Just when the health system in inner-Melbourne and Sydney was coming to terms with the psychotic conditions caused by Donald Trump’s presidency, a new challenge has presented itself: Diversity Derangement Syndrome (DDS). It’s a mental illness unique to identity politics. DDS sufferers turn any social situation into an audit of skin colour and gender, usually for the purposes of segregation. It was on display at a Melbourne University dance performance recently, as ushers, dabbling in the fine art of racial-profiling, herded patrons into different rooms. White-skinned people were then harangued for their ‘white privilege’.

The Labor MP Emma Husar has taken the syndrome a step further, making her white male staffers wash the dishes as punishment for the race and gender with which they were born.DDS is also being practiced in airport lounges. One would normally think if there’s a diversity deficit in places like the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge it’s because of too many rich people. Old-age pensioners and other welfare recipients can’t afford to fly, lugging their caravans up the Pacific Highway in search of Queensland’s winter sunshine. But think again. According to the head of the Diversity Council Australia (DCA), Lisa Annese, the problem in airport lounges is not an absence of poor people. It’s those pesky white guys, again.

In her blog a fortnight ago, Annese wrote of how she was ‘waiting to board a flight from Dallas to Sydney after speaking at the Eighteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations.’ This was when her DDS kicked in. She complained ‘that the airport departure lounge was not very diverse’ because it was ‘full of business people’. Who was she expecting, the Paxton family? Even worse for Annese, the business people were ‘mostly men, probably straight white men, probably with families at home awaiting their return from doing their terribly important work.’ These are serious crimes: being white, being male, being heterosexual, running a business that employs people and keeps the economy going, and having a family at home who love you so much they want you to come home. Leftists like Annese have dedicated their lives to fighting these anti-socialist principles of prosperity and family togetherness. In the Dallas airport lounge she also displayed one of the special powers of DDS sufferers: ESP. From across a crowded room, she was able to identify the sexuality of the businessmen waiting for their flights. They weren’t gay. Perhaps she needs to fly Qantas, where last year the staff were made to wear same-sex marriage ‘acceptance rings’. Annese continued her essay by outing the primitive recreational interests of the straight white fiends in suits. ‘It struck me how much airport lounges represent the lack of diversity in leadership: men talking loudly on their phones, drinking beer and watching sport or the news’, she sneered.Now we’re talking crimes against humanity. No one should have the freedom to enjoy a quiet Budweiser, watch TV, plus talk on the phone (especially if they are organising for loved ones to pick them up from the airport).

The Annese Thought Police declared these habits to be ‘not terribly culturally diverse’. She reminds me of the Sylvester Stallone movie character, Judge Dredd, a street cop with the power to arrest, convict and execute on the spot.Annese concluded her blog with a decree as to what people should be doing in airport lounges. ‘One indicator I will use (in measuring) gender parity’, she said, is for men to be ‘skipping the champagne or beer in favour of mineral water.’

Ultimately, this is what the leftist elites mean by ‘diversity’: a dictatorial state in which everyone needs to be like them. To match their skin colour, their gender, their sexuality, their lack of immediate family, their TV choices, their drinking habits, their life. It’s not diversity at all. With the fall of the old Soviet Union, it’s just a different way of monitoring and controlling society. The amazing thing about Annese is that so many corporations and Australian government agencies fund her organisation, the DCA.Vast amounts of taxpayers’ money have gone into financing this nonsense: a CEO who enters airport lounges to itemise the skin colour and sexuality of travellers, while also snooping around the bar area to see what people are drinking. Earlier this year, Annese recommended the introduction of ‘Inclusion Nudges’ in Australian workplaces. If too many straight white men were being employed, recruitment managers needed to put on a set of fake cardboard glasses to see the world differently. As ideas go, this one is as mad as a box of frogs. The DCA’s chairman is former Australian of the Year David Morrison who, in a world of mounting problems, thinks the biggest priority is eradicating the word ‘guys’ from our vocabulary. How could any government even mildly respectful of public money give these fruit loops a cent? Finally, I’m curious as to how Annese herself got home from the airport. It couldn’t have been by car, as the most popular vehicle colour in Australia is white. It couldn’t have been by Sydney Trains, as they’re all silver. Perhaps this is the fate of ‘diversity advocates’ everywhere: dragging their rainbow-themed bags along the footpath, gallons of mineral water in-hand for hydration, a sad lonely sight on the long walk home to nobody.