Quote of the month!
December 2004
The Eureka Sesquicentenary
The 150th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade certainly generated a lot of comment about the Eureka flag and the current Australian flag.
" The sight of the Eureka Flag stirred my blood. Why on earth should we not have a flag that truly represents the history of Australia's struggle for independence? "
Chris Peacock, Mudgeeraba
Letters to the Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 November 2004.
" Could we not this year honour them by firmly but courteously removing the enemy flag of 1854 from our colours? In a spirit of forgiveness, we might then move towards our own banner with an untainted Southern Cross on a plain blue field. "
Peter Woodfordek, Melba, ACT
Letters to the Editor, The Age, 30 November 2004.
" What a pity that the noble ideals and proud history of Eureka and its brave flag has been hijacked by every anti-government and anti-establishment group of renegades, obsessive ratbags and habitual whingers. "
Ken Barnes, Glen Iris
Letters to the Editor, The Age, 4 December 2004.
November 2004
The young dare to speak their mind!
" Louise's generation should speak out and their voices should be heard. Let's hope they are taught to question why we have part of the flag of a foreign nation on our national flag, why we continue the charade of having a non-resident foreign head of state and why as a nation we find it impossible to apologise to our original inhabitants for the raping and plundering of their land. "
Barry Everingham, Malvern, Vic
Letters to the Editor, The Age, 19 October 2004.
October 2004
It's time to put our flag on our flag
" The Eureka flag would go well in place of the Union Jack. Another flag we could use would be the Aboriginal flag. Put the flag in the corner. Leave the rest, but replace the blue with black. It would look stunning and would acknowledge the original people. We could retain the stars and have them in their real context: white stars in a black sky. The flag would speak for us all. "
David Neilson, Armidale, NSW
Letters to the Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 September 2004.
September 2004
American to our bootstraps...
" Now Australia is going to approve the free trade agreement with the US, I hope our politicians make sure the Americans put a new star on their flag. From now, Australia will be nothing more than a colony of the US. "
Jason Lyddieth, Enmore, NSW
Letters to the Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 August 2004.
" Originally from Frenchs Forest, Jennifer Cheng is currently teaching English to a class of Germans in Tuebingen. She asked if anyone knew what the Australian flag looked like. Someone replied: "It has the American flag in it somewhere, doesn't it?" Jennifer didn't realise how much Germans knew about Australian culture. "
Column 8, The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 July 2004.
August 2004
It's still a dud
The recent move to force schools to fly the current Australian flag else lose Government funding has only served to re-ignite the flag debate. Thank you, Mr. Howard, you've done Ausflag a great service!
" I like the idea of the Australian flag flying in every schoolyard across the country. Only by encouraging our children to view it regularly will they come to see it for the empty and meaningless piece of symbolism it has become.
I look forward to discerning children asking, and their teachers stumbling to explain, this flag's relevance to 21st century Australia. Particularly that bit in the top left-hand corner. "
Frank Smith, Kew, Vic
Letters to the Editor, The Age, 28 June 2004.
" Will children locked in detention have to raise the Australian flag each morning? "
Lance Williams, Homebush, NSW
Letters to the Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 June 2004.
July 2004
That un-patriotic flag
The Prime Minister recently announced that schools would not receive government funding unless they fly the current Australian flag. It was not always considered 'patriotic' to fly this paticular design...
" When researching the background to D.H. Lawrence's Australian novel, Kangaroo (written in Thirroul in 1922), I had cause to read your august journal of that period. Your readers may be interested to learn of your then trenchant support for the policy introduced by the recently-elected Nationalist (that is, conservative) government in NSW to oblige schools to hold flag-raising ceremonies to reinforce national spirit, patriotism, etc. The flag to be raised, however, was not our Southern Cross-embellished one, but the Union Jack. "
Robert Darroch, Bondi, NSW
Letters to the Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 June 2004.
June 2004
Shame Taree Council
It seems that Taree Council doesn't realise that it is refusing to fly an official Flag of Australia
" Taree Council should be condemned for its decision to stop flying the Aboriginal flag outside its chambers. This will offend the town's many indigenous people and add to its racist reputation.
The mayor may be surprised to learn that this flag flies year round above many public buildings around the country and more enlightened councils even open their meetings with an acknowledgement of the traditional owners of the lands they are now administering. "
Amanda Brian, Glebe, NSW
Letters to the Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 June 2004.
May 2004
Nice idea but...
If we stay a monarchy why not replace one form of colonial subservience with another?
" Surely the marriage between Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark and Mary Donaldson of Australia warrants an immediate change to our flag.
Replace the somewhat jaded Union Jack with the colourful flag of Denmark. These flags blended so appropriately together while waved among the crowds lining the streets of Copenhagen. "
Mary Small, Sylvania Heights, NSW
Letters to the Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 May 2004.
April 2004
The Fifty-First State?
" Can the debate about our national flag now be put to rest, once and for all? When the Free Trade Agreement details are released, surely supplies of the "Stars and Stripes" will be readily available, and free of tariffs too. "
William Hughes, Armidale, NSW
Letters to the Editor, The Australian, 11 February 2004.
March 2004
Australia's Day?
" Australia Day resolutions from a republican: I resolve to do everything I can to dump our constitutional monarchy, remove the Union Jack from the Australian flag and replace the current national anthem with the Banjo's Waltzing Matilda. So help me Gough. "
Mark K. Tomkinson, Bridgetown, WA
Letters to the Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 January 2004.
February 2004
True Aussie colours
" Does it appear incongruent to anybody else that at our major sporting events, in a sea of green and gold, our national flag remains red, white and blue? I also note that the uniforms worn by our sports people proudly display our national crest and the Southern Cross but not the British flag. If sporting bodies and the ALP are able to dispense with this colonial hangover, why can't we? "
Jeff Goddard, St Georges Basin, NSW
Letters to the Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 January 2004.
January 2004
Monarchists be warned: the flag debate has not gone away!
The Rugby World Cup again highlighted how inadequate it is for Australia to brand itself with the flag of another country. Aussies from all over the nation wrote to newspapers in droves to remind the monarchists that the flag debate will not end until we have our own flag. Here is just a sample...
" Nice work Nicole Jeffery (Opinion, 21/11) and Harold Scruby (Letters, 21/11). All this piss-taking and flag waving was best summed up on The Cream on Thursday by the band of Barmy Army boys pointing at the Aussie flag singing 'get your crap stars off our flag!' "
Tony Miscamble, Wooloowin, Queensland
Letters to the Editor, The Australian, 22 November 2003.
"To England's rugby fans: I'm afraid your team will, in all probability, lose. But never fear. England still has Australia over a barrel: the Queen is still Australia's head of state; the Australian constitution is still formally an act of the British Parliament; the Union Jack is still in the top left corner of the Australian flag; the Australian military services are still styled royal services; the Queen still appears on our coins and our $5 note.
So don't get too upset when you lose. At least you've got your own head of state."
Andrew Newman-Martin, Duffy, ACT
Letters to the Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 November 2003.
" Keeping the Brits on the corner of our flag only feeds their condescension, especially when they scrape a win. "
Geoff Parr, West Hobart, Tasmania
Letters to the Editor, The Australian, 24 November 2003.
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