The Australian flag — when it’s not attached to the neck of a sunburnt festival-goer like the cape of some kind of drunken constitutional monarchy superman, it’s being shouted down for not representing modern Australia and its contemporary values. It’s been the official national standard for more than 50 years and, if the annual media campaign for a new flag is anything to go by, its status has been debated for just as long.
So do we need a new flag? Well, the media would have you believe so, if their slavish devotion to the topic every Australia Day is anything to go by.
The lobby group behind the annual push is Ausflag — an organisation founded in 1981 by Harold Scruby. They argue an Australia flag needs to better reflect the Australian identity. They even offer an order form where you can purchase some of their alternative designs.
And the media — desperate for stories that aren’t about the Australia Day honours or the latest one-day cricket scores — eat it up. According to Media Monitors, on Australia Day there were 2546 mentions of the word “flag”.
While that doesn’t necessarily mean all those mentions were of the flag debate, it shadows January 25 and 27, when there were a combined total of just 711 mentions.
It seems to happen like clockwork. Each year, on January 26, litres of ink are spilt debating the need for a new national flag. Typically the push lasts just a day, as a series of politicians are then wheeled out in response to poo-poo the idea and we all get on with our lives until the next Australia Day, when the topic is sure to be raised again.
To add credibility to their crusade, Ausflag generally recruits a prominent identity to offer quotes to the media and speak about how “the time has come” to fly something new on the flagpole. Last year it was Ray Martin (a director of Ausflag), this year the lobby group cobbled together a flag faction of a dozen Australians of the Year to have a crack at the Union Jack. There was Patrick McGorry, Gustav Nossal and Tim Flannery. Even our Dawn Fraser was on board.
As usual, prominent federal politicians were sent out to round on the turncoats. Julia Gillard said she is a “big advocate” of the current design, while Tony Abbott wouldn’t change it because “millions of people” are proud of the flag. Like last time, and the time before that, the debate was sent up the flagpole and shut down within a day.
How do we know? Well it’s has been going on for decades — Gareth Evans was leading the charge as early as 1984, according to this yellowing Age article. And we’re still no closer to a productive national discussion on the topic.
I think it’s a bit harsh to call this a “Wankley”.
The fact is Australia struggles along with a colonial flag that doesn’t just echo, it trumpets its “founding” by and its subservience to Britain.
Both Abbott and Gillard are cowardly politicians who don’t want to make a call on anything unless the numbers wonks have popped into the trench and told them it’s OK, because “tha’ people” are behind them. Maybe they’re just waiting for all the old farts to die.
Australia’s continuing cringe – whether to the US, the UK, or Europe – won’t be improved by clinging on to this ember of colonial past.
Instead of debating the flag, I’d love to see a debate about the psychology behind those who want to keep it. I’ll throw all caution to the wind and suggest that the basis for keeping this one is sheer racism. Yes, we’re multi-cultural, but we’re a white country really. Pauline Hanson proudly wrapped in a flag, Union Jack to the top and all the ocker thugs with Union Jack tatts are ugly manifestations of this.
Interestingly, most of the Caribbean countries when they dropped the colonial flag managed to work some black into their new designs. In the case of the Bahamas, to represent “a united people.”
Canada must have felt ethnically secure when they came up with their wonderful flag.
It isn’t good for a country to have a flag that is as contentious as the existing Australian one (which has nothing Australian about it) but as a country we’re clearly not ready, for whatever reason, to embrace our own identity. We should try and understand what we’re so afraid of.
So having Julia and Tony say they like the current flag has ‘shot down’ this debate. Not likely. It will continue to run and not just because the media have nothing else to talk about on one day.
Without the Jack I could just about cop the current flag but, as long as that bit remains, it will continue to make me cringe.
We need a flag that unifies us and, above all, identifies us to the rest of the world. The current one fails both tests.
Australia just doesn’t have the courage to be a republic or have its own flag, it would be “Un -Australian for Australian’s to be Australian”
I fought for Australia under the quasi-british flag we have at the moment and remain angry that many who sent me to fight made sure their sons did not have to go. These are some of the people who now say we should stay with the traditional emblem. For me the sooner it goes the better.