Imagine how the news must have been received on the Gaza Strip or in southern California. The Californians would probably need convincing this was not fake news.

At emergency food services on the outskirts of Paradise, people would have been saying: “Man, we survived one Armageddon, now they want to put the sausage on top of the onion? That’s just too gnarly, dude.”

On the Gaza Strip, Hamas militants would have hunkered down as the rockets rained down, and they’d be saying: “Could be worse, Ahmed, at least the Israelis haven’t inflicted a Bunnings barbecue on us.”

Bushwhacked prides itself on being a keen observer of changes in human behaviour, but we must admit we missed all the news items about Bunnings barbecue clients dying, being maimed or even falling over on a stray bit of greasy onion.

In fact, thanks to Rotary, I have personal experience of cooking, assembling and handing out at least 472,589 sausages with onion. And we never once lost a customer.

There was one horrible incident, well recorded in the annals of Rotary International, when we nearly lost one person after a rotten egg was cracked on the hotplate. But that hardly counts as the potential victim was me, and all it needed to be remedied was a vigorous out-of-stomach event. My co-cookers offered supportive ribald guffawing and extended the finger of kindness.

Actually, they’ll be at it again this weekend at the Bendigo National Swap Meet when they feed an estimated 30,000 people. And I know the Bunnings Edict will be well debated. If sausages need to be on top of the onions, what about the egg and bacon rolls? Are they, in fact, bacon and egg rolls, and let’s not get into the international maelstrom of discussion about, gasp, vegie burgers.

Even if the Swap Meet survives this assault on the Aussie Way, what about on the following Saturday when millions of Victorians will be exposed to Democracy Sausages. Should a voter slip on an onion ring, will it be the bloody gummint’s fault? Might as well be, because everything else is apparently.

Let’s get serious about this un-Orstrayan edict for a moment. I reckon Bunnings missed the mark. It should have banned beetroot, the slipperiest foodstuff ever to be stuffed in actual food. Beetroot is proof that God has a sense of humour by making the slimiest burger bit also the stainingest. If onions are likely to cause slippage, what about the tomato sauce? A chap would come a major gutser on a good squirt of the sauce bottle. And anyway, how come Bunnings allows people to put this potentially injurious food on white bread. Have they not read all the warnings about that?

Finally, it seems a little odd that a mega-store which sells chainsaws, machetes, hatchets, nail guns, bags of chemicals used to make crude terrorism bombs and cacti is worried about the risk from fried onion.

No, its message is mixed. Next thing you know we’ll have Premier urging Melbourne people to carry on as normal while an arm of Gummint urges we stop school kiddies from going to the city.

WAYNE GREGSON