Bandt’s flag rejection too serious to dismiss as stunt

The refusal of Greens leader Adam Bandt and Victorian Greens senator Lidia Thorpe, an Indigenous woman, to stand in front of the national flag raises important questions for taxpayers. Given the pair’s evident loathing for the nation, who are they really representing in return for their $210,000-plus salaries? In defending her leader in radio, television and newspaper interviews over his disgraceful removal of the Australian flag from behind him at press conferences, Senator Thorpe made a telling revelation of her own about why she was in the Senate: “I’m there to infiltrate” what she described as “the colonial project”.

Senator Thorpe describing the national flag as an “obscenity” was offensive. The flag did not represent her or her people, she said. It had “no permission to be here”; there had been no consent or treaty. It had connotations of “invasion, dispossession’’ associated with mass murders of many men, women and children”. Her reasons for seeking office would strike many who pay her salary as bizarre. She swore allegiance to “the colonising Queen” to gain access to the media and to parliament. She wanted to question the “illegitimate occupation” and for people to know “whose land they’re on”. The first people “never ceded sovereignty”. It was “time to treaty”.

The two Greens MPs’ views are anathema to Australians who love the flag for its representation of the nation’s heritage and for its Southern Cross and Commonwealth Star. Degrading a highly valued symbol is galling to those who have served the nation and its values fighting under the flag or who have lost mates or loved ones doing so. RSL Australia president Greg Melick said Mr Bandt’s action was “unfitting of a member of our national parliament”. Australians had served under the flag irrespective of race, religion or politics, The Greens’ unpatriotic, shameful behaviour is likely to prompt some people to buy and wear small flag pins. Anthony Albanese is correct when he says every parliamentarian should be proud to stand in front of the national flag. Mr Bandt’s action, the Prime Minister said, risked undermining the move for reconciliation.

But in a healthy sign of national unity, some of the most potent criticisms of Mr Bandt and Senator Thorpe have come from prominent Indigenous people, including serving and former elected MPs. Indigenous Labor MP Marion Scrymgour said Mr Bandt’s divisive act would make it harder to win broad community support for a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament. Indigenous leader Warren Mundine said he was “flabbergasted” by Senator Thorpe’s comments and asked: “So is she there to blow the place up? It is just bizarre.” Australia’s first Indigenous cabinet minister, Ken Wyatt, called on Mr Bandt to rethink. “The Australian flag has the Southern Cross on it, and the Southern Cross story in many Aboriginal cultures is significant and it’s an important symbol,” Mr Wyatt said. “In Aboriginal astronomy it is a very sacred set of stars.” Aboriginal men and women had died fighting under the flag, he said, and that should be respected.

Incoming Northern Territory Country Liberal Party senator Jacinta Price said Senator Thorpe had “nothing but contempt for the Australian people”. Senator Thorpe “doesn’t see herself as an Australian, she doesn’t see herself as being represented by the Australian flag”. She was not the right person to represent the Australian people, Ms Price said. Nor did Senator Thorpe’s comments indicate she had Australia’s best interests at heart. Ms Price wants Governor-General David Hurley to look closely at Senator Thorpe’s intentions “and consider whether this is possible grounds for dismissal”. Some have dismissed Mr Bandt’s antics as a stunt, but that misses the point. His disrespectful action, and Senator Thorpe’s comments, attack the essence of our nation. Coming from elected MPs they are intolerable. All parties should condemn them now and at the next election.