What They Really Mean by "Regular Australians"

Those who are more outraged about hearing about genocide than genocide itself.

Andrew Hastie (former SAS soldier, now Liberal MP) stood in front of a camera this week and said that Australians marching to stop a genocide were "importing hatred." That if we really want to "contest this stuff" we should "do it in the Middle East." This stuff? A genocide perpetrated by our so-called ally.

This, from a loyal servant of the military-industrial complex who quite literally exported himself to Afghanistan to wage war and destabilise the region, now scolding ordinary Australians for peacefully protesting the massacre of tens of thousands of children. Apparently we care too much about a foreign occupation, according to a man who was directly involved in one.

This is our own, these are our values

Last weekend, more than 200,000 Australians marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in one of the largest political mobilisations in this country's history. From every background imaginable — young and old, Jewish and Muslim, Christian and atheist, Aboriginal and migrant, queer and straight, teacher and student, tradie and nurse.

Because we're watching, in real time, a genocide. One we can see with our own eyes that our government and media continue to deny. They refuse sanctions. Abstain from UN votes. Allow the sale of weapons parts used in the slaughter. And they use our taxpayer dollars to oil the very war machine that Andrew Hastie is a cog within.

We're told not to care. That this is "over there." That we should "focus on our own."

But this is our own.

Our government.
Our complicity.
Our history.
Our humanity.

An Alternate Reality

After the march, people started sending me videos from corners of the internet I don't usually see. Gruff, muscular men with broad Aussie accents, barking into their phones about how we "took these people in" — as if every one of the 200,000 people on the bridge was a foreigner. They shared images of Shahada flags, falsely claiming they were ISIS or Taliban banners. They circulated blurry screenshots of Greens flags, insisting they were Hamas. A deliberate attempt to stoke fear, racialise dissent, and smear peaceful protesters as violent extremists.

In lockstep came the media spin, laundering NSW Police talking points that the march was “perilous.” But not even NewsCorp-Napisan could wash the blood from their hands (or the egg off their faces) history will always show they tried to stand in the way of our right to protest our government’s complicity in genocide.

They claimed they feared a crowd crush. But it was the police who stopped the march mid-way, who told 200,000 people to turn around on a narrow bridge, creating confusion, but crucially not the chaos they insisted was inevitable. Despite their deliberate attempts to sow disorder, no one was injured. Not even the most vulnerable among us. No pushing. No arrests. Just a peaceful, powerful march — where people looked after one another with dignity, care, and pride in our collective action against collective punishment.

Not Real Australians

Despite this peaceful reality, we were told the crowd was "hateful," "ungrateful," "not real Australians." Told we have to live by "Australian values" if we want to live here, as though political dissent is a foreign infection. Told to be proud of our democracy, but never dare to exercise our rights within it. Then we were told: if you care about genocide abroad, you must not care about Australia. You mustn't care that Australians can't afford housing. That women are being murdered every other day. That some families are one bill away from destitution.

As though the people in that crowd couldn't be counted among the victims of that very same system. As though those who stand up and march haven't been speaking out about these things all along. As though those "woke" to injustice in one place are blind to it in all others.

What They Really Mean by "Australian Values"

But of course, our detractors don't blame the system itself. They blame the system's newest tenants: immigrants. The ever-convenient scapegoats for all Australia's ills.
”They caused the housing crisis.” “They're committing all violence against women.”
”They're importing hatred.”

A narrative as lazy as it is racist as it is false.

They talk about "Australian values," but what they really mean is a narrow, fragile identity terrified of difference. They call others sheep, but they're scared of diversity. They beat their chests about toughness, but melt down at a Welcome to Country.

"How dare they welcome me to my country!" they sneer, blocking their ears as that very same welcome gently explains the difference between Country and a country. I wonder if that same outrage follows them to their cheap motels in Great Britain? Where they accept a welcome at the front desk, then spend the day marvelling at imperial ruins, only to fume at any mention of the ancient, living history of the land they call home.

“Lest we forget,” they preach, proud of the diggers and the flag, but never of the discomfort that comes with remembering Australia’s first war: the Frontier War. They tell us to ignore a genocide a world away and “focus on our own,” but call us un-Australian when we remind them of the genocide that’s still happening here. “Get over it,” they say. “Lest we forget,” they also say. Whichever one suits the moment.

We Are Regular

Perhaps Andrew Hastie is right.
Perhaps the denial of others' suffering is the Australian way.

But that's not the Australia I want to be part of. And I know I'm not alone. Because the crowd on the bridge was Australia. The real Australia. Regular Australians.

Not the nostalgic myth of meat pies and mateship, but the modern, multicultural Australia willing to face the horrors of our past and the brutality of our present, and demand better. Demand justice. Demand peace.

We welcome difference, because we know that's where our strength lies. We don't ask people to forget where they came from. We ask: now that you’re here, what future can we build together?

“Regular Australians” who understand that caring about Gaza doesn't make you less Australian, it makes you more human.