Labor's call for a new national flag rejected by the people

Yesterday, NSW Premier, Nathan Rees, made a call for the Australian Flag to be replaced as part of his address speech for National Flag Day which is on the 3rd September. In turn Mr Rees' speech has received the highest order of scorn and ridicule from a proud nation who have a simple message for anyone calling for the flag to be changed - shut up and get on with your work!

Mr Rees, who isn't exactly enjoying job security at the moment, seems to be placing more emphasis on our national symbols than getting on with the job of fixing two issues that are dogging the people of NSW at the moment, they being the State's hospital system, which is broke and in a gross state of disrepair and the State's transport system where we see rail and road infrastructure crumbling to the point of embarassment.

On the eve of a possible leadership spill, yes that's right, Labor's fourth since 1995, we see our Premier insulting the National Flag just before taking a week off work.

Please Mr Premier, enjoy your holiday. But when you get back instead of slagging the best-looking flag in the world would you kindly get on with fixing the roads, the trains and the bloody hospitals.

I'll be having more to say about this closer to National Flag day in the next week or so.

Written at 22:28 on 24 August 2009 by Lord Watchdog.

Comments

Teacher

Member #: 199
25 April 2009.

Posts: 20.

Posted at 12:55 on 26 August 2009.

Moving to a republic and adopting the Aboriginal flag as the new national flag should be at the top of everyone's list. The union jack is symbolic of a racist time way back in the past and is no longer representative of where Australia should be heading in the 21st century. This is where sites like iServ are out of touch with reality. This website reflects a bygone era more than just about any other website I have been to and a link to a pro monarchist site along with an absence of a link to a pro republican site is unbalanced, one eyed and biased. For a mature debate on a move to a republic to take place we should be putting forward both sides of the debate equally and not leaning to one side.

Steve

Member #: 195
16 February 2009.

Posts: 22.

Posted at 15:47 on 26 August 2009.

Teacher, your rant is absurd. It is not required in a debate that people put more than one argument. That is the whole point of a debate - where people with different ideas and opinions meet and discuss an issue based on merit. I've never heard a debate before that has required someone argue both affirmatively and negatively on the same issue. That is just stupid.

It's no more stupid than Australia becoming a republic though. Australians voted no to a republic in 1999 when we had a referendum. What part of that don't you understand? Changing the flag is even worse. You claim the current flag represents racism. Please explain why this is the case. Doesn't asking white Australians to be represented by a flag intended to represent Aborigines rank of the same racism you allege?

As usual your opinion which is blatantly left wing ranks of stupidity and is designed to attract scorn from a majority of people. I could go on but first I will wait for your explanation on your apparent hatred of the Australian flag.

Teacher

Member #: 199
25 April 2009.

Posts: 20.

Posted at 16:49 on 26 August 2009.

Just because someone supports the left wing values does not make them bad people. Also the no vote in the referendum included a lot of republicans who were not satisfied with the model offered by little Johnny Howard who is also a Queens man.

Australia has to move forward and I don't believe for a second that the republican debate is as dead in the water as Lord Watchdog keeps saying over and over again. The debate is alive and well and the main republican website http://www.republic.org.au/ is updated daily to reflect a popular desire for this necessary change.

Australia pays old mother England a kings ransom to share their monarch and it is time we invested that money in a home-grown president. To flow on from a change to a republic we also must change our flag. The union jack has to go and I have to admit that I am ashamed that my flag has the flag of another country in it.

Steve

Member #: 195
16 February 2009.

Posts: 22.

Posted at 18:59 on 26 August 2009.

Now you are being paranoid. I didn't call you bad because of your views. I just questioned your reasoning for wanting a new flag and I am still waiting for the answer.

Further more I think you need to take a look at the way you post here. You accused Lord Watchdog of not linking to a website that opposes his opinion but you only put one opinion yourself. Not only are you wrong but you are also a hypocrite.

Will you now answer my question about the Australian flag.

Lord Watchdog

Top Dog

Member #: 2
28 January 2006.

Posts: 537.

Posted at 23:57 on 26 August 2009.

QUOTE: Moving to a republic and adopting the Aboriginal flag as the new national flag should be at the top of everyone's list. The union jack is symbolic of a racist time way back in the past and is no longer representative of where Australia should be heading in the 21st century.

This is the biggest crock of shit I've heard of in quite a while. I notice that you still have not clarified Steve's queries Teacher but I will pre-empt your due and payable response by saying that having the Aboriginal Flag as the Australian Flag would be even less representative than having the Union Jack as part of the existing Australian Flag. The Aboriginal Flag was developed in 1971 to represent the Aboriginal cause at the tent embassy outside Old Parliament House in Canberra and later accepted by most Aboriginals as the flag of their race. However the Union Jack (minus St Patrick's Cross) was raised at Circular Quay on the 26th January, 1788.

Where would we be without British settlement in Australia? We'd all be either French, Spanish or Russian, that's what. British settlement is usually labelled as an invasion by the Royal Navy these days but the facts remain that it was settlement of an otherwise unowned land and the creation of a modern independent industrialised nation who sets its own path into the future whilst being prepared to preserve its historical ties with Great Britain. At least that is the Australia under decent government lead by some of the great politicians of our time, people like John Howard, Sir Robert Menzies and Sir Joseph Cook.

Whereas politicians like Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, Kim Beazley, Simon Crean, Mark Latham, Kevin Rudd and Senator Bob Brown want to more or less set fire to history and create a new world order of totalitarianism that gives all the minority groups in this country more rights over the main portion of the population. Is there any justice in that? I think not.

QUOTE: This is where sites like iServ are out of touch with reality. This website reflects a bygone era more than just about any other website I have been to and a link to a pro monarchist site along with an absence of a link to a pro republican site is unbalanced, one eyed and biased.

It is hardly relevant to link to a pro-republican website when nothing on iServ pertains to a pro-republican stand. By the way, if you believe telling both sides of the story is the way to a balanced argument then please visit your pro-republican website and find their link to http://www.norepublic.com.au/. When you find it please post a link to that page here. The problem with this is that you won't be able to do it because, like iServ, the ARM website does not link to sites with an agenda promoting the status quo. That blows your opinion out of the water doesn't it Teacher.

QUOTE: For a mature debate on a move to a republic to take place we should be putting forward both sides of the debate equally and not leaning to one side.

Noooo, a mature debate is where one puts their point of view supported by facts rather than resorting to character assassinations by uttering vicious fallacies like accusing the British of invading Australia and maintaining this petty living in the past routine when it is actually quite possible to be progressive with our current system of government.

The one thing I may end up regretting is hardline left wing socialists like you brainwashing Gen Y into believing that a republic is the be-all and end-all just like Labor did two years ago with the Kevin 07 campaign. If you can possibly analyse what voting a great Prime Minister like John Howard out and a mentally deficient moronic travel bug like Kevin Rudd in on the basis that a change is as good as a holiday then you will be able to see what a disaster a republican system of government would be for this country. On a very serious note I genuinely fear that emotion stirred up by hardline republicans in the Labor Party will ignite a republic at any cost agenda like the one former Labor Leader, Kim Beazley, tried to push. Nothing could be more dangerous as damage caused by hurried constitutional change is almost impossoble to reverse.

The trouble is, you lot (The Left) are just too full of your own importance and too narrow-minded to be able to use foresight to guide your own way forward.

Lastly, the republican debate is dead. Every time someone brings up the issue, just notice how evering hops on the bandwagon... I mean, there is nothing like the support for a republic today that existed 10 or even 15 years ago. Maybe it is because the issue is always pushed by Labor as a diversion from mainstream issues which brings me to wonder what Labor would do if they were ever successful with their republican agenda - what excuse would they have then?

I will always view republicanism as the work of the Devil and with good reason.

------------------------------------------------------
Regards, Lord Watchdog.