OZ DAY APPROAHES

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As we approach Australia Day with its associated PC and woke commentaries, discord and even hate, it raises another aspect upon which my friend Steve and I have disagreed for years: the Australian flag.

Some comments:

- Steve feels we should retain the existing flag.

- I have no objection, just take off the Union Jack.

- When the below poem was written by Banjo Patterson, Australians fought under the British flag as a colony of Britain.

- The comments in that poem still hold equally true about removing the Union Jack.

- Five Commonwealth nations have the Union Jack on their national flag: Australia, Fiji , New Zealand, Tuvalu.

- The first Commonwealth country to drop the Union Flag was Canada in 1965, after adopting a new national flag. The most recent country to drop the Union Flag from its flag was South Africa in 1994, after adopting a new national flag.

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Our Own Flag

    -  Andrew ‘Banjo’ Paterson

They mustered us with a royal din

In wearisome weeks of drought

Ere ever the half of the crops were in

Or the half of the sheds cut out

'Twas down with saddle and spurs and whip

The swagman dropped his swag

And we hurried us off to an outbound ship

To fight for the English flag

The English flag.. it is ours in sooth

We stand by it wrong or right

But deep in our hearts is the honest truth

We fought for the sake of a fight

And the English flag may flutter and wave

Where the World-wide Oceans toss

But the flag the Australian dies to save

Is the flag of the Southern Cross

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When the miners at Eureka rebelled in 1854 at the harsh, unfair and brutal treatment being directed at them by the government and police, the oath they took was by the Southern Cross.

From a past Bytes:

We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties.

What better oath for the miners to take. A collection of miners of different creeds, colours, faiths, political allegiances and origins swore not to a political entity or to a divine being, but to the Southern Cross above them, the constellation under which they toiled, lived and slept, the stars from which they took bearings for directions. An oath to stand by each other for their rights and liberties, under a flag which for the first time in Australian history stood for independence, fairness and freedom.

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One final item from the vault about the Southern Cross:

On a day celebrating all things Oz, and at a time when there is ongoing debate about our flag and anthem (and I place on record that I hate the inane lyric “Our home is girt by sea”), it is appropriate to recall the victory song of the Australian Cricket Team, sung when victorious:

"Under the Southern Cross I stand

A sprig of wattle in my hand

A native of my native land

Australia, you fucking beauty"