Piers Akerman: Anthem change is nothing more than virtue signalling
It is going to take a lot more than a single word change in the national anthem to unite Australians, writes Piers Akerman.
Opinion
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Despite the best wishes of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and state premiers, it will take a lot more than a single word change in the national anthem to unite Australians.
The Governor-General’s approval of the change to the line “for we are young and free” to “we are one and free” two days ago was led by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
Was there a clamour from the crowd for this change? Were there masses singing or chanting in front of the national parliament, or even the state parliaments? Not that anyone noticed, that’s for sure.
The substitution of one word for another is nothing but another virtue signalling bow to the politically correct identity politics that has generated a contemptible disregard for history from a handful of anarchic cultists globally, and given further impetus to those who wish to divide Australia into a nation of tribes.
The objection to the line “for we are young and free” seems to have come from misguided people who choose to think that there was an Australian nation or there were nations on this continent before January 1, 1901.
They are wrong. Australia came into legal existence on that date, when British Parliament passed legislation enabling the six Australian colonies to collectively govern in their own right as the Commonwealth of Australia.
At the time, it was truly an extraordinary achievement and the unity it foreshadowed held up until last year when individual premiers took it upon themselves to breach the Constitutional ban on free flow of citizens across state borders.
As a nation we should be proud of our record in almost every field, despite the false narrative being promoted by the ABC and other Leftist organisations that the country represents no more than a society dominated by aged white males.
We should be celebrating the early introduction of votes for women and what was, until the intervention of the Whitlam government, a comparatively benign approach to what was a relatively tiny percentage of Indigenous Australians in the population. That percentage has mushroomed since it became fashionable and, for many, quite profitable, to lay claim to Indigenous heritage without fear of challenge.
Self-proclaimed Indigenous Australians and so-called Indigenous organisations are now at the front of the queue for government jobs and prized by businesses anxious to pander to those who worship diversity ahead of their duty to shareholders.
The brave handful of Indigenous Australians who proudly state their preference to be known as Australians first and foremost and have their heritage treated as a private and personal matter, as do the overwhelming majority of other Australians whose forebears made their homes here and contributed to the success of the country, are shamefully derided by those seeking to politicise identity.
There is now a dangerous emotional and irrational attachment to all things touched with a hint of Aboriginality, led by the High Court with its truly bizarre finding that individuals who possess an Aboriginal forebear must retain their citizenship no matter where they are born or choose to live.
In another matter, the ABC’s embrace of the dubious claims made by the fantasist Bruce Pascoe about Indigenous culture, totally lacking in any substantive support from any reputable anthropologist or historian, is symptomatic of the problem.
Now heralded as admirable custodians of the land and paragons of civility, it would seem that the extinction of the continent’s unique megafauna occurred under their stewardship, and that infanticide and geronticide were widely practised while cannibalism was not uncommon.
Western civilisation, which had moved on considerably from the Stone Age by the time of European settlement here, generally offered a far safer and more secure future for Indigenous Australians and in particular women and children.
As admirable as the ability to exist in the harsh desert may be, those who lived in the arid interior generally did so because other bands would pursue and kill them if they tried to move to more hospitable hunting grounds.
By all means sing out loudly “we are one and free” but as one Indigenous Australian frequently provided with the ABC’s megaphone predictably insisted on Friday: “It doesn’t go far enough”.
What happened to “I am, you are, we are Australians”?
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