Lil’ Mates From Canned Aus Day Billboard Thank ‘Straya For The Support

The two headscarf-wearing kids who adorned a scrapped Australia Day billboard in Melbourne have voiced their appreciation for supporters – and we’ll be damned if we can see anything bloody Un-Australian about the whole situation.

Before we get too far into this, we need you to imagine being someone who’d respond to two Muslim tykes on a billboard with threats of violence against the billboard company’s employees, with the (sadly accomplished) goal of having the ad pulled.

Seriously. Contemplate the fact that someone, somewhere, really believed these two girls represented a threat to the Australian way of life, and keep it in mind when during (and after) this article right here. 

Speaking to 7 News at a Muslim cultural festival in Adelaide, the ten- and twelve-year old girls thanked supporters, and said they “feel like now we belong in Australia” after a massive crowd-funding campaign secured even more Aus Day ads with their v. cheerful faces.

(FWIW, that campaign easily hit its $200K crowdfunding target, with everything in excess going to an independent Indigenous media company IndigenousX and non-profit Children’s Ground.)

Still, it wasn’t before one of the girls felt “frightened, scared, and not safe – it felt like something dangerous was going to happen.” Again, congratulations to the gronks who contributed to a young child feeling scared in her own home. 

You can catch the clip below, and hope those few misguided bigots learn a thing or two by 2018:

Two young Muslim girls at the centre of a controversial Australia Day billboard have spoken out for the first time. https://t.co/jIx0g9mUNf

— 7 News Adelaide (@7NewsAdelaide) January 28, 2017

Source and photo:7 News Adelaide / Twitter.