Max Barry is an Australian writer and the author of five novels, including the political satire "Jennifer Government" and the international thriller "Lexicon." He blogs at maxbarry.com. The views expressed are his own. View more opinion articles on CNN.

(CNN) Melbourne, Australia has two major newspapers; the Herald-Sun is the Rupert Murdoch one. It is full of sports (Australian rules football), photos of cute kids, shocking crime stories, celebrity gossip, and, if an election is in the offing, relentless right-wing political polemics.

Max Barry

Oh, and cartoons. It also does cartoons.

Australia is the nicest racist country you will ever see. It is racist in a blithe, jokey kind of way, where nobody is supposed to take anything too seriously, and nobody is too aware of historical or cultural contexts.

There is racial violence in Australia's history, but not a lot of it, compared with many other countries, and it's not very recent. The racism you get in Australia is mostly of the blindness to privilege variety, where a person may make fun of another for their distinguishing characteristics without realizing that doing so is far more comfortable from within the demographic majority.

The Herald-Sun is full of such casual racism, along with a lot of other idiocies. I read it almost every day, starting with the always entertaining letters to the editor, where the ignorant and misinformed produce tyrannical and byzantine solutions to the world's problems, as well as complaining about gas prices. Also it does have excellent football coverage.

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