A Happy Invasion Day Was Had By All

Disgusted by Tony Abbott’s decision to honour Prince Philip with an Australian knighthood, Sydney’s left-leaning elite last night staged their own counter-celebration, the inaugural ABC Invasion Day Awards Ceremony, at the Lakemba Centre for Excellence in Cultural Diversity. Former Guantanamo Bay intern David Hicks,  aka Mohammed Dawood, accepted the Humanitarian of the Year trophy, sponsored jointly by the ABC and SBS, from Radio National fixture Philip Adams.

Runner-up was the free thinker, and dangerous ideas man, Uthman Badar. The event was co-presented by members of the WelaVa Cadava comedy collective, whose new show, Lions and Tigers vs. Christians and Jews… oh my“, is to screen on ABC2 later this year.

Adams, wearing a multiculturally appropriate moomoo in traditional black and emblazoned with the white characters of the Prophet’s battle standard, marked the event by downing a record 23 mixed kebabs as the show opened with a performance of “Walk Like an Egyptian” by the Defenders of Isis Women’s Dance Troupe. Despite being performed in niqabs, with the curtain and volume both down, and no actual movement to avoid offence, rapturous applause from the well-behaved male audience ensued.

In the spirit of separate-but-equal inclusion, female audience members, also in niqabs, were seated in a park in Geelong, where distance precluded any distraction of their menfolk.

The ladies enjoyed the festivities via a black-and-white TV recycled with the help of Greens volunteers from the local council’s latest hard-rubbish night clean-up. Sarah Hanson-Young remarked that she had enjoyed being the women’s guest and found the niqab so comfortable she would wear one in the Senate as an expression of solidarity. She also hailed the organisers’ pro-active opposition to high-carbon consumerism by deploying the discarded TV set. “The day is nigh when Australian commerce will be limited to opportunity shops, so the shieks’ and imams’ commitment to making women case studies in doing with less, much less, is both gratifying and welcome,” she said.

On receiving the award, David Hicks extolled Afghanistan as the perfect holiday destination, despite the tragic loss of his friend, the package-tour organiser Osama bin Laden. This brought the audience to its feet, as did  Hicks’ call for sharia to replace intolerant democratic institutions like courts and parliament and secular meat-inspection bodies.

Clive Hamilton, wearing a delightful green beard grown and dyed especially for the occasion, next took the microphone and backed Hicks’ call for an end to democracy, a move he said was needed to save the planet from climate change. This brought more cheers, but as Hicks is on the record as having said he had renounced Islam and Hamilton is a non-believer, WelaVa-Cadava members immediately said they would be writing the duo’s executions into an upcoming show.

ABC visionary Mark Scott immediately tweeted that, despite the Abbott government’s budget cuts, the national broadcaster’s policy of co-operation with SBS wouldguarantee that a sufficient sum to purchase the appropriate, culturally sensitive rocks would somehow be found.

Finished with the kebabs, Phillip Adams’ brought a note of levity to the gathering by observing that, unless the quality of the event’s felaffels improved, the caterers could be counted on to produce some splendid projectiles.

Uthman Badar closed the evening with his “dangerous” speech “Honour killings are morally justified”.

This is Fatima el Baksheesh-Namatjira reporting for ABC News.