Earlier this month, three men in Geelong, Victoria, set up a Facebook page called "Ban the Burqa". They invited people to protest against the burka by wearing balaclavas or motorcycle helmets to work on July 18, to show how ridiculous it was to allow "face covering" in everyday life.

Nearly 20,000 people signed up to the Facebook page and pledged to take part in the burka-baiting activities. As soon as they got a whiff of the planned protest, commentators were consumed by fury. We shouldn't ban the burka, we should ban the "racist bogans" who protested against it, spat Susie O'Brien of Melbourne's the Herald Sun. She said the protest posed a more serious threat to society than burkas did, accusing the allegedly bird-brained organisers of "fuelling race divisions" and "inciting confrontation".

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