Now for the latest news in sport, where Scott Morrison’s traditional January bomb-throwing over #changethedate ran into unexpected opposition: the global embrace of anti-racism activism by professional sports players.
For Morrison, January 26 was meant to be an opportunity to rally his team with a few big opening hits against out-of-touch lefties before settling down for the longer innings of the political year. Instead, he’s been on defence, in response to the cultural evolution of Australia’s most national sport — cricket.
Games in the Big Bash League this year will be played on “January 26”. Some teams will play in Indigenous-themed kits. Some teams, including the Sydney Sixers, who are playing on the day, have adopted the worldwide sporting anti-racism gesture of taking the knee at the opening of each game.
Cricket Australia’s decision was “pretty ordinary”, said Morrison. His backbench joined in, sledging cricketers who backed the stance.
For Morrison, it’s all politics. He never seems able to resist chewing away at the gristle of Australia’s culture wars, returning again and again to the detritus of the “Australia Day” debate. It’s all about performance for his aging conservative base.
For Cricket Australia, it’s a different game. It’s about grasping where sport fits into an evolving culture where support for Indigenous rights and the desire to “do something” about racism has long run ahead of political action. In that game, the #changethedate debate is already over.
Politics lags behind culture. That’s what fuels culture wars, after all. Now the only enduring question is how long the conservative base can hold the political elite back from recognising the social shift that’s already happening.
That was the point of the weekend tweet from the Sixers’ most experienced Big Bash player, Wiradjuri man Dan Christian, to his 170,000 followers:
“@ScottMorrisonMP read the room Mr Prime Minister. @CricketAus are leading the way because your government won’t. There’ll be millions of kids watching our @BBL games on the 26th January, and they’ll see us taking a knee against racism, and promoting inclusion for all. Take note.”
Morrison attempted to play the right’s favoured “all stories matter” card with his comments about those on the First Fleet having it tough too, only to get smacked by Olympic medallist Cathy Freeman.
The PM then mixed it up with that old saw: keep politics out of sport, last seen in use to oppose sporting boycotts of apartheid-era South Africa. Tricky coming from a leader who’s built his profile with a sporty “Go Sharkies” schtick, eager to be photographed with Australia’s sporting elite. The argument was then shattered with the leaked news that the government intended to honour tennis great and right-wing culture warrior Margaret Court.
The “keep politics out of sport” crowd is about denying sports professionals a voice in cultural debates (“cancel culture” if you will). It’s driven by fear of the power players bring. After decades of the right using racism to wedge the left, professional players have now wedged the right between the past, the base they’ve been busy nurturing, and the future, where most of Australia will, sooner or later, end up.
Sporting bodies like Cricket Australia know they too risk being caught. They need gestures like their January 26 programming to make sure they stay in touch with their own increasingly diverse base and draw new, younger audiences.
Players in mass sports have long been encouraged to be role models. Now, the courage of individual players — Colin Kaepernick in the United States, Adam Goodes here in Australia — has empowered them to use that social license to oppose racism including systemic racism in sport.
In the United States, the example set by Kaepernick taking the knee in protest against Black deaths, exploded in Black Lives Matter strikes by the country’s sporting teams last year. In the UK, football players taking the knee in opposition to racism (including in the sport itself) has become part of the game’s opening ritual.
In Australia, the players’ embrace of action has been driven by an enduring anger about the treatment of Goodes and inspired by Indigenous rugby league players who refused to sing the national anthem in 2019.
It’s already forced Morrison to shift, albeit with a wholly inadequate one-word anthem change.
Now, it’s pulling the sting out of his favoured annual “Australia Day” play.
Quite a good piece in the Conversation today, noting that advertisers don’t use Oz day as much; the day has become too controversial.
Good to see the cricket guys and girls standing up on racism (and interesting given that Oz cricket is notoriously monocultural) but sport here is still well behind the US and Europe; even the F1 guys have been taking the knee.
Standing up on racism doesn’t only involve imitating whatever is being done in the US.
Indeed, and then there is trying to cover all bases stuff like this for Melbourne Victory’s A league match tomorrow:
As part of our annual U-NITE match, we will be celebrating Australia’s multiculturalism in a variety of ways:
Scotty from Marketing did read the room …. his party room.
Ha yes good one!
If the push is anything like the gay marriage debate, we’re in for a long and exhausting ride as the sentiment slowly shifts. Though I suspect without the normalising forces that culture had to put that marriage as a rights issue, I see this as an issue that’s going to be played along tribal lines for far longer. This is a harder sell because it’s a battle over symbolism rather than anyone’s rights being denied.
Fully agree. This will be playing out long after we readers are gone, and the debate will rage for generations. I find myself waking up on Australia Day pretty much indifferent to any cause, as the exhaustion for me has already well set in.
10 years, 15 Max, reynard.
On that point then DB, I will hold out hope that your prediction comes to pass.
Only for another decade. The terminally entitled boomers will be dying out soon. The country is changing and once the tired but angry old guard are done we might be able to get somewhere.
I feel this waiting for the old folk to die approach to democracy isn’t really working so well. An ageing population and a political system primed to take advantage of that…
This will really be a hard sell
You can’t keep us from the beach and the barbie and my tinnies – and a holiday with the family before school goes back – Australia Day is the last day of the Xmas holidays before the kids and families begin the year.
Who gives a toss about Invasion day other than the ABC because they haven’t got any news for the nightly news on TV other than a shark attack or a car accident and that is pretty routine but froth up indignation and offence creates traffic as they say in the social media .
Not been following the news – “…can’t keep us from the beach and the barbie..”?
It was in all the papers.
Don’t imagine that wowsers couldn’t come for your tinnies, in time.
One of the key messages from the women receiving Australians of the year award tonight was the importance of listening at a deeper level to the voices of those they all advocate for. Linda Burneycalls for reflection. I think one of the necessary things for all Australians tomorrow is to sit for a little while and deep within themselves listen to the. Aboriginal voice. We have listened to our own for years and much in our country comes from the top of the head or from an emotional and irrational place.
Prime Minister Morrison has no judgement, Morrison displays this over and over almost everyday.
Morrison talks in tongue and is the most incompetent Prime Minister since 74AD.