<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/dobson.jpg" align=left
Indigenous activist, academic and co-chair of Reconciliation Australia Professor Mick Dodson has been named “Australian of the Year”. This award makes an interesting contrast with the selection by The Australian of Dame Elisabeth Murdoch and Bart Cummings. I think Dodson’s selection is a well deserved recognition, and I’m encouraged to see someone selected who will undoubtedly be quite critical of the government’s stance on some human rights issues.
Two other observations are worth making. First, there has been some suggestion that the nominations and the selection (as well as the theme of “Reconcilation” for Australia Day) are a reaction to the ALP’s reneging on an election pledge to consider an alternative to 26 January as our national holiday. Frankly, I’m quite stunned that ever made it into the ALP’s platform. Rudd’s apparatchiks must have fallen down in the controversy proofreading stakes. It’s certainly something I would support, and it would be something of a pity if Dodson’s award were indeed in part a device to draw attention away from this pledge.
Secondly, it might also be a good idea to take some sort of stock on how the whole “Bridging the Gap” thing is going – almost a year after the Apology. Debate on Indigenous issues appears to have gone into cold storage recently. Although it’s a good thing if Indigenous people are no longer being used as partisan footballs, conversely if we’ve all decided to sit on our bums in a permanent warm glow after the Apology, that’s not a good thing at all.
Elsewhere: Lauredhel at Hoyden on the nominees.
Elsewhere: Guy Beres.
Elsewhere: Andrew Bartlett at his blog and at Crikey, Hoyden About Town, Dave Bath.
Elsewhere: Lauredhel at Hoyden on the nominees.
Excellent choice.
Slightly a better choice than previous picks, umm like John Farnham, only slightly mind.
What a terrific choice. Let’s just hope they start listening to him more than Noel Pearson.
Mick Dodson? I didn’t know he played cricket.
“the government has been prepared to anoint someone”
It’s not the government’s decision. If it was, do you think Tim Flannery would have got the gig under the Howard regime?
FMI, Why would Mick Dodson’s opinion worth listening to, and Noel Pearson’s not? Pearson ain’t exactly an underachiever when it comes to doing things for indigenous people.
Who makes the decision?
I’d assumed it was the government since Rudd announced it, and I assumed Flannery got the gig as a pr measure to convince everyone how concerned Howard was about climate change.
Good choice and glad it wasn’t a sports person. Not that I’m slighting Glenn McGrath – his work for the Jane McGrath foundation is very much worthy of recognition.
@6 – ok, it’s the Australia Day Council, apparently. So I’ve amended the post. It appears to be chaired by Adam Gilchrist:
http://www.australiaday.org.au/experience/page72.asp#NADC%20Board
It’s an agency of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, reports to Parliament and the board is appointed by the PM though, so I’d be quite surprised if Rudd didn’t have a hand in the selection. In fact, I’d be very surprised if he didn’t even if it’s “arms length”.
There’s a simple answer to that. I mean, apart from the ALP being, you know, in the business of reneging on its own Platform.
Nobody read the Appendixes to the CAR’s Declaration for Aboriginal Reconciliation before it was endorsed, and since last National Conference was in 2007: Rudd’s apparatchiki haven’t had the chance to do aught. Watch for the rightward swing next Conference.
Who came up with this beatup about the ALP’s Platform and the 26th, by the way, apart from Crikey?
“chaired by Adam Gilchrist”
Must always be a cricket connection it seems.
“quite surprised if Rudd didn’t have a hand in the selection”
Goes without saying.
He’s a good choice. I’m just waiting for the backlash now in relation to Dodson’s comments on Invasion Day.
Elsewhere: Guy Beres.
Sport, at any rate. The previous chairs were:
No doubt Keating appointed Adams. One imagines there was always at least one cricketer on the board.
Recently retired Australian cricket captains always get awarded Australian of the year. The last three have in any case. So we can look forward to Ricky Ponting (who by the way bears an uncanny resemblance to Dustin Hoffmann’s Ratso character) getting the nod in a few year’s time.
Cong rats Mick!
I second the motion to move away from invasion-day. Perhaps Mayday or the Eureka Stockade day. I continue to watch the re-invasion with horror – mostly because the fucking fascist army could be used against poor white trash like me next.
Its becoming increasingly clear that Gordon, Rudd and now Barry Obama are all closet fascists. They are increasing to build fascist states within a fascist Anglosphere that props up apartheid Euro-colonialism in Palestine. Australians need to wake up to that fact that ‘our’ SAS led the recent illegal invasion of SW Asia. Aussie diggers are implicated in torture, the use of Napalm and more. In such a situation a limited and critical solidarity with the victims seems called for.
For me thats ‘ Jihad good – Sharia -bad ‘.
We need another strike on the pentagon and some more police stations burned down.
I, 2, 3 many Algerias, Vietnams and South Africa’s.
End rant. ( just my 2c )
What has Dodson gone and done with the comments regarding moving Australia Day? Doesn’t he understand that Australia Day is the domain of mindless jingoism? The one day of the year when we are meant to be relaxed and comfortable.
Even after we become a republic, I simply cannot see Australia Day ever being moved. It has gotten more and more popular every year over the last 15 years, it’s just not going to change.
I think all the breath debating that is wasted and could be better spent on other indigenous issues.
Correction, wait for the political triangulation put forward in a motion by a Warren Mundine or a Linda Burney, e.g., “Kevin assures us he’s 100% with us on this one, we just have to give a little in return, for the greater good comrades…”
That’s how the permanent majority in your Pardee finesses cultural and social dilemmas.
Anyway, if people don’t like Australia Day, just try to avoid it, decline invites–do what I do, treat it ‘Aussie craven icon Christmas’. And I’m allergic to the official Christmas.
History in the making this year Black president voted in America and an Aboriginal fella Prof Mick Dodson voted Aussie of the year… bloody fantastic!!!! worlds starting to realise it dont matter what the colour of ya skin is and its about bloody time too…
I just want to agree with “Steve at the pub” here that Noel Pearson would have been a better choice because he has done more to help our indigenous citizens in the real and practical things that really matter.
As for changing the date, what a crock. No matter what you may think about the coming of the English to this land, the country that we have become is what we celebrate on Australia day
Well you say sorry on 13 Feb for (only some of) the ways in which colonisation destroyed generations of Aboriginal families and then you celebrate the founding of that colonisation process on 26 January. If this government wants to be taken seriously by Indigenous peoples, it should change this day to a more inclusive one. Australia day was not the founding of the nation, it was just a day when another colonial power picked up a piece of land for free somewhere on planet Earth. And the white people that were vomited up on its shores were the flotsam and jetsam of England’s unwanted criminal class. Its no day of celebration for Indigenous folk, but if you think about it, it would have been no day of celebration for first bunch of white people who were dumped here. So what is to celebrate on Australia Day? The beginning of a murderous history we all now bear on our shoulders? the beginning of a life of slavery for its first white people? Now if you could hear their voices on this day, your first white ancestors, what would they say? Oh come on. Grow up Australia! Day of inlusion? Too many fairy tales. You should all vomit on your own shoes.
Iain, only on Planet Howard.
A scant decade of public commentary that receives the favour of a prime minister with arguable sensitivities to indigenous affairs, and is lauded by the rabid right wing media with absolutely no sensitivity to matters of human rights and dignity at all, does not equal lifetime of dedicated, conscience service to the community.
Mick Dodson was a good choice.
Actually, Casey, it would appear the FF convicts may have been carefully selected for the skills that they could contribute to the founding of a new colony or a temporary settlement that was meant to die out once all the convicts had served their time – or died. The survival record for first settlements in newly established colonies was not good. (Or maybe I just think the Government of Pitt the Younger were a pack of bastards when it came to the criminal lumpenproletariat.
I can see how Dobson’s call for a discussion as to whether we might change Australia Day to another date might upset the Mad Right. But ewverything from CC to stem-cell research to gays to Aborigines to losing at cricket to letting in refugees already upsets ‘em. Let ‘em stew.
Dobson is a good pick. Pearson, never. If you don’t believe me, talk to some Indigenous people about him.
I just want to agree with “Steve at the pub” here that Noel Pearson would have been a better choice
In order for Noel Pearson to have been ‘chosen’, he would’ve first had to have been nominated. He wasn’t, therefore whether he would be a better ‘choice’ is irrelevant. Mick Dodson is a good pick for Australian of the Year, and it recognises his lifetime advocacy on social justice issues for Indigenous Australians.
“The survival record for first settlements in newly established colonies was not good. (Or maybe I just think the Government of Pitt the Younger were a pack of bastards when it came to the criminal lumpenproletariat.”
Well even more compelling a reason not to celebrate it. Why do we like to celebrate failure and shame? Strange melancholy litle country that transforms sites of human loss into celebrations of nationhood. Im going to Yaban Indigenous festival myself.
“Why do we like to celebrate failure and shame? Strange melancholy litle country that transforms sites of human loss into celebrations of nationhood.”
Casey, no modern nation ever had as unpromising a beginning as Australia but you’d have to be determinedly blinkered, I’d suggest, to describe what has emerged since simply as “failure.”
I didnt describe what emerged as shame actually. I was speaking of the originary moments.
Sorry, thats “Yabun”
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/WhatsOn/html/custom/2234-event-details.asp?EventID=18126
Big congratulations to Mick. A great choice.
Casey,
At the risk of stirring up a hornet’s nest on LP,the latest research suggests the Convict Stain was all about being gay, not criminal.
See Babbette Smith’s Australia’s Birthstain.
Paul, I think Babette would have been well-advised to rigorously apply Occam’s Razor to that particular hypothesis. Whatever, reframing January 26 as a kind of antipodean Stonewall is unlikely to make a bloke like Mick Dodson feel better about it
True, Geoff, but it is a fascinating hypothesis.
As for Australia Day. I ignored it absolutely when I was young, some years ago went to one of those atrocious nationalist public barbecues because I didn’t want to offend some close rriends who thought it would be a nice surprise for me, and have ignored it ever since. Too much public patriotism sends a chill up my spine and reminds me of the Cronulla Riots.
Undoubtedly we’ve had a win with the Apology and the choice of Mick Dodson, but fascism in this country is only sleeping, it’s not dead.
Pearson, btw, so my local cabbie tells me, when I went up the street to buy some smokes, is criticising Dodson’s selection. Well, that will teach Pearson the dangers of spending years sniping at the social welfare system and being so close to Howard you couldn’t put a gum-leaf between ‘em. Did he really think, after all that, the Labor Party wouldn’t freeze him out?
“…if we’ve all decided to sit on our bums in a permanent warm glow after the Apology, that’s not a good thing at all.”
A point made emphatically by Prof. Dodson himself during his talk at Woodford Folk Festival this past December. I sincerely hope his selection as Australian of the Year is indicative of the same evolving political and social attitudes that facilitated the Apology, and not just a mechanism to prolong the “warm glow”.
One look at Mick Dodson reveals that he has a better than 50% stake in the bloodline of the settlers of the 26th of January 1788.
yea i too wish to congratulate Mick Dodson on being named ‘Australian of the Year’.
re Australia Day, I’ve spent most of the last 20 odd years seeing it as a day to celebrate survival rather than founding, and this is a continent, invasion and nation that has taken some surviving. That said I’m not insensitive to the feelings that others might have and wouldn’t oppose moving it.
I wouldn’t support a move of oz day to the referendum aniversary as there are too many myths re the referendum. All my history books are at my mum’s so i’m prepared to be somewhat mistaken here re dates, But i think more appropriate dates might be the aniversary of the ’62 voting rights act or the ’48 citizenship act when we all stopped being citizens of Britain and became citizens of Australia.
Comment #34, by Paul Burns, reveals the disparity between advocating for the advancement of one’s people, and advocating for the advancement of the ALP.
Pearson fearlessly advocates on behalf of aboriginal/islanders, he is not working for the advancement of the ALP at whatever cost that may bring to his people.
For this he is loathed. And so he rightly may be loathed by many, on political grounds. When judged on the criteria of achievements/desires for indigenous peoples of Australia, he is entitled to respect and admiration.
All by the way in this thread, as he wasn’t nominated for Australian of the year.
Mick Dodson is Australian of the Year. And so it shall be for the next 12 months.
… which Mick Dodson certainly isn’t doing. The implied contrast in your comment doesn’t exist.
The 26th of January is the day Australia began, it’s certainly not ‘white-washing’ the day out of history. If it was changed to another day (and I doubt Apology day would be considered) what then?
Do indigenous people then just celebrate “Australia” supposedly along with the waves of immigrants and descendents that make the population on whatever day is chosen? Is this the goal, or maybe I don’t what the goal is?
If reconciliation of the symbolic kind is to make up for all past wrongs and grievances, then what? Does each righting of a past wrong, mean that indigenous peoples at some stage just live out their lives with some post-historical peace of mind? Or is there a never-ending list that can never fulfilled because the past cannot ever be changed?
Leaving Australia on the 26th January, keeps the reality of the birth of nation at the forefront – to be fought over and rewritten and reinterpreted. Maybe we should be looking towards officially reframing Australia Day as both “settlement and invasion” day – with an acknowledgement from all sides as to the reality of our shared history – the good, the bad and ugly.
Tempering the flag-waving oi-oi-oi-ing with considered and mature reflection. And possibly at some time when practical reconciliation has been attained, maybe future indigenous peoples will find being at the forefront of the nation’s day is preferable to being just a footnote in some third-way-ish nothingy non-offensive, out-of-hat celebration of god knows what.
Is burying the past the only way forward?
Paul, it may have been Warren Mundine not Noel Pearson, the cabbie was remarking on.
http://www.examiner.com.au/news/local/news/politics/dobson-comments-spark-australia-day-brawl/1416191.aspx?storypage=2
Mark:
“The implied contrast in your comment doesn’t exist.”
Comment #34:
“Did he (Pearson) really think, after all that, the Labor Party wouldn’t freeze him out?”
To propose that Pearson is closely allied to John Howard I find insulting.
Over the years, I’ve read much fierce, intelligent and passionate writing & speechifying by Person on behalf of his people. I’d suggest that he walks no-one’s line in particular. I’d suggest also that he would not be fussed one way or another about awards such as this. He’s got bigger fish to fry.
He’s not as small minded as to be dissing the slection of Dodson either. Heaven knows where that idea came from.
Aside from the fact that you’re the only person banging on about how Pearson is so excellent on a thread which has zip to do with him, steve, you might consider Pearson’s own highly partisan statements. If he didn’t expect there to be a risk that they might come back and bite him if there was a change of government, then he’s a fool and shouldn’t comment on party politics at all. I’m sure he’s not a fool.
It has absolutely nothing to do with his bona fides as an Indigenous leader and the value or otherwise of his work. The whole argument is nonsensical. Particularly since Pearson’s ideas and work continue to achieve recognition from Federal and State Labor goverments – see, for instance the introduction of his model of community tribunals by Bligh.
I mentioned earlier on this thread that Phillip Adams had been appointed as Chair of the NADC by the Keating government. Would you expect the Howard government to reappoint him? Of course you wouldn’t. You have no point, particularly because you can’t show that Dodson is any way a Labor mouthpiece. And I’d point out again that this comparison seems to exist only in your own mind, and there are all sorts of implicit premises in what you are saying – which are false.
Mark #43:
“Aside from the fact that you’re the only person banging on about how Pearson is so excellent on a thread which has zip to do with him, steve”
Mark, You may wish to re-read comments #22 and #42.
Pearson was entered into the thread by a gratituous snark in comment #4.
Sorry, typo city @ 40.
And they were just some very (very) first thoughts on moving Oz Day – am not wedded to Jan 26 and possibly a new day, celebrating modern Australia is preferable to the annual re-hashing of invasion/British settlement history – and a new national holiday does not necessarily have be some wish-washy nothingy celebration, as I intimated above.
ie. backtracking furiously….although, my first thoughts are coloured by trying to think about the ramifications of moving it and more so the potential to re-frame this national holiday, one that I can’t see any Govt. moving away from in the near future.
Ponting should be run out of town. Worst. Captain. Ever.
As for the Dodson, I think good choice. I especially applaud his comments about January 26.
Speaking of which, January 26 as “Australia Day”. First things first. It is “New South Wales Day”. “Australia” did not exist on January 26 1788. The continent was called New Holland, the colony, New South Wales. So I don’t see why all these patriotic Queenslanders up here have to be celebrating. They are celebrating the creation of their mortal enemy, the Cockroaches! (Not that I mind, mind you, I like to laugh on the inside at stupid cane toads!!!).
Vics and Crow Eaters don’t count in this argument. Sand Gropers didn’t even want to be part of this nation, so screw ‘em!!!
That should get them going.
About an hour ago some local kids walked past singing the national anthem. This is the first time in my entire life I have heard anybody spontaneously sing Advance Australia Fair (i.e. not at sporting matches, official occasions, etc). What is the world coming to? Teaching this mindless patriotism? Screw that! AND BURN THAT BLOODY BRITISH NAVAL ENSIGN THAT FILLS IN AS OUR NATIONAL VEXOLLOGICAL SYMBOL!!! THAT’S RIGHT. POMMY FLAG BURNINGS ALL ROUND!!!
And yes, I’m slightly drunk after a back deck BBQ. That, and wanting Ponting out of the captaincy, because he’s a dud, is as patriotic as I’m gonna get.
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
HER FASCIST REGIME
IT MADE YOU A MORON
POTENTIAL H-BOMB
NO FUTURE, NO FUTURE
NO FUTURE FOR YOU!!!
Mark #43.
Your final paragraph is directed at countering a claim which has not been made.
“You have no point, particularly because you can’t show that Dodson is any way a Labor mouthpiece. And I’d point out again that this comparison seems to exist only in your own mind, and there are all sorts of implicit premises in what you are saying – which are false.”
I reject ever word of that paragraph. I have not suggested that Dodson is a Labor (or anybody else’s) mouthpiece.
My comment was a response to the statement that Pearson was on the outer, and deservedly so, because he has not followed ALP Conventional Wisdom during the time the ALP was in opposition.
I suggested that Pearson had instead of the ALP as his first priority, had instead put aboriginal people as number #1. This will of course cause him to be loathed by those for whom aboriginal advancement is secondary to the ideology of their preferred political party.
Dodson didn’t get a mention. Yet you devote one third of comment #43 to refuting (non-existent) claims I made about him.
The comparison does not “exist in my own mind”. It is real, and obvious in just about all aspects of indigenous politics. There is a most definite clash, and a divergence of interest, between indigenous politics and left-wing politics. This may become more pronounced, and more publicly aired, as it becomes inescapably apparent with the passing of time that the lot of indigenous people is not improving, despite huge amounts of funds and considerable political resources being devoted to just that.
“Pearson was entered into the thread by a gratituous snark in comment #4.”
A comment you misrepresented and comprehended incorrectly from the very beginning SATP.
That seems to be your mode of operation, though – make up any little story to cheer on your hero and damn the demon. If you read what I said it was not that Noel Pearson should not be heard. Why would I wish to inflict the same fate that Mick and Pat Dodson have had to pretty much endure over the Howard years?
I found it interesting that Iain Hall @22 falsely ascribed a preference by you for Pearson over Dodson in the award, from your comment. Maybe you should be taking matters up with him for displaying a similar gift to your own of imaginative, distortive, thinking.
And neither should us Sandgropers as WA wasn’t founded till 1829 over 50 years after NSW.
Well Steve, how do you explain why former Australian of the Year Neville being the first elected Aboriginal LIBERAL senator then ?
Teach me to listen to cabbies and then repeat what they say on LP. But I’m not going to resile from my criticism of Pearson preparing the ground for John Howard’s “welfare reforms” for years. Though I know opinions vary of the efficacy of such reforms in the intervention in the NT, there they are, embracing responsible Indigenous people, not only the irreponsible ones. And people like Abbott want to impose it on all welfare recipients. How come Pearson didn’t see that?
Back to Australia Day. And Babbette Stevens. Her hypothesis applies to a slightly later period. So far as I can see, on the relatively sparse literature on the topic of convict homosexuality, there were no convict homosexuals on the FF. Or if there were, they kept it hidden, not surprisingly, given they would have been hung, probably, if discovered, and given the rampant homophobia of the English in the 18C. There is some implied evidence in Mollie Gillen’s biographical Dictionary, Founders of Australia, that two British sailors were gay. Rather than Phillip hanging them it would appear they were dumped in Rio.
I think we are missing the true tragedy of Australia Day. Leo Sayer is now an Australian citizen.
That should read Neville Bonner (deceased).
“I think we are missing the true tragedy of Australia Day. Leo Sayer is now an Australian citizen.”
It is disturbing.
Elsewhere: Andrew Bartlett at his blog and at Crikey, Hoyden About Town, Dave Bath.
Yes, but I suppose that was inevitable after what happened to him on Celebrity Big Brother UK in 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Sayer#Celebrity_Big_Brother_5
When I was a kid Australia Day simply meant Test Cricket at the Adelaide Oval.
South Australia doesn’t compel other states to acknowledge Proclamation Day on December 28, I don’t see why January 26 is relevant to anyone but the people of NSW.
The problem is that the most obvious potential alternative is Federation, as it’s the only truly national event..but the introduction of the ‘white australia’ policy that followed in quick succession means that Federation does not stand out as a particularly inclusive national day either. The fact that we already have a public holiday on Jan 1 also makes it kind of pointless.
I don’t really think it’s appropriate to identify and celebrate another day, until we actually honestly address the problems that resulted from both colonisation and federation. The jingoistic blah that surrounds Australia Day offends me, but unless we partake in some genuinely honest self-appraisal as a nation, an alternative day will be just as bad.
I think we should have a truth and reconciliation commission in the style of what South Africa did, that gives all people a chance to express their grievances, make admission, apologies etc in a forum where they are heard and documented.
If/when we become a Republic that date would make sense to replace Australia Day as a more appropriate day of celebration.
I’m interested to know if anyone can recall when it became customary for people to wander round carrying little flags. And not just drunk people! I was quite struck going shopping in the Queen Street Mall today at the number of people carrying plastic flags on sticks. It appeared to me to be solely people under about 25 and mostly young women and girls.
I’m pretty sure none of this was seen before the early 2000s at the earliest.
I’d also be interested in any observations about whether attending a bbq is an “invented tradition”. Again, I don’t particularly recall it as a common practice when I was in my teens and 20s. People back then mostly seemed to be at the beach, pub and/or watching the cricket, but there didn’t appear to be any particular nationalistic element to any of it or any idea that there were “traditions” associated with the day.
Don’t know Mark……maybe Cronulla has had an unforseen impact on our impressionable kids. If Noosa today is any indication ugly drunken nationalism is what the young kids are into. Obnoxious behaviour and flags seemed to be de rigeur. Perhaps I’ve just become a grumpy old man but I don’t recall this even 3 or 4 years ago.
Australia Day didn’t enter my consciousness until I entered the retail trade. Before that it didn’t exist. The 26th of January falls in school holidays, as a youth it was just another work day, as I have never held a job which includes “public holidays”. Suddenly as a mature adult, working in a shop, it is still a workday, but the bank is shut, as is every other professional office & tradesman.
Raw deal. I’m for scrapping most all public holiday altogether.
Frank Calabrese #50 & #53, that would prove the point I was making.
Joe2 #48: One day you’ll surprise the world by making a posting that isn’t a personal attack on someone. If you read Iain Hall #22 again you’ll note he makes a remark about Noel Pearson without attributing similar thought to me.
I would grant your point that “it is not that Noel Pearson should not be heard”.. IF you had said “Let’s just hope they start listening to him (Dodson) as well as Pearson” instead of “more than Pearson”.
” Maybe we should be looking towards officially reframing Australia Day as both “settlement and invasion” day – with an acknowledgement from all sides as to the reality of our shared history – the good, the bad and ugly. ”
I agree with your comment Jo. It would be a reconciliatory vision made possible through an integrated view of our shared history. Though I would still argue that the acknowledgement would see the day moved as a gesture towards reconciliation, which is an ongoing process and will not be anywhere close to underway until we start looking at a treaty, IMO.
So they let Leo Sayer in? Migration checks arent what they used to be I suppose. If they had done their homework and listened to Thunder in my Heart Versions 1 and 2, it would never have happened. Never.
But Leo helped our Balance of Payments by being an Honorary Wiggle
# 51, Noel Pearson appears to me to be a person who is carrying on a long, involved national conversation aimed at improving the lot of his people. John Howard appeared to me as a politically expedient public servant possessed of rat cunning looking to extend his role as Prime Minister.
To conflate their aims does absolutely no justice to Pearson whatsover.
“…preparing the ground for John Howard’s “welfare reforms” for years.” Not too sure that Noel would agree that’s what he was doing.
I’ll be reading, and listening to Pearson, in concert with other indigenous voices, for the rest of my life, traying to understand a little more about how Australia got to this point, and where it’s going in the future.
Howard, per my opinion above, will have nothing of substance to add.
And agree with above comments, this flag-waving bizzo is entirely contemporary, and quietly disturbing.
My memory is that the flag wearing started afer Pauline Hanson draped herself in one.
This is a really, really bad decision. And very, very weird. He makes his life by spreading division, propogandising known half-truths, and thinks Aust. Day is the worst day in humanity. Dodson’s aims and psycho-motivation are as irrational as would be bringing a case before the High Court to declare George III’s annexation of NSW as “illegal”.
There are so many, more aborigines who deserve this Award for their excellence, commitment, success, and awe-inspiring impact on ALL Australians from Marcia Langton to Noel Pearson and many others. The Dodson Brothers are stuck in the 1970s Dreamtime. Good riddance to them!
If you’d heard Marcia Langton on “The First Australians”, you would find that her opinions are similar to the Dodson Brothers
I don’t remember the flag-wearing/waving, but the green and gold and the boxing kangaroo that preceded it I very much associate with the triumphalism of the America’s cup victory in ’83. I think Hawke may have set the ball rolling with the jingoistic nuances that seem to have morphed into an entirely new phenomena, in the Howard era. With Keating, in my opinion offering a ray of light in terms of attempting a different narrative, noticeably with his Redfern address.
And aided and abetted by Men At work’s Down Under – which is ironic as it was written by a Scot, who at the height of the band’s success was speaking with an Aussie accent, which he has since reverted to his native scotgtish brough
Some of the comments above are very telling. Sportspeople are to be sneered at and are inappropriate Australians of the Year, but when those same sportspeople choose an Aboriginal, the cricketers are suddenly respectable?
The sneering is all in your imagination, I think, The Amnestigator. I’d also suggest to you that you make some constructive contribution to the thread, rather than some sort of meta-reflection on what you think others’ views are (for which there’s no warrant as far as I can tell), which we forbid in the comments policy.
If we wanted to be picky, we could change the date to 21st August – the day Captain Cook officially Annexed the east coast of Australia in the name of George III. Thus, on August 21, Australia was born.
I’m not sure, but I don’t recall any of this flag-waving business before the Bicentennial in 1988. That is where I think the push for Australia Day to become more than a day off at the beach, the cricket or a backyard barbie with friends really began. And it just grew from there, I think.Both Labor and the Libs, and of course, Hanson are all responsible for this overt nationalism.
It was very rare to see people with a home flagpole or a flag out the front, on Australia Day, not so long ago. Things have really changed from my observations around town today. Maybe it is just copying the Americans. Howard was always keen on whipping up this patriotic crap, though.
Mick Dodson wished everyone a happy Australia Day tonight on the tele. He is such an agreeable bloke. It is very sad to see how focused many are on keeping him and his brother out of debate just because they do not speak from the right songbook.
I’m pretty sure it was ramped up to dizzying heights post September 11 and by the Bali Bombings, and the Iraq war.
Just in relation to progress on bridging the life expectancy gap, a lot of stuff seems to have happened behind the scenes, and is ongoing rather than being purposive initiatives.
Just before christmas a progress report with preliminary results from child health checks occuring as part of the NTER was released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Last week the detailed analyses of the annual Health Performance Framework 2008 were also released. This report provides important data which are used to measure progress on improving health outcomes on a range of indicators. This year a dedicated Closing the Gap COAG meeting will apparently be convened as well, so perhaps more purposive announcements will occur then.
The uber-patriotism shown in recent Australia Day’s is quite distrubing.
As I stopped in my car at the pedestrian lights on Main Street at Mordialloc, Victoria on my way to indoor soccer, a large group of about 50-70 teenagers (almost all of them male) crossed, presumably heading to the beach, all draped in Australian Flags and some wearing “patriotic” face/body paint, chanting for example; “People want to know where we come from….”. They were still crossing the road even after the lights have changed!!! Cars were blaring their horns, but these idiots didn’t even care – going on with their (presumably drunken) “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, … Oi, Oi, Oi” chants. It looked Cronulla-ish.
BTW, I did think this all started around the time of 9/11 and the Tampa and the Bali bombings. Remember those car stickers with the Australian Flag – ‘Young and Free: Let’s keep it that way’ (I think that’s what it’s said).
Should be it instead of it’s
Dylwah @ 37 said
“But i think more appropriate dates might be the aniversary of the ‘62 voting rights act or the ‘48 citizenship act when we all stopped being citizens of Britain and became citizens of Australia.”
Not wanting to be picky but the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 came into effect on 26th January 1949. So you’d be keeping the same date if you picked that anniversary – which would fit with what some people are suggesting, which is to keep the date but modify what it is we are celebrating.
As I mentioned in my Crikey post, I think it would be better to make 26th January Citizenship Day and find another, more historically accurate, day to symbolise a unified Australian nation. Not least because even after the original citizenship laws came into force in 1949, Australian citizens continued to be British subjects up until 1984.
It’s too late to change the date. Taking the month off after Xmas and winding it up on the last Monday of January is now inextricably a part of Australian culture. If you think you can retitle the day then knock yerself out trying, but don’t even think about moving it.
And those noting unseemly displays of nationalism, look on the bright side. At least we no longer have to stand for the British national anthem in cinemas.
pick away Mr B
26th Jan relates to Philip’s flag raising at Sydney Cove in 1788, establishing the colony of New South Wales. So not only is the date one of dispossession for Indigenous Australian in a symbolic sense, it also doesn’t actually apply to the rest of the country.
Australia as a nation came into being with the Proclamation of the Commonwealth of Australia on Jan 1, 1901.
Solution? Jan 26 becomes Reconciliation Day/ Community Day/ and Australia Day shifts to the first of Jan. No loss of public hollies; significant firework savings; significant reduction in police overtime in Jan as the crowd control issue will only come once. (Though this may be balanced by the slide in retail takings in both liquor and panadol sales).
Seems like the sleeping fascism I referred to above was well and truly awake on Australia Day in Manly, Gymea, Cronulla (what is it about Cronulla these days – the brief time I lived there about 1964 it was a great place to live )Port Macquarie and Surfers’ Paradise. Well,I guess it was too much to hope for.
More power to Koshie on Ch. 7, who made it very, very clear this morning that this perverse kind of Australian nationalism ain’t on. Ch. 9 of course did their usual and damned it with faint condemnation. One of the presenters on the Today Show is a bloody disgrace, the way he sucks up to every right wing cause going.
Gerard Henderson has just sprung to the lead in the contest for the Most Stupid Comment Award:
And the mind boggles at this one:
One of the unfortunate, albeit predictable, aspects of the reaction to Mick Dodson’s award is the holding forth by elements of the white right (e.g. Tony Abbott) on who is the “most deserving” indigenous person for this award, echoing John Howard’s presumption in anointing Noel Pearson as “the authentic voice of indigenous Australia today”. Apart from their past record of imperceptiveness in such matters (most notably in the 1980s when the likes of Howard and Abbott were insisting that Mangosuthu Buthelezi, and not Nelson Mandela, was the “authentic voice” of black South Africans), the point of principle is that it is not for whitefellas to stick their bib into matters which are rightfully the business of indigenous people themselves.
Ah, Henderson. Somebody should gently inform Gerard that the NT, North Queensland and WA are quite some distance away from Botany Bay. And that as there were 500 odd Aboriginal languages, it was unlikely if the Botany Bay mob had run into the other mobs, the odds are they wouldn’t have understood each others’ language. As I understand it, neither the Botany Bay mobs (I think there were at least two of them) nor the mobs around Port Jackson couldn’t even comminicate with the Hwakesbury lot, their languages were so different. And they weren’t that far away.
I will refrain from using an impolite and slightly obscene epitaph to decribe Henderson, that indicates his brain has had sex with itself.
“Certainly some Aborigines, particularly those in the Northern Territory and northern Western Australia and northern Queensland, can trace their ancestry back to those living here in 1788. However, the same cannot be said for many Aborigines in the capital cities, country towns and communities which are not remote.”
I see. And the fact that many Aboriginal families have lost track of their history is supposed to be evidence that they haven’t suffered badly as a result of the events of 1788 onwards?
Henderson – always bizarre and at least vaguely offensive as a minimum.
I don’t understand why we wouldn’t want to seriously look to move the day. I don’t understand why people wouldn’t want to recognise and respond to the fact that the current day causes a really significant group in our country pain. Is it really so much to ask, to acknowledge that and pick a day we can all celebrate?
Keeping the 26th and turning it into Citizenship Day is an excellent suggestion, removing the rather obscure day in September that isn’t a holiday and falls at a nonsensical time of year. It would also mean that people could keep their beloved extra summer public holiday – we’d get an extra P.H, woohoo, surely that would appeal to the Australian spirit. :p
I like the idea of the date in May – it marks a tangible maturing of the nation and incredibly important day for Aborigines, and from a pragmatic selling point of view, it’s a month without a public holiday which would help.
I can see, in terms of making an argument to move the day that would appeal, why having a summer day would make sense, because the celebration of the day has always been quintissentially an outdoor affair.
Someone’s probably mentioned this or linked it already, but Ron Barassi puts a good case via the Hun here.
Strewth.
Ron’s idea is simple, and spot on.
Where do we line up to vote?
Heh – as a segue Barassi sums up for me neatly all the problems with what Anzac Day has become too:
“The national day couldn’t be Anzac Day, because we were fighting a stupid war and we lost.”
I wonder if he’s a republican? He’d make a pretty decent first Prez.
That’s a thought FDB? but would it work for anyone noth of the Murray?
He was coach of the Swans in some of their best years, Fine. I’m on the bandwagon.
BTW, I did think this all started around the time of 9/11 and the Tampa and the Bali bombings.
Coincidentally these same events are what really kickstarted political blogging in Australia.
Before the Bali Bombings it was pretty much just Tim Blair, Ken Parish and John Quiggin.
Barassi’s idea is great, but I think that Australia Day has become a beloved public holiday primarily because of when it occurs (long weekend early in the year when the weather is hot) rather than congruence with a historical event that is iconised beyond all recognition.
It would make sense to have an arbitrary date that fits the ‘tenor’ of Oz Day: the first Monday in February, last Friday of January, something like that.
A question I have often asked myself. The Eureka Stockade, Ned Kelly, Gallipoli. Collingwood. The list goes on.
One reason may be that Australians can be many unfortunate things but generally speaking we are not, as a nation, particularly up ourselves, except for our pride in not being up ourselves.
As Furious Balancing has pointed out, South Australians don’t expect the rest of the country to celebrate Proclamation Day. But considering that it commemorates the proclamation of a colony well-planned by idealists and visionaries and founded specifically as an enlightened refuge for the oppressed and a new life for free citizens, maybe we should.
I’ve probably seen more Australia Days than most people here and I agree that the more simplistic/jingoistic manifestations (flag-wearing, for instance, by which I would be actively offended if I cared about national flags) are relatively recent and are partly down to Howard and Hanson. But I also think it’s partly just the passing of time, as more and more historical events pass beyond living memory and become perhaps inevitably mythologised, and partly a resistance to the culturally homogenising effects of globalisation.
Myriad @ 91 (quoting Barassi):
“The national day couldn’t be Anzac Day, because we were fighting a stupid war and we lost.”
Actually, we (Australia) won that particular war. Take a look at the bloke on the $100 note to see who was responsible.
*snort* Simple-minded Monash worship is something else that seems to have arisen in the past few years (along with the flag-waving, see the Cronulla Day thread). He was one of the Entente’s better generals, but he didn’t “win” the war, nor did the Australian troops under his command. Both played a prominent role in the Hundred Days, and we were, in the end, on the winning side. That’s enough to be proud of, isn’t it?
Brett @ 99:
Myriad (and Ron Barassi) appear to have confused Gallipoli with the wider war with their quote.
Given that the US frequently takes credit for “winning” a war to which their main contribution was the Spanish ‘Flu>, I’d argue that the general who devised and prosecuted the tactics used on the Somme in the war’s last five months, and the army which he commanded, had a better claim on being responsible for the victory than did Pershing’s army.
(and to go OT, I’ve just learnt that Leonidas’ army in the Battle of Thermopylae was made up of 300 Spartans (hence the title of the movie) and 700 Thespians. No wonder they lost.)
I guess I don’t consider sacrificing nearly 62,000 people on foreign battlefields with nothing to do with us, and having nearly 160,000 people sent home wounded as any sort of ‘victory’ Terangeree, although I’d certainly agree that in reading Barassi’s quote, I (and I suspect he) both had Gallipoli in mind.
we sacrified nearly 5% of our population to prop up an ailing empire that saw us only as a ready source of cannon fodder, and we still carried enough cringe to go along with it. Bleh.
“(and to go OT, I’ve just learnt that Leonidas’ army in the Battle of Thermopylae was made up of 300 Spartans (hence the title of the movie) and 700 Thespians. No wonder they lost.)”
I thought there was something missing from the movie. Turns out it was actors.
Myriad #101, those 160,000 + 62,000 were all VOLUNTEERS. They freely chose to “prop up an ailing empire”, freely chose to be “cannon fodder”, freely chose to fight on “foreign battlefields” that were “nothing to do with us”.
Just sayin’.
That’s what I meant by “and we still carried enough cringe to go along with it” Steve ATP.
I also think if hindsight had been on offer, lots wouldn’t have gone. No-one really grasped just what hell WW1 was going to be and how high the casuality rate. Many young Australians thought it was going to be a fun adventure, not a bloodbath.
I think the psyche it spoke of was Australia’s deep and entrenched (at that time) sense of isolation from ‘the civilised world’ (ie whites), along with a still pervasive sense of needing to prove we’d overcome the convict stain to the Brits.
when I used to go to Dawn services etc. it was with a friend of mine, an Vietnamese girl adopted by a Vietnam Vet and brought here. I remember the speeches – particularly the bit about WW1- being as much about reflecting on the folly of sacrificing so many for foreign wars, and how that would resonate with her father & his friends – who just like a lot of the Anzacs actually signed up in their youth, thinking the Vietnam war would be a grand adventure. Above all the day was one of reflection & mourning for our war dead, and the horror of war in general.
I don’t recognise the Anzac ceremonies today, all of that seems to have been washed away in a tide of superficial ‘patriotic’ BS. I doubt I’d be able to sit through one.
Myriad, I think you and I are in furious agreement.
nice to know terangeree, cheers.
I agree myriad. Both my parents were in the defences forces in World War II. They’re just cynical, pissed off and bored with the whole ANZAC Day palaver.