Vikki Campion: If public servants worked on Australia Day, why didn’t they pick up the phone?
We were told thousands of public servants would work on January 26 to show their disdain of Australia Day, writes Vikki Campion. So why did no one in their offices pick up the phone?
Opinion
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For all the rhetoric of how insidious this patriarchal white celebration of colonialism was, the greatest beneficiaries of what they despise were hard to find behind their desk.
Be absolute in your steadfast opposition to the national day. Hang up the open sign. Turn on the kettle so constituents can have a cup of tea as they inquire as to why you charge them so much for basic services when most of what comes out of town halls is political opinion, not project delivery.
We were told thousands of well-to-do public servants of the laptop class — so deeply ashamed of the nation that bestowed upon them 15 per cent superannuation, paid maternity leave and nine-day fortnights — would “work” Australia Day to show their unequivocal disdain of the national day.
So why did no one answer the phone?
The thought of recognising the day was so reprehensible that some 350,000 public servants employed federally and the 860,000 employed by Labor state governments in Queensland and Victoria were offered to substitute Australia Day for another.
The same councils that banned people from officially becoming Australian on Australia Day — and, in doing so, removing their attachment to the day, making it easier to erase — didn’t even pretend to work.
While giving public servants a chance to “work” and claim another day off instead, federal government websites said calls wouldn’t be monitored for the “public holiday”.
We can’t call Australia Day by its name, can we?
Woollahra Council, the latest institution to refuse Australia Day citizenship ceremonies, because the last thing they want is another voter who fondly remembers January 26 as the anniversary of when they won the relief and security of becoming an Aussie citizen, still found time to ruin everyone else’s day.
At the last minute, they announced an alcohol ban in all Harbourside parks and beaches in the local government area, from 12.01am on January 26 to noon on January 27.
You can toast every day of the year except Australia Day on Woollahra’s Harbourside.
Are you seriously suggesting arresting a family from Bonnyrigg because they dared hold a barbecue and a brew to celebrate our nation in Woollahra on our national day?
It’s the height of conceit to say ‘we don’t want your kind celebrating here’. The people who toast in a park do not have the convenience of a mansion over the Harbour.
Many Woollahra ratepayers would have no issue with the Bonnyrigg family celebrating Australia Day with a toast to our nation at the park.
The same councils who refused to give anyone a January 26 citizenship anniversary, including Merri-bek, Yarrah, Darebin, Woollahra, Sydney and North Sydney, closed libraries, tips and community centres — and everyone took the day off.
NSW’s Mid Coast Council, which moved its citizenship ceremony to January 29, still closed its doors on January 26. The move, it insisted, was to “allow the mayor and councillors to attend events in their own communities”.
Where were these enthused public servants?
The Department of Climate Change, Energy and Water phone and online message said it was closed for “the public holiday”.
If they find it offensive, their enthusiasm should extend to working from their airconditioned taxpayer-funded offices.
Police who go to work on Australia Day can’t deal with domestic violence from home, paramedics can’t rush people to hospital from home, and fire and rescue personnel can’t extract people from car wrecks from home.
Nurses don’t get to sit at home with their feet up and refuse to answer the phone.
That’s not working from home. That’s called a day off.
If you are so offended by Australia Day, grace your colleagues with your presence in the office.
Callers to Greens leader and anti-Australia Day campaigner Adam Bandt’s electorate office in Melbourne were greeted with a phone message asking them to send an email.
Voice campaigner and change the date advocate Wentworth MP Allegra Spender set her office phone to divert straight to voicemail.
Once more, the enlightened are successfully pushing a schism in Australia, where they are firmly in one camp, and the group who clearly understand how we won the lottery of life being a citizen of Australia are in the other.
Those who inspire getting rid of Australia Day falsely claim it will bring us together, but in reality it is pulling us apart. Instead of uniting under one flag, we divide under three.
Humanity in Australia is not unique. We can make the same mistakes other countries do if you keep poking the bear of division.
This week, Indigenous leaders in support of Hamas said their cause is the same as the Aboriginal cause, and therefore their totem is also the Indigenous flag, which creates massive problems in how people identify with that symbol.
Soldiers will have a problem saluting a flag where leading figures wave it in support of Hamas, citing an “obvious parallel”.
Australia Day is now a show of resistance against those who believe they are endowed with a right to change the lives of others against their wishes and without their vote of approval.
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