Steve Price: Shrine security funding crisis shows how broke Allan government is
A moving weekly ceremony at the Shrine is under threat because of savage cuts to Victoria Police. The Premier’s response to the funding crisis left me wondering how anyone, let alone a political leader, could be so tone deaf.
Opinion
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If you ever needed a living example of how broke the Allan government is, wander past the haunting Shrine of Remembrance at 4.45pm this Sunday.
The stirring sound of a lone bugler will echo through the gardens surrounding the Shrine – maybe for the last time. Incredibly we learnt this week it might be the last time we hear the weekly tribute paying respect to the hundreds of thousands of Australian lives lost in all wars.
Savage cuts to the Victoria Police budget have forced police command to cease providing police support for the bugle event, at a cost of $75,000 a year.
You can’t make this stuff up and it’s being driven by a state government which pays to have Welcome to Country and smoking ceremonies at every meeting, conference and events, all funded by the taxpayers. We can afford to pay Indigenous uncles and aunties to lecture us about stolen lands but not have police provide a simple ceremony that’s been conducted since 1934.
How warped have our national priorities become when that can even be considered. It just shows that meekly caving into demands that every government building, whether federal, state or local, be required to fly not one Australian flag but three and sometimes more. It is the start of a slippery slope.
Even our police stations are required to do this but now apparently, they are too broke to have a couple of constables turn up for half an hour every Sunday.
In a week when the Chief Commissioner of police Shane Patton walked away after being denied a contract extension this is just another attack on institutions we should treasure, not tear down.
Premier Jacinta Allan was asked why the bugle event could not be funded properly and uttered the most ridiculous response I have ever heard from her and that’s saying something.
She said: “As someone who is very fond of brass instruments and buglers, I will ensure this is followed up.”
I kid you not, that’s your Premier with an ‘I’ll investigate’ response instead of simply telling reporters, ‘that’s crazy, I’ll make sure it isn’t touched’.
No Jacinta, it’s not about brass bands it’s about sacrifice, the loss of family who were out there fighting for your and my country. It’s about Gallipoli and the Western Front and the battle of Long Tan and our soldiers killed in Afghanistan. How could anyone, let alone a political leader, be so tone deaf.
The Shrine boss Dean Lee, telling the media of the cost restraints if the police budget savings kick in, said rightly, “you can’t put a value on it” (the last post ceremony) and he’s 100 per cent correct.
Victoria, it seems, has a state government not interested in honouring brave men and women who gave their lives for Australia but more interested in protecting the rights of pro-Palestine protest marches.
This penny pinching un-Australian attitude goes to the heart of the loss in national pride we have witnessed in recent years. It starts with governments like the Albanese regime with one of its first acts installing alongside the Australian flag an Indigenous one plus the Torres-Strait Islands flag. The Greens under radical leader Adam Bandt take this one step further and refuse to stand in front of the Australian flag at all.
The PM then, of course, in his first speech after winning office, committed to implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full and forced the race dividing Voice royal commission on us all, which was voted down by 60 per cent of Australians.
This should have been a wake-up call for all those agitators who hate Australia, that the tide was turning. Instead, local councils started changing the names of council areas and suburbs into Indigenous place names meaning no-one knew where they were taking about.
Our ABC introduces radio programs telling us the AM current affairs show is coming from Nipaluna instead of Hobart, and even my own program The Project comes from the land of the Kulin nation.
Landing in Melbourne on a domestic or international flight, tourists from overseas are confused when told they have arrived in Narrm.
I do though sense the tide is turning on a lot of this politically-correct over reaction, with young people embracing not ignoring Australia Day and draping themselves in our national flag. Suburban houses in many suburbs now host a flagpole with the national flag proudly flying.
Melbourne Storm announced it was cutting back on Welcome to Country events and then weathered the noise from the usual suspects trying to shame them into changing their minds.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is taking to the upcoming election a promise he will only appear before the Australian flag, not the Albanese trio of standards.
Going further and making January 26 the official Australia Day with no change during his time in office would be a vote winner. He should also warn state governments about entering into legally-binding treaties with Indigenous agitators and instead encourage them to embrace meaningful improvements for all disadvantaged Australians, not just one group.
He should be wary of copying Donald Trump’s MAGA slogan but making Australia Australian again wouldn’t be a bad move.
This column likes to identify things that need fixing and finding a solution.
The Shrine’s $75,000 security issue is an easy fix if the police budget woes see them walk away.
Shame the busted state government and get the tax-free AFL, that dines out on Anzac Day every April 25th with sellout crowds at the MCG, to write a cheque to keep Sundays at 4.45pm alive.
It’s the Australian thing to do.
Likes
State government finally realising they need to slash public servant jobs to save money.
Despised pedophile Gerald Ridsdale dead at last.
AFL finally waking up that State of Origin is what fans want.
V8 Supercar season fires up for 2025 with a night race in Sydney.
Dislikes
Local Magistrate Shiva Pillai says the parents of a repeat teen offender need to do better and bails him anyway.
Billionaire Clive Palmer back in politics wasting his money and our time with a new political party.
Looters raiding the vacant homes of those McRae landslide properties.
Victoria major projects blow out in cost again to the tune of $11.7 billion in a year.
Originally published as Steve Price: Shrine security funding crisis shows how broke Allan government is
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