Prime Minister’s Another day and another mistake
SCOTT Morrison’s idea to set aside another day for indigenous Australians will only create more division, writes Andrew Bolt.
Andrew Bolt
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SCOTT Morrison is already backing off his mad plan to save Australia Day by creating yet another national day to “celebrate” Aborigines. No wonder. How could the PM suggest something so divisive and useless that within 24 hours he was playing it down?
“I haven’t said it’s a public holiday or not a public holiday,” a flustered PM said on Wednesday.
“I just think we should have a chat about it. I simply said that I think it would be good.”
Wrong. It would be bad.
PM BLASTS COUNCIL OVER AUSTRALIA DAY DATE CHANGES
PM FLAGS NEW DAY FOR INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS
ABBOTT ‘HOLDS JUDGMENT’ ON PM’S INDIGENOUS DAY PROPOSAL
Morrison floated his thought bubble on Tuesday in response to yet another Greens-dominated council, Byron Shire, moving its Australia Day celebrations from January 26. The council wants to celebrate Australia Day a day earlier, to spare local Aborigines the “pain” of thinking about the arrival of Captain Arthur Phillip and his white convicts.
According to the Census, Byron Shire has just 88 people who identify as Aboriginal and photos suggest just about all also have European ancestry. So how much pain is there in remembering the arrival of Europeans who, presumably, include your own ancestors?
What’s more, Byron mayor Simon Richardson three times refused to tell me how many of those 88 Aboriginal locals actually asked him to shift Australia Day. Yet Morrison thinks such deliberate offence-taking over Australia Day can be bought off by creating a separate day for Aborigines, “to recognise the achievements of indigenous Australia, the oldest living culture in the world”.
But how would that stop activists complaining about Australia Day when they’re still complaining after getting weeks of national days to celebrate Aborigines or apologise to them?
We already have NAIDOC Week to celebrate Aboriginal culture, National Sorry Day, and National Reconciliation Week, which plainly hasn’t worked.
Then there’s the anniversary of the apology to the alleged “Stolen Generations”, National Close the Gap Day, the anniversary of the 1967 Referendum, Mabo Day, National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day and the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.
Have all those days united us? Have they made activists give up their resentments and tackle the domestic violence, child abuse and unemployment in many Aboriginal communities? Or does each concession to their cultural apartheid embolden them to ask for more, including now an Aborigines-only parliament and self-government?
Bad move, Prime Minister.
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