Poms ? The term is almost friendly when compared to the slang still used by some rlbogansrl to describe other races.

Southern or Eastern Europeans = W O G / Dago
South East Asian/Chinese = Slopes
Arabic = Hankey heads

I've lived in OZ for 44 years & still get asked if I'm a Pom,so I wouldn't take it to heart

That's the bit I've never got.

All the prisoners came from England originally

MOST of the Sheila's aren't.

There's absolutely no evidence to back up the "prisoner of mother england" theory whatsoever, or "prisoner of his/her majesty" either.

The 2 or 3 pomegranate theories seem most likely, according to most etymologists.

As for the racism angle on the "Paki" phrase, as well as the "Pom" phrase, it's generally accepted that racism is in the eye of the receiver, so to speak, so if the "Paki" or "Pom" being spoken to (or even just overhearing the reference) finds it offensive, then by definition it IS offensive.

As a simple derivative, it could be argued that "Paki" is short for "Pakistani", in the same way that "Brit" is an accepted shortening of "British". By that simple analogy, you could argue that "Paki" is not an offensive phrase, if used purely as an abbreviation. However as said above, it is not up to the speaker to decide if the phrase is offensive, but down to the listener.

From a British perspective of course, "Paki" was a mainstay phrase of the Bernard Manning / Jim Davidson school of comedy, and as such was clearly used in a derogatory way, and ought to be frowned upon, especially as the "Paki" in question could quite easily be Indian, Bangladeshi, Persian, Turkish or whatever. However different cultures and nationalities clearly have differing backgrounds, cultural references etc, and we can't simply transpose our meanings on to their usage.