01.19.06

Ernie Sigley Says We Should Change The Flag

Posted in Patriotism at 1.13 pm by daniel

Do we care what he says? Unlikely. I’d always thought the 3AW presenter was there to help people in nursing homes snooze in the afternoon, not discuss serious issues. Well today Ernie got serious. He also got ignorant.

The Australian flag should change he told his listeners. The Union Flag should be removed because he can’t understand what it’s doing there (how long has he lived in Australia?). What’s more it’s not unique. It should be replaced with a map of Australia. And something to do with Aboriginal colours should be thrown in as well. Of course, we could keep the southern cross. This is wholly unique according to Ernie - you can’t see the southern cross from anywhere else in the world. Not even New Zealand. He’s an avid astronomer you know!
So, disgusted with him for being so blatantly un-Australian, I shot off this e-mail;

Ernie,

I’m writing after hearing part of your discussion and call for a change to the Australian flag.

Before I turned off the radio in disgust I caught two major points;

The diggers fought for our country not the flag, and they fought at the request of England.

The Australian flag has been just that since 1901. And yes, they fought under that flag. Whether they fought for it was a matter for them to decide, but the flag represents this country so one could easily argue they fought for it. To prove they fought under it you only need to look at the Battle of Polygon Wood (Belgium) where the 18th Battalion AIF hoisted the Australian flag hoisted in 1917, and no one else’s.

And no, our diggers didn’t fight at the request of England. For a start in the First World War we fought with Britain. Not because we had to, we’d been an independent country since 1901, but because we viewed it (Australia’s politicians viewed it) as the right thing to do. We didn’t fight FOR Britain, we fought for the Empire, an Empire we were proudly a part of.

Changing the flag is nothing but being disrespectful to the memory of our diggers and it’s nothing but contemptuous for you to suggest otherwise.

Your other argument was that you think it’s hard to explain it to the kids. How exactly? I’m 22. I know what it’s doing there. They explain Captain Cook to you when you’re 5. You know Australia’s history, the significance of Britain in the development of Australia and the fact that our values (democracy, freedom, rule of law and so on) are all British values imparted to us by way of our Constitution in 1901. Frankly, if any kid (or anyone for that matter) can’t understand why the Union Flag is on our flag and doesn’t realise that it not only represents our British origins but the unity of the Australian states and our continuing values, then they’re just plain thick.

Hardly the best thing I’ve ever written, but the odds are he’ll never even read it anyway.

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Their Mates for Head Of State

Posted in Patriotism at 9.57 am by daniel

In a hilarious sign of desperation the Australian Republican Movement (or what’s left of it) have launched a new grand slogan – A Mate For Head of State.

I kid you not, that’s what they’re calling it.

Since 1999, when they lost their republican referendum in what can only be described as a landslide, they’ve ummed and ahhed, come up with a horde of convoluted plans, lost a massive portion of their subscriber base and now, in 2006, it all boils down to a slogan; and a bad one at that.

A mate for head of state? How about;

Their Mate For Head Of State;
Yet Another Politician In Canberra

With politicians backing it that’s all it reads as. Do they really think the promise of another politician or another one of their mates (Steve Vizard or Richard Butler perhaps?) is going to cause a groundswell of support for their cause?

Already it hasn’t if Technorati is anything to go by. After as much publicity as their likely to get, including a nice big column in the Herald Sun, the amount of discussion around the concept amounts to four single entries. One is by Professor David Flint from Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, another from Pharoz (which included a link to the ARM’s Microsoft Paint created poster – a classy job to be sure), a New Zealand Republican site, and another at Obiter Dicta by Steve discussing the language used in a debate on the topic and not than the topic itself.

The great new republican slogan has seen them feature in four blogs to date (I’ll make that five!!). There’s grass root support if I ever I saw it.

While I’m on the topic; the aforementioned column in the Herald Sun was written by Peter van Vliet, head of the Australian Republican Movement in Victoria. It’s a fairly yawnable piece on the etymology of the word ‘mate’ in Australia. And while he tried to use as many evocative terms as he could, such as British Monarchy (the Queen of Australia is a position separate from the British Monarchy Peter), and lied about the fact that becoming a republic wouldn’t mean leaving the Commonwealth (we’d have to get voted back in by the other members Peter), his argument seemingly boiled down to this;

One can hardly imagine walking up to the next in line for the crown, Prince Charles, and saying “G’day mate, howya going?'’

Well I saw a lady do just that when Prince Charles visited Melbourne. But Peter is right, ‘one could hardly imagine walking up to’ Prince Charles and saying “G’day mate�. I couldn’t even imagine an American doing that to their President, or a Briton doing that to Tony Blair. Not because none of these people can be our ‘mates’, our friends – but simply because I was brought up, like 99% of Australians, with manners. It’s out of respect and knowing better that we don’t approach Prince Charles and say “G’day mate�.

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