I was sitting at the bar in a Sydney hotel and the fellow next to me said, “I heard that some green bloke said the Australian flag was a symbol of lingering pain and then his green lady friend said that it represented dispossession, massacre and genocide. I mean this sounds like treason to me. If they’re not proud to be Australian, why don’t they leave?”
“Well”, I said, “the situation is made worse by the fact that these two people are Members of the Australian Parliament and in taking office they made an oath or affirmation ‘to be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her heirs and successors according to the law – so help me God’. So, you’re right, 70 years ago they would have been seen as traitors. At the very least, they are hypocrites to have pledged allegiance to the Queen but denigrate our flag and country.”
“This women,” the fellow continued, “said that she was ‘truth telling and the truth hurts.”
“Yes, I heard that myself. But her words reminded me of that famous scene in the film A Few Good Men where Jack Nicolson yells at Tom Cruise with ‘You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth’. The green woman seems to think the Australian flag has been around for 240 years and that British settlement in Australia was something of an invasion that caused devastation,” I said. “Nothing is further from the truth.”
“I was reading about the Federation of Australia in the new book What a Capital Idea – Australia 1770-1901 [ https://reynoldlearning.com/australian-history/ ] and the British made settlements in Australia according to international law. In the Letters Patent from King George III to Captain Arthur Phillip – also known as his Commission, the King charges Phillip to care for the ‘natives’ and states ‘And if any of Our Subjects shall wantonly destroy them, or give them any unnecessary Interruption in the exercise of their several occupations. It is our Will and Pleasure that you do cause such offenders to be brought to punishment according to the degree of the Offence.’ That is, it was a crime punishable by death to murder anyone, including an indigenous person”, I said.
“These green people seem to me to be anarchists,” I said, “just out to whinge about anything with no regard to history, our pride in being a new nation, or the incredible future that lies before us. The truth, they want the truth? Well, here’s a few bits of truth:
The Australian flag hasn’t been around for 240 years. It was designed in the 1850s in Tasmania and it was Inglis Clark, from Tasmania, who proposed that it become the Commonwealth of Australia flag in the 1890s. He also proposed the name for the new nation as ‘Commonwealth of Australia’. To say you don’t respect the Australian flag is to say you don’t respect the Commonwealth of Australia.
Australia became a federation of states (colonies) in 1900 with the passage of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act of 1900 by the British Parliament. The Australian flag does not represent the history of Australia, or its governments, before 1900.
When the colonies held referendums on the issue of federation, Aboriginal (Indigenous) people voted in those referendums along with everyone else.
All the people living in Australia from 1788 to 1949 were British subjects. It was in 1949 – January 26, 1949, with the passage of the Nationality and Citizen Act, in Australia, that we became Australian citizens.
Australia Day – January 26, of each year marks the day we declared to world our independence as a nation with proclaiming national citizenship.”
“My goodness, I didn’t know all that,” said the fellow, “and I am darn sure those green people are a sandwich short of a picnic.”
“Well, maybe you could just ‘tell ‘em they’re dreamin’. But, yes, we are getting told a load of myths these days with people making things up about our history to suit their political agendas.
Still, it doesn’t hurt to look for some ‘truth’, or at least get some facts straight, and pick up a copy of What a Capital Idea. You’re going to love it. There is also some other posts to look at on Facebook.”
symbol of lingering pain and then his green lady friend said that it represented dispossession, massacre and genocide. I mean this sounds like treason to me. If they’re not proud to be Australian, why don’t they leave?”
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