TV

The Chaser Got David Leyonhjelm His Very Own Wicked Camper Van And He Didn’t Even Say Thank You

Why you so offended, David?

by Alex McKinnon  30 June 2016

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When he’s not bravely defending the right to blackface, claiming the Sydney siege wouldn’t have happened if everyone were allowed guns and generally acting like a 4chan thread come to life, Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm is big on the ol’ free speech. Or, more accurately, Leyonhjelm is big on the ‘right’ of people to be complete arsehats to one another without any form of critique or consequence, in the mistaken belief that’s that what free speech is.

Leyonhjelm’s been especially vocal on the various stoushes around the Wicked Campers company and the backlash the sexist and misogynistic slogans on their vans routinely attracts. Leyonhjelm, whose whole shtick is railing against the “nanny state” and political correctness, has frequently come out against the humourless “wowsers” who take offence to hilarious, just-having-a-laugh phrases like “in every princess, there’s a little slut who wants to try it just once” and “fat chicks are harder to kidnap”.

“Surprise, surprise, sexual connotations are part of life. You need to be a particularly wowserish type of person to not find them funny,” Leyonhjelm told the ABC back in April. Hear that, ladies? Jokes about you getting kidnapped and sexually assaulted aren’t violent, they’re sexual! Because that’s what sex is! Why are people so sensitive? It’s not like any of this stuff happens in real life anyway.

To stand in solidarity with Leyonhjelm and men everywhere who think women getting beaten and assaulted is funny, The Chaser‘s Kirsten Drysdale and Zoe Norton Lodge prepared a gift for him: a Wicked Campers van of his very own, complete with side-splitting slogans like ‘The best thing about oral sex from David Leynojhelm — 5 minutes of silence’ and ‘Inside David Leyonhjelm is a little slut who wants to try it just once’.

They even went to the trouble of parking it on his street, so he could share in the laughs. Inexplicably, though, Leyonhjelm didn’t seem to be overjoyed by his new present, telling the pair to “fuck off” and disappearing inside his house.

Leyonhjelm’s since taken to Twitter to explain why he took offence, claiming the Chaser crossed a line between humour and harassment while somehow failing to see that that’s the exact point they were trying to make. As always, he kept his critiques classy by retweeting his former advisor calling one of the comedians fat.

Whichever way the election goes on Saturday, it;s highly likely that Leyonjhelm will lose his seat and be relegated back to moderating libertarian forums of angry, sweaty men. I’d say that that’s an immensely satisfying image to contemplate, but I wouldn’t want to offend him.