Piers Akerman: Margaret Court drama kicks off tedious protests early
A small-time radio announcer might think he is a hero for breaking the Margaret Court story but all he’s done is give the rent-a-protest crowd another excuse, writes Piers Akerman.
Opinion
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The usual tedious protests against Australia Day began earlier than usual – though they’ve become as meaningless as the hot cross buns which appear on Boxing Day – totally removed from any tradition or symbolism.
The most recent display of public outrage came from little-known Melbourne radio talk show host Justin Smith, who was tipped off that Australian tennis great Margaret Court was to receive an honour in the Australia Day list.
Smith, in a smarmy excuse, claims he didn’t breach the widely observed media embargo but was “leaked” the information.
He is obviously no Bernstein or Woodward because the honours lists are sent around to newsrooms across the nation to permit those working this weekend to prepare profiles of the award winners to present to their audiences in a co-ordinated release on January 26.
If Smith thinks he managed to pull off some journalistic coup, he needs to think again. His scoop couldn’t hold ice cream in Antarctica. What he was seeking to do was fan flickers of outrage from the always glowing embers of offence that the offenderati carry with them into a bushfire of public anger.
But the wider Australian public is now awake to the woke folk and their attempts to inflame outrage where really none exists.
Just look at the reception the fools running Cricket Australia received when they bowed to minority humbug and dropped Australia Day from the Big Bash games scheduled for Tuesday and simply describes them as January 26 games.
According to Cricket Australia it has a First Nations advisory committee which recommended dropping Australia Day and it acted on that advice.
The real question is why does Cricket Australia, or any other body (public or private) need a First Nations advisory committee when they obsequiously mimic the Marxist US Black Lives Matter playbook?
Early on, some Aboriginals showed they were exceptionally good at cricket and played to great acclaim in England, but it’s not as though it was an Aboriginal sport.
First Nations is itself a ludicrous misnomer as it defies logic to call any of the 300 or so different language groups understood to be present on the continent at the time of European settlement as a nation, or even as a state, though a large grouping may possibly have been the size of a small local council.
In any case, the title First Nations, is a direct lift from North America. Cultural appropriation on steroids.
But when push comes to shove, our elected representatives and company heads have found it easier to cave in to minorities, no matter how small, than waste energy fighting public relations wars.
Look at the case of Coon cheese, certainly not named with any racial slight in mind, but after US cheesemaker Edward William Coon, and the efforts of the offended activist Stephen Hagan to now seek $2.1 million in damages from the cheese manufacturer. Let’s hope the courts decide it’s tough cheese, mate.
All of this rewriting of history could have been foreseen and will continue whilst the federal and state governments refuse to put an end to vexatious claims and the ABC squanders taxpayers’ money promoting the academically unsupported fantasies of author Bruce Pascoe. The vacuous Independent MP Zali Steggall, who famously rejects fossil fuels and has yet to see a wind or solar farm of any size in her Warringah electorate, called on councils to include a minute silence as part of their Australia Day acknowledgement of country on Tuesday. It’s just more grovelling.
As the hardworking and deeply respected Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Deputy-Mayor of Alice Springs, wrote in The Daily Telegraph on Friday: “There are 11 official days of the year and one entire week all dedicated to recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. “Not to mention every single event, program, sporting game, theatre performance, school assembly, Council meeting, conference and email salutation where there is a ‘Welcome to Country’ or ‘Recognition of the Land in which we are so very privileged to be gathered on’.” The urban Aboriginal industry, like the homosexual lobby which targeted Margaret Court, is running at full throttle now but the brakes must be applied.
Or would the offenderati really prefer to take their chances in China, Africa, or the other blighted regions of the world?
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