Plibersek is no cultural warrior

Tanya Plibersek’s argument that patriotism is not the exclusive preserve of the “hard right” raises a pertinent question. Who claimed it was? Australians, with our deep, slightly laconic style of patriotism, generally agree with John Howard’s observation in 1995: “Those things which unite us … are infinitely greater and more enduring than the things which divide us.” As Ms Plibersek said in her lecture honouring former NSW premier Neville Wran in Sydney on Tuesday: “You can be a progressive and love your country: I do. You can cherish this nation and yet want to make it better.” So do her political opponents.

Some of Ms Plibersek’s other claims failed the “fair go” test, especially her assertion that “conservatives love to wrap themselves in the flag, but what is missing from their notion of citizenship is solidarity; what we owe to one another”. It is progressive green-left councils, not conservatives dividing local communities in their push to dump January 26 as Australia Day and endorsing the notion of “invasion day”. Ms Plibersek has said Labor has no plans to change the date of Australia Day but it was an important conversation to have. It is progressives who have agitated for abandoning the flag millions of Australians love. And it is progressives, including Bill Shorten and Ms Plibersek, who called in August for a separate plaque recognising indigenous Australians to be added to James Cook’s statue in Sydney’s Hyde Park. They played down the idea shortly afterwards and firmly rejected the idea of tearing down historic statues.

After decades in the trenches, The Australian welcomes Ms Plibersek’s call for progressives to join the battle of cultural ideas. Progressive educators, and their Labor-affiliated unions could start by explaining the imposition of environmentalism and prisms of gender, race, class and Marxism on to school subjects such as history, English, geography, science and economics. Such efforts often fail, fortunately.

Generations of young Australians who have embraced the Anzac tradition with warmth and pride, for example, have felt affronted and frustrated by university lecturers regurgitating the 1970s invective of historians such as Humphrey McQueen against governments “throwing” money at the Australian War Memorial and “marketing ANZAC-ery”. If Ms Plibersek, the opposition’s education spokeswoman, is serious about progressives making a constructive contribution to cultural debate she would seek better returns for the educational dollar ahead of ever-increasing spending.

In her speech, Ms Plibersek made much about the idea of “inclusive citizenship”, with rights and responsibilities binding Australians together with “progressive” values of democracy, equality and fairness. Those values, however, do not belong exclusively to progressives.

Ms Plibersek and her colleagues did the nation no favours by rejecting the Turnbull government’s proposals to raise the bar for prospective immigrants with a more rigorous English language test, among other reforms. These were not, as Ms Plibersek claimed, an attempt to revive the White Australia policy. But newcomers with strong English skills are better placed to feel included, access jobs and study opportunities, and embrace Australian values.