When will Leftie protestors get a grip?

If the election showed us anything, it’s that Australians have a limited tolerance for the extremes of political correctness. But far from waking up to themselves, our ‘woke’ activists are doubling down, writes Peta Credlin.

If the recent election showed us anything, it’s that Australians have a very limited tolerance for the extremes of political correctness.

But far from waking up to themselves, our ‘woke’ activists are doubling down. The latest examples of politically correct activism – Sydney University students wanting to tear down a statue of explorer and colonial MP, William Charles Wentworth; and State of Origin footballers refusing to sing the National Anthem – are a cheap copy of lefty stunts that have been tried elsewhere.

A number of indigenous Blues players chose not to sing the national anthem during a State of Origin game this week. Picture: AAP/Dave Hunt

Our mute rugby league players are two years late in copying a variant in the US. While it’s true, aboriginal culture on this continent goes back 60,000 plus years, our “young and free” anthem reference accurately notes that we have only been constituted as a nation for just over a century.

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And our would-be student vandals are just taking off Oxford University’s “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign led by an American Rhodes Scholar who is quite happy to take money from the 19th century imperialist’s benefaction.

Haven’t our students worked out that there are no marks for plagiarism? Or for ignorance?

The university magazine editors push the claim that Wentworth never really discovered a way across the Blue Mountains and had an “aristocratic” background; even though his mother was a convict and he’d only ever been billed as the “first European” to cross the mountains.

I’m sure Wentworth had some views that would seem out of place today; few in history are immune. But he fought to bring democracy to the then-colony of NSW and helped to start our first university. Indeed, it’s the institutions that Wentworth helped to create that have given today’s students the freedom to make idiots of themselves.

Peta Credlin is a columnist and Sky News presenter.