Poms and free speech

The Australian parliament is at the moment in the middle of passing laws which give Australians the legal right to abuse the English! And they can even use copyright material to satirize the English. Australia's Attorney General writes:

"Either way patriotic Australians will be free to mock the British team without the threat of lawsuits. The Government has ensured the use of copyright material for the purposes of parody or satire will be protected.

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The England cricket team is playing in Australia at the moment (and getting badly beaten) so old English/Australian rivalries are very vocal at the moment. Cricket has the sort of importance in Australia that baseball has in America.

Meanwhile, some English-born people in Australia are grumbling about the term "Pom" -- which is how Australians frequently refer to the English:

"A group of thin-skinned English expats wants the word Pom banned, claiming it is a racial slur on a par with the most appalling insults. British People Against Racial Discrimination has gone to the Advertising Standards Board in an attempt to derail the latest Tooheys [beer advertising] campaign which mocks the warm-beer-drinking Brits. The ads claim Tooheys' supercold brand is "cold enough to scare a Pom"...

"The Oxford Dictionary classes Pom as being derogatory just like wog, wop, dink, dago, coon and abo, it's every bit as bad as the term n*gger," BPARD spokesman David Thomason said yesterday.

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They've got the proverbial snowflake's chance of getting anywhere with their complaint of course -- if only because the English sometimes refer to Australians as "Colonials", which is clearly derogatory, but "Pom" has no obvious independent meaning.

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