James Campbell: Albanese and Giles move spells end for Aus Day
Anthony Albanese has just allowed his Immigration Minister Andrew Giles to hammer a giant nail into the coffin of Australia Day.
James Campbell
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Anthony Albanese has just allowed his Immigration Minister Andrew Giles to hammer a giant nail into the coffin of Australia Day.
Giles is presenting his reversal of the previous government’s policy that tried to force councils to hold ceremonies on Australia Day as a nothing more than a housekeeping measure, designed to remove “red tape”.
It’s nothing of the sort.
The effect of this decision will be to fire the starter’s gun on a national-wide left wing race to delegitimize Australia’s national day at local government level.
By law the federal government can’t compel local councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day. But it has the power to withdraw their ability to hold them at all.
To stem a mass campaign by anti-Australia Day activists against councils that hold citizenship ceremonies on 26 January, the previous government warned it would revoke the power to hold them from any council that refused to hold them on that day.
At the time it was reported as an attempt to “punish” Darebin and Yarra, two Greens-controlled councils in the People’s Republic of Victoria, that had voted to dump Australia Day citizenship ceremonies.
The real intention behind the threat, however, was to give councillors in the Rest of Australia the ammunition to help them hold the line against the activists pressuring them to dump anything that celebrates Australia Day.
The policy worked, as aside from Darebin and Yarra every other council in Australia has continued to hold citizenship ceremonies on January, 26.
Councils were also still free of course to hold as many Sorry Day or Invasion Day ceremonies as they liked.
But by the act of holding citizenship ceremonies the federal government was also forcing them to acknowledge – even if tacitly – the legitimacy of Australia Day.
From next year however councils will be free to do what they like.
The immediate effect will be a reopening of hostilities between those who want to dump Australia Day and those who think that with suitable acknowledgment of the experiences of indigenous Australians, it can be saved.
The pressure brought to bear on local councillors will be immense.
Make no mistake, Giles and, presumably, Albanese know exactly what they are doing here.
If they want to step closer to the abolition of Australia Day, why not just tell us?
Instead the press release announcing the reinstatement of Darebin and Yarra’s power to hold citizenship ceremonies made no reference to the reason why the previous government imposed the policy.
Instead Giles has sought to characterise his reversal as a “pragmatic change” driven by “higher operational costs involved in hosting ceremonies on a public holiday.”
He also claimed councils have indicated they would benefit from scheduling ceremonies as part of a “broader program of Australia Day community events”
To which end councils will instead now be able to hold Australian citizenship ceremonies between 23 and 29 January.
Having removed the obligation for them to hold ceremonies on Australia Day, Giles actually had the gall to add “It is the Australian Government’s strong expectation that councils conduct ceremonies on January 26.”
Presumably if they ignore this “strong expectation” the minister will say, this is nothing to do with him, that these councils are merely expressing the views of their local communities and the traffic on the question is all going one way.
You watch, within a few years the debate will be focused on those councils that are “still” holding ceremonies on Australia Day.
Originally published as James Campbell: Albanese and Giles move spells end for Aus Day
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