On Monday night's Q&A, a Muslim, a Jew, and a former Liberal Party leader walked up to a bar. It was a very low bar indeed, and so they just stepped right over it.
How to make clear that the Turnbull government's proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act seem petty, unnecessary and a policy change pursued by ideologues in the interests of something other than the obvious greater good?
It wasn't so hard. Indeed, in the process host Tony Jones noted that his program had landed on an unusual agreement: "I think it's quite rare you'll have unanimity [among] Jews and Muslims here on the subject."
And right he was, a Jewish person and a Muslim person having just described experiences that suggested cross-faith agreement on the point. But it fell to a former politician, freed from the need to toe the party line, to strip bare this particular piece of jiggery-pokery, by which section 18C of the Act would have its legislative net narrowed from "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate" to "harass".
Kerry Chikarovski, one-time NSW Liberal leader, wiped the lipstick from this Turnbull pig with great efficiency: "I think these are changes not being much discussed in the greater community??? I know they're of great interest to a certain part of the Liberal Party in particular." It was, Chikarovski noted, a certain part of the Liberal Party that had a "section of the media" on side.
Whoever could she mean?
Chikarovski didn't say, but her intervention was telling during a debate that began with a question from audience member Ali Raza.
If you want an idea of the pressures that weigh on a Muslim Australian nowadays, look no further than Mr Raza's opening declaration: "First my thoughts and prayers for those who died in [the] London attack and I strongly condemn this atrocity."
Then to the point and to the person who demands such opening statements as basic proof of fealty: "Does the panel think people like Pauline Hanson should get less media coverage... as they have no real policy other than hatred?"
Further, Mr Raza wondered: if racial abuse is to be given freer rein, mightn't that worsen an already tense situation?
The next question, from Osher Feldman, reinforced the point: "I'm an Orthodox Jew. I have been humiliated on the street for being a Jew... so why, as the Prime Minister puts it, if we live in the most successful multicultural society in the world, are we changing the law and making it okay to humiliate someone?"
The rabbi's question went to the Turnbull government's representative on the panel, the National Party senator Bridget McKenzie: "Why does the Prime Minister and the rest of the government want to make it harder for people like me to walk the streets without fearing abuse which??? you want to make it legal, this type of abuse?"
McKenzie: "Not at all, rabbi??? that is absolutely not the intent. And you being yelled abuse in the street, on the tram, at the footy, would be captured by the changes that we're absolutely suggesting."
Or would it? McKenzie then set off down another road.
"There is a disconnect out in punters street, out in Bourke Street, if you like, between how regular Australians define???"
Tony Jones: "It might be Bourke Street on which rabbis are being offended."
McKenzie: "Well, precisely, Tony."
And when she said "precisely", Senator McKenzie meant precisely something else - going on to lament a Racial Discrimination Act that "impedes on their decisions to have the types of conversations we're having tonight in a free and open manner".
Jones: "Can I just make the point that we are actually having this conversation and yet the law hasn't changed. So in fact we're still able to have that conversation."
The senator, to summarise, waffled to the end of her talking points. It was left to Chikarovski to call time on the charade.
"I'm no longer a politician and people assume I'm a spokesperson for the Liberal Party and I get stopped in the street all the time, [asking] 'What are you doing about climate change, what are you doing about same-sex marriage?' I've never had a single person say to me, 'What are you doing about 18C?'."
The "very unfortunate passing" of The Australian cartoonist Bill Leak had revved people up on 18C, Chikarovski said. But she doubted the changes would pass the Senate. And furthermore, she said to the rabbi in the audience: "Even if it were to get through??? I would encourage you and I'd be with you as you went to the Human Rights Commission to say this is not acceptable and you need do something about it."
It was not the only time Chikarovski was on clean-up duty. She also deftly dispatched a questioner wondering what could be done about the effort by Muslims "to establish a worldwide caliphate".
Chikarovski, in summary: "It's not going to happen."
In all, it was a night that required panellists to have their wits about them. This much was clear from the git-go, when the opening question began: "In the wake of the London terror attacks in Westminster, the Mayor of London, Mr Sadiq Khan, stated terror attacks are now part and parcel of living in a big city???"
Mr Khan said no such thing last week. He made a similar remark last September - only to find it resurrected out of context by Donald Trump Jr in recent days, and bafflingly resurrected again last night on Q&A.
"He didn't say that, right?" A hat-tip to panellist Peter Holmes a Court for heading this particular bit of fake news off at the pass, albeit several minutes beyond the point at which it should ever have been let loose.
