#74 – Border Security: Australia’s Front Line

The bogan is not racist. It is, however, very much not in favour of crime and criminals, so long as they are not nicking street signs and bar mats, or exporting illicit substances into Indonesia, which, after all, are harmless pastimes. People importing illicit substances into Australia, on the other hand, are despicable scum – this perception being reinforced by our very own Prime Minister. Is it the bogan’s fault that these uniquely disgusting criminals are from another country?

Channel 7, realising the awesome spending power of the bogan, the awesome cost-saving power of reality TV, and the awesome bogan love of catching (foreign) criminals, combined them all in the greatest bogan programme of all time: Border Security: Australia’s Front Line. After all, even though the bogan is not racist, what better way to catch these abominable criminals than to whack a camera or two in a large room replete with suspicious-looking foreigners?

Despite the fact that the customs queue at Australia’s major airports are overwhelmingly full of white, returning Australians, tired and emotional about having to wait in a queue in order to be told to pay GST on the watch they bought in Switzerland, the bulk of Border Security: Australia’s Front Line is entirely devoted to filming shifty looking visitors from South East Asia or the Middle East having their luggage rifled through.

Even better than this, the show is portentously narrated by Grant Bowler, who most bogans remember as playing Constable Wayne Patterson in Blue Heelers: Mt Thomas’ Front Line, where he was living the bogan dream by engaging in PG-rated heavy petting with Lisa McCune.

Settled in its interest free lounge suite, the bogan is able to vicariously enjoy the act of keeping Australia safe from people it steadfastly refuses to understand. Its endorphins gush on each and every occasion that such a person is not able to move about in the manner that it hopes to. At the completion of the show, the bogan is reassured that it has done its part to defend the nation that it has done so very little to create.