We’ve have bigger issues than arguing over the date ofAustralia Day, writes MATT CUNNINGHAM

WE have bigger issues than arguing over the date of our national day and the Prime Minister should know that, writes MATT CUNNINGHAM

We have bigger issues than arguing over the date of our national day and the Prime Minister should know that, writes Matt Cunningham

THIS year we managed to make it all the way to January 13.

That’s something of a record in recent times. But less than two weeks out from January 26 – right through the height of the news cycle’s silly season – and the tired old story about changing the date of Australia Day had failed to really surface.

There were no virtue-signalling radio stations or woke inner-city councils trying to prove their moral superiority by refusing to participate in Australia Day activities. Nor was there the outraged media coverage that usually follows. There was hope that perhaps we might start focusing on issues that really affect the lives of indigenous Australians.

Then entered our new Prime Minister. Just as the culture wars appeared to have moved on to find a new cause and let us enjoy Australia Day in peace, Scott Morrison blundered his way in and threw petrol on the embers of a fire that was almost out.

Morrison’s announcement last Sunday that the Government would strip councils of the right to hold citizenship ceremonies if they refused to hold them on Australia Day was unnecessary. He probably thought it would make him look like a man of the people fighting against the evils of political correctness gone mad. After all, a poll published this week showed more than 70 per cent of Australians believe Australia Day should remain on January 26.

But that poll also showed the vast majority of those who want to change the date are Greens voters. Rather than seeming like the ordinary bloke on the sensible centre, the Prime Minister came across as a right-wing culture warrior fighting the far-left in a battle that would best have been left on Twitter.

In doing so he left the sensible middle ground open to opposition leader Bill Shorten who echoed the sentiments of most Australians when he said most Aussies just want to have a beer, a barbie and a day off.

Morrison has chastised journalists for focusing on issues that are in the media/political “bubble”, but there are few issues more in the bubble than the debate about Australia Day. It’s an argument that generally takes place on university campuses and in the inner suburbs of our biggest cities. Beyond that privileged bubble people generally have more pressing issues on their minds.

Last year Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion was chastised by the media class after he dared suggest the issue of Australia Day had never been raised with him during all of his travels to remote indigenous communities. But I’ve no doubt Scullion was right. When you share a house with 20 people in a community that’s only accessible by road for six months of the year it’s unlikely January 26 will rate too high in your list of issues you’d like the government to address.

But there was Morrison on Sunday – in Jabiru – talking about Green-controlled councils from Melbourne and how he won’t stand for their treasonous behaviour.

There are so many issues Morrison could have chosen to raise during his first trip as Prime Minister to a remote part of the NT.

He could have addressed the terrible rates of rheumatic heart disease suffered by Aboriginal children that is seeing as many as 40 Territory kids having to undergo open heart surgery each year.

He could have spoken about the shocking levels of domestic violence suffered by Aboriginal women.

He could have addressed the issues of teen suicide. Five Aboriginal children have taken their lives in the first 19 days of this year.

Or he could have announced an audit of how government money is spent in the NT, investigating claims by sacked Aboriginal affairs minister Ken Vowles that money meant to address disadvantage in remote communities is used to build water parks in Darwin and Palmerston.

The timing would have been perfect given Bill Shorten’s $5 million commitment on Tuesday to build a new waterpark in Palmerston, just up the road from the the one built a couple of years ago, which is just up the road from the other one where they put in three free water slides just before the 2012 election.

Instead, Morrison wanted to talk about Australia Day.

And so the nation’s go-to January slow-news story returned to the tired old arguments for and against changing the date.

It’s time now, not to change the date but to change the debate. Hopefully by the time next January comes around, our nation will have found more important issues to talk about.

Starting juvenile debates about Australia Day should be left to the culture warriors on the fringes of social media.

Our Prime Minister should have more important things to worry about.