketing machine has to go.

The Soccer Shirt Wearer represents the lowest common denominator of society. Those who are content to wear their sad, empty lives on their chests as a badge of pride. Who think that it is some sort of symbol of sexual availability rather than a brightly coloured warning.

The soccer shirt is worn by those who have no imagination, style or confidence to dress themselves in anything remotely original. It is a lower point in fashion than the thigh high ugh boot, the pashmina wrap, the comb-over or the mullet.

Soccer shirt wearers are clearly not trying to integrate into our society. They are openly scorning our values and our culture. They are saying: I may be here drinking your beer and leering at your women but I’d rather be watching football, the world game. The game which has locked the battling Aussies out of its World Cup year after year by unfairly forcing us to play a better team in order to qualify.

Are these really the people we want clogging up the bunk beds of our illegally converted semis? Are these the people we want buying our clapped out combis? Are these the people we want to be keeping our life savers busy over the summer?

I don’t think so.

So I have come up with a few easy to implement immigration controls:

1. Any backpacker stepping off a plane in a soccer shirt will be automatically refused entry and deported.

2. A visa application question along the lines of “Are you or have you ever been a supporter of Manchester United?”. If the answer is yes the person will be automatically refused a visa. If it is no and they are later found to be sporting a red soccer shirt then they will be sent to Port Headland for a few weeks to show them we mean business and then deported.

3. As people are waiting for their luggage an official is to yell: “Hey, isn’t that David Beckham?” Anyone who turns to look will be interrogated and searched.

4. Any soccer shirts found during baggage searches will be confiscated and destroyed. Similar rules would also be applied to outgoing Aussies to save embarrassment overseas.

Already John Howard has seen the light and has forgone his telco promoting Wallabies jersey on his overseas jaunts. Alas, he has replaced it with a (admittedly logo-free) Australian cricket tracksuit so there is still room for a ‘correction’.

There would, of course, have to be some exceptions.

Visitors to the Rugby World Cup will be permitted to import and wear team jerseys for the duration of the tournament only. Registered members of the Barmy Army can bring in and wear whatever they want, as we need them to keep The Ashes interesting. And anyone is permitted to wear an Australian soccer jersey because Soccer Australia needs all the help it can get.

I know this all sounds a little draconian. But you have to remember we have the right to determine who comes to this country and the clothing in which they come.