Akerman: Green-Left and socialist Right allied in witlessness and hatred

Ignorant vandals are attacking Australia’s cultural moorings despite a poll showing most Australians say we should celebrate Australia Day on January 26, writes Piers Akerman.

Ignorant vandals from the Green-Left and the socialist Right are attacking Australia’s cultural moorings.

Whether they are Invasion Day protesters, pro-Palestinian anti-Semites or balaclava-clad white supremacists, they are allied in witlessness and hatred. The morons who took an angle grinder to the ankles of a Captain Cook statue in Melbourne before Australia Day demonstrated just how stupid some of these oafs are. This wilful desecration of a monument to a heroic navigator and commander who had zero connection to the legislated Australia Day celebration is a reminder of the blind loathing these senseless minorities hold for our nation and Western civilisation.

A Roy Morgan opinion poll taken a week ago shows a majority of Australians (68.5 per cent) now say we should keep celebrating Australia Day – up 4.5 per cent from a year ago – and the date should remain at January 26 (58.5 per cent).

Members of the National Socialist Network in North Sydney on Friday. Picture: Tom Parrish

The perpetrators of the statue defilement of a public monument may have been encouraged by attention-seeking, virtue-signalling corporate bosses and sports figures who explicitly oppose the unity symbolised by the Australian flag and the national day celebrating the achievements of our countrymen and women.

Those wielding the electric tool were possibly indoctrinated with their hateful ideology at childcare centres where pre-schoolers are made to recite recently contrived Acknowledgements to Country just as ABC announcers feel it necessary to claim they are reporting from places with Aboriginal names though the cities where they are based did not exist in pre-settlement times.

The Captain Cook Statue in 2022. Picture: Wayne Taylor

The statue on Thursday after being vandalised. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

As the truth-deficient Anthony Albanese failed to learn anything from the big defeat of the Voice to Parliament referendum, why should perpetually angry Marxist-schooled activists of Carlton, Marrickville and other loopy councils care what the nation thinks? From the kindergartens to the highest court, warped ideology with no foundation in historical reality is fostered by academics and lawyers and a mushrooming industry based on grievance. All but a handful of politicians and business figures have practised a policy of appeasement and encouragement similar to their approach to the trade union movement – and with equally damaging results.

A week ago, there was speculation about the possibility the next Governor-General should be an Aboriginal person. But among those named as prospective nominees, there was not one who had opposed the Yes campaign in the referendum, nor were any distinguished by notable achievements benefiting all Australians. Indeed, there was not one without some European heritage and none who hadn’t gained from Western education and modern health care. How could the nation possibly respect anyone unable to acknowledge and honour the existence and contribution to their life of all of their own forebears?

A Roy Morgan opinion poll shows a majority of Australians say we should keep celebrating Australia Day – and the date should remain at January 26. Picture: Stephen Archer

Over the past 80 years, Australia has become one of the most successful migrant nations. Those who came here, particularly after World War II and the Vietnam War, came for a better life, not to be embroiled in the despicable, destructive game of identity politics. The multicultural narrative once embraced by most has been undermined by the woke calls for diversity encouraged by the heads of Cricket Australia (a former Pom), Tennis Australia (a former Irishman), Woolworths (a former South African), the former boss of Qantas (a former Irishman) and a couple of cricketers. Though, as one wag noted, if I wanted advice from someone who chases balls for a living, I’d ask my dog.

Bowing to bullying radical minorities, as the Labor federal government does, is not leadership, and taxpayer-funded organisations such as the ABC, SBS and NITV that promote their woke ideology should have their funding cut.

Angry activists and their political and corporate supporters should be called out as seditious and, were it not for current laws, placed in stocks in public places to ponder on the benefits of the culture they despise.

From coast to coast, Australians joined in their hundreds of thousands on Friday to sing the national anthem and, when not just enjoying themselves, think on their great good fortune to be here on Australia Day.