COMMENT | Filling in as desk editor, my job was to assign an intern to do a follow-up story. A senior journalist, however, told her outright she did not have to take my instructions. As the only Asian in the newsroom, I felt I was being ‘othered’. I was the ‘outsider’.

That happened in the late 80s when graffiti scrawled at bus stops and sprayed on public toilet doors declared Asian migrants were not welcomed in Western Australia.

But why?

My research led me to this term - “tall poppy syndrome”.

A Malaysian-Chinese entrepreneur I profiled in a front-page story explained that Asian migrants who ‘over-achieve in the company of mediocre would soon be cut down to size.

I suppose I stuck out like a sore poppy in the newsroom.

Irreverence for organisational hierarchy – and authority - is ingrained in the once former penal colony. The country and its predominantly white population, however, have moved on from the Immigration Restriction Act, introduced in 1901, which demonised the arrival of non-Europeans.

That White Australia policy was abolished in 1972 by the Labour government under Gough Whitlam. Successive federal governments have since legislated against racial vilification, hate speech and all forms of discrimination.

However, verbal abuse and random attacks on Chinese-looking residents during ...