It was between mid and end January in 1980. My first child was three months old. It was in the early hours. I was in bed with my wife; my daughter in her crib. I lived in Tokarara, a suburb of Port Moresby. My street was a cul-de-sac, which ended in dense bush. All of the other houses were occupied by Paua New Guinean families. Probably, the father in each household was a senior public servant, as was I in the Department of Finance.

All of the houses were single-standing, quite large fibro cement structures on stilts, with louvered windows. I awoke to a racket next door. I walked to the living area and peered out of a window.

The lights were all on in the house and I could see plainly the family cowering at one end in a bedroom. Six or seven members (I can’t be sure exactly) of a so-called “rascal gang” were milling around inside the house.

One of their number broke off and ran to my house. He had a large-blade panga knife and began hacking through the wall. He was sweating profusely and shaking. The phone lines which ran under the house had been cut. No mobile phones in those days folks.

My wife was now up and I told her to put water on the stove. Throw boiling water on the bastards, I thought. I kid you not, Quasimodo (played by Charles Laughton in the movie) came to mind.

I was looking down through a louvered window, only three feet or so from his face. “Fuck-off, you black bastard!” I shouted forcefully without the least tremor. Miracles happen. He ran way shouting “White bastards!” Evidently, I surmise, the intimidatory power of being white in PNG was not yet gone. The police eventually arrived, long after the rascals had skedaddled. I am not sure how they were alerted to what had happened. The people next door went back to their village, leaving their house vacant.

My spurt of courage — or adrenalin flow, or whatever it was — had evaporated by the time daylight broke through. I was badly shaken. I was certainly not brave enough to spend another night in the house and moved my family into a hotel. I stayed there until the government found us a safer house in a secure compound. And, by the way, I can say that I was personally supported by Mekere Morauta, then secretary of the Department of Finance, later to become prime minister, when some penny-pinchers in the department balked at paying my hotel bills.

Home invasions are alien to Australians. Being burgled is one thing. This has surely happened to us all – to me on four occasions. The lady I purchased my present apartment from warned me about keeping my bedroom window open, which is not too far from the ground and has a handy thief-friendly ledge just below it. Once, she said, she was sitting in the lounge room in her dressing gown when an intending thief appeared out of the bedroom door. As soon as he saw her he bolted. Quite right, too. He was an incompetent burglar, not a home invader. The difference is huge.

Home invasions are “un-Australian.” And I use the term, John Howard-style, without in the least cringing. Unfortunately, it appears that some migrants and their children are not in tune with these Australian values. There is an option. It is to go back home. We don’t want and should never accept home invasions becoming a feature of the landscape.

In the latest home invasion in Melbourne, in early January, a woman was hit across the face and forced to sit in her front room while a dozen men of “African appearance” ransacked her house. I was badly shaken, as I’ve said, when home invaders failed to get in. Can you imagine just how terrified she must have been and how much this may affect her peace of mind in the future. And also, to some significant extent, the peace of mind of families living in the vicinity of Sudanese migrants. (editor’s note: The victim of that particular assault recounted the outrage to 3AW. The audio can be heard here.)

Quite simply, if people break into you home while you are there you have no idea what they might do. It is a cowardly, disgusting and despicable act.

I am I migrant. I know what a privilege it is to live in Australia. You would think, wouldn’t you, that refugees would be especially grateful.

The political class has conspired, without any popular say-so, to bring in refugees and migrants holding clashing cultural values. This defies understanding even in this politically-correct age. But if politician have failed us abysmally in this, as they most surely have, they should not be given any leeway if they allow gangs of Sudanese, either migrants or their children, to run wild. It should be stopped in its tracks by deporting those involved and, as applicable, their parents and siblings. It would need only a few cases to have a salutary effect.

Will politicians act? Looking at our current crop of weak-kneed Australian politicians it seems highly unlikely. As it stands, they and their forbears over recent decades have utterly failed to put the harmony and safety of our society uppermost. ‘Bollards’ should become a term of abuse directed at them.

Some things we have to handle internally. Home-grown criminals, for example. Why in the world should we put up, for one second, with refugees or their offspring creating mayhem on the streets. Already, I am reading about the need to provide additional taxpayer support to prevent Sudanese youths going feral. This is like the whole loopy business of deradicalization programs for Muslim youths – to try to prevent them beheading us, apparently.

When did our politicians first go mad? When did they begin to think it was their job to solve the problems of other countries. Exactly what problem did Australia have that importing twenty thousand Sudanese refugees could solve? The rot set in after Menzies. Of course, it was a general malady among the political class worldwide. Enoch Powell nailed it in 1968. God knows what he would think now.

Globalism, starring multiculturalism and diversity, is an apt blurb for the malodorous movie in which we as citizens have bit parts. The plot: throw us to the wolves to save the world. And this, disastrously, includes bringing in people from societies which have singularly failed to make progress and yet who wish to bring their own grossly inferior standards, values and cultures with them.