“But yes, nothing like Hungary.” Everything’s relative and in recent years, under the leadership of conservative populist Viktor Orban, Hungary is the flag-bearer for strident anti-immigration policies packaged in toxic rhetoric. Official billboards vilify immigrants as terrorists and rapists. Right wing protestors rallied in St Kilda. Credit:Darrian Traynor As if to underscore the idea that everything is relative, we then had what passes for an extreme right-wing rally at St Kilda beach where roughly 100 protesters were outnumbered two-to-one by anti-fascists and the guest of honour was a Queensland senator who bagged all of 19 primary votes at the last election and won notoriety for using the term “final solution” during his maiden speech on migration. The much-publicised “Heil Hitler” saluters seemed to be channelling John Cleese’s goose-stepping schtick. With their body art and beards some of the far-right agitators resembled inner-city hipsters, which is possibly revealing.

Loading In a subsequent interview with The Age, Neil Erikson, co-organiser of the rally with Blair Cottrell, vaguely conceded that the real aim of the Third Reich fetishists was “Reclaiming St Kilda” – from inner-city lefties. “They try to do the most offensive thing,” he explained, “To troll the left.” Maybe some of the thugs genuinely believed that with a bit of grunt the rally could have turned into Cronulla redux. But while St Kilda beach has been the scene of some brutal violence from African youths, this mob weren’t “reclaiming” the epicentres of the Sudanese crime wave in Melbourne’s west and outer east, where the victims include law-abiding Sudanese. For all their paramilitary messaging, the United Patriots Front are basically chicken. Even vegan.

Illustration: Matt Davidson Credit: I’m not being flippant about the racist menace and thankfully neither were the politicians across the spectrum who unequivocally called out the protesters as hate-festers. When Scott Morrison condemned “ugly racial protests” I felt immediate relief that he did not repeat Donald Trump’s assertion in the bloody aftermath of the Charlottesville rally, where a woman was killed by a neo-Nazi’s car, that there were “very fine people on both sides”, meaning among both the white supremacists and the counter demonstrators. But then I was immediately melancholy at having felt relief that Morrison denied succour to racists because it brought home just how much my expectations of basic humanity from our leaders have been managed down. Still, it’s relative, and my relatives are relieved they’ll be absent for a looming showdown in Hungary, a showdown not as remote from our own dramas as it might appear.

After winning three consecutive terms campaigning against immigration, Orban is finally encountering serious dissent and both his government and its opponents see the fight as emblematic of the wider global conflict between nativists and internationalists. Unions are calling for a national strike on January 19 over a new “slave law” that allows employers to request up to 400 hours of overtime a year from their workers. Loading A Hungarian government spokesman said his country was under attack “because it stands in the way of the whole pro-immigration politics”. One independent politician countered that “the world cannot belong to the populists, Hungary cannot belong to Viktor Orban". The government attributes the civil unrest to a nefarious conspiracy orchestrated by the Jewish globalist and billionaire George Soros, a hooked-nose villain for all seasons and also for Donald Trump. (Most recently Trump said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if Soros was funding the migrant caravan from Mexico.) While overt racism has seeped into the mainstream of several democracies, in Australia it’s largely confined to fringe dwellers such as Cottrell, the misogynist body builder with a thing for Hitler. Note my qualifier, “largely confined".

One of the Orban government’s anti-immigration billboards from 2015 read: “If you come to Hungary don’t take the jobs of Hungarians!” The sentiment recalls then immigration minister Peter Dutton’s 2016 remark about innumerate and illiterate refugees “taking Australian jobs”. And Orban’s warning about immigrants bringing an increase in crime (a statement without factual basis) echoes in Dutton’s comment a year ago that Victorians “are scared to go out to restaurants” because of “African gang violence” – the kind of talk that emboldens right-wing extremists. The difference between the two countries is the difference between a racial slur muttered by a minister as a nasty aside, a slur that can be subsequently disavowed by the minister or his colleagues, and racism as official policy broadcast by megaphone. The difference is both slight and huge. As the now ritual venting about national identity hots up ahead of Australia Day, I feel more nervous about the country’s democratic health than my Hungarian relatives might appreciate. Yet as with most things, perspective brings gratitude. Julie Szego is a regular columnist.