Australia Day

In three days the whole Labor Caucus is due in Canberra to break out the white boards and textas and brainstorm some policy ideas for the year, then share a sausage sizzle at The Lodge. The MPs who’ve been summoned would be forgiven for demanding one of the areas up for discussion should be how the Prime Minister intends to turn around what’s been a terrible start to the year.

They’d be well within their rights to say, actually we’re not the problem Prime Minister. In the last week since Julia Gillard’s office set off one of the ugliest events in recent political history, the PM’s operation appears to be in a constant state of SNAFU.

Let’s not relive the Tony Hodges affair, except to say it has not been successfully put to bed by the resignation of the meddling media adviser. Questions still remain about who in Gillard’s office knew what, and when. At best it seems some of her most senior staff kept Gillard in the dark about Hodges’ confession to the fateful phone call overnight and well into the next day.

Continue reading "A comedy of errors that’s not very funny" »

The two biggest stuff-ups of the political year to date have said little about the conduct of our politicians and everything about the judgment of the advisors they employ. Given that 2012 is not yet five weeks old, these two remarkably stupid episodes confirm the extent to which the black art of media management has become an unchecked cancer on modern politics.

The irony is that in both cases the very people who were hired to make life easier for our politicians, ostensibly with their capacity for crisis management and flair for finessing a message, have in one case created the crisis and in the other mangled the message.

This should not be of interest solely to political tragics and Canberra insiders. The punchline to the joke is that the mugs who are footing the bill are, of course, the taxpayers, who over the past two decades have funded an ever-increasing number of spin doctors, speech writers and media advisors for politicians of every hue at both the state and federal level.

Continue reading "First, let’s sack all the staffers" »

As murky details continue to emerge about the Australia Day ‘riot’, so do the murky conspiracy theories. In reaction to that shocking photo of a ruffled Prime Minister, people are positing grassy knolls on the lawns of Parliament House, eager to think that the whole debacle was a plot.

The startling picture of Julia Gillard being dragged along with furrowed brow was disturbing enough that people immediately wanted to find someone to blame, to find a greater lesson in the chaos. To convince themselves that it was ALL SOMEONE’S FAULT. Maybe a set up. The Opposition wants an investigation and to debate a no-confidence motion. People have called for the embassy to go, for Australia Day to be moved, for arrests to be made.  Somebody must be made to pay!

It’s time to take the ranty pants off, fold them neatly and leave them on a chair in the corner for when they’re really needed.

Continue reading "Blame no one – and everyone – for the Oz Day debacle" »

The Australia Day event at The Lobby in Canberra has become all about Tony Hodges, Kim Sattler, Barbara Shaw, Michael Anderson, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, the police and a bunch of idiots who saw fit to hijack the day. It wasn’t supposed to be about them.

Our political leaders had gathered at the restaurant to bestow the new National Emergency Medal on 26 Australians who, paid or unpaid, did extraordinary work during the Victorian Bushfires and Queensland floods.

In her speech before the event was hijacked by an appalling set of bad decisions the Prime Minister said: “Today we award these Medals to a group of Australians who inspired us with their courage and service during two of the most devastating summers of natural disaster Australia has ever witnessed: the Victorian bushfires of 2009 and the Queensland floods and cyclone of December 2010 and January 2011.”

Continue reading "This is who Thursday’s event was supposed to be about" »

AND, action! A senior cabinet minister generally regarded as among the more effective, uses a major speech on Australia Day-eve to channel an American president without acknowledging it. Worse, it wasn’t even an actual president but a fictional one.

On the same day, a few hundred metres up the hill, the 2012 Australian of the year is unveiled as an A-list Hollywood actor, Geoffrey Rush. Rush, a gifted pretender with an expressive face, promptly weighs in to some of the more divisive political debates in this country hinting at the moral failure of both sides of politics to recognise the human courage of asylum seekers, the failure to progress gay marriage equality, and to deliver enough on climate change.

Later he defends his A-list compatriot Cate Blanchett who had been lambasted for taking part in an advertising campaign on carbon driven global warming. OK as movie plots go this is bit lame but it certainly seems fanciful enough. Besides, it has the advantage of being “based on a true story” and all that. It even has some real actors in it.

Continue reading "The saying goes, politics is showbusiness for ugly people" »

The world is ruled by extroverts. The loudest voices, unsurprisingly, are often the only ones we hear.

The Australia Day honours are meant to pay tribute to the unsung heroes, thereby making them sung.

While the most attention is too often given to the already well-sung - celebrities, the actors and the sportspeople who make the list - there are also the local heroes, the young and the senior Australians.

Continue reading "Singing the praises of the unsung heroes" »

The “Australian of the Year” awards were presented last night, but today the focus for those musically-inclined is on metaphorical silverware.

The “Triple J Hottest 100” countdown is touted as the “largest public music poll in the world”, and today marks the 22nd instalment of the fan-voted list.

Inclusion in the best ton of songs of the year is highly coveted, and a top ten berth is an indisputable endorsement of a track’s timbre.

Continue reading "Rocking like an Aussie: Our top ten songs of 2011" »

Around Australia today as the snags sizzle and the beers flow cold and bitter, people will also be becoming Australian citizens.

The Government says a bunch of boring questions plus a bit of pomp and ceremony allow someone to declare ‘I am Australian’. Which is a great thing, don’t get us wrong. We just thought the questions are probably due for a revamp. So here’s our Alternative Australian Citizenship Test.

Answers are in! Yet-to-be-confirmed prize at this stage goes to S.L because he looks like he needs some cheering up!

Continue reading "How Australian are you? Take our test…" »

In the past few days, we have had a few prominent and highly regarded individuals coming out to voice their concerns about racism in Australia. They say it is very much alive and kicking.

Dr Charles Teo, a very respected neuro-surgeon who has saved many lives, said that racism is still “very much alive in Australia”. Then came Fayia Lahai, a refugee from Sierra Leone in West Africa, who also agreed with Dr Teo’s assessment that Australia has a racism problem.

Mr Fayia Lahai was recently appointed to a new body called People of Australia Ambassadors – a body that will give advice to the Government and to the Australian Multicultural Council. Mr Lahai arrived in Tasmania in 2006.

Continue reading "Change the topic, Australia Day is not about racism" »

As Australia Day descends, the great Aussie annual introspection starts. We ask questions about who we are as a nation, how does our history stack up, where are we heading and what our values are. We even have debates about whether we should have Australia Day at all.

Of course, having a bit of a national conversation with ourselves isn’t a bad thing. It’s healthy to ask questions. And there can be some spinoffs. A bit of navel gazing by Australians lead to Dr Karl Kruszelnicki‘s mini-thesis and why belly button fluff is always blue (true blue that is, or is it green, Karl?).

But as healthy as questioning is, it is important to know to have a good amount of evidence on side to really get a handle on things.

Continue reading "Five of the biggest, fattest myths about Australia" »

Our national day has become somewhat of a chance to navel gaze. To profoundly ponder who we were, who we are, and who we want to be. To pick apart the metaphysical fluff of our nationhood.

For some it’s a day of nationalistic pride, of waving flags Made in China and trying to remember all the words to the national anthem.  For some it’s Invasion Day, the anniversary of the First Fleet’s arrival a matter for sorrow, not beer. Or it’s all about the cricket.

But there’s a fair bunch of us for whom it’s a public holiday, a day to kick back in the sun, open a cold drink a little early,  and catch up with friends and family.

Continue reading "Fire up the barbie, it’s Ostraya Day!" »

So a crack commando unit of researchers from the University of Western Australia has found that people who place Australian flags on their cars are more likely to express racist attitudes than people who don’t.

The team of researchers discovered this through a comprehensive census of a vast crowd of 102 car-flag-bearing Austrayans havin’ a rip-roarin’ Oz Day barbie in Perth last year. It’s an incredibly groundbreaking and revealing set of data.

Except for the fact it’s a load of codswallop. And we’ve beaten them to the punch, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Continue reading "Flying the flag for lazy gotcha polling" »

In one of his inspired monologues some years ago the great Sam Kekovich set his mind to the question of Australian racism. “I’m no racist,” Slammin’ Sam thundered. “In fact some of my best friends should be sent back to where they came from.”

Sam’s hilarious analysis was born out last week when the extraordinarily gifted Australian neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo made the fairly unremarkable observation that some Australians were prone to displays of prejudice.

Teo added the deadly accurate footnote that the peculiar characteristic of Australian racism was that the moment anyone noted its existence, even with the stated qualifier that it only involved a minority, they were howled down. As if to prove his point, Teo was immediately smashed up by readers of websites throughout the land as a knocker, a hand-wringer, a whinger who should probably bugger off back to wherever he came from.

Continue reading "Charlie Teo and the race to shut down important debate" »

Christmas is long gone, New Year is a distant memory, the tennis is on TV and the summer break that saves the sanity of so many Australians is almost over. As usual in the lead up to Australia Day it’s time debate the health of the nation: where we stand internationally, and the slippery issue of our national identity.

I don’t think there are many countries that spend so much time trying to define exactly what they stand for.

While navel-gazing isn’t always healthy, one of the reasons for this debate is that we do not feel that our national identity is fixed, or tied to events of the past, but something that is always changing and improving.

Continue reading "Multiculturalism. It’s as Aussie as a lamb roast" »

Okay, so Australians love meat. We also love BBQs and Australia Day. Mostly because it means we don’t have to go to work. But could this be the worst advertisement for meat you have ever seen?

Or just a very clever way of getting us to think about what we’re slapping on the BBQ on January 26th?

We’re talking about the Sam Kekovic/ v Melissa Tkautz v Justice Crew Australia Day 2012 video. If you haven’t seen it yet, then watch it up the top here.

Continue reading "What won’t we do in the name of BBQ?" »

When UK expat and young mum Jessica Green stood up at her Australian citizenship ceremony at Sydney’s Petersham Town Hall a few weeks ago to sing the national anthem, something quite bizarre happened.

It didn’t have anything to do with her singing (although she says she hates singing). A few “suggested videos” popped up on the big screen near the new Aussie citizens when the YouTube clip playing the national anthem finished. One of which was the Nazi national anthem.

“Everyone was staring at it, like: are you serious?” Jessica laughs. “That was slightly awkward.”

Otherwise, she says, it was a really nice ceremony. People of all backgrounds, many dressed in green and gold and some draped in the Australian flag, pledged their allegiance to Australia. In ceremonies like this year-round, people who have successfully completed the mountains of paperwork and passed the test required to become a citizen take an oath of loyalty to Australia. And now a prominent Gillard Government minister has floated the idea of getting kids to take the same pledge of citizenship at school.

Continue reading "Should we have a pledge of allegiance at schools?" »

When the good ship Generation One stormed home to victory on Sydney Harbour in the Australia Day Ferrython it was a quietly dignified affair.

A bunch of Aboriginal boys to my left banged on the hull and cheered uncontrollably, I gave the black power salute while wearing a T-shirt on my head and to my right the former Upper House President Meredith Burgmann gave the second place-getters the finger.

And just to add to the solemn gravitas the whole boat was fitted out to look like a giant purple whale.

Continue reading "GenOne: Everyone’s a winner, baby" »

If you haven’t heard the news, or the outrage, legendary British chat show host Sir Michael Parkinson yesterday became the first non-Australian to deliver the Australia Day address. Here’s his speech.

With due sheepishness, The Punch team admit we didn’t actually know there was such a thing as the Australia Day Address. But apparently it’s been a platform for interesting and prominent Australians for 14 years until clearly, there were no interesting or prominent Australians left. So we got Parky. Who, to be fair, is both an interesting and prominent Pom (oh, and he called himself a Pom in his speech, so don’t anyone complain about the choice of word.)

Parky didn’t exactly drop any bombshells. In post-speech interviews he did suggest we should sever ties with the monarchy when the queen hangs up her white gloves, but surely, the last thing anyone needs today is a debate on republic vs monarchy. There was, however, one interesting point he touched upon very briefly: our so-called classless society.

Continue reading "Is classlessness the great Australian myth?" »

What do you think happened on Australia Day?

If you said it’s the day the First Fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour you would be right.  But a few other things happened on this day as well.

In 1808 the Rum Rebellion occurred.  In 1950 India became a republic.  In 1998 President Clinton denied having “sexual relations with that woman”.

Continue reading "This Australia Day, let us remember" »

I love Australia Day. I love celebrating what this country is all about. But you know what I hate about Australia Day?

I hate blonde-haired, blue-eyed yobbos prancing about in the Australian flag who intimidate people who don’t look like them.

I hate the drunk bloke who told me in Chinatown the other night that I had the personality of a rubber glove (fair enough, that’s his view) but then turns to my Sri Lankan-born son-in-law and says the problem with this country is “the coloureds”.

Continue reading "What I hate about Australia Day" »

Around this time last year, a bouncer at a Brisbane nightclub was furious - he’d lost his favourite shirt.

As I dug through my wallet to find my driver’s licence and mentally rehearsed my usual lie (“How many have you had?” – “Just a couple”), he told me he had sifted through every drawer and looked under every seat in his Commodore.

“Oh yeah it’s always the last place you look or something,” I mumbled as I pulled out a Target gift card.

Then he dropped this little pearl: “Yeah it’s pissing me off ‘cause it’s almost Aussie Day and I won’t be able to tell ‘em ‘we grew here, you flew here’.”

Continue reading "Grew here, flew here… what matters is what you DO here" »

What kind of shape is Australian English in? Is it in top nick, crackerjack, tickety-boo, both beaut and bonza? Or is it showing signs of being cactus, knackered, buggered, stuffed, rooted, possibly even up shit creek, as it succumbs to the continuously rising tide of social media slang, management jargon and Americanisms?

It augurs well for the idiom that anyone who has lived in Orstraya for more than six months would have understood every word in the above three sentences.

But at a time when footy coaches urge their stars to be more accountable, when kids are busy LOL-ing and ROTFLMFAO-ing on Facebook, or declaring on Twitter that the latest Hollywood blockbuster is an “epic fail”, when every seven-year-old girl with a Singstar would rather sound like Miley Cyrus than Missy Higgins, pessimists could be forgiven for thinking that Australian English is in more trouble than the early settlers.

Continue reading "Cactus or crackerjack? The state of Australian English" »

Notwithstanding the political sensitivities around the day, January 26 should be a time to consider where we’ve come from, what we’ve been through and who we are today.

So what have we got?

You’ll hear about larrikinism, but no one is 100 per cent sure what it means. And just like mateship, let’s face it: it’s a little blokey.

Continue reading "Fair go: a national character we can be proud of" »

Ray Martin has suffered an uncharacteristic lack of judgment - and possibly also taste - in using our most important national day to reignite debate over the Australian flag.

In doing so he has damaged the republican cause, by exposing himself and the broader republican movement to accusations of opportunitism and grand-standing.

Don’t get me wrong - I don’t love our flag, for the simple reason that it’s got another country’s flag plastered all over it. As a modern and independent and multicultural nation it is a total anachronism that one-quarter of our national ensign is occupied by the Union Jack, regardless of the (generally positive) role of Britain in settling and colonising our nation.

Continue reading "Why Ray was wrong to trash the flag on ANZAC Day" »

Tony Abbott’s incendiary comments about immigration could ignite an Australia Day tinderbox.

Speaking last week at an Australia Day Council dinner, the federal opposition leader used language reminiscent of the darkest days of the Howard regime.

‘‘The inescapable minimum that we insist upon is obedience to the law,’’ he said.

Continue reading "Abbott’s message to migrants too incendiary by half" »

I am concerned at the logic that because some jerks are treating Australia Day the way Liz Taylor treated the institution of marriage that we should get rid of the celebration altogether.

The structures of our society are no better or worse because of actions of a few.  Trend is not established by a few data points.

Global warming is not off because of a cold snap in the UK. The monarchy is no more appropriate for Australia because Will seems like a great bloke. And our flag is no more or less appropriate because some people (mis)use it.

Continue reading "Barbecuing zucchini is not un-Australian" »

Pride in Australia comes easily to Australians.  There’s nothing forced or contrived about the positive feelings we all have for our sun-drenched land or its egalitarian values when thoughts turn to Australia Day every January.

Perhaps it comes a little too easily.  Australia Day produces an almost Pavlovian reaction in most of us: instinctive, familiar, warm, but also static and unchanging. 

It’s an emotional response, rather like our feelings toward Christmas – we feel before we think. But the things we celebrate on Australia Day are very unlike those we celebrate at Christmas: the national values we celebrate are dynamic, changing, and sometimes confronting. 

Continue reading "National pride should not preclude hard conversations" »

After a week of fiery debate that covered everything from our right to a national holiday and whether we should be a republic to what we’d like on our flag we can be sure of one thing: we can’t agree on any of it.

Scroll down to see a collection of twenty or so comments from Punch readers on all of these contentious topics. But whatever you end up doing today we hope you’ll stay safe and have fun.

Continue reading "All things Australian according to Punch readers" »

As our annual obsession with national identity reaches its peak, after weeks of debate into the meaning of red meat, high carb beverages and the quaint French phrase ‘oi, oi, oi’, here is one more idea to think about.

On Australia Day 1999 the Coalition Government introduced the reaffirmation ceremony to mark 50 years of Australian Citizenship. It’s a pretty simple idea where natural born Australians join with those who are taking up citizenship for the first time to recite the pledge together:

“As an Australian citizen, I affirm my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I uphold and obey.”

Continue reading "It’s time we took our own pledge of allegiance" »

As we head towards yet another Australia Day, a lot is being raised and debated about how we see ourselves as a nation, as a people, and as a part of a global community. Tensions have arisen of late regarding topics of border security and the safety of foreigners on our shores.

But perhaps, most intriguingly, as an aside to these debates, there has been a strong suggestion that the Bogan identity, which has plagued Australians for decades, is no longer being worn as a badge of honour, but rather, and rightfully, as one of shame.

Could we finally be seeing the end to our redneck wonderland? Are Australians favouring intellect over yobbism, manners over crassness, compassion over blind patriotism? When articulated in these straightforward binaries, one can only wonder - why it has taken so long?

Continue reading "Alas poor bogan I knew him well" »

A few days ago on this website, editor David Penberthy wrote to explain why, as he put it, “Australia Day is rubbish”. Well, not to come across all Sam Kekovich, but I reckon he’s full of it.

According to Penberthy, this annual celebration - which nicely bookends a silly season that begins with the running of the Melbourne Cup - is a shallow glorification of all that’s wrong with this country, “a half-witted contest to see how much meat you can eat and how much grog you can sink.”

As if there’s anything wrong with that.

The fact is that no free country spends its national day navel gazing. Instead, they hook on to some element of their individual creation story and use it as an excuse for a piss-up.

Continue reading "We can’t spend our national day bemoaning our history" »

DAVID Penberthy is spot on with his piece on Australia Day - and I’m not saying that because I’m some boss-schmoozing suck up or because I’m protecting some fat paycheck (I’m seriously not).

The day’s been bastardised by bogans and for a while now has been descending into a celebration of banal racism.

But Penbo does not go far enough when he says we need to transform the day into a celebration of belonging to this country.

Continue reading "Our national flag has been highjacked by hillbillies" »

AS soon as I can, probably within a couple of years, I hope to take the oath of Australian citizenship. It’s something I take seriously, not least because of the relief of finally being able to cast a vote on who gets to spend my taxes. But it will also place me in the naggingly uncomfortable position of being a citizen of a country whose head of state comes from a family with a long-standing tradition of doing cruel and unusual things to Irish people.

I use the word “naggingly” quite deliberately because despite my qualms about the British royals’ connections with lopping off Irish people’s heads and trying to wring the life out of Ireland’s language and sporting traditions, for some time I have been developing an increasing admiration for the Windsors. On balance I’m looking forward to having some ownership over the monarchy.

Prince William’s arrival this week compounds it. I’ve decided I’m jealous. I have crown envy.

Continue reading "Will could save the monarchy" »

They take on the privileges of Australian citizenship with little real knowledge of, or attachment to, our key values and institutions.

I’m not talking about migrants, who at least have to pass a minimum test for citizenship.

I’m talking about young Australians who are ‘born’ into citizenship and who receive the full privileges of a citizen on their eighteenth birthday.

Continue reading "Let’s stop taking our citizenship for granted" »

It’s the kind of thing that would get you pelted with stones in the town square in less civilised countries. So as a celebration of our freedoms I’ll say it. Australia Day is a load of rubbish.

And it is increasingly celebrating the worst aspects of our national character, where rather than being a day for thoughtful reflection on our history and our values, it’s starting to look more a half-witted contest to see how much meat you can eat and how much grog you can sink.

This isn’t a wowser’s warning against barbecues and beer. Far from it. I’m a keen supporter of binge-drinking, I’ve never met a meat product I didn’t adore, and I think the likes of NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione and federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon should quit their day jobs and seek formal employment as nannies, such is their enthusiasm for treating adults like babies and criminalising fun.

Continue reading "Why Australia Day is rubbish" »

This article was written for The Australian ahead of Australia Day last year and is reprinted here.

MICK Dodson invites us - civilly and without a trace of anger - to open a conversation about January 26. It’s an indigenous perspective one can grasp immediately.

Aborigines lived here undisturbed for maybe 60,000 years, until one particular January 26 began their dispossession, and the lesser-known story of their resistance. It has always been my view, though, that we can make this part of the commemoration. After all Anzac Day recalls a tragedy, yet is part of our big story. And we remember it with respect, nonetheless.

Why is January 26 worth celebrating? There are many reasons.

Continue reading "January 26 the only day to celebrate, understand, mourn" »

That’s it. We’ve arrived at what is officially termed the Dizzy Limit.

NSW Police, warming to their recent self-appointment as a freelance social policy think tank, trustee of public morality and holy rolling temperance society, have announced that Australia Day should be as dry as the Nullarbor Plain. Starting now.

They have reasonable cause. Shockingly, some people treat such occasions as an opportunity to get on the squirt and a small minority of those consequently get stupid and some proportion of those play up and a fraction of those become violent and commit felonies.

Continue reading "Sorry officer, but I’m drinking for Australia" »