New law says wogs and poms are OK

It is chanted at rugby matches and hurled at visiting backpackers, but the word 'pom' has been deemed acceptable by the government of Australia's largest state.

Western Australia's parliament has passed legislation which allows racially charged labels - such as pom for an English person, 'wog' for someone from the eastern Mediterranean and 'ding' for an Australian of Italian heritage - to be used in public without fear of prosecution.

The state's attorney-general, Jim McGinty, said it would be pointless to outlaw 'light-hearted' references to another person's ethnic background. 'My best friend is a ding and he has no objection to me calling him that - it's a colloquialism, a term of affection,' he said.

But the new law, which was passed by the state's lower house this week, has infuriated some migrant groups, who said it was a step backwards in trying to stamp out racism in Australia.

'The word pom should be banned in the public forum. A lot of English people find it as offensive as if a black person was called 'nigger',' said David Thomason, founder of the group British People Against Racial Discrimination.

Mr Thomason, 56, who emigrated from Birmingham to Australia 34 years ago, said that while Australians regarded 'pommy-bashing' as a joke, many English migrants were deeply hurt by it. 'Just a couple of weeks ago there was a headline in one of the papers here which read 'mongrel poms'. They wouldn't think of writing 'mongrel chinks' in relation to Chinese people, so why do it with the Brits?'