Warning to readers: This conversation never happened, other than in Tony Wright's imagination.
"We need to be honest," said Peter Dutton, assuming his most honest expression, though you'd be hard-pressed to tell.
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Dutton's critical comments
The Immigration Minister has put the blame for the grandchildren of Australian migrants travelling to fight in overseas conflict zones on former Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser's immigration policies.
"The reality is Robert Menzies did make mistakes in bringing some people in the 1950s and 1960s."
Dutton assumed a reflective expression, which is the same as his vacant expression.
"Australia has been making mistakes about the sort of people we've been letting in for quite a while now," he mused.
"Think about the convicts. Obvious mistake. You can see the results in today's Labor Party.
"What about the Irish? How many of them came out here and snuck off home to fight and cause terror in the various uprisings their people have always been guilty of? Not to mention the brawling and bottling in Little Lonsdale Street back in the day. And the Eureka Stockade.
"And who was stupid enough to let the Chinese in to rob our gold fields? Brought opium. I know about that sort of thing. I was on the Queensland Drug Squad.
"At least we sent most of them home, but how many of their kids got involved in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, using the tactics they learned out here when they fought off the patriots who wanted to cut off their pigtails?
"Oh, we got smarter. The immigrants from Germany and Italy? Locked 'em up during the world wars. Enemy aliens masquerading as farmers and wine growers.
"You can never be too careful. Without the barbed wire you can imagine most of them slinking off in fishing boats and what have you and joining the Kaiser and the Fuhrer. Leaving their kids behind to operate secret enemy radios.
"And then what happened? Chifley - and what else could you expect from a Labor fellow traveller? - opened the floodgates. Immigrants on ships blackened the horizon.
"Refugees they called 'em. Ha! Europeans from a European war. God knows what they'd been up to. Can you imagine what some of them must have learned while they were in those concentration camps?
"Well, you might have expected our own sainted Robert Menzies would have put a stop to that when he became our ruler.
"But what did he do? Â Let more of the 'em in! From all over the place! And gave 'em explosives - explosives! - and sent them off to blow tunnels all through the Snowy Mountains."
Dutton paused for breath, his eyes slowly refocusing, his advisers silently totting up on their fingers and toes how many voter groups their minister had offended this time.
"You'd think we would have learned, but no," said Dutton, getting a second wind.
"Malcolm Fraser. Supposed to be one of ours.
"No sooner had we won the Vietnam War than the enemy were on boats at our shores and what'd he do?"
An adviser whispered urgently in the minister's ear.
"Well, we didn't actually win and the boat people were from our side of things, but still," said Dutton.
Beginning of the end, obviously. Time was running out, which possibly accounts for Dutton neglecting to mention the East Timorese fleeing Indonesia's takeover in 1975, the Argentines, Chileans and Uruguayans saving their lives from military dictatorships in the 70s and the Lebanese seeking safety from the conflict afflicting their little homeland at the time.
Why, said Dutton, many foreign fighters getting involved in conflict zones today were the children or grandchildren of migrants who came during the 1970s. Who could he be talking about?
"The reality is Malcolm Fraser did make mistakes in bringing some people in the 1970s and we're seeing that today," Dutton confided. "We need to be honest in having that discussion."
Honesty dealt with, Dutton assumed his business-as-normal expression, which is precisely the same as his Great Gods It's a Crisis expression, and set off to further enlighten his staff on the history of Australian immigration, to direct the latest military blockade of our borders, to launch a new push for foreign investment and to plead with the new hero of isolationism, Donald Trump, to honour the deal to clear out Manus and Nauru detention camps.