Andrew Bolt: No Australia Day will satisfy activists determined to imagine Australia as an illegitimate state

Sure we can go ahead and change the date of Australia Day but many activists are against not just the date, but against the idea of this nation, writes Andrew Bolt.

Fine, change the date of Australia Day from January 26. Let race activists — even Cricket Australia — pick any other they prefer.

I’ll happily go along with that if they agree to a deal: to then also celebrate the creation of this great country.

Think that will happen?

Trouble is, too many activists are against not just the date of Australia Day, the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet, but against the very idea of this nation.

That’s why no concession seems to work — not the apologies, the kneeling, the “barefoot circles’, the “welcome to country”, the smoking ceremonies, the acknowledgement of country, or even the $30bn a year of Aboriginal welfare spending.

The goalposts just get moved, and rage and division grow.

Just weeks ago we saw again how this no-win game plays out, when Prime Minister Scott Morrison decided, on his own, to change words of our national anthem from “young and free” to “one and free”.

He said he’d bought the (false) claim “young and free” was offensive because it suggested there was no Aboriginal history before whites arrived.

Thousands of protesters attend the Invasion Day march in 2020.

But have the activists who once refused to sing our “racist” anthem now started to belt it out?

As if. Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe, who identifies as Aboriginal, sneered that changing “one word” would make no real difference, and the head of Sydney’s Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council said we actually needed a whole new anthem to “reflect the true identity of Australia rather than, in my words, a very terrible past”.

Labor frontbencher Linda Burney, who was raised by her great aunt and uncle, of Scottish descent, but identifies as Aboriginal through her father, simply demanded more concessions — such as changing our constitution so people with Aboriginal ancestors get a race-based advisory parliament.

Others now push for more changes to our anthem to get this elusive “unity”. They want a verse sung in one of the 300 or more Aboriginal languages.

But when the Wallabies decided last year to sing the national anthem in two languages before their game against Argentina, that wasn’t enough, either.

Latrell Mitchell, one of the NRL indigenous stars, raged: “When will people understand that changing it to language doesn’t change the meaning!”

An Australian anthem would not represent him in any language, because he was Aboriginal: “Understand what you’re being proud of. I stand for us, our mob!”

MITCHELL, at least, is honest about the real end game for many race activists.

Their problem is not with a few words in the anthem, the Union Jack in our flag, or holding Australia Day on January 26.

Their problem is with history. With Australia itself. With the creation of an essentially European nation on what was Aboriginal land.

This is why Australia Day is denounced as a “day of shame”, too embarrassing now for Cricket Australia to even mention in Mondays’s three Big Bash games.

This is why Tarneen Onus-Williams, an organiser of a big Australia Day protest in Melbourne three years ago, shouted, “F. k Australia” and “I hope it burns to the ground”.

This is why actor and playwright Nakkiah Lui screamed in front of an applauding ABC audience: “F. k whitey! Shit on your colonisation … Burn this place to the ground!”

Tarneen Onus-Williams once said that she hoped Australia “burns to the ground”.

This is why so many of our guilty-white — like writer Bruce Pascoe — prefer to call themselves Aboriginal, even when they have no known Aboriginal ancestors.

This rejection of Australia is now pushed by the ABC, our reckless national broadcaster, which on Sunday groaned: “For those whose history is being denied (on Australia Day), this isn’t a war of words, but an exhausting yearly exercise in defending the pain of their existence … Those are people who cannot cheer for a country that was built on the dispossession and loss of their people.”

No Australia Day will ever satisfy activists determined to imagine Australia as an illegitimate state that makes all Aboriginal Australians feel a constant “pain of their existence”.

What do they imagine will fix things? Evicting all non-Aborigines? A new apartheid, with different voting rights or homelands for different races? Forcing non-Aborigines to constantly apologise for their very presence?

Where is reconciliation if Australia is divided by race?

Right now, “reconciliation” is a fraud we should confront.

So, fine, let’s change the date of Australia Day. But only when activists agree that they, too, will then celebrate with our flag and our national anthem.

That would be a brilliant deal.

I am genuine in wanting unity. Are they?