No one knows what a right-wing politician means when they say ‘un-Australian’ in the present, least of all the politician saying it. It is not even a negation, but blanker than that. It reduces the meaning of Australian-ness down to whatever might, or might not, live inside the unconscious borders of the speaker at that particular time. ‘This is so postmodern’, I thought, the first time I heard one of the crazies say it, and I could almost smell the stale Union beer.

Revealed by the Wikileaks exposé: The fragile, thieving ‘un-Australian’ lie