Michael McGuire: What ever happened to proper debate?

Right-wingers are fond of freedom of speech, until they disagree. Nowhere is that more evident than in the Australia Day debate, when anyone who wants change is decried as a loony bleeding-heart, writes Michael McGuire.

What a good few weeks it’s been for the good folk who live in the House of the Perpetually Outraged.

These are indeed the salad days for those who do enjoy being upset by the trivial and the silly. Or by ideas and discussion. Or even the thought of it.

There has been the now annual attempt to close down any discussion about changing the date of Australia Day. Then there was the hurt feelings of all those poor, sensitive blokes who managed to upset themselves by watching an ad for razor blades. You would have to hope their skin is not as sensitive as their feelings, otherwise shaving would be something of a nightmare.

Then there’s those upset by the fact of climate change. Or those who take exception to immigration. Or those who demand more respect for their religion, while simultaneously moaning that indigenous people would rather Uluru wasn’t climbed.

RELATED: An Australia Day date we can all agree on

Then there was temporary Prime Minister Scott Morrison (he will either be replaced by Bill Shorten or one of his Cabinet colleagues soon enough) firing another popgun in the general direction of the culture wars by demanding councils only hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day.

Laughably, Morrison claimed he was doing this because some councils were “playing politics” with Australia Day. Politicising Australia Day and deciding what is and what isn’t Australian behaviour has become something of a specialty of the modern Liberal Party.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison claimed he was doing this because some councils were “playing politics” with Australia Day. Picture: Brendan Radke

Morrison then declared himself a fashion expert and declared board shorts and thongs were out of order at citizenship ceremonies. Thereby, achieving the perfect political moment of inventing and immediately solving a problem no one knew ever existed.

Before declaring himself the prime minister of “standards’’ (loyalty not being a standard presumably) he also announced yesterday almost $50 million in funding to mark the 250th anniversary of the landing of Lieutenant James Cook at Botany Bay on April 29, 1770. You do have to wonder why it’s being announced now and not in a few months time.

Some of the money will go towards a replica HMB Endeavour circumnavigating Australia, something, despite the PM’s claim yesterday, that Cook never managed.

RELATED: This is how to have an Australia Day debate

But the response to Australia Day is emblematic of a more serious problem. The lack of appetite for proper debate. The desire to close down discussion by painting anyone opposed to the January 26 date as some kind of loony left, bleeding heart.

Again, those keenest on shutting down debate are almost always the same people who love a whinge and a whine that somehow their own freedom of speech is being denied in some fashion.

Those keenest on shutting down the Australia Day debate are almost always the same people who whinge that somehow their freedom of speech is being denied. Picture: supplied

An eastern states columnist actually (this is not made up) started a column with “Australia is the greatest country on earth. So can somebody tell me why are we contemplating changing the traditional date we use to celebrate what is so wonderful about living in this country?”

We can all love Australia without feeling so insecure we have to claim it as the “greatest” country in the world. And, anyway, it’s not overly traditional. It’s only been a national public holiday since 1994. Australia Day is then the Millennials, or maybe even Generation Z, of public holidays. The Adelaide Crows are more of a historical artefact than Australia Day.

RELATED: A reason to change the date of Australia Day

It’s January 26 at the moment because that’s when Arthur Philip arrived to start up the colony of New South Wales. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination, empathy or common courtesy to understand that indigenous people might have a problem with that date. It would be a little like Australians being asked to celebrate Japanese Day if we’d lost World War II and been colonised by the victors.

Anyway, what other country celebrates its national day as the date of its colonisation? Not New Zealand, not Canada, not the United States. The United Kingdom doesn’t even have a national day.

Although, perhaps the most depressing apart of the entire argument is that in 12 months we will have to do it all over again.

Michael McGuire is a writer for the Adelaide Advertiser.

@mcguiremi