Whenever I recount this story – not so often these days – people are shocked.

But that’s precisely the kind of conversation Tim Soutphommasane  highlights in his new book “I’m Not Racist But . . . “ – it’s casual racism. As he writes: “You do not need to be someone who advocates violence or noxious doctrine to do something with racist implications.”

Anti-semitic abuse is rarer, these days, although not entirely absent from casual conversation.  Instead, those who really think that way are likely to find each other on social media, where you’ll find free-flowing bigotry and racism these days, in much the same way as you might have found it if you were attending the Reclaim Australia rallies over the weekend.

Which is why it was good to read that only a bare handful of nutjobs went to those rallies. The Reclaimers were also joined by Coalition MP George Christensen in Mackay who said: "Our voice says we will not surrender, we will not sit idly by and watch the Australian culture and the Australian lifestyle that we love, and that is envied around the world ... we are not going to see that surrendered and handed over to those who hate us for who we are and what we stand for.”

Hey, George, do you know that Muslims make up only two per cent of the Australian population? Do you seriously imagine that they’d have any chance against the Catholics? 

Dai Le, businesswoman, aspiring NSW Liberal Party candidate and a local councillor, tries to be sanguine. She says we always see an increase in media attention when there are new arrivals but she says Australians could do with good leadership around race.

“The leaders in our community, especially the political leaders, have not managed race relations very well. It’s got to be leadership overall, taking the community with you. There has to be a measured message as opposed to fear mongering. No one is stepping in to calm it down.”

In a few months we will know for sure whether the government has succeeded in fomenting community unrest. Every year, the Scanlon Foundation publishes a map of social cohesion, supervised by Andrew Markus, a Monash University research professor. He said that last year, the level of negative feeling about Muslims was running at about five times the level of negative feeling about Christians and Buddhists, which he believes is more of a reflection about international events than local events. 

I ask him whether he thinks any Australian leader has been able to promote social cohesion and he pauses. Then he says Bob Hawke. “We just don’t have leaders who have that level of support – he inspired confidence.” And none of our politicians do that. I want to reclaim Australia from them.