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ALICE called up, she's my editor at The Age, and she asked me if I'd like to write a piece about this racial vilification bill that the Victorian government has just passed - this new law that stops people from making fun of other people's race or religion.

But it was a little hard to understand what Alice was saying because she's from New Zealand, she's got one of those funny New Zealand accents, she was saying "Cun yoo write a pus for me about thus new racial vul-if-uck-ation bull?" - those Kiwis make me laugh. I used to go out with a Kiwi girl and every time she said my name, it came out as "Dunny", and I thought she wanted me to show her the way to the toilet.

So I agreed to write the "pus" for Alice and she said "Cun yoo get it to me before sux o'clock?", ha ha, "sux" instead of "six", so funny. Then I hung up the phone, sat down, and got straight to work; first I did a bit of research into the whole thing because I don't really know much about it. I found out that the actual title of the bill is The Racial and Religious Tolerance Bill, and it was put together by the Premier Steve Bracks, and one of his minister's, John Pandazopolous.

That's a silly name, Panda-zopolous. It sounds like a Greek panda. I wonder if Greek kids go to the zoo and say to their mums, "Can we see the panda-zopolous?" and the mum says "Sure kids, but first let's see the elephant-aniki".

Greeks have the weirdest names: there was a kid at school called Anastasios Spinatzihrisafis and boy we had fun with him, standing around him, trying to say his name, laughing and pointing and teasing. I hear he's now living in Brisbane under the name of Jones.

Anyway, the more research I did into this Racial and Religious Tolerance Bill, the more I started thinking, hey is this thing entirely necessary? Because I don't see Australia as a particularly racist place, I don't see it as a land of bigotry and hatred; okay, so maybe Pauline Hanson said some horrible things about people of different appearance, but what do you expect? - she's a redhead, and redheads are all PSYCHO. It's true, they are - like Boris Becker. He's a redhead and he's completely insane.

Mind you, that might also be because he's German - the Germans are the most insane people on earth. Aside from the Swiss.

SO like I was saying; I think Australians are a pretty fair and tolerant people, and I'm not convinced a racial vilification bill like this is going to help anyone.

I started wondering if it would just end up stifling our freedom of speech, if it would end up censuring people's natural conversations, if it would end up making us all too paranoid and frightened to talk about anything - except for the Italians, of course, nothing could stop them talking, hoo boy, don't they love to jabber? And they always wave their arms around in the air when they talk; they look like giant sea anemones - sea anemones with openneck shirts and chunky medallions and shoulder hair.

But the thing that worried me most about this bill was: how was it going to affect me personally? Because I'm a humor writer, I'm a joketeller, I'M A LITERARY WIT OF THE HIGHEST DEGREE, so will I still be able to do Asian jokes, like the one about how Andrew Lloyd Webber had to cancel the Singapore production of Cats because the audience ate the show. Or French jokes, like the one about how the French make the best perfume in the world but they still don't know how to use a deodorant. Or Jewish jokes, like the one about the Jewish rowing team who kept losing all their races, until they found out it was supposed to be eight men rowing, and one man yelling. I mean, I'm Jewish myself, so will I now be committing a criminal offence if I do jokes about me, how I look really swarthy and hairy and Semitic? All my family look swarthy and hairy and Semitic; when we stand too close to each other, it's like we're sharing one eyebrow.

I needed to find out more about this Racial and Religious Tolerance Bill so I phoned up my friend Shaun; he's a law student who just completed a PhD in Legal and Social Philosophy, which is a pretty impressive achievement, considering he's Irish, and the Irish are not usually too bright. Shaun told me I had it all wrong about the bill: he said the bill wasn't designed to stop people from making jokes or having conversations about racerelated stuff. It was designed only to get the true hatemongers; the people who displayed conduct that incited hatred or violence against others - the people who wanted to destroy the rights and reputations of individuals, groups and communities, on the basis of race or religion.

He assured me that freedom of speech would not be affected, and neither would freedom of discussion or freedom of expression; the main purpose of the bill was to keep the public safe from views of extreme hatred - and people expressing those kind of views could face fines of up to $6000 and six months imprisonment. I was a little concerned about these criminal charges; I asked Shaun what constituted a ``race'', because there were certain people I had every intention of expressing extreme hatred towards - like parking inspectors. Were parking inspectors a ``race''? They all looked the same, with their thin lips and their beady eyes. Shaun told me he didn't think parking inspectors were a ``race'', and I should feel free to vilify them as much as possible. That was a relief, because I wouldn't be able to pay the $6000 fine anyway - I owed that much in parking tickets.

SHAUN said he had to get off the phone; he had a big paper to finish on the macrosociology of jurisprudence, but I think he probably just wanted to go down to the pub and get a drink - those Irish love to drink, they can't control themselves.

So I said goodbye and hung up, then I just sat there, thinking about what he said, thinking about this whole vilification thing - and I came to the conclusion that maybe the bill was a good idea, maybe it'd make our society a better place to live. I realised I'd have to be a bit more careful about what I said and wrote, so I didn't slander or upset anyone from a different culture or appearance or background.

From now on, I would just do nice, clean, nonoffensive jokes, like this one: Two non-denominational, genderless people of uncertain culture and appearance and background walked into a bar, and one of them said to the other, ``Oy vey Saul, you vouldn't believe vut happened in the synagogue today''.

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