The Morrison government has more than tripled the amount of funding it allocates to the National Australia Day Council over the past financial year. Most of this additional funding has gone to creating an ad campaign, ‘Story of Australia’, which promotes January 26 as a “day for all Australians”.
The council received a total of $14.6 million from the department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in 2019-20 — a rise of more than $10 million from the previous year.
Most of that funding went to the $10 million ad campaign as part of a review of the Australia Day Council’s communications. The council would not say how much additional funding it’s stumping up to continue the campaign this year.
Debate intensifies
The spending hike comes despite decades of pressure on the government to recognise January 26 as a day of mourning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Last week the prime minister provoked controversy on the issue by proclaiming January 26 “wasn’t a particularly flash day” for the First Fleet either. The comments were in response to Cricket Australia announcing it would drop references to Australia Day in promotional material for Big Bash League games, and were widely criticised, including by Olympic gold medal winner and prominent Indigenous rights campaigner Cathy Freeman.
While an Ipsos poll for The Age/Sydney Morning Herald and Nine News survey shows 28% of Australians support “changing the date”, there is a clear generational divide, with support to abolish the celebration higher among younger people.
Cricket Australia has stood by its decision over the weekend, with Australia’s only Indigenous male test player, Jason Gillespie, adding his voice to a chorus of support for the change. And the ABC has also been drawn into the debate, issuing a statement on its use of the term “Australia Day”.
More spin
Indigenous activist Meriki Onus told Crikey the “Story of Australia” campaign, which first aired last year, is white nationalist propaganda and more evidence of the government turning to marketing to solve problems.
“There are so many more important things to worry about than spending $10 million celebrating a day that didn’t even exist in the ‘90s,” she said.
She said the ad campaign was not about inclusivity and instead risked fueling the kind of division seen in the US.
“The policies that they have against Aboriginal people in Australia and refugees and the racism and discrimination that we experience every day is very much linked to the Australia Day campaign,” she said.
“It’s white nationalism and given what happened in Washington you’ve really got to be careful about what white nationalism turns into.”
Dee Madigan, creative director of ad agency Campaign Edge, said the ad was a cynical attempt to sway opinions about the day and risked dividing people further.
“The ad ends by saying we need to listen to each other but the government is not listening to Indigenous voices who are saying change the date,” she said.
“If there’s one criticism that keeps coming about this government it’s that they’re all spin no substance. This plays into that.”
“If the government were really serious about bringing people together then decisions like [awarding] Margaret Court [an Australia Day honour] wouldn’t happen.”
The minister responsible for overseeing the funding, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister and Cabinet Ben Morton, said the government would continue to fund the campaign.
“The National Australia Day Council’s primary role is to promote Australia Day to all Australians, to inspire national pride and increase participation and engagement amongst all Australians,” he said.
“The government unashamedly supports this.”
“The council received a total of $14.6 million from the department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in 2019-20 — a rise of more than $10 million from the previous year.”
So many worthy causes this money could have gone to. More blatant waste of taxpayers’ money. Is anyone keeping tabs on the total? Sports Rorts, Community Grants, asylum seeker detention costs, obsolete French submarines …
He’s not called Scotty from Marketing for nothing.
Perhaps to the underfunded Auditor General but that would allow them to better scrutinize the rorts of Morrison and his motley crew of crooks and spivs
Michael Pascoe in the new daily is 🙂
I heart Michael Pascoe, so articulate, compassionate and feisty!
‘“It’s white nationalism and given what happened in Washington you’ve really got to be careful about what white nationalism turns into.”’
Australia has been channeling the same influences, both megaphoned and more subtle; especially important in taretting above median age voter which apparently requires dog whistling of indigenous and ‘immigrants’.
Good that someone calls this out as many in media, politics, business, sport and society seem to think many white nationalist tropes and dog whistling of -ve cultural wedge issues, are central to ‘Australian identity’…… this has been going on since Howard’s ascendancy.
Good example of subtle nudging has been ABC’s ‘Australian Story’ which focuses on, apart from the odd or occasional indigenous, purely white or Anglo/Irish stock ignoring amazing non Anglo/Irish Australians of post WWII immigration?
The Ad man is dangerous – under the daggy dad elbow shaking (can’t stand that) persona lies a ruthless despot. Parliament barely sits, scrutiny and accountability are almost entirely absent, vilification of the unemployed as lazy and undeserving, and refugees as frauds or terrorists, continues unabated, awards are given to spreaders of hatred and division as an “up yours” gesture…and, worst, our first peoples are viewed and treated with disdain and contempt. Started with Howard, continued with Abbott but has accelerated under Morrison. I truly feel like moving across the ditch.
Jason Gillespie the only Indigenous Test cricketer/: Wasn’t Graham Thomas Indigenous? Wasn’t there a problem re a tour of South Africa in the Apartheid era?
According to Wikipedia Graham Thomas’s selection apparently upset the South Africans as he was “mixed race” – not Indigenous Australian but Native American.
I played with Bankstown when Thomas was our star. I don’t recall any talk of Native American. We understood that one of his parents was of Aboriginal descent. the other may have been Puerto Rican (?)
Quoting Indigenous activist Meriki Onus above: “There are so many more important things to worry about than spending $10 million celebrating a day that didn’t even exist in the ‘90s,” she said.
Wow!
If that quote means the 1890s then the quote is correct and I apologise for my shock that that would be published, and for contradicting it below, as I have interpreted it to mean the 1990’s.
26th of January was agreed on by all Australian states as the date of Australia Day in 1935. Just because some states did not have a public holiday on the day, does not mean it did not exist and that it was not “celebrated”.
For an indigenous activist visiting the importance of the date, I would have thought that the 1938 Aboriginal Day Of Mourning would have been an important event within the same debate. As far as I know that was the first OFFICIAL protest action against Australia Day being on the 26th of January by Indigenous Australians (and an “Aborigines Conference” held in Sydney, was more specifically protesting “the 150th Anniversary of the Whiteman’s seizure of our country“, but the advertising had the words Australia Day in brackets under the 26th January, 1938).
https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/day-of-mourning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Mourning_(Australia)
From 1940 to 1955 the Australian Aborigines League was able to persuade many religious denominations to declare the Sunday before Australia Day as ‘Aboriginal Sunday’.
The protests against Australia Day being held on the 26th of January are not new, and, as some people would like you to believe now, are not a recent invention of “woke” white people.