Australia’s great political symbolists, The Fake Greens, are at it again:
Putting the case for making changing the date of Australia Day one of the Greens’ top priorities in 2018, Senator Di Natale said the 26th of January represented pain and suffering for First Australians.
“It’s a day that represents an act of dispossession, an act of theft,” Senator Di Natale said.
“It’s a day that represents the beginning of an ongoing genocide, the slaughter of so many Aboriginal people.
“It’s a day that represents families being torn apart, children being taken away from their parents, and as those of us who want Australia Day to be a day when we come together, a day that unites the nation, it’s so important that we choose a day that represents a day that acknowledges our past and looks towards a better future.
“We need to acknowledge that there are people who see January 26 as a day that represents pain and suffering, the ongoing legacy of which can be felt today.”
Senator Di Natale said he was optimistic that momentum would build to change the date.
“It might not be this year, it might not be next year, but I’m very confident that ultimately we will see Australia Day, the date changed, and we will see celebrations,” he said.
But let’s not forget the equally idiotic response of the Government:
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has hit back at calls from Greens leader Richard Di Natale to change the date of Australia Day, declaring it a day for ‘all Australians’.
Mr Turnbull further declared the day as one to unite the country in a video he posted to Twitter, after the Greens openly advocated for change.
“I’m disappointed by those who want to change the date of Australia Day … seeking to take a day that unites Australia and Australians and turn it into one that will divide us,” Mr Turnbull said in the video on Monday.
“We recognise that the history of European settlement here in Australia has been complex and tragic for indigenous Australians … Australia Day is a day to come together.”
Mt Turnbull’s reaction mirrored those of Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and former prime minister Tony Abbott in deriding Senator Di Natale.
Mr Turnbull’s reaction came after Liberal frontencher Alex Hawke accused Di Natale and the Greens of trying to “impose a far-left agenda on everyday Australians.”
The Greens do not have a “far-left agenda”. They are not Left at all. They are the identity politicians of the Right: globalist, liberal and market-oriented. They have virtually no class consciousness beyond a fixation with minority group fairness. Their major economic platform is to expand Australia’s mass immigration model. This goes hand-in-glove with the Business Council of Australia, and will explicitly crush wages, support capital and destroy the environment.
The Government is the pre-modern Right versus The Greens post-modern Right, played over and again in culture wars as real policy and power are unchanged.
And that brings me to the nub of the Australia Day issue. There was a time I would have supported a move away from Invasion Day. I’m all for Reconciliation. I’d happily sign an treaty tomorrow, boost land rights and introduce mandatory indigenous representation to the parliament. I’d give it much higher national priority.
But, like the Australian Republic, shifting Australia Day no longer makes sense to the national interest given existential challenges confronting the nation will be intensified by such symbolic moves away from our Anglospheric roots.
The forces bearing down on Australia over the next decades are immense and omnipresent from one clearly identifiable source: China. Blind Freddy can see that Chinese Communist Party influence within and without Australia is going to draw into question everything that we have inherited from our Anglo forebears. Our democracy, liberalism, market system, strategic position, prosperity, familial constructs and very identity. The last thing that we need in preparation for this challenge is to distance ourselves from the cultures and values that best resist it.
This may seem an esoteric point. It’s certainly no part of the national discourse. And one could fairly argue that the politics of symbolism are pretty marginal anyway. But The Fake Greens’ value system has no way of addressing any of these issues. Their post-modern doctrine does not understand power beyond its impacts on their chosen sub-set of linguistically isolated losers. In the traditional terms of the Left, The Fake Greens are all super structure and no base; in league with the pre-modern Right which would happily sell Australia to the highest bidder. The culture war between both is all circuses and no bread.
Australia Day should not be moved. Forget the Australian Republic. We need instead to be talking about how to preserve the system that supports the Australian way of life every day.
